"Scurrying" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... opening out of them a maze of streets and lanes, one-storeyed houses, grey walls and roofs, shop fronts all ablaze with gilt carving, all trades plying, all goods selling, rickshaws, mule-carts canopied with blue, swarming pedestrians, eight hundred thousand people scurrying like ants in this gigantic framework of Cyclopean walls and gates. Never was a medley of greatness and squalor more strange and impressive. One quarter only is commonplace, that of the Legations. There ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... been the floor of the ocean, which could not be far distant. Had it not been for the weight of his bag Peter would have enjoyed the experience of this complete isolation, the fragrant silences broken only by the whisper of the leaves and the scurrying of tiny wild things among the dead tree branches. But he had no means of knowing how far he would have to travel or whether, indeed, there had not been some mistake on Sheldon, Senior's, part or his own. But the directions had been quite clear and the road must of course lead somewhere—to ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... Not one of them had grown a day older. The lanky one and the lame one and the little one were there. Perhaps it was because they had always been as old as it is possible for a boy to be, that they were now no older. They were crying the same news to the same indifferent horde scurrying past them. Their noisy shouting made Galbraithe feel more than ever like a cub reporter. It was only yesterday that his head was swirling with the first mad excitement ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... later I saw three of Gregor Jhaere's gipsies scurrying along the cliff-side, turning at intervals to fire pistols at some one in pursuit. So I joined in the fray with my Colt repeater, and flattered myself I did not do so badly. The first two shots produced no other effect than to ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... gliding and scurrying about, assigning guests to tables reserved months in advance. Pages in flame-coloured and gold uniforms lifted the silken rope that stretched its barrier between the impatient crowd and the tables; managers verified offered credentials ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... little park was glorified with shining wonder; and under its spell, for the moment, I forgot all else. Here and there a squirrel hopped cautiously from tree to tree, now standing on its branches and nibbling a nut dug from its hiding-place, now scurrying off to hide it again, and as I watched the cautious cocking of their heads I laughed aloud, and the sound recalled me to the waste I was ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... went scurrying away like squirrels presently to invite the guests. Nelly Foster looked delighted at the thought of ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett
... of the wood-spirits continued but an hour; for then a cock crowed, and immediately thereat, with a wondrous scurrying, the elves and the gnomes and the other grotesque spirits sought their abiding-places in the caves and in the hollow trunks and under the loose bark of the trees. And then it was very quiet once more ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... politely, scurrying with his best Eton manners to find a chair for the newcomer. 'It's an awful muddle, but ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... their path, sent them scurrying to the safety of the higher branches, for if she respected their number and their sharp fangs, they on their part held her cruel and ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Over on the far side of the brook in a tiny bay floated three lily-pads; and from amid some clover blossoms on the bank an industrious bee rose with the hum of busy contentment. It was a day so brimful of quiet joy that the two friends lay flat on their backs gazing up at the scurrying clouds, and neither ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... within the hedge, where there is a bit of grass and a garden seat. Occasionally, playing the absurd part of irate property-owner, I have gone to the gate near by to drive off the offenders, but have opened it only in time to see a troop of urchins, alarmed by the click of the gate-latch, scurrying away like rabbits round the bend of the lane. One Sunday afternoon, however, when I looked out after a stone had fallen nearly on my head, it was to find two boys calmly waiting for me to approach them. Their school caps showed them ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... Eustace," said Lord George. "If you're not tired, we might as well see it out." Lizzie was tired, but said that she was not, and she did see it out. They found a fifth fox, but again there was no scent. "Who the —— is to hunt a fox with people scurrying about like that!" said the huntsman, very angrily, dashing forward at a couple of riders. "The hounds is behind you, only you ain't a-looking. Some people never do look!" The two peccant riders unfortunately were Sir ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... is splendid. Fine wide streets, finer and wider than almost any in London, stretch away for miles in every direction. At any hour of the day thousands of persons may be observed scurrying along them with true Cheapside bustle." The Melbourne youth, however, appears to have been precocious. "I was delighted," remarks this authority, "with the Colonial young stock. The average Australian boy is a slim, olive-complexioned ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... woke with a start, twitched its ears, and waited. Then, long after midnight when, alone of the entire ship's company, only the helmsman and night watch were awake, Zachary very slowly slid his way to the ladder leading to the hold. The mouse, scurrying forward, was able to follow by means of a dangling rope and a leap into pitch-blackness at the rope's end. The poor mouse hit something and ricocheted off. It lay stunned for a moment or two a few inches from ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... suddenly reappearing, came laboring up the hither side, straight for the crest on which they lay, a dozen black, bounding, panting beasts thundering over the ground, followed by half a dozen darting Indian ponies, each with his lithe red rider scurrying in pursuit. ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... entertainment, though it is safe to say it lasted more than an hour. At the last, the girls all crowded around Edna to kiss her good-night and to make their farewells, and then, like a flock of birds, they all took flight, scurrying home by the light of their lanterns, some across the street, some down, ...
— A Dear Little Girl's Thanksgiving Holidays • Amy E. Blanchard
... into an "encore" as Alice halted for an irresolute moment in a doorway. Across the room, a cluster of matrons sat chatting absently, their eyes on their dancing daughters; and Alice, finding a refugee's courage, dodged through the scurrying couples, seated herself in a chair on the outskirts of this colony of elders, and began to talk eagerly to the matron nearest her. The matron seemed unaccustomed to so much vivacity, and responded but dryly, whereupon ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... the signalers could hear tramping scurrying feet, the hammering out of loopholes, the dragging thump and flinging down of obstacles piled up as an additional defense to the rickety walls. Then there were more hurrying footsteps, and presently the jarring rap-rap-rap of a machine ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... had all got in with more or less difficulty. The Murray boat alone was out. Men came scurrying along the shore in frightened groups of two ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... There was a scurrying on the part of the hotel attendants to close the windows, and the guests who had been enjoying the air out on the porches came running in. With a rush, a roar and a muttering, as peal after peal of thunder sounded, the ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-boat - or, The Rivals of Lake Carlopa • Victor Appleton
... once she had stopped and eyed it speculatively, and the day before she had gone so far as to lift an end of it tentatively; but she had found it very heavy, and she had also disturbed a lot of black bugs that went scurrying here and there, so that she was forced to gather her skirts close about her and run for ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... for the art of Piranesi is full of discriminations. Finally, you weary. The eye gorged by all the mystic engines, hieroglyphs of pain from some impossible inquisition—though not once do we see a monkish figure—all these anonymous monkey men scurrying on what errand Piranesi alone knows; these towering arches, their foundations resting on the crest of hell (you feel the tremendous impact of the architectural mass upon the earth—no mean feat to represent or rather to evoke the sense of weight, ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... Rape of Ethiopia—a sordid, pitiful, cruel tale. Raphael painted, Luther preached, Corneille wrote, and Milton sung; and through it all, for four hundred years, the dark captives wound to the sea amid the bleaching bones of the dead; for four hundred years the sharks followed the scurrying ships; for four hundred years America was strewn with the living and dying millions of a transplanted race; for four hundred years Ethiopia stretched forth her hands ...
— The Negro • W.E.B. Du Bois
... wooden shoes. If he had his way he would have laws enacted forbidding peasant folk to change their ancient costumes. He would preserve every relic of feudalism. He bitterly laments the division of great estates. A nobleman's park with its beautiful idle acres, its deer, its pheasants, and its scurrying rabbits, is so much more pleasant to look at than a succession of market-gardens. Poachers, game-keepers, and squires are alike interesting, if only they would dress so that he could know them apart. He is ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... must now fire from the left shoulder,—the right eye being like Goldsmith's tea-cups, "wisely kept for show." But as I touched the shrubbery there was a stir, a rustle, a whirr, and away went a large brown bird, scurrying off toward the sea. Upon the impulse of the moment, I up gun, and blazed after. To my amazement, the bird fell. I stumped off for my prize, actually achieving a sort of run, the first for years,—pretty sure, however, that the creature was making game ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... sing! And I will lurk here listening, Though nought be done, and nought begun, And work-hours swift are scurrying. ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... was not to be so soon. The iron bars, which my father had engineered so that they sank deep into the wall on either side, still held nobly, and I heard the loud voice crying again for a battering-ram. The soldiers of the attacking party went scurrying across the yard, and presently returned, carrying between them a young tree cleared of its branches, but with the rough bark still ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... was broken by a squirrel's scurrying flight in the boughs above them. Anne looked up, and laughed, and their moment passed ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... a spectacle to enchant the senses. She could not think why so many passengers were scurrying to and fro anxious to be taken ashore. It seemed as foolish as to try to get into a picture instead of sitting ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... to the terrible French and his cavalry. No sooner did the Boers realise that the horsemen were upon them, than they beat a hasty retreat. Before the cavalry were in position, the Boers and their wagons could be seen scurrying off for the river. Arm-chair critics at home have strongly criticised French for what followed. They claim that what should have been a rout, ended in an orderly escape. But they forget several factors in ...
— Sir John French - An Authentic Biography • Cecil Chisholm
... hand for the only time in her life, dashed upstairs like a whirlwind. Every room in the brick house was as neat as wax, and she had only to pull up the shades, go over the floors with a whisk broom, and dust the furniture. The aunts could hear her scurrying to and fro, beating up pillows and feather beds, flapping towels, jingling crockery, singing meanwhile in ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... scheme was evident now. They had captured the camp and the wagon with its contents, and, knowing the difficult country and crossings along the lower Fork, were scurrying with their booty around the great southward bend, hoping to get away to the west, reach the trail of the war-party that had evaded the cavalry, and follow on with their prize. Or else, still keeping within the reservation line, to drive on westward for ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... a wild rush of naked, scurrying feet, and a quick panting of brown bosoms along the winding path that led to Baldwin's house at Rikitea. A trading schooner had just dropped anchor inside the reef, and the runners, young lads and girls—half-naked, ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... scream, rose up ahead. Had they been closer, they might have noted the pricking ears of the desert steeds; but this much they saw:—one horse and rider darting out of the press, like arrow from bow, and scurrying away over the plain as if their former gait had been but ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... the names Ellen had written on the slate, did not unbend. It was not merely the vulgar joke that had offended him. No, what really rankled was the sudden chill his unlooked-for entrance had cast over the group; they had scattered and gone scurrying about their business, like a pack of naughty children who had been up to mischief behind their master's back. He was the schoolmaster—the spoilsport. They were all ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... the front, as some mechanism whirred for an instant. A gong sounded above, and scurrying feet could be heard—then were audible no more. It was the warning alarm for the gangsters: they ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... assured myself, that the ghost story I had broiled up to tell on the morrow would send my suburban-mad family scurrying back to town. ...
— Back to the Woods • Hugh McHugh
... away through the pleasant fir woods, and we are following him as fast as we can lay legs to ground—scrambling over the rotten banks, scurrying along the soft rides, lying low on our saddles to avoid the sweeping boughs, and watching with all our eyes for the slippery roots that crawl along the surface of the sandy soil. Down through the bogs, across the bridge by the home farm, past the park, into the fallow fields, with half ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... the rout at Beaumont, in ragged uniforms, begrimed with blood and dirt, who inoculated the others with their own terror. Down the wide valley, from the wooded hills across the stream, came one universal, all-pervading uproar, the scurrying tramp of other hosts in swift retreat; the 1st corps, coming from Carignan and Douzy, the 12th flying from Mouzon with the shattered remnants of the 5th, moved like puppets and driven onward, all of them, by that one same, inexorable, irresistible pressure ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... wind was unfavorable, but he was compelled to believe that he had ridden much further than he first supposed, in order to be beyond reach of the reports. After mounting his mustang, he had sent him scurrying on a dead run through the bush, and kept it up for several minutes, before emerging into the open country: that was sufficient to take him a long way and, as he believed, excluded the one means of guidance which otherwise would ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis
... a light wind, and now and then the young trees in the lane were driven into a soft tumult of whispering leaves. Burr did not notice when into this voice of the wind and this noise as of a crowd of softly scurrying ghosts there came a crisp rustle of muslin and a quick footstep up the lane. He only looked up when Madelon Hautville stopped before him and looked at him with incredulous alarm, as if she could not believe the ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... worth a thousand battleships, or fifty divisions of soldiers. It is a weapon that will, if continuously, and consistently and faithfully used, bring a money-loving nation, like Japan to her knees, and send her finally, scurrying like a whipped cur, with her tail between her legs back ...
— Flash-lights from the Seven Seas • William L. Stidger
... at the scurrying gang. He was waiting for one man, Taung S'Ali. But that redoubtable person, having probably suggested this dash for liberty, had fully realized the enviable share of attention he would attract during the passage. He ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... them, outdistanced them, and at night left them stranded in the wilderness, and rose again and mocked them on the morrow. Her father and oafish brother loved the makeshifts of the wagon life, with its chance shots at fleeing antelope, scurrying sage-hens, and bounding cotton-tails; a chance parley with a stray Indian but added zest to the game of chance. But Sally hated it all. The cabin on Elder Creek had a tight roof; Warren Rodney had money in the bank. He had had uncommon luck ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... ward, big drops began to patter down, and Gertie's cherished Minnie, suffering from a terrible attack of pneumonia, was well sprinkled before her anxious mother could remove her to a sheltered spot. The sprinkle was but the beginning of a smart shower that sent the children scurrying to the house with their arms filled with a jumble of patients and bedding. Gertie regarded them dumped in a heap on the kitchen ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... A quick scurrying in the grass, and the pressure of two small paws upon my trousers' leg brought me to myself, and I bent down to pat the yellow head of Fido, who had espied me, and instantly ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... noble spirit in youth, but there were terrible hereditary influences at work, and I cannot honestly say that I think he was wholly responsible for his sins. If I could think that this act was done reasonably, in a solemn and recollected spirit, and was not a mere frightened scurrying out of life, I should be, I believe, wholly glad. I do not see that any one had anything to gain by his continuing to live; and if reason is given us to use, to guide our actions by, it seems to me that we do right ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... scurrying along, collecting her scattered guests, as before. "Tea!" she said. "Tea for one or two who must make an early start back to town. Also a sip and a bite for ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... all the scouts admitted. Some of them were filled with a certain awe, as they saw how inky the clouds looked. But what boy, or man either, for that matter, is there who has not felt this sensation when watching scurrying clouds that tell of an ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... familiar sound which he had so often heard away back in the Adirondack woods, of some startled creature scurrying to shelter. ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... first met Dumps he was scurrying towards me along a sequestered country lane. It was in the Dog Days. Dust lay thick on the road; the creature's legs were remarkably short though active, and his hair being long he swept up the dust in clouds as he ran. He was yelping, and ...
— My Doggie and I • R.M. Ballantyne
... flared up, brighter and brighter, into a broad sea of flame that flowed away in a narrow stream of fire as the great company filed out of the square into the street beyond. Then, as the place of meeting was emptied, a breeze of cold air rushed into the vacant space; there was hurrying and scurrying of those who remained last, as they ran to take their places, and while a burst of march music was heard in the distance at the head of the column, the last stragglers fell into the file behind, the last ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... to her thoughts had she known of the passions that filled Trevison when, while she sat on the porch of the Bar B ranchhouse, he mounted Nigger and sent him scurrying through the mellow moonlight toward Manti. He was playing the "game," with justice as his goal. The girl had caught something of the spirit of it all, but she had neglected to grasp the all-important element of ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... alarm. Mounted police charged down the dark thoroughfare swinging their swords as they rode at the scurrying men and women who raced for shelter. Big Ivan dragged Anna into a doorway, and toward their hiding place ran a young boy who, like themselves, had no connection with the group and who merely desired to get out of harm's way till the storm ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... one moment the houses were homes, functioning as such. An alarm, infectious like the cholera, and at the next moment the deserted houses became spiritless, degenerated into intolerable museums for the amazement of a representative of the American and the British Press! Where the scurrying families went to I never even inquired. Useless to inquire. They just lost themselves on the face of the earth, and were henceforth known to mankind by the generic name of "refugees"—such of them as managed to ...
— Over There • Arnold Bennett
... took to chasing a red squirrel near me. I heard them scurrying through the trees, but could see nothing. The chase passed out of hearing, and I had almost forgotten it, for something was moving in the underbrush near my bait, when back it came with a rush. The squirrel, half ...
— Wilderness Ways • William J Long
... hunt rabbits?" cried Polly, in horror, leaning out of her side of the big coach to see the scurrying ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... few minutes a strange scene of confusion, of hurrying and scurrying hither and thither. Where there had been almost pitch darkness, was now a glittering, brilliant bath of light, in which the figures of men and women, moving swiftly to and fro, appeared like animated silhouettes. But even ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... down at Grandfather Mole, who was still scurrying frantically about the garden. If he heard their talk he did nothing to let them know it. And they had begun to think that they would never know his secret when a person who looked somewhat like Grandfather Mole thrust her head and shoulders out of a ...
— The Tale of Grandfather Mole • Arthur Scott Bailey
... completeness of this overthrow, the bear was on his feet again before his conqueror, and scurrying to refuge like a frightened rat. He made for the nearest tree, and that nearest tree, to Crimmins's dismay, was Crimmins's. The startled guide swung himself hastily to a higher branch which stretched well out over ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... from him, but he could see them hiding in corners and scurrying along the sides of the tunnel. Around him, six rat-like remote-control robots moved with him, shifting their pattern constantly as they patrolled his ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... the crowd cheered noisily; the runners for the hotels began to bark like a pack of dogs. With a vast turmoil of paddle wheels, swirling of white and green waters, bellowing of speaking trumpets, throwing of handlines and scurrying of deck hands and dock hands, the Panama came to rest. After considerable delay the gangplank was placed. The passengers began to disembark, facing the din much as they would have faced the buffeting of a strong wind. ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... read more. All the time the stream of people never ceases passing from the Surrey side to the Strand; from the Strand to the Surrey side. It seems as if the poor had gone raiding the town, and now trapesed back to their own quarters, like beetles scurrying to their holes, for that old woman fairly hobbles towards Waterloo, grasping a shiny bag, as if she had been out into the light and now made off with some scraped chicken bones to her hovel underground. ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... For now I think on't, I did hear them last night scurrying under our window, and howling and whining for man's flesh in yon market-place. But no fat burgher did pity the poor vagabones, and drop ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... sent him scurrying back to his hiding- place, where he sank on the floor, shivering and cringing. Nearer and nearer roared the thunder, and the wind seemed as anxious to get into the house as he was eager to get out of it. Gradually his arms and legs ceased jerking, his head relaxed against an empty box, he laid ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... seemed to be staring at him. He heard more than one American in the scurrying throng say to another, "English," and he felt relieved until an Englishman or two upset his confidence by brutally alluding to him as ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... the mountain, however, the greater peril began to assert itself. For a time the Irishman kept himself fully awake and alert by pushing the 956 to the ragged edge of hazard, scurrying over the short tangents and lifting her around the curves in breath-taking spurts. Later this expedient began to lose its fillip. Since the train was running wholly on the air-brakes there was nothing ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... to see the light! How pleased he was to see all the Evil Things of the dark scurrying back into their holes! He could now find his way, and he made for the edge of the treacherous marsh with such haste that he had not time to wonder at the strange thing that had happened. He did not know that the blessed light that showed him his path to ...
— Edmund Dulac's Fairy-Book - Fairy Tales of the Allied Nations • Edmund Dulac
... skin was my kilt and my shanks were bare, whatever I had to meet had met me in the round space among the candle-wood roots. The hair on my wrists stirred, a cry came to my throat and was over the edge of it and into the dark night like a man's heart scurrying craven to ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... there is never at night the complete stillness that there was here. There is the rustle of the myriad animals on the beach, all the little shelled things that crawl about ceaselessly, and there is the noisy scurrying of the land-crabs. Now and then in the lagoon you hear the leaping of a fish, and sometimes a hurried noisy splashing as a brown shark sends all the other fish scampering for their lives. And above all, ceaseless like time, is the dull roar of the ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... I doing in this awful galley? Why had I left my wife and child and tranquil home? The wind freshened as soon as we got out to sea. There were horrible noises and rattling of tins and swift scurrying of stewards. The ship rolled, which I particularly hate a ship to do. And I was fully dressed and it seemed as if all the tender parts of my body were tied up with twine. What was I doing ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... enter the Mystic Gallery, and find themselves in a dim passage, opposite a partitioned compartment, in which is a glass case, supported on four pedestals, with a silver crescent at the back. The Illusions—to judge from a sound of scurrying behind the scenes—have apparently ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 25, 1890 • Various
... came the order for every soul aboard to put on a life-belt, and our friends from Scotland hastened aft to obtain the equipment, scurrying and bustling about the damp ...
— Some Naval Yarns • Mordaunt Hall
... came up directly into the wind; the anchor was lowered; down came the sails. There was great scurrying about on deck. ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... there was a spacious kitchen with a fire-place as large as a moderate-sized room—a kitchen that had been abandoned altogether to spiders, beetles, rats, and mice. A whole army of four-footed vermin scampered off as Vixen crossed the threshold. She could see them scuttling and scurrying along by the wall, with a whisking of slender tails as they vanished into their holes. The beetles were disporting themselves on the desolate hearth, the spiders had woven draperies for the dim dirty windows. ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... noise of shot and shout and yell was deafening; the charging line broke, careering right and left and straight through. On scoured the shrieking squads, but leaving dead and wounded ponies and limping, scurrying warriors. ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... for letting me come up," he began. "I'm becoming accustomed to dodging chambermaids and scurrying up back stairs. But I'm ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... single out the boys that they like best and affectionately implore them to begin the Christian life. All the time the choir is singing a swinging revival hymn; the preacher is standing over his audience shouting 'Get busy, sinners,' and two or three boys are scurrying back and forth carrying water to the thirsty ones, while little groups of the faithful are hovering over a penitent, smothering sinner, trying to 'pull her through.' During this kind of a meeting which I attended at one time a woman 'got happy' and went around slapping everyone ...
— The Evolution of the Country Community - A Study in Religious Sociology • Warren H. Wilson
... a cannon, he lifted his head a little higher, and looked back. A cloud of blue smoke was drifting away from the now distant schooner, a boat was alongside, and a fleet of canoes was scurrying out of range. His recent companions had then escaped, and pursuit of them had so attracted the attention of the Indians that none had given him a thought. They doubtless never questioned but what ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... came scurrying away from a card sorter. "What's this!" he exclaimed. "Oh, it's you, Lefty." His face went solemn with his effort, and I felt a twinge in my ear lobe. I returned the grip, tweaking his ear the same way. He began to smile, realizing that I had felt ...
— The Right Time • Walter Bupp
... the grumble of jolted cannon as the scurrying horses were lashed toward the front. Once, a young officer on a besplashed charger nearly ran him down. He turned and watched the mass of guns, men, and horses sweeping in a wide curve toward a gap in a fence. The officer was making excited motions with a gauntleted hand. The guns ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... of my Lady Landale to prefer to keep us in this unnatural anxiety—most unkind indeed! She must have singularly good reasons for so doing.... Captain Smith, my friend, Mr. Cochrane, or whatever may be your name, we have an account to settle. And there is that fool of an Adrian scurrying over the seas in search of his runaway wife! By George! my hand is not ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... heritage of trivial witty ana: literary, dramatic, legal, aristocratic, ecclesiastical, commercial. How good to dip them all deep in the great ocean of oblivion, and watch the bookworms, diarists, 'raconteurs,' and all the old-clothesmen of life, scurrying out of their holes, as when in summer-time Mary Anne submerges the cockroach trap within the pail! And oh, let there be no Noah to that flood! Let none survive to tell another tale; for, only when the chronicler of small-beer is dead shall we be able to ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... spinning out! I see I must skip the wrestling; and the boys jumping in sacks, and rolling wheelbarrows blindfolded; and the donkey-race, and the fight which arose thereout, marring the otherwise peaceful "veast;" and the frightened scurrying away of the female feast-goers, and descent of Squire Brown, summoned by the wife of one of the combatants to stop it; which he wouldn't start to do till he had got on his top-boots. Tom is carried away by old Benjy, dog-tired and surfeited ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... summer afternoon we sped onward through this beautiful valley. Far down on the tracks below trains would go scurrying by; now and then a slow freight would challenge our competition; trainmen would look up curiously; occasionally an engineer would sound a note of defiance or a blast of victory with ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... dainty, dainty maid to the borders of the brook Lingered down as lightly as the breeze; And the shy water-spiders quit their scurrying to look; And the happy water whispered to the trees. —C. G. ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... into a run down the hill; shortly afterward the rest of the gang came scurrying down, awaked by the kicks of the ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... no noise until he turned the knob of the door to his room. There was a sudden, scurrying sound inside. Though he was a man of very nervous temperament the inventor was no coward. He darted in, in time to see a figure making through the dark ...
— The Submarine Boys' Trial Trip - "Making Good" as Young Experts • Victor G. Durham
... Deroulede, with Juliette well protected in their midst, had not joined the general onrush as yet. The crowd in the open place was still very thick, the outward-branching streets were very narrow: through these the multitude, scampering, hurrying, scurrying, like a human torrent let out of a whirlpool, rushed ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... of the enemy dared to accept the gauge of battle he flung before them, would swoop down and try to make a target of these marching columns. Then for a brief period there would be exciting work, with the machine gun of the scurrying plane splashing its spray of bullets amidst the scurrying soldiers, and the daring pilot in ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach
... there. The good woman gathered him up, and soothed him; and as soon as he could speak he told her in a shivering voice about the awful monster which had come to slay them all. He had scarcely got out the word 'monster,' when there was a scurrying in the chimney, and the monster presented himself before them, and calmly sat down on the meal-barrel. 'It's just a puggy!' cried the shepherd's wife (she had been to Inverness), and began to stroke Tricky on the back. As she did so, ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond
... dog, discovered some ants scurrying in the moss, and he at once began to watch them and wag ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... set off. It was pleasant riding over the green prairie. Now and then the children saw little prairie dogs scurrying in and out of their burrows. And once they saw a rattlesnake. But the serpent crawled quickly out of the way, and Bert and Nan did not stop to see where it went. ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Great West • Laura Lee Hope
... knew to be assured also to many creatures besides ourselves. On the other side of the screen of broad leaves we sensed the presence of life. It did not intrude on us, nor were we permitted to intrude on it. But it was there. We heard it rustling, pattering, scrambling, whispering, scurrying with a rush of wings. More subtly we felt it, as one knows of a presence in a darkened room. By the exercise of imagination and experience we identified it in its manifestations—the squirrel, the partridge, the weasel, ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... Astor fortune) several of them had long been slyly defrauding in other fields, particularly by the corrupt procuring of valuable city land before and during the Tweed regime. They had also been enriching themselves by the corrupt obtaining of railroad grants. There was a scurrying about by Phelps, Dodge and Company to explain that some mistake had been made; but the Government steadfastly pressed its action; and Secretary Boutwell curtly informed them that if they were innocent of guilt, they had the opportunity of proving ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... homeland," she cried, "shall I really be there and worship in its churches again! How I long for a wee look at a winter landscape, to feel the cold wind, and see the frost in the cart-ruts, to hear the ring of shoes on the hard frozen ground, to see the glare of the shops, and the hurrying scurrying crowd, to take a back seat in a church, and hear without a care of my own the congregation singing, and hear how they preach and pray and rest their souls in ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... it. The paper he still held in his hand. After a second of indecision, while he looked over his shoulder at the descending crowd of seamen, he thrust it in on top of the box and stood erect, flushed and swaying. The hands were preoccupied and none seemed to notice his act. There was a general scurrying of sailors to get out their cutlasses and pistols, and in the confusion Jeremy found an easy opportunity to crawl out of the hiding place and busy himself ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... might have been borne. But the squeaking and shrieking, the hurrying and scurrying, so that you could neither hear yourself speak nor get a wink of good honest sleep the live-long night! Not to mention that, Mamma must needs sit up, and keep watch and ward over baby's cradle, or there'd have been a big ugly rat ...
— More English Fairy Tales • Various
... the bottom of Delaware Bay, like small prairies. Then there were exquisite oases of waving green seaweed, gardens of sea flowers and ferns, and hillocks of rocks, with all sorts of queer sea animals, crabs, jelly-fish, and devil-fish, scurrying about them. ...
— Madge Morton's Victory • Amy D.V. Chalmers
... Presently recovering himself a little he strove to shut the swinging casement, but the wind was so boisterous, that he had to pause a moment to gain strength for the effort, and instinctively he glanced out at the tempestuous night. The clouds were scurrying over the sky like great black vessels on a foaming sea,—the lightning flashed incessantly, and the thunder reverberated Over the mountains in tremendous volleys as of besieging cannon. Stinging drops of icy sleet dashed his ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... down which the manager fled to an alley at one side of the theater, where his car was waiting for him. He stood for a while with his foot on the step and his hand on the door, looking rather blankly at the gray, cold wall and the scurrying whirlwinds of ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... clear, with a fresh land breeze blowing, and a sky heavily flecked with fast-scurrying clouds, between which the stars and moon blinked down upon them intermittently. They were no sooner clear of the land than they began to look about them for the ship, and within a few minutes they ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... co-operation, even in such a simple matter as war-measures against Germany, a thing of supreme difficulty. The mere rumour that China might dispatch an Expeditionary Force to Mesopotamia was sufficient to send the host of unofficial Japanese agents in Peking scurrying in every direction and insisting that if the Chinese did anything at all they should limit themselves to sending troops to Russia, where they would be "lost"—a suggestion made because that was what Japan herself offered to do when she declined in ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... house that I have anything to do with, there is some sort of desk or table for writing in the hall. How often I have been in other people's houses when it was necessary to send a message, or to record an address, when the whole household began scurrying around trying to find a pencil and paper! This, to my mind, is an outward and visible sign of ...
— The House in Good Taste • Elsie de Wolfe
... those nearest him, the reproachful turn of their heads, or, if he came too near, their spattering run out of water, feet and wings pumping together as they rose from the surface, looking for all the world like fat little women, scurrying with clutched skirts across city streets. The pelicans, too, delighted him as they perched with pedantic solemnity upon wharf-piles, or sailed in hunched and huddled gravity twenty feet above the river's surface in swift, dignified flight, which always ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various |
