"Scamper" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... twists, turns, jumps and capers, he munched two grains of corn, sat upon the heap like a king in full court, and fancied himself the most illustrious of shrew-mice. At this moment they came from their accustomed holes the gentlemen of the night-prowling court, who scamper with their little feet across the floors; these gentlemen being the rats, mice, and other gnawing, thieving, and crafty animals, of whom the citizens and housewives complain. When they saw the shrew-mouse they took fright, and all remained shyly at the threshold of their dens. Among these ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... cathedral an inept precentor gave out, by way of liturgical canticles, a perfect menagerie of outlandish tunes, which, let loose on Sunday, seemed to scamper like marmosets up the pillars and under the roof. And the artless voices of the choir-boys were drilled to these musical monkey-tricks. At Chartres it was impossible to attend High Mass in the cathedral with any ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... him hopeful and yet helpless. It was just possible that this escapade signified something other than even a slight suspicion of him. Perhaps it was some regular form or sign. Perhaps the foolish scamper was some sort of friendly signal that he ought to have understood. Perhaps it was a ritual. Perhaps the new Thursday was always chased along Cheapside, as the new Lord Mayor is always escorted along it. He was just selecting a tentative inquiry, when the old Professor opposite ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... by straying a little from the road, we get a really imposing view of Bardale, into which the ground falls suddenly from our very feet. Sheep scamper nimbly down their convenient little tracks, but there are places where water that overflows from the pools among the bent and ling has made blue-grey seams and wrinkles in the steep places that give no foothold ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... to end by tourists who have turned it into a sort of exhausted pleasure-garden, whereof the various entertainments are too familiarly known to arouse any fresh curiosity,—the East is nearly in the same condition,—hordes of British and American sight-seers scamper over the empire-strewn soil of Persia and Syria with the unconcerned indifference of beings to whom not only a portion of the world's territory, but the whole world itself, belongs,—and soon there will not be an inch of ground left on the narrow extent of our poor planet that has not been trodden ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... stool before the desk, had frequently to put his pen behind his ear and watch him. It was quite a scene in a play to see how Fred would start at the least sound. A mouse nibbling behind a box of iron chains made him beside himself until he had scared the little gray thing from its hole, and saw it scamper away out of the shop. But after the first hour the watching FOR NOTHING became a little tedious. There was a "splendid" game of base ball to come off on the public green that afternoon; and after that the boys were going to the "Shaw-seen" for a swim; then there was to be a picnic on the "Indian ...
— The Errand Boy • Horatio Alger
... stupid that it never knows what you want it to do," said Dennis, as he gave up his efforts and let the kitten scamper back to its mother. ...
— Black, White and Gray - A Story of Three Homes • Amy Walton
... master reached the car; in as many seconds the powerful engine was throbbing. The screaming horn gave warning, the quiet herds in the valley heeded, lifted their heads and stood at attention, ready to scamper this way or that as need arose. The wheels turned, the car jolted over the inequalities presented by the field, swerved sharply, turned, gathered speed and whizzed away ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... I could stop my horse, I tried to turn him in the direction the new chase had taken, but just then, through the night air, over the receding sound of the horse's scamper and the sobbing of the pack in full cry, there came a long scream, and after that a sickening silence. And I knew that somewhere yonder, under the beautiful moonlight, the Baron Kossowski was being devoured by ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... more relishing without so strong a flavor of napkin, and my gingerbread more easy of consumption if it had not been pulverized by being sat upon. People act as if early traveling didn't agree with them. Children scream and scamper; men smoke and growl; women shiver and fret; porters swear; great truck horses pace up and down with loads of baggage; and every one seems to get into the wrong car, and come tumbling out again. One man, with ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott
... together, and it never had occurred to him that it ought to be different. He didn't care for Robbie: Elsie didn't, and so he didn't. Elsie said he was a spoilt baby, therefore Duncan knew he must be one; and certainly he couldn't scamper over the moor, and climb the trees, and fly here, there, and everywhere, like he ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... serves up. He, reclined, rejoices in the change of his situation, and acts the part of a boon companion in the good cheer: when on a sudden a prodigious rattling of the folding doors shook them both from their couches. Terrified they began to scamper all about the room, and more and more heartless to be in confusion, while the lofty house resounded with [the barking of] mastiff dogs; upon which, says the country-mouse, 'I have no desire for a life like this; and so farewell: my wood and cave, secure from surprises, shall with homely ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... hillside, the mother rises suddenly and goes back to the den; the little ones stop their play, and gather about her. You strain your ears for the slightest sound, but hear nothing; yet there she is, plainly talking to them; and they are listening. She turns her head, and the cubs scamper into the den's mouth. A moment she stands listening, looking; while just within the dark entrance you get glimpses of four pointed black noses, and a cluster of bright little eyes, wide open for a last look. Then she trots away, planning her hunt, till she disappears down by ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... nearer, and once more stopped to watch us. If he was hungry, we must have been very tempting to him. Our Indians at last thought it was no joke, for in another moment the jaguar might have picked one of us off; so they set up so loud a scream that they made him turn about in a fright, and scamper off into the forest. As this would to a certainty have led the Cashibos to us, if they were in the neighbourhood, we once more mounted and continued our journey. Sometimes I thought I heard the savages behind us; ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... frenzied scamper through the woods, taking the short footpath which would lead them to the back of the house of Locksley. Robin broke through the trees and undergrowth and hastily scaled the fence that railed off their garden from ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... you'd better pick up your new plants and scamper. We certainly have done a good afternoon's work. The chief things to try for in indoor plant culture are cleanliness of the plant, proper drainage, and freedom from abrupt changes in temperature and draughts. Good-by, girls. We meet again soon at ...
— The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming. • Ellen Eddy Shaw
... the big boys were good shots. They killed hawks and wild geese and such like on the wing; and they didn't wound or kill squirrels, they stunned them. When the dogs treed a squirrel, the squirrel would scamper aloft and run out on a limb and flatten himself along it, hoping to make himself invisible in that way—and not quite succeeding. You could see his wee little ears sticking up. You couldn't see his nose, but you knew ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... years of age, but no one had ever taken him for an old man. They who at home at Brotherton would watch his motions, how he walked and how he rode on horseback, how he would vault his gates when in the fields, and scamper across the country like a schoolboy, were wont to say that he was unclerical. Perhaps Canons Pountner and Holdenough, with Mr. Groschut, the bishop's chaplain, envied him something of his juvenile elasticity. But I think that ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... Ronda, Hamet el Zegri, had careered wide over the Campina of Utrera, encompassing the flocks and herds, when he heard the burst of war at a distance. There were with him but a handful of his Gomeres. He saw the scamper and pursuit afar off, and beheld the Christian horsemen spurring madly toward the ambuscade on the banks of the Lopera. Hamet tossed his hand triumphantly aloft for his men to follow him. "The Christian dogs are ours!" said he as he ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... may give a good specimen of the whole livelong Sunday, which presented only an alternation of similar scenes until sunset, when a universal unchaining of tongues and a general scamper proclaimed ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... one if you can," I said with mischievous defiance, springing off the veranda into the flower-garden. He accepted my challenge, and, being lithe as a cat, a tremendous scamper ensued. Round and round the flower-beds we ran. Uncle Jay-Jay's beard opened in a broad smile, which ended in a loud laugh. Everard Grey's coat-tails flew in the breeze he made, and his collar was too high for athletic purposes. I laughed ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... log, log line; speedometer, odometer, tachometer, strobe, radar speed detector, radar trap, air speed gauge, wind sock, wind speed meter; pedometer. V. move quickly, trip, fisk^; speed, hie, hasten, post, spank, scuttle; scud, scuddle^; scour, scour the plain; scamper; run like mad, beat it; fly, race, run a race, cut away, shot, tear, whisk, zoom, swoosh, sweep, skim, brush; cut along, bowl along, barrel along, barrel; scorch, burn up the track; rush &c (be violent) 173; dash on, dash off, dash forward; bolt; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... you are! Come, sit in my lap, and I will hum you a dear little tune. Then you must positively scamper away to bed, or your mamma will scold us both, and ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... indefinable conceit of airy fantasy, with here and there a line of sober melody peeping between the mischievous pranks. There is no contrasting Trio in the middle; but just before the end comes a quiet pace as of mock-gravity, before a final scamper. ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... question. At Raisina we had mynahs and the babblers, or "Seven Sisters," in great profusion, and also the King Crow with his imposing tail; while the little striped squirrels were everywhere. These merry restless little rodents do more than run and scamper and leap: they seem to be positively lifted into space by their tails. Their stripes (as every one knows) came directly from the hand of God, recording for ever how, on the day of creation, He stroked them ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... ceased their songs in the windows; urchins stopped their hoops and stood on the curbstones, eyeing the gloomy man askance. When he passed the Granary Burying-Ground, he saw a squirrel dart down a tree, and scamper over the old graves in search of some one of his many stores; then rising on his haunches, he munched the pea-nut which he had unearthed, (the gift of some schoolboy, months ago,) as much as to say, "We know how to look out for hard times; but what have you ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... smiling face is welcome everywhere. People scamper away from a scowling countenance, especially if the owner of it insists upon telling ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... melt a gourd-fruit into mash, Add honeycomb and pods, I have perceived, Which bite like finches when they bill and kiss— 70 Then, when froth rises bladdery, drink up all, Quick, quick, till maggots scamper through my brain; Last, throw me on my back i' the seeded thyme, And wanton, wishing I were born a bird. Put case, unable to be what I wish, 75 I yet could make a live bird out of clay: Would not I take clay, pinch my Caliban Able to fly?—for, there, see, he hath wings, And great comb like ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... his mansion I scamper'd, and rapp'd at the door; He oped, but as soon as I dared to implore, He shut it like thunder, and utter'd a howl That rung through each corner ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... overcome by hunger, would slip around to the large window that opened into the bakery and there stand gazing wistfully down upon the loaves of fresh bread as they were taken from the large oven. Sometimes some crusts or stale biscuits were given them, and with these they would scamper away to the pump to moisten the bread before dividing it. It sometimes happened that there was not sufficient bread for each child to have even a bit, and when it happened thus, Edwin always gave his share to ...
— The Poorhouse Waif and His Divine Teacher • Isabel C. Byrum
... to sleep like any other sheep-dog, but would spend his vacant time "amusing of hisself" on some smooth slope where he could roll over and over; then run back and roll over again and again, playing by himself just like a child. Or he would chase a butterfly or scamper about over the down hunting for large white flints, which he would bring one by one and deposit them at his master's feet, pretending they were something of value and greatly enjoying the game. This dog, Caleb said, would make him laugh every ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... soon grow out of this, because we can build our own castles in the air out of the driest possible task, and make long and elaborate romances for ourselves out of the—most likely very commonplace—people we meet on our morning scamper. Then, too, was there not the never-to-be-forgotten joy of the yearly visit to the sea, and an equally well-loved return to our usual routine in London, to say nothing of the fascinations of making up one's mind on the subject of what one was going to be, and how one ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... a profound impression on Garfield. He happened to be on deck when the masts were carried away, but managed to scamper off without getting hurt. Whenever a vessel hove in sight after that having a broken spar or a torn sail, ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... indeed, seem'd not to know An errand, why, or where to go, To trot, to walk, or scamper swift— In short, he seem'd a dog adrift; His very tail, a listless thing, With just an accidental swing, Like rudder to the ripple veering, When nobody on board ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... Look now, I melt a gourd-fruit into mash, Add honeycomb and pods, I have perceived, Which bite like finches when they bill and kiss,— 70 Then, when froth rises bladdery, drink up all, Quick, quick, till maggots scamper thro' my brain; Last, throw me on my back i' the seeded thyme. And wanton, wishing I were born a bird. Put case, unable to be what I wish, I yet could make a live bird out of clay: Would not I take clay, pinch my Caliban Able to fly?—for there, see, he hath ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... more than the usual tourist's recollection of a hurried run through a palace of fatiguing magnificence, a confusing peep at the Trianons, a glance around the gorgeous state equipages, an unsatisfactory meal at one of the open-air cafes, and a scamper back to Paris. But our winter residence in the quaint old town revealed to us the existence of a life that is all its own—a life widely variant, in its calm repose, from the bustle and gaiety of the capital, but one that ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd
... ring the bell repeatedly before we could gain admittance, to allow her time to change her ordinary dress. Long before this could be effected, or we could enter the door, sundry reconnoitring parties of the children would peep at us round the corners of the house, and then scamper off to ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... small kid on the floor and watched it scamper about the room, looking for an exit. "Yes, we might as well. I don't like this business at all. I wish to get it over with as soon as possible, and——" Peter eyed Mirestone squarely. "I expect to be paid well for my trouble." He was trying to make himself believe that that was his only reason for ...
— The White Feather Hex • Don Peterson
... discreetly, looking around to see that no one was listening,—"at this moment in a snug nest dug out of the sand on the banks of the Congo, Mrs. Crocodile has covered with leaves to hide them from your enemies sixty smooth white eggs. And in a few weeks out of these will scamper sixty little wiggly Crocodiles, your dear, homely, scaly, hungry-mouthed children. Yes, we all lay eggs, my silly friend, and so in a sense we are all brothers, as the ...
— The Curious Book of Birds • Abbie Farwell Brown
... see Master Duckbill, they watch him waddle along in his funny, awkward way and bark at him, but they will not touch him. When cats first see this queer creature, they scamper quickly out of sight. ...
— Dew Drops - Volume 37, No. 18, May 3, 1914 • Various
... foot he draws back the left, poising on his toe, in an attitude of exquisite grace. With his left hand he waves a salute to the infant Christ. His right hand clasps that of a companion angel to form an arch beneath which troop the whole jocund company. It is good sport, and the players scamper gleefully along. A single angel stops to gaze ardently ...
— Van Dyck - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... And if one of those busy little fellows ever paused to stare curiously at Benny when he was having a nap in the warm sunshine, Benny Badger had only to awake and turn his head toward the onlooker to make him scamper for home as ...
— The Tale of Benny Badger • Arthur Scott Bailey
... plantain and mango They scamper, they slither and slide In the throes of a tropical tango, In the grip of a Gibbony glide; 'Tis thus in these desolate spaces, Away from humanity's ken, They mimic the civilised races And strive ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 11, 1914 • Various
... hampers stowed in the car were not enough, a tremendous breakfast on a table loaded with flowers was provided for us. But just as we sat down, at ten o'clock, a servant on duty as scout appeared, panting after a scamper across fields, to say that a motor had passed. Our chauffeur sent word that it was the motor; and was ready to start ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... girl," he said, "there was no show after all, you see. It seems that the raid didn't quite come off; and we had our scamper for nothing, worse luck! The Boy ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... in wicked joy, He snaps his muzzle in the snows, His five-clawed feet Do scamper fleet Where Jane's bright lanthorn shows, Where Jane's ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume II. • Walter de la Mare
... Tammie; "but a body can now scarcely meet on the road wi' ony think waur than themsell. Mony a witch, de'il, and bogle, however, did my grannie see and hear tell of, that used to scud and scamper hereaway langsyne ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... I slung my stone with so good aim that it went bang against the hog's flank as if against the head of a drum; but it had no other effect than that of causing the animal to start to its feet, with a frightful yell of surprise, and scamper away. At the same instant Jack's bow twanged, and the arrow pinned the little pig to the ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... watching the variegated green, brown, and yellow ground-lizards. They would come nimbly forward, and commence grubbing with their forefeet and snouts around the roots of herbage, searching for insect larvae. On the slightest alarm, they would scamper off, their tails cocked up in the air as they waddled awkwardly away, evidently an incumbrance to ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... each a horse out of his team and scamper'd; their example was immediately followed by others; so that all the waggons, provisions, artillery, and stores were left to the enemy. The general, being wounded, was brought off with difficulty; his secretary, Mr. Shirley, was killed by his side; ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... where the youngest beech-leaves flickered, like golden-green butterflies bewitched by some malicious fairy, so that they could never fly into the sky till summer was over, and all the leaf butterflies in the world would be free to scamper with the wind. ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... left off the beating when he saw his father, and consequently young Rabbit, for the first and perhaps only time in his life, was very glad to see the old man. The class was dismissed; and if you had seen these four youngsters scamper off, shaking their white tails and jumping half a yard high as they ran to the Warren, you would have thought it was a good thing to ...
— The Comical Creatures from Wurtemberg - Second Edition • Unknown
... might come down upon us by scores, and if I should happen to fall asleep again it would not be pleasant to wake up and find myself in the stomach of one of those confounded brutes. When I was disposed of they would make only a mouthful of you, little one! So come along, we must scamper off as fast as ever we can. That fellow there was only the advance guard, the others will not be far behind him—this carcass will keep them busy for a while, and give us time to get the start of them. You can ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... melting substance between his teeth as no connoisseur of wine ever revelled in the juices of the choice vintages of Spain and France. Then he would shake and clap his hands because of what he called the 'hot ache' that seized them, only to scamper off again after some new object around which to weave ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... de way, Feelinl sad dis market day; No e'en buy a little cake To gi'e baby when she wake,— Passin' 'long de candy-shop 'Douten eben mek a stop To buy drops fe las'y son, For de lilly cash nea' done. So him re'ch him own a groun', An' de children scamper roun', Each one stretchin' out him han', Lookin' to de ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson
... fearlessly, to her small feet that danced about the room between her trips up and down the stepladder. Her skirts were very short, and her legs were very long and thin, so that she reminded one of a young colt kinking up its heels for a scamper about the pasture. ...
— Peggy in Her Blue Frock • Eliza Orne White
... them all, Whose silken kirtle sweeps the hall, More varied trick and whim displays To catch the admiring stranger's gaze. Doth power in measured verses dwell, All thy vagaries wild to tell? Ah, no! the start, the jet, the bound, The giddy scamper round and round, With leap and toss and high curvet, And many a whirling somerset, (Permitted by the modern muse Expression technical to use)—These mock the deftest rhymester's skill, But poor in art, though rich ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... the small Bobbseys to scamper upstairs. Flossie carried her doll with her, and Freddie took along his fire engine, for that was the gift he had most wanted, and for which he had begged and pleaded for weeks ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Snow Lodge • Laura Lee Hope
... horse which was remarkable for its antipathy to strangers, one evening, while bearing his master home from a jovial meeting, became disburthened of his rider, who, having indulged rather freely, soon went to sleep on the ground. The horse, however, did not scamper off, but kept faithful watch by his prostrate master till the morning, when the two were perceived about sunrise by some labourers. They approached the gentleman, with the intention of replacing him on his saddle, but every ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley
... after eating his nice breakfast, Rover would scamper off to school with Arthur. He was in too fine spirits to walk by his side, so he would bound off before him, plunging into the snow drifts up to his neck; then bound back again, with a short quick bark, ...
— Arthur Hamilton, and His Dog • Anonymous
... "Good! I'll scamper home and tell Maryllia! I'll say I have met you, and that I've been as impudent as I ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... twelve to twenty, always having a sentinel so stationed as to command a prominent view of the surrounding territory. If any animal or person came near, he would give a peculiar hiss or whistle, repeating it two or three times, at which the whole herd would scamper away to places ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... whole of the engagement, had maintained, like a skilful general, his post of security and reconnaissance among the hills, but, now that the victory was completed to his satisfaction, condescended to scamper down with his warriors of the black skin, and become a partaker ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... that brings the cold? The North-Wind, Freddy, and all the snow; And the sheep will scamper into the fold When the North begins ...
— The Posy Ring - A Book of Verse for Children • Various
... ghost! a ghost! haste, scamper off, My friends; we've kill'd the body, and I know The ghost will have no mercy ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... o'clock Sam and Andy brought the horses up to the posts, apparently greatly refreshed and invigorated by the scamper of the morning. ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... service. Before their deadly rifles, the British officers, clad in scarlet uniforms, fell with frightful rapidity. They were a terror to the Hessians. As Morgan would often say in high glee, "The very sight of my riflemen was always enough for the Hessian pickets. They would scamper into their lines as if the devil drove them, shouting in all the English they knew, 'Rebel in de bush! ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell
... some nucleus of motion gave the signal. With a single movement, his knee crooked under him and he swung the heavy revolver forward. A howl answered the shot, and he saw the Italian blunder against a palm, drop his rifle, and scamper out of sight. Firing again, Scott dashed forward and picked up the Winchester, while from in front of him the Italian or his companion sent bullet after bullet about his ears. It was enough of a victory ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... beardless. He wore a frock-coat of light blue cloth, yellow breeches, silk stockings, and top-boots. Great was the love he bore his horses, which were numerous, and as good as Virginia could boast. It is amusing to notice that the horse upon which this pattern aristocrat used to scamper across the country, in French-Revolution ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... a golden counsel then. Use your experience; watch your fellow-men, How every loving couple struts and swaggers Like millionaires among a world of beggars. They scamper to the altar, lad and lass, They make a home and, drunk with exultation, Dwell for awhile within its walls of glass. Then comes the day of reckoning;—out, alas, They're bankrupt, and their house in liquidation! Bankrupt the bloom of youth on woman's brow, Bankrupt the flower of passion in ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen
... members of the Makado tribe, were howling lustily, and one of them waved his bark hat in the air. Kennedy took aim at him, fired, and his hat flew about him in pieces. Thereupon there was a general scamper. The natives plunged headlong into the river, and swam to the opposite bank. Immediately, there came a shower of balls from both banks, along with a perfect cloud of arrows, but without doing the balloon any damage, ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... operations far from easy. The rabbits in the park popped their heads out of their holes and sniffed the air in an inquiring manner, as much as to say, "Is it safe to venture out?" and then, coming to the conclusion that it was, had a short quick scamper to stretch ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... of some wood, and, like a new Jupiter from the heights of Olympus, I send a shot at some unsuspecting rabbit, then the whole colony of rabbits, who were enjoying their thyme-scented meal with open eyes and listening ears upon the heath, immediately scamper away. The report sends them all to seek refuge in ...
— The Original Fables of La Fontaine - Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney • Jean de la Fontaine
... never known the like! And taking Dolores by the hand, she led the wrathful and indignant girl back into her bedroom, untied and tied, unbuttoned and buttoned, brushed and combed in spite of the second bell ringing, the general scamper, and the sudden apparition of Mysie and Val, whom she bade run away and tell her leddyship that 'Miss Mohoone should come as soon as she was sorted, but she ought to come up early to have her hair looked to, for 'twas shame to see ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... museum, is proper enough, I know, But my children's feet shall scamper wherever they want to go, And I want no rare possessions or a joy which has cost so much, From which I must bar the children and ...
— All That Matters • Edgar A. Guest
... of the hanging committee. Overwhelmed with praise, thanks, and complaints, he had an answer ready for everybody without losing aught of his affability. Since early morning he had been resisting the assault of the petty painters of his set who found their pictures badly hung. It was the usual scamper of the first moment, everybody looking for everybody else, rushing to see one another and bursting into recriminations—noisy, interminable fury. Either the picture was too high up, or the light did not ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... know all about the crooked man whose very shadow caused the children to stop their play and scamper to their homes. ...
— Jerry's Reward • Evelyn Snead Barnett
... frighted beast scamper'd about— Plunge! through the hedge he drove: 20 The mob pursue with hideous rout, A bull-dog fastens on his snout; 'He gores the dog! his tongue hangs out! He's mad, he's ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... admitted into the wall cavities and the rafters, from some cellar underneath, Petrie, to which, after a brief scamper under the floors and over the ceilings, they instinctively returned for the food they were accustomed to receive, and for which, even had it been possible (which it was not) they had ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... noticed the license of Rubens in making his horizon an oblique line. His object is to carry the eye to a given point in the distance. The road winds to it, the clouds fly at it, the trees nod to it, a flock of sheep scamper towards it, a carter points his whip at it, his horses pull for it, the figures push for it, and the horizon slopes to it. If the horizon had been horizontal, it would ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... don't mind a question, I would like to know why you always scamper away so suddenly, and jump so far and so rapidly when ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... tails with red ribbons on the ends. I knew it was against the rule to play house in the hall, anywhere, in fact, but in my own little room—with the doors shut, but somehow I felt reckless that day, and when I heard Aunt Rebecca walking to and fro, just above my head, I didn't scamper off as I ordinarily would have done; I just sat still and said to myself, 'I don't care! I don't care!' It seemed to give me a lot of courage, and I wasn't a bit afraid, even when Aunt Rebecca's footsteps came nearer, and I knew ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... book-maker, Mr. Anthony Trollope, would be perfectly fitted with this polite addition. It is no mean praise to say that the word gentlemanly naturally applies itself to a traveller's work. And it is necessary to allow that the majority of Americans who have printed their impressions of a scamper over Europe have fallen as hopelessly below it as a few have risen far above it. Some word of deeper meaning must characterize the sterling sentences of "English Traits"; some epithet of more rare and subtile significance is suggested by those ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... stand-still in a bunch of nettles, and was now patiently waiting for me to come up and help him. In the meantime, an unfortunate terrier had chanced upon the trail of the pheasant, and now came yapping along the ditch as hard as he could scamper. Of course, Bob being as deaf as a post, was quite unaware of this circumstance, and as the terrier brushed rudely by him, poor Bob looked so mortified! He wasn't going to find game for him, so "the devil take the hindmost," became ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... hill. Braid, broad. Broad-claith, broad-cloth. Braik, a harrow. Braing't, plunged. Brak, broke. Brak's, broke his. Brankie, gay, fine. Branks, a wooden curb, a bridle. Bran'y, brandy. Brash, short attack. Brats, small pieces, rags. Brats, small children. Brattle, a scamper. Brattle, noisy onset. Braw, handsome, fine, gaily dressed. Brawlie, finely, perfectly, heartily. Braxies, sheep that have died of braxie (a disease). Breastie, dim. of breast. Breastit, sprang forward. Brechan, ferns. Breeks, breeches. ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... high as he could over his head. Here and there as he went round he saw some crack or hole blocked for a moment by the face of a rat with its bright eyes glittering in the light, but in an instant it was gone, and a squeak and a scamper followed. The thing that most struck him, however, was the rope of the great alarm bell on the roof, which hung down in a corner of the room on the right-hand side of the fireplace. He pulled up close to the hearth a great high-backed carved oak ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... and no sooner do I see the men on the rattlings, than I squeak out at the top of my voice, "Pave your way up the rigging—pave your way, you lubbers." The men stop for a moment, grin at me with astonishment, and then scamper up like so many ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... young as it was, seemed to be afraid. As Margy ran from Rose's side and trotted after the furry animal, it gave a sudden scamper ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cousin Tom's • Laura Lee Hope
... they stared, how they scamper'd, By furze-bush, by fern, by no obstacle stay'd, And the few that held council, were terribly hamper'd, For some were vindictive, and some were afraid. I saw they were dress'd for a masquerade train, Colour'd rags upon sticks they all brandish'd in view, And of such idle ...
— May Day With The Muses • Robert Bloomfield
... and to death. Five and sixty years are gone since Mr. Calvin Brinsmade took his bride there. They sat on the porch in the morning light, harking to the whistle of the quail in the corn, and watching the frightened deer scamper across the open. Do you see the bride in her high-waisted gown, and Mr. Calvin in his stock and his blue tail-coat and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... stalked scornfully from them; and Abarak cried, 'O Master of the Event! it was better for me to keep the passage of the Seventh Pillar, than be an ape of this order. Wah! the flashing of the Sword scorcheth them, and they scamper.' ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Taoist did not even give a thought to picking up the scissors, but crawling up on to his feet again, he tried to scamper outside. But just at that very moment Pao-ch'ai and the rest of the young ladies were dismounting from their vehicles, and the matrons and women-servants were closing them in so thoroughly on all sides that not a puff of wind or a drop ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... did a heroine remain in a sanded parlour in an inn, when she could stroll over the country and lose her way, and get run at by wild cattle, and stared at by naughty gentlemen? Clary was not so mean-spirited, though she was physically lazier than Dulcie; she was eager to scamper across the stubble fields (where Cambridge expected chickens to roam in flocks), and to wander, book in hand, by yon brook with the ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... wood-ants, I rather enjoyed the sour apples, the first I had tasted that summer. Once during the afternoon a red squirrel came jumping over the fir needles, and looked up impudently into my face. The sight of so much ugliness almost overcame him, but he managed to scamper off at a good speed. I tried hard to attract this, my only friend, by pretending to be Hiawatha, and calling him an "Adjidaumo," but ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... the Princess Henriette married our King, and Queen Henriette was fond of her, and invited her to come to London, and she divided her life between the two countries till the troubles, when she was one of the first to scamper off, as you know. My wife was little more than a child when I saw her at Court, hiding behind her mother's large sleeves. I had seen handsomer women; but she was the first whose face went straight to my heart. And it has dwelt there ever since," ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... dogs did not come where he lay crouching; for their masters were shooting birds, not rabbits. Bunny thought the best thing he could do now was to scamper back to his mother, his brothers and sisters as fast ...
— The Nursery, No. 103, July, 1875. Vol. XVIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... Shadowy to the moon, the earth Is a very world of mirth! Night is then a dream opaque Full of creatures wide awake! Noiseless then, on feet or wings, Out they come, all moon-eyed things! In and out they pop and play, Have it all their own wild way, Fly and frolic, scamper, glow; Treat the moon, for all her show, State, and opal diadem, Like a nursemaid watching them. And the nightingale doth snare All the merry tumult rare, All the music and the magic, All the comic and the tragic, All the wisdom and the riot Of the midnight ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... was fine, to my great relief; and our visitor, while we were at work, enjoyed her customary scamper on the pony, and her customary rambles afterward in the neighborhood of the house. Although I had interruptions to contend with on the part of Owen and Morgan, neither of whom possessed my experience in the production of what heavy people call "light literature," and ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... to describe the scamper there is at this moment for the tubs of water, and the reason for it is this—that the tubs are limited, perhaps three allowed to each mess of twenty boys, and considering the washing has to be done in a short time, the reader will understand the cause of this dreadful ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... and round their cages. They want notice, and change, and work, or they cannot bear it. The stagnation kills them—or I wish it did kill them quicker than it does. Look at your Bruce, born to work sheep, to scamper over miles of country, free as air, to be mates with some man who would know the value of such a friend, and be worthy of him. Oh, it ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... He knew perfectly well when I was going to shoot a bird for him. He would stand up on his hind legs when he saw me present the gun, and rush for the bird when it fell; he had, however, no notion of retrieving, but would scamper off with his prey to devour it at leisure. He was a most fearless little fellow, and once attacked a big greyhound, who beat a retreat. In a rage his body would swell to nearly twice its size from the erection of the hair, yet I had him under such ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... craft, and started to climb to us. The dog made the bank, shook himself and followed upward, but not with a scamper like a white man's dog, rather a silent keeping of distance. Just below us the Indian halted, turned, picked up with both hands a rock the size of a winter turnip and heaved it straight down at the beast's head. ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... Peace, poodle, peace! Scamper not thus; obey me! Why at the threshold snuffest thou so? Behind the stove now quietly lay thee, My softest cushion to thee I'll throw. As thou, without, didst please and amuse me, Running and frisking about on the hill, So tendance now I will not refuse thee; A welcome guest, if thou'lt ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... such a mood he drew his bow across the strings with a sweeping stroke, and then, for an instant, he ran hither and thither on the strings testing the quality and finding the range and capacity of the instrument. It was a scamper of hieroglyphics which could only mean anything ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Franco!" said Jonas again; and, stooping down, he took a piece of hardened snow or ice from the road, and threw it towards him. The ice fell, before it reached Franco, and rolled along towards his feet, which made him scamper along a little farther; and then he stopped, and turned around, and ...
— Jonas on a Farm in Winter • Jacob Abbott
... coquette. It was as natural for her to want to flirt with every man she saw, as for a kitten to scamper after a pin-ball. Does the kitten care a fig for the pin-ball, or the dry leaves, which she whisks, and frisks, and boxes, and pats, and races round and round after? No; it's nothing but kittenhood; every hair of her fur is alive with it. Her sleepy green eyes, when she pretends to be dozing, ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... of sense Did she run barking even as a dog; Such mighty power had grief to wrench her soul. Bet ne'er the Furies or of Thebes or Troy With such fell cruelty were seen, their goads Infixing in the limbs of man or beast, As now two pale and naked ghost I saw That gnarling wildly scamper'd, like the swine Excluded from his stye. One reach'd Capocchio, And in the neck-joint sticking deep his fangs, Dragg'd him, that o'er the solid pavement rubb'd His belly stretch'd out prone. The other shape, He of Arezzo, there left trembling, spake; "That sprite of air is ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... stop to explain," Sandy Chipmunk interrupted. "As I said, I'm very busy to-day." And he started to scamper ...
— The Tale of Sandy Chipmunk • Arthur Scott Bailey
... whispers came as one sound to the listening ear; even their eloquent silences were as deep, and, I wot, perhaps as dangerous, as the darkened pool that filled so noiselessly a dozen yards away. So quiet were they that the tremor of invading wings once or twice shook the silence, or the quick scamper of frightened feet rustled the dead grass. But in the midst of a prolonged stillness the young man sprang up so suddenly that Nellie was still half clinging to his neck as he stood erect. "Hush!" he whispered; "some one ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... Turnbull as MacIan snatched up the sword and joined in the scamper. "Chase him over a county! Chase him into the sea! ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... and go into the far North, we take you to LOCH ASSYNT, in Sutherlandshire, and to a little loch near it,—LOCH AWE by name. The journey to Assynt is long and weary: train to Lairg, and then between thirty and forty miles driving, is a good long scamper for fishing, but it is worth it. The inn at Inchnadamph is good, but when we were there in 1877 the boat accommodation was poor enough: perhaps they have improved upon that since. The first day after our arrival we had to go to Loch Awe, as ...
— Scotch Loch-Fishing • AKA Black Palmer, William Senior
... the boy who had been speaking with Henry dart off suddenly, and scamper away in the direction of the village. Henry at ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... watching the sports of the village children on the edge of the surf. Now they chase the retreating wave far down over the wet sand; now it steals softly up to kiss their naked feet; now it comes onward with threatening front, and roars after the laughing crew as they scamper beyond its reach. Why should not an old man be merry too, when the great sea is at play with those little children? I delight, also, to follow in the wake of a pleasure-party of young men and girls strolling ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... brutes, and drove them squealing out of the gateway leading to the woods. They took the rise of the glade at a scamper, and were lost to us in the undergrowth. We followed, shouting our comrades' names. No answer came back to us, though our voices must have carried far beyond the next ridge. For an hour we beat the wood, keeping together by my father's order, and shouting, now singly, now in chorus. Nat, likely enough, ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... last tide, awakened his nervous suspicions, and dreading an ambuscade, he would stop suddenly and bark at the dreadful object, until we arrived at his side, when, wagging his tail and looking slyly up with his joyous eyes, he would scamper away again as though he would have us believe he had been all the time only ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... progress. The steamer continues her fire out there leisurely, and the officer on the pier, being satisfied at last that she will come no closer, gives her a volley of musketry. In a moment the decks are cleared with a scamper, and no man is anywhere visible; whilst, at the same time, the steamer hastily puts about, and never stops ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... an egotist and an impractical bore, they escape from a great deal more than my poor propositions. They escape from the doubt in themselves. By dismissing me they dismiss their own consciences. And then they can scamper off and be sensible little piggy-wigs and not bother any more about what is to happen to mankind in the long run.... Do you begin to realize the sort of fight, upside down in a dustbin, that that Committee ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... mules and muleteers hired by English officers to carry their baggage. The muleteers, looking about and seeing that the French dragoons gave been there, cut the bands which hold on the heavy packs, and scamper ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... the friend and fellow-student of her brother: he spent so many of his holidays at the old Manor-House of Tilly, when she, a still younger girl, shared their sports, wove chaplets of flowers for them, or on her shaggy pony rode with them on many a scamper through the wild woods of the Seigniory. Those summer and winter vacations of the old Seminary of Quebec used to be looked forward to by the young, lively girl as the brightest spots in the whole year, and she grew hardly to distinguish the affection she bore her ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... hurried off across the pasture as fast as he could scamper. And in a short time he reached Farmer Green's garden. He was somewhat out of breath, because there had been plenty of good things to eat all summer long and he was round ...
— The Tale of Grandfather Mole • Arthur Scott Bailey
... will make up to him, and he will send you a packing. You will tap him on the shoulder with one hand, and he will give a spring from you to the other side of the stage. You will run after him; he, on his part will scamper away from you, and you will take pet at it. When he sees you angry, he will take it into his head to make peace; he will sue to you, and you in your turn will send him about his business. You will run ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... thick with stars. Nothing moves, and yet a something changes! The darkness shivers as to a cold touch. A pallid haze breathes wanly on the surface of the impassive sky. The gold deepens swiftly and turns to a faint rose flush. The stars scamper away like mice. ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... near the forks of the river, in long, graceful curve, it swept around an elbow of the snow-mantled stream and disappeared among the roofs and spires of far-away Braska. The boys, with the agile energy of their kind, had leaped out to scamper about on the rimy buffalo-grass, dull gray, dried and withered, yet full of nutriment for the little droves of horned cattle already browsing placidly along the slopes where but a few years before the Sioux and Cheyenne chased great herds of bison. ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... affect the early fashions in gravestones was one of my first questions, and, having seen much of Kent, time was soon found for a scamper through the country bordering Epping Forest and along the backbone ...
— In Search Of Gravestones Old And Curious • W.T. (William Thomas) Vincent
... peruse the description. But in the rapidity of the last encounter, and the mounting of my enemy's horse, I had committed a very absurd oversight—I was scampering away WITHOUT MY SWORD! What was I to do?—to scamper on, to be sure, and trust to the legs ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... awakened by an unusual noise in the cattle-fold, and looking out, saw all our horned cattle spring over the high thorn fence, and scamper round the place. Fancying that a hyaena, which I had heard howling when I went to bed, had alarmed the animals, I sallied forth to have a shot at it. I, however, could not find any cause for the disturbance, and calling a Hottentot to drive back the cattle, and shut ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... the Scarecrow. "I will carry them hidden in the straw which stuffs my body, and when I give them the signal by unbuttoning my jacket, they have only to rush out and scamper home again as fast as they can. By doing this they will assist me to regain my throne, which the Army of Revolt has taken ...
— The Marvelous Land of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... His little flying feet Scamper as softly fleet As ever the rabbits run. He is gone like a flash, and then In ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates
... would hear the call: 'Come, children! it is time to be going.' And then they would scamper back, their hands full of their dear dove flowers. No wonder they felt that in leaving this sunny spot they were leaving one of the happiest places on earth. If only they could stay there! If only some one could be enjoying it always! ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... live in burrows close together. Before camping in an evening we saw hundreds of the creatures, sitting on their haunches in front of their burrows; they would look at us for some time, as if wondering who we were, and would then scamper off and pitch down head foremost into their holes, giving a curious flourish with their hind legs and tails before they disappeared. They are much more difficult to catch than the partridges, though we still hoped to get ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... on a visit to El Gitano;" he writes, "two 'rum' coves, in a queer country . . . we defy the elements, and chat over las cosas de Espana, and he tells me portions of his life, more strange even than his book. We scamper by day over the country in a sort of gig, which reminds me of Mr Weare on his trip with Mr THURTELL [Borrow's old preceptor]; 'Sidi Habismilk' is in the stable and a Zamarra [sheepskin coat] now before me, writing ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... on the contrary, a journey of two hundred miles may be safely undertaken, without any of these encumbrances; with two or three clean shirts, a man may scamper about for months, like a Roman light-infantryman, "impedimentis relictis," unless he should be so ill advised as to carry his ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... in the night, we hear tiny feet as they patter over the floor, or scamper across the pillow, or we find in the morning that the loaf for breakfast has been gnawed and spoiled, we are not apt to ...
— Friends in Feathers and Fur, and Other Neighbors - For Young Folks • James Johonnot
... abandon it, or confound it with any other, and in the thickest of the fight was always near the banner he had chosen; and if in the camp he met a soldier from the regiment he had deserted, he would droop his ears, drop his tail between his legs, and scamper off quickly to rejoin his new brothers in arms. When his regiment was on the march he circled as a scout all around it, and gave warning by a bark if he found anything unusual, thus on more than one occasion saving his ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... some distance by trees, which had tended apparently to preserve the building, for the stone carvings were clearer and less decayed by time than any others we had seen. Being caught here in a heavy rain, we had a scamper for our boats, and after a wet journey, reached Sirinugger about ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... easier to scamper up the pathway than climb the wooden steps, and the dog hurried to reach the top; but a slight noise made him pause and look at the thick brush near him. There was nothing to be seen, but Jan's ears listened ...
— Prince Jan, St. Bernard • Forrestine C. Hooker
... graves. One heap bore the form of a cross, and was probably the sepulchre of a wrecker. I stopped awhile and reflected as to further explorations. On entering this arid graveyard, I observed a number of land-crabs scamper away; but, after awhile, when I sat down in a corner and became perfectly quiet, I noticed that the army returned to the field and introduced themselves into all the heaps of stones or graves save one. This struck me as singular; ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... stone. At vast intervals were short, isolated mountains, known in the vernacular as "buttes." On the ground was not the withered remnant of a blade of grass; but there were many fissures, and some of them were deep and wide. Of the things that crawl and scamper and fly there was no sign, not even a hole in the ground; for even reptiles must have food to eat, and there was nothing here to sustain man nor beast. The fleckless sky was a deep, hot blue; a blood-red sun ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton
... intimate than that of mere payment and receipt of rent, and that the largest offerer for a lease is often the person least entitled to be preferred as a tenant. Above all, it will complete the destruction of those execrable quacks, terming themselves land-doctors, who professed, from a two days' scamper over your estate, to tell you its constitution,—in other words its value,—acre by acre. These men, paid according to the golden hopes they held out, afforded by their reports one principal means of deceiving both landlord and tenant, by setting an ideal and extravagant ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... the way into the dense shadows of the castle, lighting their advance with a flickering pine knot. The old planking of the floors, long unused, groaned and rattled beneath their approach. There was a sudden scamper of clawed feet before them, and a red fox dashed by in a frenzy of alarm toward the freedom ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... persistence of maturer years. Among other feats of his boyish daring, it is told that when a mere child, hardly into his first trousers, he went one day to catch a colt in one of his father's fields bordering on the Contoocook. The colt declined to be caught and after a sharp scamper took to the river and swam across. Nothing daunted, the plucky little urchin threw off his jacket, plunged into the swift current, and safely breasting it, was soon in hot pursuit on the other side; and after a long chase and hard tussle made out ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various
... walk home. There were shells to scamper after, wire to scramble through, old trenches to explore. The return of "Ernest" brought a ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... of them bounds into the air like a ball. How beautifully the sunshine gleams upon his golden hide! He has cleared it, and the others come after him in numberless succession, all except the fawns, who cannot jump so far, and have to scamper over the doubtful path with a terrified bah. What is that yonder, moving above the tops of the mimosa, in the little dell at the foot of the koppie? Giraffes, by George! three of them; there will be marrow-bones for supper to-night. ...
— Allan's Wife • H. Rider Haggard
... sweet air, the waving grass, the occasional clearings where settlers had driven in the tent-pegs of home, the forest now and then swallowing them, the mountains rising above them like a blank wall, and then suddenly opening out before them; and the rustle and scamper of squirrels and coyotes; and over their heads the whistle of birds, the slow beat of wings of great wild-fowl. The tender sap of youth was in this glowing and alert new world, and, by sudden contrast with the prison walls which he had ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... spectacles and an air of generous enthusiasm. He hoped great things from the article in the Daily Tribune (which, by a strange accident, had completely ignored Love in Babylon), and when he arose in the morning (he had been lying awake a long time waiting to hear the scamper of the newsboy on the steps) he discovered that his hopes were happily realized. The Daily Tribune had given nearly a column of praise to A Question of Cubits, had quoted some choice extracts, had drawn special attention to the wonderful originality of the plot, and ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... been so much puzzled. As it was he just gathered up three or four of the queer things and started on again. On the way he met Peter Rabbit and showed Peter what he had. Now, you know Peter Rabbit is very curious. He just couldn't sit still, but must scamper over to the place Happy Jack ...
— The Adventures of Prickly Porky • Thornton W. Burgess
... Chipmunk's busy days. Every day is a busy day with Striped Chipmunk at this season of the year, for the sweet acorns are ripe and the hickory nuts rattle down whenever Old Mother West Wind shakes the trees, while every night Jack Frost opens chestnut burrs just to see the squirrels scamper for the plump brown ...
— Mother West Wind's Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... prejudices about races, and could tell an old sword-cut and a ballet-mark in two seconds from a scar got by falling against the fender, or a mark left by king's evil. He could not be expected to share our own prejudices; for he had heard nothing of the wild youth's adventures, or his scamper over the Pampas at short notice. So, then, "Richard Venner, Esquire, guest of Dudley Venner, Esquire, at his elegant mansion," prolonged his visit until his presence became something like a matter of habit, and the neighbors began to think that the fine old house would be illuminated ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... small party of Indians at a short distance from us. I would step to my instrument, and turn the glass towards them. They would at once commence to scamper, throw sand, turn into all manner of shapes, lie down, roll over, thinking no doubt it was a gun or something that would destroy them. At one time, I attempted to cross from the sink of the Mohave river to Providence, some sixty miles, expecting to find water at Washburn's well. This was a hole ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... lava at Marino, near Albano, or on ancient tombs near Corneto." Whatever they mean, (and Prof. Sayce finds the former of the two "signs" "as a Hittite hieroglyph,") I do not know them at Auchentorlie. After "a scamper among the surrounding hills," the faker may have passed an evening with Dr. Schliemann's Troja (1884, pp. 126, 127) and may have taken a hint from the passages which have just been cited. Or he may have cribbed the idea of these archaic markings from Don Manuel de Gongora y Martinez, ...
— The Clyde Mystery - a Study in Forgeries and Folklore • Andrew Lang
... a gentleman adventurer. What he finds there is chiefly conjectured, so secretive are the little people of Naboth's field. Only when leaves fall and the light is low and slant, one sees the long clean flanks of the jackrabbits, leaping like small deer, and of late afternoons little cotton-tails scamper in the runways. But the most one sees of the burrowers, gophers, and mice is the fresh earthwork of their newly opened doors, or the pitiful small shreds the butcher-bird hangs ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin
... he knew about the fellow, from past experiences, Paul thought no dependence could be placed on Ted. As likely as not if his hands were free, he would seize the very first chance to snatch up the bag and scamper off, leaving the others to bear the brunt of the ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... the topmost branches now, stretched out in the sunshine of social success, swaying to every movement made by his padrones. He was a little country squirrel when I first came across him, frisking about the root of the tree and glad enough to scamper close to the ground. He had climbed a long way since then. All the blossoms and tender little buds were at the top, and Tommy was fond of buds, especially when they bloomed out into yachts and four-in-hands, country houses, winters in Egypt (Tommy an invited guest), house parties on Long Island ...
— A Gentleman's Gentleman - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Polly sobering down; "you can't have yours till Davie wakes up, too. Scamper off to bed, Joey, dear, and forget all about 'em—and it'll be ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney
... would whistle sharply. That meant "Run!" Then they would scamper as fast as they could along the nearest little path to the house under the old apple-tree in the far corner, and never once look around. They would dive head first, one after the other, in at the doorway, and not show their noses outside again until Johnny or Polly ...
— The Adventures of Johnny Chuck • Thornton W. Burgess
... for some unknown reason. All along the edges you find the delicate, lacelike tracery which shows where little feet have gone on busy errands or played together in the moonlight; and if you watch there awhile you will surely see Tookhees come out of the moss and scamper across a bit of snow and dive back to cover under the moss again, as if he enjoyed the feeling of the cold snow under his feet in the summer sunshine. He has tunnels there, too, going down to solid ice, where he hides things to keep which would spoil if left in the heat of his den under ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... about the human pale, I love to scamper, love to race, To swing by my irreverent tail All over the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... rascal, scamper down to the village immediately, and bring up a basket of something to eat; and tell Morgan Price that Mr. Grey says he is to send up a couple of beds, and some chairs here immediately, and some plates and dishes, and everything else, and don't forget some ale;" so saying, Vivian flung the ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... yourself, my good master. You have nothing else to do but to give me a bag and get a pair of boots made for me that I may scamper through the dirt and the brambles, and you shall see that you have not so bad a portion in ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... being with Italy, and my business, consequently, being to scamper back thither as fast as possible, I will not recall (though I am sorely tempted) how the Swiss villages, clustered at the feet of Giant mountains, looked like playthings; or how confusedly the houses were heaped and piled together; ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... we run the risk of driving them to be brave in spite of themselves. [17] You may be sure they are just as anxious to save their wives and children as you can be to capture them. Take a lesson from hunting: the wild sow when she is sighted will scamper away with her young, though she be feeding with the herd; but if you attack her little ones she will never fly, even if she is all alone; she will turn on the hunters. [18] Yesterday the enemy shut themselves up in a fort, and then handed themselves ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... when they are very fresh, and especially on cold days, will shy and jump about on first being taken out, partly with the desire to keep themselves warm, and also with delight at being able to come out and enjoy a scamper. Dogs exhibit much the same skittishness; even old animals gamble like puppies when they are taken out, and the shying which results from freshness in horses should be tolerated within, of course, reasonable ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... down a laugh. I did succeed, however, and merely said, in passing, "You should not play these tricks upon travellers; cast him loose immediately." One of the men pulled his knife from his breast, and cutting the cord which fastened the poor Spaniard to the ladder, let him scamper off. Unluckily for the gravity of the officers, however, and that of the crew, Jacko did not run below, or jump into one of the boats out of sight, but made straight for his dear friends the marines, ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... instant the long hounds leap up, half a dozen at a time, and I stagger backwards, forced by the sheer vigour of their caresses against the doorpost. Dickon cannot quell the uproarious pack: he kicks the door open, and away they scamper round and round ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... nothing so important as the mother's lullabies, Filled with peace and sweet contentment, when the moon begins to rise— Nothing real except the beauty and the calm upon her face And the shouting of the children as they scamper round the place. For the greatest of man's duties is to keep his loved ones glad And to have his children glory in the father they ...
— The Path to Home • Edgar A. Guest
... anything to do with the mind, with the eye, with the hand—with a part of me; diversion flows in these ways for the dreary man. But gaiety is what these children want; to sit in a crowd, tell stories and pass jests, to hear one another laugh and scamper with the girls. It's good fun, too, I believe, but not for R.L.S., aetat. 40. Which I am now past forty, Custodian, and not one penny the worse that I can see; as amusable as ever; to be on board ship is reward enough for me; give me the wages of going on—in a schooner! Only, if ever ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... he had to scamper for the gang-plank. The vessel moved slowly, turning in her course toward the Golden Gate. Men were waving their hats and weeping women their handkerchiefs. Alice stood misty eyed and moveless, till the steamer ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman |
