"Skittish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... come forth. Even these the moucher sometimes captures; for there is nothing so strange but that some one selects it for a pet. The mad March hares scamper about in broad daylight over the corn, whose pale green blades rise in straight lines a few inches above the soil. They are chasing their skittish loves, instead of soberly dreaming the day away in a bunch of grass. The ploughman walks in the furrow his share has made, and presently stops to measure the 'lands' with the spud. His horses halt dead ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... of some light material, fastened round the waist of the morrice-dancer, who imitated the movements of a skittish horse. ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson
... "Germans," buy no "British," Sound Havanas only smoke! "Lady Nicotine" is skittish, Penny Pickwicks are ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 19, 1892 • Various
... Be skittish, child, and let who will be graceful, Do whizzy whirls whenever you've the chance; And so make life, death and that grand old staircase ...
— The Re-echo Club • Carolyn Wells
... your statistics and stop when you want to. But statistics are like automobiles. Sometimes if you hitch yourself up with a statistic, you meet the fate of the farmer who put his fool head in the yoke with a skittish steer. ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... sir," he replied, steering a straight course. "She's a bit skittish at times. I was saying as how I did the Colonel an injustice. I'm very sorry. No man who wasn't steel all through ever got the V.C. They don't chuck it around ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... Indians had already taught him to carry all sorts of burdens, to stand without being tied, to go anywhere over all sorts of ground fast or slow, and to jump and swim and fear nothing,—a truly wonderful creature, strangely different from shy, skittish, nervous, superstitious civilized beasts. We turned him loose, and, strange to say, he never ran away from us or refused to be caught, but behaved as if he had known Scotch boys all his life; probably because we were about as wild as ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... I've forgotten the cushion. I must go and get it. But the nose-rope makes the bullocks skittish. I suppose I had better take the cart along with ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... sweeping the doorstep with the one-sided broom when Brit drove out through the gate and up the trail which she knew led eventually to Sugar Spring. The horses, sleek in their new hair and skittish with the change from hay to new grass, danced over the rough ground so that the running gear of the wagon, with its looped log-chain, which would later do duty as a brake on the long grade down from timber line on the side of Spirit Canyon, rattled and banged over the ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... tricks; tourner casaque [Fr.]. Adj. capricious; erratic, eccentric, fitful, hysterical; full of whims &c n.; maggoty; inconsistent, fanciful, fantastic, whimsical, crotchety, kinky [U.S.], particular, humorsome^, freakish, skittish, wanton, wayward; contrary; captious; arbitrary; unconformable &c 83; penny wise and pound foolish; fickle &c (irresolute) 605; frivolous, sleeveless, giddy, volatile. Adv. by fits and starts, without rhyme or reason. Phr. nil fuit unquain sic inipar ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... on Father Baby; but, like a skittish girl, the friar hopped across the room, shook off his wooden shoes, picked up the skirt of his habit, and began to dance. The exhilarating drink, the ruddiness of the fire, the discomfort outside, the smoothness of the oak boards,—these were conditions ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... himself, and you would be pleased to purchase him for me, one of your servants might ride him to Euston, and I might receive him there. This, sir, is just as such a thing happens. If you hear, too, of a Welch widow, with a good jointure, that has her goings and is not very skittish, pray, be pleased to cast your eye on her for me, too. You see, sir, the great trust I repose in your skill and honour, when I dare put two such commissions in your hand...."—The Hanmer Correspondence, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... my life, for it was very nearly the termination of it. I was riding Diaway, the colt just shod; he is seldom ridden, though a very fine hack, as he is such a splendid weight-carrier as a packhorse; he is rather skittish, and if anything goes wrong with his pack, he'll put it right (on the ground) almost instantaneously. I was driving all the horses up to the camp, when one broke from the mob, and galloped across the creek. There was a bank of stones about three feet high, which was hidden ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... tell you," he answered, good-humoredly, and not the least disturbed by Manning's quiet reflection on the bravery of stage drivers in general. "When a fellow has to manage four tolerably skittish horses with both hands full of leather, he haint much time to fool around huntin' shootin' irons, 'specially when he's got to look down into the muzzle of a repeater which is likely to ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... his three well-fed and skittish horses whirled him rapidly along to Mr. Perekatov's house. It was a summer day, close and sultry. Not a cloud anywhere. The blue of the sky was so thick and dark on the horizon that the eye mistook it for storm-cloud. The house Mr. ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... sleep in the crannies and ledges of the cliffs. As for the bull, he got perceptibly thinner and thinner—must have lost several tons at least—and as nervous as a schoolmarm on the wrong side of matrimony. When I'd come up with him and yell, or lain him with a rock at long range, he'd jump like a skittish colt and tremble all over. Then he'd pull out on the run, tail and trunk waving stiff, head over one shoulder and wicked eyes blazing, and the way he'd swear at me was something dreadful. A most immoral beast he was, ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... surname with a touch of malice. She coloured, but replied "Good-morning" with a sweet composure. He eyed her askance, but had no opportunity for more words, as old Hugo just then clambered up into the dog-cart, and took the reins of the rather skittish young mare which was ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... the reins of her skittish, snorting pony and picked up Lennon's new sombrero. Through the middle of the high peak was a ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... Like a skittish horse old Gid shied at the office door. Once he had crossed that threshold and it had cost him a crop ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... all the Sunday schools in the world, and no girl who is bow-legged, or has an ankle like a rutabaga, should ever trust herself in a hammock, even though it is held by half a dozen friends, as the hammock will shy at a piece of paper as quick as a skittish horse, and in such a moment as ye think not you are on all fours, your head dizzy, and if there is a hole in your stocking as small as a Democrat's hope of election, it will look to outsiders as big as the gate to a fair ground. O, ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... dexterity, as a horse is never to be depended on that is skittish about the tail. Let your hand fall lightly and rapidly on that part next to the body a minute or two, and then you will begin to give it a slight pull upwards every quarter of a minute. At the same time you continue this handling of ...
— The Arabian Art of Taming and Training Wild and Vicious Horses • P. R. Kincaid
... Grange one evening—a dark evening, threatening thunder—and, just at the turn of the Heights, I encountered a little boy with a sheep and two lambs before him; he was crying terribly; and I supposed the lambs were skittish and ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... shook hands warmly with her. Then they went out, and mounting, rode back in the direction of Mudgee. Uncle Abe winked long and hard and solemnly at Andy Page, and Andy winked back like a mechanical wooden image. The two women nudged and smiled and seemed quite girlish, not to say skittish, all the morning. Something had come to break the cruel hopeless monotony of their lives. And even ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... changeableness; how soon he tires of the music he calls for, of the clown's song (II. iv.). Is his first speech to Viola, on woman's constancy before the song, consistent with his second, after it? Is his own report of himself true,—'Unstaid and skittish in all motions else Save in the constant image of the one beloved'? Is Olivia's unattainableness the main source of her desirableness for him? How is it with Sebastian? Does his loyalty in love seem to be of the sort that suffers impairment when he can win love easily? The Duke craves excess ...
— Shakespeare Study Programs; The Comedies • Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke
... the horse, for the purpose of enabling us to catch him more readily. Besides the animals we rode, we had seven horses, for the conveyance of our provisions, tents, etc. The two we bought from Captain Sutter, though strong, were skittish, and gave us much trouble, for our newly engaged servant, whose name is James Horry, knew more about harpooning and flenching whales than about the management of horses. He was certainly willing ...
— California • J. Tyrwhitt Brooks
... April 10, 1865, and was sent to San Diego, Texas; but I never was in a battle. And they was only one time when I felt anyways skittish. That was when I was a new recruit on picket duty. And it was pitch dark, and I heard something comin' th'ough the bushes, and I thought, 'Let 'em come, whoever it is'. And I got my bayonet all ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: The Ohio Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... that 'ere little skittish creeter? he's as handsome as a picture, too why, do tell if you warn't afraid? it a'most scares me to think ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... to revive That at the Sepulcher they ought to bury. A sorry sight it is to rest the eye on, To see a Christian creature graze at Sion, Then homeward, of the saintly pasture full, Rush bellowing, and breathing fire and smoke, At crippled Papistry to butt and poke, Exactly as a skittish Scottish bull Haunts an old woman in a ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... rein and strong hand, and yet she is so apt to leave at a moment's notice if anything offends her, that she must be driven with a light rein and a hand as light and gentle as a bit of thistledown floating on a zephyr. This is a hard combination to attain. It is like trying to drive a skittish and headstrong horse, densely constructed of lamp-chimneys and window glass, down a rough cobble-stoned hill road. If given the rein the glass horse will dash madly to flinders, and if the rein is held taut the horse's glass head will snap off and the ...
— The Cheerful Smugglers • Ellis Parker Butler
... you'll stay. You shan't abuse our hospitality again. Bud, get a rope and tie our friend. He's skittish, and is likely to run away ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... advantage. His ordinary gait was a slow, dignified walk, varied, at times, by a trot of which the direction was of the up-and-down species, and made his progress even slower than usual. But now and then the old fellow would seem to be inspired with a little of his former spirit, and, after a skittish little kick, he would straighten his body with a suddenness which brought Mrs. Adams to her feet, and rush off at a mad pace that soon faltered and failed, when the old brown head would turn, and the gentle ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... lady's various pranks would fill a thick volume. A favorite trick of hers, on being requested to "walk like Miss Abigail," was to assume a little skittish gait so true to nature that Miss Abigail herself was obliged to admit the cleverness of ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... green) that was new got to town from Mullingar with the stage where his coz and Mal M's brother will stay a month yet till Saint Swithin and asks what in the earth he does there, he bound home and he to Andrew Horne's being stayed for to crush a cup of wine, so he said, but would tell him of a skittish heifer, big of her age and beef to the heel, and all this while poured with rain and so both together on to Horne's. There Leop. Bloom of Crawford's journal sitting snug with a covey of wags, likely brangling fellows, Dixon jun., scholar of my lady of Mercy's, Vin. Lynch, a Scots ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... I do not forget that you are off a leeshore; you are mounted on a skittish racehorse, with, if you like, a New Forest fly operating within an inch of his belly-girths. Our situation is so far ticklish, and prompts ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... The vast majority of those who appear in the public haunts of sin are there, not to engage in overt acts of ribaldry, but merely to tremble agreeably upon the edge of the abyss. They are the same skittish experimentalists, precisely, who throng the midway at a world's fair, and go to smutty shows, and take in sex magazines, and read the sort of books that our vice crusading friend reads. They like to conjure up the charms of carnality, and ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... woman ought to be took care of by a man. And you know I could do it, Jen, for my wages is good; but you've shied an' shied whenever you've seen me, and baulked an' baulked when you couldn't shy, so as no skittish mare is ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... suh, settin' yonder after I made that motion, I sez to myse'f, I sez, 'Glass, you done started this thing an' you must see it th'ough. 'Twon't never do in this world fur the gran' marshal to be stuck up 'pon the top side of a skittish, skeery liver'-stable hoss that'll mebbe start cuttin' up right in the smack middle of things and distrac' the gran' marshal's mind frum his business.' I seen that happen mo' times 'en onct, wid painful results. I s'pose, ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... and of what he calls "a house of ancient fame." He was educated at Cambridge, where he early displayed poetic taste and power, and he went, after leaving college, to reside as a tutor in the North of England. A love affair with "a skittish female," who jilted him, was the cause of his writing the Shepherd's Calendar; which he soon after took with him in manuscript to London, as the first fruits of a genius that promised far ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... I can," said Lomax, "and ride him up pretty quickly. He'll have had such a rest that he'll be quite skittish." ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... one," continued Lawless—"regularly put my foot in it—made a complete ass of myself—eh! don't you see? Well, I'm not going to break my heart about it after all; it's only a woman, and it's my opinion people set a higher price upon those cattle than they are worth—they are a shying, skittish ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... foot o' mine kind o' b'longs to the church, anyway," said Captain Leezur sweetly; "has for years; don't pain me much as I knows on, but she ain't seound: if t'other one starts off kind o' skittish she 's sartin ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... said consolingly. "The roads ain't none too good this season, an' Kittie—that's her" (pointing to his mare)—"don't feel over-skittish; she's nigh onter fourteen year, an' right smart, too, fur her age, but sorter broken-winded latterly; but I guess we'll make it ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... most of them in by persuasion, while the ones which refused to be persuaded were simply lifted in by the sailors. 'Though all are thin and some few looked pulled down I was agreeably surprised at the evident vitality which they still possessed—some were even skittish. I cannot express the relief when the whole seventeen were ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... Harlequin in person will never make you laugh so much as the Earl of Stair's furious passion for Lady Walpole (aged fourteen and some months). Mrs. Murray undertook to bring the business to bear, and provided the opportunity (a great ingredient you'll say); but the young lady proved skittish. She did not only turn this heroic flame into present ridicule, but exposed all his generous sentiments, to divert her husband and father-in-law. His lordship is gone to Scotland; and if there was anybody wicked enough to write about it, there is a subject worthy ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... the best," ses the manager. "She'll teach you to dance and shy assegais. Pore thing! she buried her 'usband the day afore we come here, but you'll be surprised to see 'ow skittish she can be when she has got ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... a little, but he seemed to have gotten over his first fright, and was more like himself. Usually he was not skittish nor afraid of trains or engines. But not having been out of the stable for some time and having had no exercise, he was, like many other horses, ready to run away at the first loud noise. But Uncle Tad had pulled him down to a walk and guided him into the ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... If ever thou shalt love, In the sweet pangs of it remember me: For, such as I am, all true lovers are; Unstaid and skittish in all motions else, Save in the constant image of the creature That is belov'd.—How dost thou ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... favours and flowers, Veneering's house reached, drawing-rooms most magnificent. Here, the Podsnaps await the happy party; Mr Podsnap, with his hair-brushes made the most of; that imperial rocking-horse, Mrs Podsnap, majestically skittish. Here, too, are Boots and Brewer, and the two other Buffers; each Buffer with a flower in his button-hole, his hair curled, and his gloves buttoned on tight, apparently come prepared, if anything had happened to the bridegroom, ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... But six months married, and ye can't pick the one from t' other, try your best. There's nothing brings a lass to the round-about so quick as having to do what she does n't want. They are born contrary and skittish, and they can't help shying at fences and gates, but give 'em the spur and the whip, and over they go, as happy as a lark. And I say so, Janice will marry ye, and mark my word, come a month she'll be complaining that ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... brother Joe said, 'Dimpey, as soon as we get through haying the boys are going to have a drive to Spring Mountain, and take the girls up, for a picnic. Ned Hassel started it; I guess he wants to show off his sorrel horses; but that near horse of his is as skittish a creetur as ever I see—I wouldn't ride after it, if I was you.' 'No, no,' said father; 'Dimpey isn't going to have her neck broken by them beasts; Ned always drives 2.40, as he calls it, and he'll be ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... are useful brutes, Though somewhat skittish; the foam is whit'ning The crest and rein of my courser "Lightning"; He pulls to-night, being short of work, And takes his head with a sudden jerk; Still heel and steady hand on the bit, For that is "Tempest" on ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... would never have lived in those of a colder historian. Dancing, riding, hunting, raking and fighting, we are bound to feel about him much as old PEPYS did, who called him, in a memorable and picturesque phrase, "skittish and leaping," and, for all his righteous disapproval, admired with the best. "How he would have loved flying!" is Mrs. NEPEAN'S very characteristic comment upon a record of her hero's graceful activities. For one thing especially does the writer of this study deserve ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 25, 1914 • Various
... standing still, and he regarded me at first absently, then with startled curiosity, and sharply drew his skittish mare back on her haunches. "Good God, Floyd!" said he, "how glad I am to see you!" We looked straight in each other's face for a time, and his features worked, as he regarded me, with some emotion. "You were going to the house?" said he. "Nobody could see you. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... adornment was a couple of framed pictures, one close above the head of the bed, and the other opposite the foot, and both curtained, as we may sometimes see valuable water-colours, or the portraits of the dead, or works of art more than usually skittish in the subject. It was perhaps in the hope of finding something of this last description that M'Naughten's comrade pulled aside the curtain of the first. He was startlingly disappointed. There was no picture. The frame surrounded, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is an excellent, good woman, just the wife for him, and he knows it, and does as she tells him most faithfully and gratefully. They are pattern-folk from top to toe, and so is the boy. But the girl! He would have his way, and named her Phyllis—Fly he calls her. She is a little skittish elf—Rotherwood himself all over; and doesn't he worship her! and doesn't he think it a holiday to carry her off to play pranks with! and isn't he happy to get amongst a good lot of us, and be his ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was rather skittish on these particular questions, besides he was informed on the matter. He felt his flesh creep while Molina was speaking. Just before, on seeing the banker's card, the idea of the money of which the fat man was one of the incarnations, ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... had a pair of these asses in the Zoological Gardens at Lahore in 1868; they were to a certain extent tame, but very skittish, and would whinny and kick on being approached. I never heard ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... that the driver can handle the reins under it, and while it might not be safe to drive a skittish horse with it down, still for the ordinary use in the country it ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 49, October 14, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... meats. And she who was perhaps of no regard or station among natives sits with captains, and is entertained on board of schooners. Five of these privileged dames were some time our neighbours. Four were handsome skittish lasses, gamesome like children, and like children liable to fits of pouting. They wore dresses by day, but there was a tendency after dark to strip these lendings and to career and squall about the compound in the aboriginal ridi. Games of cards were continually played, ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... by standing?' And the young lady, with a laugh, sat down, looking so pleased, and good-natured, and merry, that even old Tamar was fain to smile a glimmering smile; and little Margery actively brought the tea-caddy; and the kettle, being in a skittish singing state, quickly went off in a boil, and Tamar actually made ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... situation most avidly forgot how convinced they had been that marriage and not death was the hunchback's goal. How Yossel had found money for the great adventure was not the least interesting ingredient in the cup of gossip. It was even whispered that the grandmother herself had been tapped. Her skittish advances had been taken seriously by Yossel. He had boldly proposed to lead her under the Canopy, but at this point, it was said, the old lady had drawn back—she who had led him so far was not to be thus led. Women are changeable, it is known, and ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... answered by gluttonous mumblings from goats that had been fortunate enough to snatch a morsel of the delectable vegetable. Down from the tips and up from the bob-pit they came, singly and in sets, undemonstrative matrons with weak-kneed twins at their heels, skittish kids and bearded veterans, and joined the ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... him, his rifle laid across the saddle in front of him, and his axe, canteen, and other gear hanging to the horn, he was as awful-looking a ruffian as one could see. By way of contrast he rode a small Arab mare, of exquisite beauty, skittish, high spirited, gentle, but altogether too light for him, and he fretted her incessantly to ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... fellow, and lively, and head over heels in love; he seems a little light and frothy now, but that will disappear when he gets a sensible wife like Toni. These model sons are not always to my taste; they get too skittish when they break loose. We have an example of that in Will. Walldorf will resign in the Autumn. I won't have my Toni marrying a lieutenant; I will buy them an estate and they will be married ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... youngest girl, Signa, who has a pretty figure, mottled pink cheeks, and yellow hair, Alexandra is very fond, though she keeps a sharp eye upon her. Signa is apt to be skittish at mealtime, when the men are about, and to spill the coffee or upset the cream. It is supposed that Nelse Jensen, one of the six men at the dinner-table, is courting Signa, though he has been so careful ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather
... the Kingstonians some seconds to decide which was Quiz and which was ski. For the skittish skies skewed and skedaddled and skulked and skipped and scrubbed and screwed and screamed and scrawled and scooped and scrabbled and scrambled and scambled and scumbled and scraped and scrunched and scudded and scuttled and scuffled and skimped and scattered in such scandalous ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... as being truly British; Golf (and the Union) makes us one; Yet to my nature, which is far from skittish And lacks his local sense of fun, There is a something almost foreign About his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 14, 1920 • Various
... however, may have meant no more than the natural coyness of a maiden whom the learned Upton somewhat drolly designates as "a skittish female." [3] Indeed, Spenser must have thought so himself, and with reason, for she continues to receive his presents, "the kids, the cracknels, and the early fruit," sent through ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... peccant chapter, where I have succeeded in packing into one a dedication, an explanation, and a termination. Surely you had not recognised the phrase about boodle? It was a quotation from Jim Pinkerton, and seemed to me agreeably skittish. However, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... she did regret the change in her name, though she was by no means indifferent to the rank. As Lady Glencora she had made a reputation which might very possibly fall away from her as Duchess of Omnium. Fame is a skittish jade, more fickle even than Fortune, and apt to shy, and bolt, and plunge away on very trifling causes. As Lady Glencora Palliser she was known to every one, and had always done exactly as she had pleased. ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... thing!" said Bruce, looking after her commiseratingly; "and a stranger might think her no more nor half-witted. But she has sense enough, poor crittur! and, I reckon, is just as smart, if she war not so humble and skittish, as any of ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... the old barky jumped out of the way of those rovers in the cutter?" said the captain complacently to the quarter-deck group, when his survey aloft had taken sufficient heed that his own nautical skill should correct the instinct of the ship. "A skittish horse, or a whale with the irons in him, or, for that matter, one of the funniest of your theatricals, would not have given a prettier aside than this poor old hulk, which is certainly just the clumsiest ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... and duller," said Mr. Tredgold to himself, wearily. "Two skittish octogenarians, one gloomy baby, one gloomier nursemaid, and three dogs in the last five minutes. If it wasn't for ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... broke in, "the testimony was to the effect that he was riding a young, skittish horse, which was startled by stray hogs breaking at a dead run through the bushes, and that the horse bolted and ran away. And the man died from concussion of the brain. That would have happened ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... pull an' haul at 'im,' says I. Not that I begrudge the vittles—not by no means; I hope I hain't got to that yit. But somehow er 'nother folks what hain't got no great shakes to brag 'bout gener'ly feels sorter skittish when strange folks draps in on 'em. Goodness knows I hain't come to that pass wher' I begrudges the vittles that folks eats, bekaze anybody betweenst this an' Clinton, Jones County, Georgy, 'll tell you the Sanderses wa'n't the set to stint the'r stomachs. I was a Sanders 'fore I married, an' when ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... and if Madame de Grammont was the culprit, it is a sad confirmation of the old gibe, "Skittish in youth, prudish in age." It can only be pleaded in extenuation that some youth which was not skittish, such as Sarah Marlborough's, matured or turned into something worse than "devotion." And Elizabeth ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... young Arab who was carrying the green bag. The stranger was looking straight before him down the tunnel, and he went by swiftly. But his guide had something to say to Batouch, and altered his pace to keep beside them for a moment. He was a very thin, lithe, skittish-looking youth, apparently about twenty-three years old, with a chocolate-brown skin, high cheek bones, long, almond-shaped eyes twinkling with dissipated humour, and a large mouth that smiled showing pointed white teeth. A straggling black moustache sprouted ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... only taken his own passage across the Tennessee as a matter-of-course proceeding, but had shouldered and urged along three horses as he went. And twice since then Drew had taken him back and forth to bring in skittish ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... showy cob. Winter found the man, and persuaded him to trot the animal to and fro in front of the hotel. There was a good deal of noise and hoof-clattering, and people came to their doors to see what was going on. Obviously, if they were watching the antics of a skittish two-year-old in the high-street, their eyes were blind to proceedings in the back premises. Even the postmaster and his daughter were interested onlookers, and a policeman, who might have put a summary end to the display, vanished as though ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... the other black with white forefeet. Upon my word, if you had a hundred to pick from, you would not find a better one than the dappled mount. The birds in the air do not fly more swiftly than the palfrey; and he is not too lively, but just suits a lady. A child can ride him, for he is neither skittish nor balky, nor does he bite nor kick nor become unmanageable. Any one who is looking for something better does not know what he wants. And his pace is so easy and gentle that a body is more comfortable and easy on his back than in a boat." Then said Erec: ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... let me tell you; honest, never a mouse dares show the tip of his nose outside the cellar! If you don't go down there, you're as safe as you would be up in a balloon. And I don't count none the less on you for acting skittish about 'em." ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... off'n the bluff—that air whut the country-side will think. Whenst his body is fund his head will be mashed ter a jelly by the fall, an' nobody kin say he kem otherwise by his death—jes' an accident in drivin' a skittish horse-critter." ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... animal going by. Some cities are like that, too. If an energetic city overtakes them, they are not spurred on to emulation, but lay back their ears, so to speak. Again, there are tough, sturdy little cities like buckskin ponies. There are skittish cities which seem to have been badly broken. There are old cities with a worn-out kind of elegance, like that of superannuated horses of good breed, hitched to an old-fashioned barouche. There are bad, ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... very amusing man. His voice was sepulchral but his conversation skittish. Eileen's repartees smote him to almost the only serious respect of his life, and one day he said: "Why, there's a future in you. Why don't you ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... ascertained the date, which is all important. We must picture Milton "affable, erect, and manly," as Wood describes him, speaking from a low pulpit in the hall of Christ's College, to an audience of various standing, from grave doctors to skittish undergraduates, with most of whom he was in daily intercourse. The term is the summer of 1628, about nine months before his graduation; the words were Latin, but we resort to ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... he, leering round upon us, "they tell me your pretty Penelope takes something more than a common interest in yonder fop; have a care, Sir John, she's a plaguey skittish filly by the looks of her, have a care, or ...
— The Honourable Mr. Tawnish • Jeffery Farnol
... again come on to the footway, and was joking with Madame Taboureau's little servant. He seemed quite gay and skittish that morning. He took hold of the little servant's hands, and squeezed her fingers so tightly, in the exuberance of his spirits, that he made her cry out. Lisa had the greatest trouble to get him to go back into the kitchen. She was impatiently pacing ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... evidence. At or about Christmas, in the year 1597, there was enacted here in Cambridge, in the hall of St John's College, a play called "The Pilgrimage to Parnassus," a skittish work, having for subject the 'discontent of scholars'; the misery attending those who, unsupported by a private purse, would follow after Apollo and the Nine. No one knows the author's name: but he ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... they settled down to a solid joint of national finance, laid before them by Lord MIDLETON. I am afraid they would have found it rather indigestible but for the sauce provided by Lord INCHCAPE, who was positively skittish in his comments upon the extravagance of the Government, and on one occasion even indulged in a pun. In his view the Ministry of Transport was an entirely superfluous creation, solely arising out of the supposed necessity of finding a new job ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 14th, 1920 • Various
... about alleys and by-paths, because imaginary creatures find little nourishment in the public highways, and shun them. Thus must these timid persons skulk about obscurely with their diffident and skittish guides, and they do not ever venture willingly into the thronged places where men get ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... recommend you mere contubernium, as the lawyers call it. Well, I confess I did think of that for a moment, it occurred to me; I should have liked to have mentioned it, but knowing how preposterously touchy and skittish you are on supposed points of honour, or sentiment, or romance, or of something or other indescribable, I said not one word about that. I have only wished to consult for your comfort, present and future. You don't do me justice, Agellius. I have been attempting to smooth ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... and across the common, and round the base of Blackman's Hanger, as fast as her clever mare could carry her with any degree of comfort to either. The clever mare was somewhat skittish from want of work, and inclined to show her cleverness by shying at every stray rabbit, or crocodile-shaped excrescence in the way of fallen timber, lying within her range of vision; but Ida was too anxious to be disconcerted by any such small surprises, and rode on without drawing rein ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... "Gee, but you're skittish this morning," said Ted, giving Sultan a vigorous slap on the haunch. "But just you wait a few minutes until I get on you. I'll take some of that ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... clear out then, for it's a secret confab of the whole executive committee that develops, includin' Auntie. But we got a full report later. It seems Rupert was skittish about havin' naval officers snoopin' around the yacht. For one thing, he don't want 'em to find out that this is a treasure-huntin' cruise, on account of the government's bein' apt to hog part of ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... truth, 'are stubborn things.' And to Rhyme she clung, and clings, But whatever song she sings Scarcely sells. If her tone be grave, they say 'Give us something rather gay.' If she's skittish, then they ...
— Ban and Arriere Ban • Andrew Lang
... skittish, stranger," smiled Jim Duff. "He's on the point of moving. You'd better whisper to ...
— The Young Engineers in Arizona - Laying Tracks on the Man-killer Quicksand • H. Irving Hancock
... replied, "but I know not exactly how to go. I do not wish to take my carriage; your nag is so skittish that I am afraid to ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... "No!" she said. "They want to, I'm sure of that, but yet neither one of 'em will speak first. Such foolishness I never did see. Now take yesterday! Cousin Sam went to town, and Cousin Sim werried every single minute he was gone. The mare was skittish, and the harness might break, and he might meet the cars, and I don't know what all. If he called me off my work once he did a dozen times, till I thought I should fly. By the time Cousin Sam got back he ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... de culled people gits mighty skittish ef dey tries to git em to vote dare ticket 'lection time, an' keeps dem at a proper distance wen de 'lection's ober. Some ob dem say dere's a trick behine it, an' don't want to tech it. Dese white folks could do a heap wid de culled folks ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... ironical condolence for Colonel Starbottle, overbearing that excellent man with untimely and demonstrative sympathy in barrooms, saloons, and other localities not generally deemed favorable to the display of sentiment. "She was alliz a skittish thing, Kernel," said one sympathizer, with a fine affectation of gloomy concern and great readiness of illustration; "and it's kinder nat'ril thet she'd get away someday, and stampede that theer colt: but thet she should shake YOU, Kernel, diet she should jist shake you—is what ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... appearance; and as, when turning a particularly complicated corner in an air, it is his artistic habit to hold his tongue between his teeth, twist his head in sympathy with the elaborate fingering, and involuntarily lift one foot higher and higher from the floor as some skittish note frantically dodges to evade him, his general musical aspect at his own hearth is that of a partially Oriental gentleman, agonizingly laboring to cast from him some furious animal full of strange sounds. Thus engaging ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 18, July 30, 1870 • Various
... down to the store every two weeks and get a shave; but I don't need a car much, havin' Bill," he replied, smashing a vicious greenhead on Bill's withers that was keeping her mixed up with the traces and the teeth of the harrow. "Besides, they 're skittish, nervous things compared with a hoss. What I 'd like is something neither one nor t'other—a sort of cross between an ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp
... whether granite, gneiss, limestone, or slate formed the grander height beyond, thus leading to schemes of more distant rides to verify the conjectures, which Rachel accepted with the less argument, because sententious dogmatism was not always possible on the back of a skittish black mare. ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Ask, and all the officers will bear witness, all the army will tell you that in the second army, ninth corps, second division of infantry, fiftieth yager regiment, Major Plut is the foremost dancer of the mazurka. Come on, young lady! Don't be so skittish, for I shall ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... they 'll take my word about the moral, Which I with their amusement will connect (So children cutting teeth receive a coral); Meantime, they 'll doubtless please to recollect My epical pretensions to the laurel: For fear some prudish readers should grow skittish, I 've bribed ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... furrowed and channelled by drifts of hard and icy snow, and quite suddenly you may find yourself prostrate upon a surface of slippery blue ice. It may be easily imagined that it is no seemly place to exercise skittish ponies or mules in a cold wind, but there is no other place ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... this year by turning down orders on good people who are worthy of credit. Now, it doesn't make any difference as to his salary if he turns down good people; in fact, if he is in doubt about any man at all, or even the least bit skittish, what does he do but turn him down? This is nothing out of his jeans, but it's taking shoes away from my babies, and I simply won't ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson
... nights—always attended by Hector, the large Newfoundland dog already spoken of, and who was now lying stretched on the floor at Pumpkin's feet, his nose resting on his fore feet, and his eyes, with great gravity, watching the motions of a skittish kitten under the table. Opposite to him sat Tonson the gamekeeper—a thin, wiry, beetle-browed fellow, with eyes like a ferret; and there were also, one or two farmers, who ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... closer round Rosalie and smiled—yes, by Jove, smiled—and, if you'll take the word of a retired master mariner, winked, with a peculiar, tender and calfish expression that in anybody else would have been called skittish. ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... bestead if ye might not cheapen such jewels for your money. Which of you will go to the Cross next Saturday and there buy him a fairer wife than he can wed out of our lineages? and a wife withal of whose humours he need take no more account of than the dullness of his hound or the skittish temper of his mare, so long as the thong ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... rector's company they must be prepared to put up with his sister's, since the canons of a country neighbourhood forbade inviting the one without the other, and on this particular evening Forrester had chaffed her into such good humour that she became quite skittish, and contributed some truly surprising outbursts of frivolity ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... aunt Susan got quite young and skittish; and as for old Worble's aunt Susan's mother, who was bedridden, up she had to get on old Joe Wilkings's third visit, and had to toddle across the room. He drilled her—kept on at it; he was there twice a day; ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... word John Hunter felt as he tied the skittish brute he had just purchased in the stall beside the door, and turned to put the hay down from the loft above. The sound of plunging feet and snorts of wild terror when the hay fell into the manger turned his mind ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... on a horse that shied and reared at the flames and confusion. Other horses, skittish and scared, with the smell of spilt blood in their nostrils, fighting the men who ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... Roy. "Stand in them. Guess they're about right.... Careful now! Thet hoss is skittish. Hold ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... and skittish wife of Ingild longs to observe the fashions of the Teutons; she prepares the orgy and makes ready ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... was easily transferred to the noses of those who thought fit to salute them; and that they were not wholly averse to such familiarity, the noses of several of our people strongly testified: They were, however, as great coquets as any of the most fashionable ladies in Europe, and the young ones as skittish as an unbroken filly: Each of them wore a petticoat, under which there was a girdle, made of the blades of grass highly perfumed, and to the girdle was fastened a small bunch of the leaves of some fragrant plant, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... from the inner room a trim, lithe, almost boyishly slim figure attired in a bewitchingly skittish-looking garment consisting of knickerbockers and snug brassiere of king's blue satin messaline. Dainty black silk stockings and tiny buckled slippers ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... as he was going to proclaim Bartholomew Fair. The city custom is, it seems, to drink always under Newgate when the Lord Mayor passes that way; and at this time the Lord Mayor's horse, being somewhat skittish,-started at the sight of the large glittering tankard which was reached to his lordship." Letter ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... stuff it is to wet a bugler's whistle with. Only try it. Don't be afraid of turning up your finger, Bill, another pull! Now, take your breath, and try the bugle, Bill. There's music! There's a tone!' over the hills and far away,' indeed. Yoho! The skittish mare is all alive ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... company without any definite intention. Pete and Joe were hurrying out of the house toward the group. All the dogs congregated, some of them climbing over the fence to investigate the colt, which was skittish under the ordeal. Even the turkey-gobbler, strutting on the outskirts of the assemblage, had an attentive aspect, as if he, too, relished ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... she could remember nothing, the association seemed to be one of pain. In vain she beat her brains. Memory was an almost uncultivated quality with her, and, like the rest of her intellectual powers, had a nervous, skittish way of deserting her in need, as if ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... drives up and down the river are lovely, and I think that Bettie and I will soon have many pleasant mornings together on these roads. After the slow dignified drives I am taking almost every day, I wonder how her skittish, affected ways will seem ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... part of his ponderous figure arrayed in a frock-coat. He did not take kindly to what he termed "those skittish sparrow-tailed affairs". Frock-coats suited him, but I am not partial to them on every one. They look well enough on a podgy, fat, or broad man, but on a skinny one they hang with such a forlorn, dying-duck expression, that ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... way of thinking, 'tis for women, kind and wise, These neglected scattered units to enrol and mobilize, Their vagabond activities to curb and concentrate, And turn the skittish hoyden to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 10, 1917 • Various
... subscriber on the back, and give him a new album that will fall to pieces whenever you laugh in the same room? Why should you forget the old love for the new? Do we not often impose on the old subscriber by giving up the space he has paid for to flaming advertisements to catch the coy and skittish gudgeon who still lurks outside the fold? Do we not ofttimes offer a family Bible for a new subscriber when an old subscriber may be in a lost and ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... never beat the record of them that is, but I've kept an eye on him this summer, and I tell you he's developing the traits that win every time. Last spring, when the judge made this offer, he was as skittish and unreliable as a young colt. I wouldn't have trusted him around the corner to do an errand for me. I've known him ever since he put on the district messenger uniform, and I wouldn't have given one of his own brass ...
— The Quilt that Jack Built; How He Won the Bicycle • Annie Fellows Johnston
... enough till happening to meet another man, also airing a pair of skittish horses,—the capering of the horses, or something else, roused the brute's savage nature, and he sprang on one of them like a tiger, fastening on his flank, and sucking his blood so greedily that all the two men could do did not make the savage beast ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
... eyes and called me, surprised at not finding herself in my arms, her whole being would not become languid, and suddenly sink into a state of prostration? I wanted to reason with myself, and bring myself face to face with those cursed suggestions, as one does with a skittish horse before some object that frightens it, and to evoke the recollection of every hour, every minute of that first night of love, and to extract ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... great moment. Here, suddenly visible in the flesh, was the legendary being and divine singer. Here he was, shutting the door behind him as might anybody else, and advancing—a strange small figure in grey, having an air at once noble and roguish, proud and skittish. My name was roared to him. In shaking his hand, I bowed low, of course—a bow de coeur; and he, in the old aristocratic manner, bowed equally low, but with such swiftness that we narrowly escaped concussion. You do not usually associate a man of genius, when you see one, with any social ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... But it made the Mayor nervous the way Portate was keyed up for tragedy, and the way Sadler acted as if he wasn't going to escape real mysterious. For the Mayor had to please the British consul and Ferdinand Street and the Transport Company; but the Hottentots were skittish, and the Mayor ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton
... gone before he could say another word. Saul walked up and down the room a few moments, taking very short steps, and solacing his mind by muttering to himself: "Well, that's what I get by having a scholar in the family. Learning goes to the head and the heels—makes 'em proud and skittish." ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... is that their cattle own them. In all the world there is no 'boss' who behaves as stupidly as the beasts you favour. Pretty nearly every day they give you trouble or do you some mischief. Now it is a skittish horse that runs away or lashes out with his heels; then it is a cow, however good-tempered, that won't keep still to be milked and tramples on your toes when the flies annoy her. And even if by good fortune they don't harm you, they ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... horse without wheels I'm proficient enough," he declared. "Know the anatomy of the darlin' beast as well as I do my own, inside and out. But, be dashed, if the wheels without the horse aren't beyond me quite. Lord love you, but the skittish animal's given me some ugly knocks, cast me away, it has, in the wayside ditch, covering me soul with burning shame, and me jacket ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... wants to bring about a match, because Mad's plantation joins ours. Mad acted as if he owned me already when he was home last, and yet he knows I can't abide him. He seems to think I can be subdued like one of his skittish horses." ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... best to tongue-lash the boys that are for you," advised Presson, fretfully, "not this year, when reformers have got 'em filled up with a lot of skittish notions. Humor those that are ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... with milky small bubbles, and snorted, "Be a good thing for most of us roughnecks if we did have a smart woman to tell us how to fix up the town. Just as much to her kicking as there was to Jim Blausser's gassing about factories. And you can bet Mrs. Kennicott is smart, even if she is skittish. Glad to see ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... white muslin stuff off the dressing-table in the girls' room fastened with pins and tied round the waist with a small bath towel. She was to be the Dauntless Equestrienne, and to give her enhancing act a barebacked daring, riding either a pig or a sheep, whichever we found was freshest and most skittish. Dora was dressed for the Haute ecole, which means a riding-habit and a high hat. She took Dick's topper that he wears with his Etons, and a skirt of Mrs Pettigrew's. Daisy, dressed the same as Alice, taking ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... my wife—cousin. I'm goin' in ter see him a minit. Hold the horse, will yer, he's a bit skittish." ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... said Burr, not finishing his sentence, and the pair, urging their horses to a faster gait came up with the others. Just then the party met a robust countryman who saluted the Morgans, as he trotted by on a skittish colt. ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... man; you must get over that. You might be of great use to me, Jack, in a very delicate affair—for you know how it is with women; they must be handled as a man would handle this brig among breakers; Rose, in partic'lar, is as skittish as a colt." ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... fair enough fer anybody. Hey, Mary! Come on out and git acquainted with yer neighbor's girl. Likely-lookin' young woman," he passed judgment, nodding towards Teresita. "Skittish, mebby—young blood most gen'rally is, when there's any ginger in it. What's yer name, mister? I want yuh all to meet the finest little woman in the world—Mrs. Jerry Simpson. We've pulled in the harness together fer ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... did,' said John Browdie, passing his huge forefinger through one of his wife's pretty ringlets, and looking very proud of her. 'She wur always as skittish and full o' tricks ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... she attempts to be skittish I just threaten to publish the photographs of her two sons who are lieutenants ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... coming slap-bang against the brute's nose so blamed hard it knocked me flat; and then, when I fairly got my eyes open, I saw five Sioux Indians creeping along through the moonlight, heading right toward our pony herd. I tell you things looked mighty skittish for me just then, but what do you suppose I ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... could see it. Or that dear Count Caloveglia. He would be sure to say something polite. . . . The inconstant moon! I know, at last, what the poet meant by that expression, though the word inconstant strikes me as hardly forcible enough. The skittish moon, I should be inclined to call it. The skittish moon. The frivolous moon. The giddy moon. The quite-too-absurd moon. . . . There it goes again! Very curious. What can it be? . . . Why, this is the reverse of an eclipse, my boy. The disk is darkened during an eclipse. It disappears ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... warm eggs. He don't wait for the others, but pikes for the wagonette and climbs in one of the side seats facin' me. We was just turnin' to back up to the block for the ladies, when a yellow kyoodle dashes around the corner after a cat. Them skittish horses was just waitin' for some such excuse as that, and before Mr. Driver can put the curb bit on 'em hard enough they've done a quick pivot, cramped the wheels, and turned us over on the soggy grass as neat as anything ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... that any education ought to give a man is character, and the second thing is education. That is where I'm a little skittish about this college business. I'm not starting in to preach to you, because I know a young fellow with the right sort of stuff in him preaches to himself harder than any one else can, and that he's mighty ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... I had got so nervous because you were gone so long, and you drove that skittish colt, and I was sure something had happened," she explained to her husband, who still stood by her, stroking the back of her hand, in awkward fondness. He stooped to lay his ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... 'long dis a-way," continued Uncle Remus, "twel it 'gun ter look sorter skittish wid Brer Rabbit, kaze ole King Deer done good ez say, sezee, dat he gwine ter take Brer Fox inter de fambly. Brer Rabbit, he 'low, he did, dat dis aint gwine ter do, en he study en study how he gwine ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... and the fear, there was a pitiful sneaking admiration. He looked so grand and unruffled—so old, and yet sitting the skittish, high-mettled horse so firmly; so feeble, and yet full of such an absolute confidence in his power to rule and subordinate, accustomed for forty years to the unfailing subjection of such things as servants, horses, and women. Her heart bumped against her stays, and her face ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... working like the busy bees; even Bumpus tried to assist in hauling at the cable, having moved forward when the boat no longer pranced and bobbed on the agitated sea like a skittish horse. ...
— The, Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island - or Marooned Among the Game-fish Poachers • Herbert Carter
... degree of tact that would be surprising in anyone else than Haydn. In the first part, where Handel would have been sublime, he is frequently nearly sublime, and this is our loss; but in the later portion, where Handel would have been solemn, earnest, and intolerably dull, he is light, skittish, good-natured, and sometimes jocular, and this is our gain, even if the gain is not great. The Representation of Chaos is a curious bit of music, less like chaos than an attempt to write music of the Bruneau ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... skittish horse when I was a spalpeen of a lad, but never in all my born days have I ridden so ill-mannered a baste; and sure I hope as long as I live that I may not have to break in such another as this one," ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... might be well defined as elegantly skittish; She loves a Lord as only a Republican can do; And quite the best of titles she's persuaded are the British, And well she knows the Peerage, for she reads it through ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., September 20, 1890 • Various
... poor little beggar would like nothing better than to go the pace, as a sort of experimental lap for the instruction of his characters; but he always finds the pace too swift, and lags behind. As result, he isn't fast, but merely skittish. In the same way, he'd like to pose as a black-hearted villain. Instead, he gets to a point where he is just about as unsanctified as a Sunday edition of ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... that the hill in front of old Grout Nickelson's wuz steep, and the road a skittish one that wound around it above the creek. But imagine goin' along a road where you could look down thousands of feet into running water, and right up on the other side of you mountains thousands of feet high. And you between, poor specks ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... you tech them hosses!" shouted the general utility man in alarm. "That off hoss is a new one an' he's mighty skittish, I can tell you. This mornin' when I was hookin' him up he nigh kicked ...
— The Mystery at Putnam Hall - The School Chums' Strange Discovery • Arthur M. Winfield
... several years in the future at that date. 'Elmnest is as much yours as mine, as I told you when you sprigged off to marry in town. Get your dimity together, Nancy! Your grandmother Craddock's haircloth trunk is strapped on behind her carriage there, and Rufus will drive you home. These mules are too skittish for him to handle. Fine pair, eh, William?' And right there in the early dawn, almost in front of the garage that contained his touring Chauvinnais and my gray roadster, father stood in his velvet dressing-gown and admired the two ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... piece of bacon. "My ole man's gone down to Worrick to-day," she said, "an' won't be back tell night; an' you soldiers, a-leavin' the country all at oncet, hit makes me feel kinder skittish." ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... and enjoy the white splendor of the lightning and the majestic booming and crashing of the thunder. It was a very satisfactory room; and there was a lightning-rod which was reachable from the window, an adorable and skittish thing to climb up and down, summer nights, when there were duties on hand of a sort to make ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... funeral last fall. I was determined then that they should never draw me;" and Aunt Pen shivered for herself beforehand. "And I can't have them from Timlin's, for the same reason," said she. "All his animals are skittish; and you remember when a pair of them took fright and dashed away from the procession and ran straight to the river, and there'd have been four other funerals if the schooner at the wharf hadn't stopped the runaways. And Timlins has a way, too, of ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... I can't say it is. That job will come later. But we got to be pationate, an' not spoil it by upsettin' our kettles o' fish with boardin'-schools, an' such nonsense. Meanwhile we can put in time with Mrs. Sherman, who'll pay you well, an' won't be too skittish if you just keep a firm hand on her. This mornin' she got discoursin' about everythin' under the canopy, from nickel-plated bathroom fixin's, an' marble slobs, to that state o' life unto which it has pleased God to ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann
... white-livered chaps are who ought to be ashamed to ship as sailors, for he'd venture aloft sometimes when no one else would dare, and was the first man at the weather-earing when it was 'Reef topsails!' But he had a temper as skittish as the cap'en's, and couldn't stand being swore at. I've heard him many a time mutter after the captain had been going on at him. I know I'd not have liked to have said half to him that Captain Jarvis did, for ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... complicated to describe," said Tom, "but the secret lies in a new way of feeding gasolene into the motor, a new sparking device, and an improved muffler. I think I could start my new airship in front of the most skittish horse, and he wouldn't stir, for the racket wouldn't wake a baby. It's ...
— Tom Swift and his Great Searchlight • Victor Appleton
... ring-bolt in amidships. In action, particularly in violent action, the guns became very hot, and "kicked" dangerously. Often they recoiled with such force as to overturn, or to snap the breeching, or to leap up to strike the upper beams. Brass guns were more skittish than iron, but all guns needed a rest of two or three hours, if possible, after continual firing for more than eight hours at a time. To cool a gun in action, to keep it from bursting, or becoming red-hot, John ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... came here to woo, Ha, ha, the wooing o't, On blythe Yule night when we were fou, [drunk] Ha, ha, the wooing o't. Maggie coost her head fu' heigh, [cast, high] Look'd asklent and unco skeigh, [askance, very skittish] Gart poor Duncan stand abeigh; [Made, aloof] Ha, ha, ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson |
