"Scamper" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cariole is in form not unlike a slipper bath, both in shape and size. It is lined with buffalo robes, in the midst of a bundle of which the occupant reclines luxuriously, while the dogs drag him slowly through the soft snow, and among the trees and bushes of the forest, or scamper with him over the hard-beaten surface of a lake or river; while the machine is prevented from capsizing by a voyageur who walks behind on snow-shoes, holding on to a line attached to the back part of the cariole. The weather during winter is so cold that it is often a matter of the ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... the view-halloa is raised, is to scamper headlong, pounce on the victim and pull him apart (or so it feels) until fortune, superior strength, or some such element decides the point; and then more often than not it is the victim's fate ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... John! Indeed, I am thoroughly in earnest,—parties are so tiresome,—all exactly alike; we always see the same people, or the same sort of people. There is nothing about them worth having, except the dancing; and even that is not as good as a scamper over the hills with you and the ponies. You know we have been going to parties for these two years; we have seen so much of society, no wonder we ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... connection with the bell. Here a chimney smokes, there the flue is blocked with birds' nests. In certain country inns, the flimsy gossamer of spiders makes an undesirable fretwork over the greenish knobs of the ill-puttied panes. Mice, rats, and "such small deer" scamper uncannily the live-long night along the worn waxcloths and unspeakable carpets. As he undresses by the light of a three-inch candle, he has his soul horrified by early Victorian prints, of Paul tumbling from ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... to scamper up to her room, and hide the precious treasures in her kist, there to wait all night, like the buried dead, ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... and Andy brought the horses up to the posts, apparently greatly refreshed and invigorated by the scamper of ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... all inferior flesh As its just and legitimate prey; Every scream of the eagle a panic creates As the weaker things scamper away. ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... 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, ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... to talk of the pleasures of the milkmaid going out in the balmy freshness of the purple dawn; but imagine a poor fellow pulled out of bed on a drizzly, rainy morning, and equipping himself for a scamper through a wet pasture lot, rope in hand, at the heels of such a termagant as mine! In fact, madam established a regular series of exercises, which had all to be gone through before she would suffer herself to be captured; as, ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the birth of Christ and the triumph of Christianity, giving him also a rapid but tolerably complete review of events down to the reign of Saint Louis. The narrative ended abruptly at the point, owing to the inconsiderate crowing of a cock, which compelled the ghosted King of Men to scamper back to Hades. There is a fine mediaeval flavor to this story, and as it has not been traced back further than Pere Brateille, a pious but obscure writer at the court of Saint Louis, we shall probably not err on the side of presumption in considering it apocryphal, though Monsignor Capel's ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... my parents, as though I had not seen them for ten years. Such a fussing would there be—such a talking and a telling of tales! To everyone I would run with a greeting, and laugh, and giggle, and scamper about, and skip for very joy. True, my father and I used to have grave conversations about lessons and teachers and the French language and grammar; yet we were all very happy and contented together. Even now it thrills me to think of those moments. For my father's sake I tried ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... then smack'd his whip, and fast The horses scamper'd through the rain; But hearing soon upon the blast The cry, I ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... time the dog had—it was almost as good fun as the fishing to watch him scamper. And how hungry he got—and he ate more than his share of the bread and cheese, so that you'd have had to go home early because of the aching void if it hadn't been for the cottage where they gave a fellow milk ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... the good people adieu before I went to bed, and gave the man "Pat" a dollar to stand by my horse while I slept, and to awake me at any disturbance, that I might be ready to scamper. The man "Pat," I am bound to say, woke me up ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... perched upon one of the mounds, rose up, and commenced hovering in circles above the intruder. This drew the attention of the marmot sentries to their well-known enemy, and their warning cry was followed by a general scamper of both tawnies and leopards ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... There was a scamper to the door—the boys first, shouting at the tops of their voices, Cousin Belle next, and Lucy Ann ...
— Two Little Confederates • Thomas Nelson Page
... 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
... sight of Rome is futile unless you feel that you have seen it before. Thus useless and thus futile were the foreign experiments and the continental raids of Dickens. He enjoyed them as he would have enjoyed, as a boy, a scamper out of Chatham into some strange meadows, as he would have enjoyed, when a grown man, a steam in a police boat out into the fens to the far east of London. But he was the Cockney venturing far; he was not the European coming home. He is still the splendid Cockney Orlando of whom I spoke above; ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... roguish look at their fat old mother, he began to scamper off with her. "Cackle, cackle!" screamed the old hen. "Put the baby down this moment, sir!" And the mother flew at Gip before ...
— Dick and His Cat and Other Tales • Various
... dignity of later years seemed but to have added fresh weapons to her armament. A pigtail could never by any chance have been so imposing as the glossy coils which were now wound round the little head. The rustle of silken skirts heralded her approach in a manner infinitely more stately than the scamper of thin brown legs, and the wave of the little hand was emphasised by the twinkle ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... "below the 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
... 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 ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell
... 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 feel ...
— Friends in Feathers and Fur, and Other Neighbors - For Young Folks • James Johonnot
... surprise, that the handkerchief was clean. The old man, though ragged enough to scare the crows, was clean from his bare head to his bare sea-bleached feet. He munched the rest of the pasty, talking between mouthfuls. To his discourse Dicky paid no heed, but slipped away for a scamper ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... in their hands that they could scarce see the figures. Their master 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 have the ...
— The Comical Creatures from Wurtemberg - Second Edition • Unknown
... at close of day, it is said truly that a fairy peeps from under to learn if at last the house is safe. And they hide in the hallway for the signal of your coming, yet so timid that if the fire is stirred they scamper beyond the turn. They huddle close beneath the stairs that they may listen to your voice. They come and go on tiptoe when the curtain sways, in the hope that you will follow. With their long thin shadowy fingers they beckon ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... and scuttles off with its tail between its legs; the pack with a triumphant uproar rush on and pluck it by its shaggy flanks; the beast often turns, glances at them, snaps its jaws; and hardly does he threaten them with the gnashing of his white teeth when the pack scamper away whining: so did Gerwazy withdraw with threatening mien, checking his assailants by his eyes and by the bench, until the Count and he reached the back of the ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... 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 ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... inquisitor, Torquemada, of everlasting execration. The Indian is hard and cruel, indifferent to pain in himself or others. A serpent may sting a comrade, and he takes no notice; but let one find food and there is a general scamper to the spot. The Chaco savage is barbarous in the extreme. The slain enemies are often eaten, and the bones burnt and scattered over their food. The children of enemies are traded off to other tribes ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... give her horse a touch with the whip, and off she would go at a gallop, feeling happy with the wind blowing in her face, and he whom she loved by her side to smile on and encourage her. Then they would scamper along; the dog with his thin body almost touching the ground, racing and frightening the rabbits, which shot across the road swift as bullets. Out of breath by the violent ride, Micheline would stop, and ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... 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 ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... millstones lying in one of the Theban temples, in order to re-use them on his farm. The traveller will notice, in some shady corner, the village barber shaving the heads and faces of his patrons, just as he is seen in the Theban tomb-paintings of thousands of years ago; and the small boys who scamper across the road will have just the same tufts of hair left for decoration on their shaven heads as had the boys of ancient Thebes and Memphis. In another house, where a death has occurred, the mourning ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... was soft, with mild gleams of sunlight on decaying foliage; and after luggage and livestock had been dropped at the pension Susy confessed that she had promised the children a scamper in the forest, and buns in a tea-shop afterward. Nick placidly agreed, and darkness had long fallen, and a great many buns been consumed, when at length the procession turned down the street toward the pension, headed by Nick ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... kind of thermometer, hopeless and headachy and listless the next day, if I overdo myself the very least; so that I have merely to encourage them by precept, not by example. They have ponies and bicycles, and scamper about all over the country. Edward has been brought home once in a cart, but not seriously damaged; and I like to leave them to themselves in these things—they won't damage themselves a bit the less for fussing and fretting over them, and they will lose ever so much ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... first 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 ...
— Dew Drops - Volume 37, No. 18, May 3, 1914 • Various
... "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
... 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 ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... down, 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 even ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... three distinct swarms, each swarm selecting its victim; so that not only Ossaroo, but Karl and Caspar as well, now danced over the ground like acrobats. Even Fritz was attacked by a few—enough to make him scamper around, and snap at his own legs as if he ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... cannot tell you the end of the story. Maybe the fool moose-calf will butt its brains out against the trunk of the tree. That would be no fault of the tree. The tree was there first, and was minding its own business. Maybe the calf will butt and get hurt, and scamper for home. Maybe it will succeed in eluding the fangs of the wolf, and reach its mountain in safety. In such case it will have ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... Thereupon that monkey 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
... companion. 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 perfect subjection ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... little hillocks just bursting forth into fragrance by the roadside, then the vast island was a quaking swamp or covered by impervious forests of gigantic trees, up which with coarse and shameless glee would scamper the nobility. ...
— Comic History of England • Bill Nye
... snow, Roll it up in a mighty ball, And shout and laugh and scamper about, And heels over ...
— King Winter • Anonymous
... on him," Pinkey suggested, grinning. "Or if you ketch yourself pickin' at the bed-clothes you can saddle up and scamper over and see me. 'Tain't fur—forty miles across the mounting. Jest below that notch—you can't ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... 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 ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... drivers, etc.; and that the 530 consisted largely of "green" youths, "raw young fellows," not trained and war-worn British soldiers; and I would have told. Jameson that those lads would not be able to shoot effectively from horseback in the scamper and racket of battle, and that there would not be anything for them to shoot at, anyway, but rocks; for the Boers would be behind the rocks, not out in the open. I would have told him that 300 Boer sharpshooters behind rocks would be an overmatch for his ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... a duckling, but let's hope Peter can be mentioned in the same terms in the near future," said Sam, as he drove the fleet Byrd and me before him with the switch, in a scamper to ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess
... closer up I saw their flags actually over the parapet of Fort Hindman, and the rebel gunners scamper out of the embrasures and run down into the ditch behind. About the same time a man jumped up on the rebel parapet just where the road entered, waving a large white flag, and numerous smaller white rags appeared above the parapet ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... the hands dealt when there was a scamper of feet in the hall, the door burst open and a man ran in. He was wearing a soiled white smock and his ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... preceded by a dull murmur and rustle, which lasted for a few minutes after the clang of the bell had died away—then door after door opened and hordes of boys plunged out with wild shrieks of liberty, to scamper madly down the ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... the MASTIFF so gruff, and so surly, That the Curs scamper'd off in a sad hurly burly. "I am glad to observe that none of you dare To boast of your courage; for," said he, "to compare Your valour with mine, in vain would you strive all, My Cousin the BULL-DOG alone is my rival; We're both so undaunted, determined, and bold, That ...
— The Council of Dogs • William Roscoe
... Bishopsgate-street.] he strutted before us, dress'd just as he came from keeping Sheep, Hogs, &c.... his shoes fill'd full of stumps in the heels. He looking about him, slip'd up ... his nails were unus'd to a flat pavement. I remember viewing him as he scamper'd up ... how small he was. Little thought, that little fatherless Boy would be one day known and esteem'd by the most learned, the most respected, the wisest and the best men of ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield
... to watch a helper carefully placing nuts at regular intervals in an open furrow and a big fox squirrel following 10 feet behind him, removing the prizes as fast as he could scamper up and down a nearby hollow oak. Our ideas concerning appropriate locations for walnut trees did not coincide with those of Mr. Bushytail. We learned that the simple way to plant walnuts in the woods was to pile a half a bushel here and there. The tree ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Eighth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... uncles, he was determined to ascertain what might be the meaning of so many buffalo so near the home of himself and uncles. He approached several bunches of young buffalo, but upon seeing him approaching they would scamper over the hills. Thus he wandered from bunch to bunch, scattering them all. Finally he grew tired of their cowardice and started for home. When he had come to within a half mile or so of home he saw an old shaggy buffalo standing by a large boulder, rubbing on it first one horn and then the other. ...
— Myths and Legends of the Sioux • Marie L. McLaughlin
... a fine turn out—from round about, All the houses had let them out, And here they were with scamper ...
— Marigold Garden • Kate Greenaway
... Icarus, "how I should like to fly! And go like you where all is blue along the upper sky; How very charming it would be above the moon to climb, And scamper through the Zodiac, and have ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... at a knot in the table. There was silence in the cabin. The Quick as Wink was still nodding to the swell—lying safe at anchor in a cove of Twist Tickle. We heard the gusts scamper over the deck and shake the rigging; we caught, in the intervals, the deep-throated roar of breakers, far off—all the noises of the gale. And Tumm picked at the knot with his clasp-knife; and we sat watching, silent, all. And ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... family cannot stir out of doors, not even into the gardens; and then think of what a comfort it would be to have a dry and airy and elegant promenade and place of exercise within their own walls. Then the children may scamper about, if it be, a proper cloister external to the house, and make that joyous noise which is so essential to their health, without any fear of annoying even the most nervous of mammas. Within an instant they may all be under her own personal inspection, and yet ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... to the sight of them. After some days had elapsed, I contrived, while screened from sight, to take the poles from their usual place and to make them touch and annoy the animals with more or less violence, thus causing them to flutter or scamper about and to shrink away, as if from the touch of a living person, although they were unable, as I have said, to see me or my hand. Those which were least agitated sprang forward with little leaps and looked about them, doubtful and excited. I might go on to describe many other experiments made ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... 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 ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... up nettles and flowers, and enjoying his freedom. George might just as well have walked quietly through the field, and have left the poor donkey to his repast, but he was in a very odd sort of a humour still, and thought it would be very good fun to have a little scamper round the field upon the donkey's back. He had heard his father and mother say that the donkey had never been properly broken in, and that he was not fit to be ridden, but George thought that if he could ride a pony, which he sometimes did, he certainly could ride a donkey, ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... 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 fall upon it properly, or the paintings ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... his eyes. Rolled up lengthwise in this ball he spends the day; but when evening comes he is active enough. If kept for any length of time he makes a very docile pet and will beg permission to sleep in your pocket. But it is better to give him his freedom, and see him scamper up one tree and "fly" to another. As he springs he spreads out the whitish membranes along each side, holds his flat tail rigid, quivering. Thus he goes down, parachute fashion, on an inclined plane. Just ...
— Some Summer Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... always well knew where to go. I railed off a piece of the garden and laid it down in grass, and on one side I built a house for the animal; but as there was not food enough in the little plot, the captain had it up to a paddock near his house, where it used to scamper about with Harry on its back and ...
— The Loss of the Royal George • W.H.G. Kingston
... with the oddest little clatter Sings his rattling little, prattling little, tattling little tune; Fleet the feet of tiny stars go patter, patter, patter, As they scamper from the heavens at the rising of the moon. Beaming little, gleaming little fireflies go dreaming To the dearest little, queerest little baby lullabies. Creep! Creep! Creep! Time to go to sleep! Baby playing 'possum with ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... have disclosed the brown mud beneath. A wooden ladder (with half the rungs missing) leads to the guest-chamber, a large bare room, devoid of furniture of any kind, with smoke-blackened walls and rotten, insecure flooring. A number of rats scamper away at our approach. I wonder what on earth they can find to eat, until Gerome points out a large hole in the centre of the apartment. This affords an excellent view of the stables, ten or twelve feet below, admitting, ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... but they are promptly knocked down by the others, and make no further 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
... the longing, for he kept running off a little way and stopping to frisk and bark, then rushed back to sit watching his master with those intelligent eyes of his, which seemed to say, "Come on, Ben, let us scamper down this pleasant road and never stop till we are tired." Swallows darted by, white clouds fled before the balmy west wind, a squirrel ran along the wall, and all things seemed to echo the boy's desire to leave toil behind and roam ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... has got a name, the first rational use to make of the charming possession is to get astride of it, as a witch upon her broomstick, and whisk and scamper over half the kingdoms of the earth. Talk of bills of exchange!—letters of credit!—we can put our name to a whole book, and it will pass—it will pass. The idea is good—quite worthy of our commercial genius—and to us its origin, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... the Brinsmades to marriage 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 ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... nobody, some of them ventured so far as to examine the texture of my clothes; but many of them were still very suspicious; and when by accident I happened to move myself, or look at the young children, their mothers would scamper off with them with the greatest precipitations. In a few hours, however, they all ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park
... Tommy scamper over the common, while William pursued in vain; for, just as the servant thought he had reached his master, his horse would push forward with such rapidity as left his pursuer far behind. Tommy kept his seat with ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... 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
... the husband coolly answered, "that you did not take it; I reckon it would have done considerable good. But, boys, if it should turn out as Ahiram thinks, that there are Indians near us, we may have to scamper up the rock, and lose our suppers after all; therefore we will make sure of the game, and talk over the performances of the Doctor when we have nothing better ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... need say afraid, for our amusement was innocent enough, and you must remember that we were two boys, who resembled Juno, the dog, in this respect that we were let loose for a time, and enjoying the freedom of a scamper over the hills. ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... We stood there in the vestibule like rats taking council together in the hold, when the vessel is beginning to take in water without the crew suspecting it, and I saw plainly enough that everybody, footmen and lady's maids, would soon scamper away at the first alarm. Can it be that such a catastrophe is possible? But in that case, what would become of me and the Territoriale, and my advances and ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... from his grasp, the doe bestowed a well directed kick on its foe's head, which tumbled him over on his back. The animal then sprang up, but aware there was no chance of escape by running, faced about and plied its bony head so furiously against Joe's breast and sides that he was forced to scamper away ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... never followed the hounds, I don't know the country and I can't ride to points. Besides, I am not really Amazonian enough to fancy a scamper across the country, flying fences and ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... again, and with a shriek away she scours. Sam! oh, he is very near; if that stupid little Davy would only look round, he would be free in another moment; but he only gapes at the pursuit of Susan, and Sam will touch him without his being aware! No—here's Hal back again. Sam's off. What a scamper! Now's the time—here's Miss Fosbrook, lighter-footed than any of the children, softly stealing on tip-toe, while Hal is scaring Johnnie. Her fingers just touch Davy's. "Freed! Freed!" is the cry; and off goes he, pounding for home! but Hal rushes across the path, he intercepts Miss Fosbrook, ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge
... neck and neck with the iron horse. When the local was still far behind she would begin to curvet and take the bit between her teeth. After the first few contests, she needed no whip. The little girl had only to slacken the reins and let her go, and she would scamper into the station, covered with dust and foam from her flashing eyes to her ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... 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 of ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... 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 have embarrassed everything ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... 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 - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... think or care about what he did, so that for this day only he let her be gay and happy. From some incomprehensible cause, his very love seemed to hang over her like a cloud, and so it had been from the beginning. She did so long to dash out into the sunshine of her careless, girlish life, and scamper over the beautiful ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... immense surrounding quietude began to weigh heavily upon them. Saving for their own shrill voices there was no sound, and this unending, wide silence at last commanded them to a corresponding quietness. Little by little they ceased their play. The scamper became a trot, each run was more and more curtailed in its length, the race back became swifter than the run forth, and, shortly, they were pacing soberly enough one on either side of the Thin Woman sending ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... 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," he concluded, with a sudden break ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... 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, where it rested with its anchor ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... Off they scamper for a peep through the windows of the house. They throng the sill of the library, ears acock and eyelids twittering admiration of a prospect. Euphemia was in view of them—essence of her. Sir Rebus was at her ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... charming. Apartments so decorated can have been meant only for the recreation of people greater than any we know, people for whom life was impudent ease and success. Margaret Farnese was the lady of the house, but where she trailed her cloth of gold the chickens now scamper between your legs over rotten straw. It is all inexpressibly dreary. A stupid peasant scratching his head, a couple of critical Americans picking their steps, the walls tattered and befouled breast-high, ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... ran up sharply in a minute bluff, with the soft outline of underlying chalk, covered with small thorn-thickets; and it was all encircled with small, close woods, where we heard the pheasants scamper. We found an old, slow, bovine man, with a cheerful face, who readily threw aside some fumbling work he was doing, and guided us; and we should never have found the spot without him. He led us to a stream, crossed by a single plank with a handrail, ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the front of the old chateau Is a blaze of light above and below; There's a sound of wheels and hoofs in the street, A cracking of whips, and scamper of feet, Bells are ringing, and horns are blown, And the Baron hath come again to his own. The Curate is waiting in the hall, Most eager and alive of all To welcome the Baron and Baroness; But his mind is full of vague distress, For he hath read in Jesuit books Of those children of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... of this type will, like Tolstoy, be an anti-militarist. He will advocate a general gaol delivery for criminals. He will be a vegetarian. He will not allow an animal's life to be taken in his house, though the mice scamper over his floors. And he will, consistently with his conviction that it is immoral to resort to force, refuse to take any part ...
— The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage • Almroth E. Wright
... seven and the cap was his uniform; he was collecting the pennies for the chairs. So I gave him two soldi and another for himself and saw him scamper happily away and join a knot of brother Cupids who were playing together round a lamp-post. He showed them the soldo I had given him for himself and the meeting became as ebullient and full of excitement ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... did not know. Then she heard a little noise on the floor, a sort of scratching, a rustling, and suddenly a mouse, a little gray mouse, ran quickly across the sheet. Another followed it, then a third, who ran toward her chest with his little, quick scamper. Jeanne was not afraid, and she reached out her hand to catch the animal, but could not catch it. Then other mice, ten, twenty, hundreds, thousands, rose up on all sides of her. They climbed the bedposts, ran up the tapestries, covered the bed completely. And soon they got beneath the ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... lad," said he. "I'm too old to scamper round the ring after you. But we have the day before us, and ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of you to think of it! But I can't pay high wages, for there'll be her board and it won't be hard. When the babies are well they are as good as kittens though they can't scamper around so much. And they're so fat they won't walk very soon. It'll just be sitting round and amusing them and looking after their food. I couldn't give more than three dollars a week—we are not at all rich," with ...
— A Modern Cinderella • Amanda M. Douglas
... the party, and having already supped, said to her mother that she was going to find Skipping Rabbit and have a run with her. You see, Moonlight, although full seventeen years of age, was still so much of a child as to delight in a scamper with her little friend, the ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... 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; ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... Versailles we had retained little 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 is replete with ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd
... Handicapped by the frame of a Falstaff, he happily harbours within his girth a susceptibility to panic, which, when appropriately stimulated, more than compensates for his excess of bulk. The distance fixed was from the Green Man to the station, a five-furlong scamper; the start to be by ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 8th, 1920 • Various
... to take the soup, a cat or a dog. The animal instinctively scented out the man's infirmity, and, softly approaching, commenced eating noiselessly, lapping up the soup daintily; and, when a rather loud licking of the tongue awakened the poor fellow's attention, it would prudently scamper away to avoid the blow of the spoon directed at it by the ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... smiling face is welcome everywhere. People scamper away from a scowling countenance, especially if the owner of it insists upon telling his ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... affords; and then, with a welter of confused impressions, will return whence they came. There is no reward for this frenzied exercise; it is impossible to gather any impression of the scenes in which the poet passed his early and later days, from a hurried scamper through the town and a frank acceptance of local traditions, concerning which some of our leading Shakespearian scholars have much destructive critical comment to offer. He who wishes to establish some manner of association with the poet must enter Stratford as the poet left it—by ...
— William Shakespeare - His Homes and Haunts • Samuel Levy Bensusan
... along a stately avenue, wondering what he could do to avert the retribution that moved toward the Downeys, and finding that his assistant city-editor's resourcefulness availed him naught, he heard the scamper of feet behind him and whirled about with cane upraised in time to bring a snarling chow ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... 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, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... cries of the people of the suburbs. I flew to the window and beheld a troop of Belgians in full flight, covered, not with glory, but with dust, galloping towards the town! I heard the gates close against them, and saw them scamper over the plain towards Lacken. The mob increased; their shrieks of terror rent the air,—"Les Francois sont ici! Ils s'emparent de la porte de la ville!" mingled with the cries of the women, and with those of my little household, who all rushed into my ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 570, October 13, 1832 • Various
... a scatter and scamper as men fled for their horses. Barebacked, many with the bridle scarcely secure, all without weapons, the men of Waroona ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... couple of days at Mr. Jameson's; and there will be company there in the evenings, so we must have our best things, nurse, and will you be so kind as to see after the doves, and tell Thomas to loosen Nero's chain every day, that he may have a good scamper over the fields, for papa says he ...
— Brotherly Love - Shewing That As Merely Human It May Not Always Be Depended Upon • Mrs. Sherwood
... crying, and implored my pardon. Once and for all to disillusion the Tibetan on one or two points, I made him lick my shoes clean with his tongue, in the presence of the assembled Shokas. This done, he tried to scamper away, but I caught him once more by his pigtail, and kicked him down the front steps which he had dared to ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... stupid that it never knows what you want it to do," said Dennis, as he gave up his efforts and let the kitten scamper ...
— Black, White and Gray - A Story of Three Homes • Amy Walton
... a standstill, with letters and documents clutched in his hand, rushing in, resolute to "hustle," getting wonderfully in everybody's way. At the sight of him even the messenger boys who are waiting get up and scamper to and fro. Sprinkle your vision with collisions, curses, incoherencies. You imagine all the parts of this complex, lunatic machine working hysterically toward a crescendo of haste and excitement as the night wears on. At last, the only things that seem ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... creatures" said Bridget; "yonder, on the further side of the prairie—I dare say the two parties will join each other, and have a famous scamper, ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... 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
... the spring!" panted Betty, and off they went again, one to scramble up a pile of stones and look over the wall into the avenue, the other to scamper to the spot they had just left. Still nothing appeared but the dandelions' innocent faces looking up at Bab, and a brown bird scared from his bath in the spring by ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... children shout and scamper And make merry all the day, When there's naught to put a damper To the ardor of their play; When I hear their laughter ringing, Then I'm sure as sure can be That the Dinkey-Bird is singing In ...
— Love-Songs of Childhood • Eugene Field
... his 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 ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... 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 by ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... camp? If there were any wolves around, they would probably be on the other side of the gully, for it would be a waste of time for them to prowl around here among these sandhills, where they couldn't find even a rabbit to eat. The moment they caught our wind they would scamper off, and then 'Good-bye, prisoners.' I wish I knew where those Indians have staked out their ponies, for I stand more in fear of them than I do of that sentry. If we should get to windward of them, they would kick up a ...
— George at the Fort - Life Among the Soldiers • Harry Castlemon
... indeed, when the turbulent blue-bottle chances, in his bouncing random flight, to get entangled in the glutinous meshes, he shakes and roars, and blusters so loudly, until he breaks away, that the spider affrighted, invariably takes advantage of his long legs to scamper off to his sanctum in the cracked wainscot—like some imbecile watchman, who fearing to encounter a tall inebriated bruiser, sneaks away with admirable discretion to the security of his snug box, praying the drunkard may speedily reel ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 269, August 18, 1827 • Various
... running round 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 is ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... edge of the Green Forest. He just couldn't keep still. When he thought anybody was looking, he pretended to hunt for some of the nuts he had buried in the fall, and dug holes down through the snow. But as soon as he thought that no one was watching, he would scamper up a tree where he could look over to Farmer Brown's house and look and look. It was very clear that Happy Jack was watching for some one and that he was anxious, very ...
— Happy Jack • Thornton Burgess
... again, apparently quite near by, I deem it expedient to warn him off. So reaching my Smith & Wesson from under the pillow, I fire a shot up into the thatched roof. The little intruders, whatever they may be, scamper out of the bungalow, nor wait upon the order of their going, and a loud scream some distance away a moment later tells of the panther's rapid retreat into ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... ground the land was pitchy black. There are night people on the plain who love the dark. Amid the black level land they meet to frolic under the stars. Then when their sharp ears hear any strange footfalls nigh they scamper away into the deep shadows of night. There they are safely hid ...
— Old Indian Legends • Zitkala-Sa
... terribly afraid that his conscience would prick him and that he would take the second note away again), and flew out of the window faster than she had come in. The clock was striking a quarter past one, and she had to scamper down to Chapman's to buy the dress, and a length of lilac ribbon for a sash, and a packet of bronze hairpins, and be back in time to lay the cloth for two o'clock lunch. If it is only for idle hands that Satan finds ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... Here I am, frisking round you, leaping, barking, pirouetting, ready for any amount of fun and mischief. Look at my eyes if you doubt me. What shall it be? A romp in the drawing-room and never mind the furniture, or a scamper in the fresh, cool air, a scud across the fields and down the hill, and won't we let old Gaffer Goggles' geese know what time o' day it is, ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... a glorious bathe and a scamper on the sands, and then trooped up to the cottage to dress. As we came up over the lawn I was surprised to see a great heap of luggage, and two bicycles, lying around, evidently all just discharged from ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... 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 ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... 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 along the beach after an ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... them: as though the silence of the place had gradually benumbed their busy inquisitive natures. And this strange passivity, this almost human lassitude, seemed to me sadder than the misery of starved and beaten animals. I should have liked to rouse them for a minute, to coax them into a game or a scamper; but the longer I looked into their fixed and weary eyes the more preposterous the idea became. With the windows of that house looking down on us, how could I have imagined such a thing? The dogs knew better: THEY knew ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... immense numbers, and attacked men and beasts at the same time. Luckily most of the asses were loose, and gallopped up the valley; but the horses and people were very much stung, and obliged to scamper in all directions. The fire which had been kindled for cooking being deserted, spread, and set fire to the bamboos; and our baggage had like to have been burnt. In fact, for half an hour the bees seemed to have completely put ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... that. Free speech was first due to the Pantomimi. A proud boast that. They hymn Tell and chant Savonarola and glorify the Gracchi, but I doubt if any of the gods in the world's Pantheon or the other world's Valhalla did so much for freedom as those merry mimes that the children scamper after upon every holiday. ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida |
