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verb
Scramble  v. i.  (past & past part. scrambled; pres. part. scrambling)  
1.
To clamber with hands and knees; to scrabble; as, to scramble up a cliff; to scramble over the rocks.
2.
To struggle eagerly with others for something thrown upon the ground; to go down upon all fours to seize something; to catch rudely at what is desired. "Of other care they little reckoning make, Than how to scramble at the shearer's feast."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Scramble" Quotes from Famous Books



... the baldachin, the pilgrims now wind in solemn procession round the statue in front of the church, and finally enter, when another religious celebration takes place. Services are going on all day long and late into the night. Hardly do these devotees give themselves time for meals, which are a scramble at best, every hotel and boarding-house much overcrowded. The table d'hte dinner, or one or two dishes, are hastily swallowed, and the praying, chanting, marching and prostrating begin afresh. At eight o'clock from afar comes the sound of ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... I considered you one of the most eloquent minds I had ever listened to—but naturally, sir, you are too smart to be honest. You say you ain't been convicted yet; but you're going to be! There's quite a scramble for places on the jury already. There was pistols drawed up at the tavern by some of our best people, sir, who got het up disputin' who was eligible to serve." The judge groaned. "You should be thankful ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester

... than her arrival had been looked for, and at once all Paris was in a scramble of preparation. Laborers and artists worked night and day. The weather was piercingly cold. Indeed, no less than three hundred English were said to have died of colds contracted on the day of ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer

... called forth a round of view halloos! Who-hoops! Tally-ho's! Hark forwards! amidst which, and the waving of napkins, and general noises, Tom proceeded at a twisting, limping, halting, sideways sort of scramble up the room. His crooked legs didn't seem to have an exact understanding with his body which way they were to go; one, the right one, being evidently inclined to lurch off to the side, while the left one went stamp, stamp, stamp, ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees

... to free trade had halted, and nation after nation was becoming aggressively protectionist. The triumph of Prussia in the War of 1870 revived and intensified military rivalry and military preparations on the part of all the powers of Europe. A new scramble for colonies and possessions overseas began, with the late comers nervously eager to make up for time lost. In this reaction Britain shared. Protection raised its head again in England; only by tariffs and tariff bargaining, ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton

... children,—twenty of whom, perhaps, he made to stand rigidly in a row, like so many bricks,—then, giving one a push, would laugh obstreperously to see the whole row tumble down. He would lie on his back, and allow the little things to scramble over him. His Majesty admitted Mr. ——— to great closeness of intercourse, and informed him of a conspiracy which was then on foot for the Czar's murder. On the evening, when the assassination was to take ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... lost its beauty to Percy, now, as he saw Ralph scramble rapidly down the hillside in the direction of the trees; among which the French battery was placed, and over and among which the shells were bursting, every second. It seemed like entering ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty

... life is a scramble for marks. The school managers and masters are interested in getting the boys stuffed with facts, dates, figures, and inflections, because the prestige of the school—and consequently its commercial success—is mainly dependent upon the creditable placing of pupils in public examinations. ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst

... store-room. Then they went on again, and having made the acquaintance of the two horses, six cows, three pigs, and one Alderney "Bossy," as calves are called in New England, Tommy took Nat to a certain old willow-tree that overhung a noisy little brook. From the fence it was an easy scramble into a wide niche between the three big branches, which had been cut off to send out from year to year a crowd of slender twigs, till a green canopy rustled overhead. Here little seats had been fixed, and a hollow place a closet ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott

... mentioned by most of the best European papers as the only possible Elective Tsar of Russia if the Romanoffs are driven out by the Revolution, and the people go back to the old Constitution. In fact, some of them went so far as to say that nothing but his selection could prevent a scramble for the fragments of Russia which could only end in ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith

... small matter of tithes and dues standing in my book against thy name. Dost thou wish to go a debtor before the Judge? Alas! how can I give thee quittance of the heavenly dues, when thou hast not cleared thyself of the dues of earth?' Then there is a scramble for the old canvas bag from its hiding-place behind the ingle-nook. A small remembrance to Holy Church and to me, her minister, can do no harm, and may do much good. Follows confession, absolution—and, comforted ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett

... matter of seconds only. Then the threat broke. The quiet was shocked into desperate action. There was the shout of human voices. There was the rush and scramble of feet. Then, in the midst of the tumult, a great tongue of flame leaped up from the heart of ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum

... had found a seat at the Alm next to the low wall, across which he could see a vast stretch of undulating country, lighted by a moon that seemed to swing like a silver hoop in the sky, Krayne ordered Pilsner. He was fatigued by the hilly scramble and he was thirsty. Oh, the lovely thirst of Marienbad—who that hath not been within thy hospitable gates he knoweth it not! The magic of the night was making of him a poet. He could see his Tyrolean friends behind the glass partition of the little hall. There would they sing, not in the ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker

... proportionably, who now began to kick, prance, stand on end, neigh, immoderately shake himself, utterly disregarding both his bridle and rider, and running a tilt against the stalls of oranges, gingerbread, gloves, breeches, shoes, &c., which he overthrew and trampled under foot; this occasioned a scramble among the boys for the eatables, and there were some who were but too unmerciful to the scattered goods of the poor shoemakers and glovers, who, enraged by their several losses, began to curse the doctor and his ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown

... variety of home-baked cake was a source of pride, and there was never any lack of punch, with decanters of Madeira. The diplomats gave champagne, but it was seldom seen except at the legations. At eleven there was a general exodus, and after the usual scramble for hats, cloaks, and over-shoes the guests entered their carriages. Sometimes a few intimate friends of the hostess lingered to enjoy a contra- dance or to take a parting drink of punch, but by midnight the last guest departed, and the servants began to blow out ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore

... time, still irreconcilable. Nobili stands in the central window of his palace. He leans out over the street, a cigar in his mouth. A servant beside him flings down from time to time some silver coin among Leghorn hats and the beggars, who scramble for it on the pavement. Nobili's eyes beam as the populace look up and cheer him: "Long live Count Nobili! Evviva!" He takes off his hat and bows; more silver coin comes clattering down on the pavement; there are fresh evvivas, fresh bows, and more scramblers cover the ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot

... wonderful how people do thoroughly and unaffectedly enjoy a fearful disturbance; if the cannon could be shot off quietly, and guns made no noise, battles would not be half so popular to read about. The silent arrow is uninteresting, and if you describe a mediaeval scramble you must put in plenty of splintering lances, resounding armour, shrieks and groans, and so ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies

... bewildered were they in their despair, that they could give no definite account of what had become of him. Mr. Roe immediately went in search, and not many miles in the rear, found the poor fellow quite dead in a bush, with his blanket half rolled round him. It appeared that he had tried to scramble up a sandhill and had fallen back into the bush and died—a sad and melancholy fate for one so young. He had laboured under great disadvantages in walking, having cut his feet in very gallantly swimming out to save ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes

... probably could not have received such a storm of fisticuffs without giving up the ghost. Fortunately for him, he had one of those excellent Breton heads that break the sticks which beat them. Save for a certain giddiness, he came out of the scramble safe and sound. Far from losing his presence of mind by the disadvantageous position in which he found himself, he supported himself upon the ground with his left hand, and, passing his other arm behind him, he wound it around the workman's legs, who thus ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard

... and scramble down the rocks, drinking cup in hand, and slake our thirst at this crystal fountain. Was ever a more delightful draught for thirsty mortals than from this little pool hidden away here in this mountain fastness? It is a place in which druids and wood-nymphs might revel, surrounded on all sides by ...
— Byways Around San Francisco Bay • William E. Hutchinson

... happened for Uncle Billy during the turmoil and scramble that went on about him all the day long. He had not been forced to discover a way to meet an offer of $1,500, without hurting the putative giver's feelings. No lobbyist had the faintest idea of "approaching" the old man in that way. The members and the hordes ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington

... meddle or make.] We for our parts little thinking in what danger we were, fell in to scramble among the rest to get what we could of the Monies that were strewed about, being then in great necessity and want. For the allowance which formerly we had was in this Disturbance lost, and so we remained without it for some three Months, the want ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox

... and the strange abysmal necessity of our having so eternally to put up with each other. If we could intermit that vain superstition somehow, for about three minutes, I often think the air might clear (as by the scramble of the game of General Post, or whatever they call it) and we should all get out of our wrong corners and find ourselves in our right, glaring from these positions a happy and natural defiance. Then I shouldn't be thus nominally and pretendedly (it's too ignoble!) on the same side or in the same ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo

... comfortably than I have ever done," replied Helmsley—"that is, if to 'live comfortably' implies to live peacefully, happily, and contentedly, taking each day as it comes with gladness as a real 'living' time. And by this, I mean 'living,' not with the rush and scramble, fret and jar inseparable from money-making, but living just for the joy of life. Especially when it is possible to believe that a God exists, who designed life, and even death, for the ultimate good of every creature. This is what I believed—once—'out ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli

... "So I have," he said. He was about to go on to say that he wondered if he would be caught at all, when—whiz! with a scramble and a scuffle a cuckoo rushed out of a clock just above his head and bobbed intently up and down twelve times. Amos had got only as far as "wonder." "Wonder—wonder—" he stammered, as he ...
— Zodiac Town - The Rhymes of Amos and Ann • Nancy Byrd Turner

... so cold, and it snowed so, they had to leave off. Never mind, Kitty, we'll go and see the bonfire to-morrow.' Here Alice wound two or three turns of the worsted round the kitten's neck, just to see how it would look: this led to a scramble, in which the ball rolled down upon the floor, and yards and yards of it got ...
— Through the Looking-Glass • Charles Dodgson, AKA Lewis Carroll

... pound smoked sturgeon; beat six eggs until light, add sturgeon; have butter heated in a skillet, add the mixture and scramble. Serve with ...
— Stevenson Memorial Cook Book • Various

... women whom it seems natural to help, to whom men bring cushions, and with whom other women are always ready to sympathise. If one of Fra Angelico's saints should walk into a modern drawing-room all the men would fall over each other in the scramble to make her comfortable, and all the women would offer her tea and ask her ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford

... redouble their thwacking, shuffle along like land-crabs, and while the Mates, Peons, and Tokedars shout at them to encourage them, they raise a roar loud enough to wake the dead. The dust rises in denser clouds, the noise is deafening, a regular mad hurry-scurry, a wild boisterous scramble ensues, and amid much chaffing, noise, and laughter, they scramble off again to begin another length of land; and so the day's ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis

... dangle; as also in mumble, grumble, jumble. But at the same time the close u implies something obscure or obtunded; and a congeries of consonants mbl, denotes a confused kind of rolling or tumbling, as in ramble, scamble, scramble, wamble, amble; but in these there ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson

... from the Moengal Pass to the Sand Sea is so steep that it is necessary to make it on foot, even the nimble-footed ponies having all they can do to scramble down the precipitous and slippery trail. It is well to cross the Sand Sea as soon after daybreak as possible, for by mid-morning the heat is like a blast from an open furnace-door. It is a four mile ride across the ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell

... coules is easy, you need only let yourself glide down; but it is more difficult to get up again. You have to scramble up by catching hold of the hanging branches of the trees, and sometimes on all fours, by sheer strength. A whole mortal hour passed, and still the captain did not come, nothing moved in the brushwood. The captain's ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant

... length, hurried on by the gale, and by their own exertions, the raft reached the beach, when a sea striking it washed them off, though happily they were thrown sufficiently high up the sand to enable them to gain their feet and scramble up out of the way of ...
— Sunshine Bill • W H G Kingston

... with a provisional smile, and then he was frightened from his irony by her flinging aside her wraps and starting to her feet. Before he could scramble to his own, she had slid down the reeling promenade half to the guard, over which she seemed about to plunge. He hurled himself after her; he could not have done otherwise; and it was as much in a wild clutch for ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... increasing. A similar improvement is much wanted in Covent Garden, by which means many of the evils of that spot would be abated, and instead of seeing Nature's choicest productions huddled together, and being ourselves tortured in the scramble and confusion of a crowd, we might then range through the avenues of Covent Garden with all the comfort which our forefathers were wont to enjoy on this spot, ...
— Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 276 - Volume 10, No. 276, October 6, 1827 • Various

... day began to break I put on my shoes and climbed a hill—the ruggedest scramble I ever undertook—falling, the whole way, between big blocks of granite, or leaping from one to another. When I got to the top the dawn was come. There was no sign of the brig, which must have lifted from the reef and sunk. The boat, too, was nowhere to be seen. There ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson

... rose the cry, "A largess! a largess!" and Tom responded by scattering a handful of bright new coins abroad for the multitude to scramble for. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... so strong that he was declared In every time a Melon was sliced, and when it came time to Scramble the Eggs and pull of the grand Whack-Up, he was standing at the head of the Line with a Basket on ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade

... does that child do but trot out of the nursery, and try to scramble down the stairs.—Never tell me but that they you wot of trained him out—not that they had power over a Christian child, but that they might work their will on the little one. So they must needs trip him up, so that he rolled down ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge

... black space where a single misstep would have brought his career to a sudden termination. Again he passed through gloomy tunnels of dense foliage, slid down precipitous banks, only to plunge into rushing, bowlder-strewn torrents at the bottom, and scramble up slopes of slippery clay on the farther side, All this was done by the feeble and ever-lessening light of a moon in its first quarter, and as it finally sank out of sight the leader of the escort called a halt, declaring that they could not move ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe

... just what the speaker meant by this last sentence. But he soon found out. There was a rush and scramble in the bushes all around him, and then a dozen or more rabbits appeared. They came toward the rock like an army closing in upon the enemy, leaping over bushes or crawling ...
— Bumper, The White Rabbit • George Ethelbert Walsh

... killer—a tiger shark, for instance, or a gray nurse strayed up from Australian waters. Let such a shark appear, and, long before the passengers can guess, every mother's son of them is out of the water in a wild scramble for safety. ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London

... heavily on the young commander. With the energy of despair he fastened at last upon a daring idea. Thirty-six hundred of his men were ferried in the dead of night to a point above the city where his soldiers might scramble through bushes and over rocks up a precipitous path to a high plain— the Plains ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes

... without feeling that he had a high sense of the worth of freedom, whether in thought or government. He represents, indeed, the very object of his journey through the triple realm of shades as a search after liberty.[225] But it must not be that scramble after undefined and indefinable rights which ends always in despotism, equally degrading whether crowned with a red cap or an imperial diadem. His theory of liberty has for its corner-stone the Freedom of the Will, and the will ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell

... forehead and glared ahead at the frightened couple, holding the panting engine at a standstill till they could scramble ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey

... first to come to himself and scramble to his feet after the Browndean catastrophe, and he had no sooner remarked his prostrate nephews than he understood his opportunity and fled. A man of upwards of seventy, who has just met with a railway accident, and who is cumbered besides with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... cases it was only necessary to scramble erect again, and put on a little extra spurt in order to ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren

... boulders and picking our way over loose stones, or struggling with the wretched foothold afforded by a surface of light gravel, inclined to the horizontal at an angle of forty-five degrees. Then, with a scramble, a jump, and a little swearing in a great many languages—I think we counted that we spoke twenty-seven between us—we were on firm soil again, and swinging along over the bit of easy level path. It would have been out of the question to go in doolies, and no pony could ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford

... A wild scramble followed. They swept the gold up in handfuls and tossed it into the air, laughing like madmen as the light gleamed on the yellow surfaces. And at length when they were wearied of touching it and caressing it, Hovey apportioned the spoils: ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand

... trough of the large waves, that no one made any pretence of finding his sea-legs strong enough to keep him steady without clutching here and there for help, and I had been thankful, in a brief interval when nobody had ordered me to do anything, to scramble into a quiet corner of the forecastle and lie on the boards, rolling as the ship rolled, and very much resigned to going down with her ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... don't inspire as much respect as I should like. Perhaps it is due to the fact that a regular scramble took place for seats in the old LORD MAYOR'S Coach, in the course of which the Mayor of Tottenham Court Road was badly pommeled by the Mayor of Battersea Rise, and the coach itself had one side knocked out of it. Also that we other Mayors have to follow on foot, and are ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 11, 1893 • Various

... Cocksmoor yearnings concern me little in this Castle of Indolence, so don't flatter yourself that I shall grumble at having had to take our house on again. Let us keep Leonard; we should both miss him extremely, and Aubrey would lose half the good without some one to swim, scramble, and fight with. Indeed, for the poor fellow's own sake, he should stay, for though he is physically as strong as a young megalosaur, and in the water or on the rocks all day, I don't think his head is come to application, nor his health to bearing depression; and I ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... round the points and over the rocks, till they had got to a considerable distance from the place where the picnic had been held. A dry rock, high above the water, which they could reach by going along a ledge connecting it with the mainland, tempted them to scramble out to it. There they chose a nice cosy, dry nook, where, sitting down, the water immediately around them was hidden from their sight. This circumstance must be remembered. It was very delightful. They ...
— Adrift in a Boat • W.H.G. Kingston

... while the dogs continued to embarrass her. They now began to fear that, in spite of dogs and men, the wounded bears would escape, when an opportune crack in the ice presented itself, into which they both tumbled, followed by the yelping, and we may add limping, dogs. Before they could scramble up on the other side, Meetuck and Fred, being light of foot, gained upon them ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... disapproval of the unfortunately common type of American boy who pushes women and older people aside to scramble into public conveyances and ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... lady, then—scramble!" said Mr. Polly, pulling her arm. "It's one up and two down ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells

... to duty with the "Admiral," for the craft carried a number of soldiers as well as an ordinary crew. Both the Prince and Commander Keppel had narrow escapes. Providentially, no lives were lost, everybody being picked up by the giassas or managing to scramble ashore. As soon as possible afterwards operations were commenced to recover part of the cargo. The ship was secured from drifting by a hawser being passed around her standing gear, and made fast to stout trees ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh

... dived into the closet, with no clearly defined purpose, but it seemed the only thing to do just then; and in the scramble that followed, the missing straw hat was found on the floor, but no blue shawl kept its company. They all took hold of it in turn, looking at it solemnly, and turning it over and over, as though it possessed the secret ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving

... "I'm tired of the scramble," he kept breaking out Of silence to say. "I don't blame the boys, but it's plain to me they see that my going will let them move up one. Mason cynically voiced the whole thing today: 'I can say, "Sorry to see you go, Bloom," because your going doesn't concern me. I'm not in line of succession, ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland

... as the capture of Memphis was known at the North, there was an eager scramble to secure the trade of the long-blockaded port. Several boat-loads of goods were shipped from St. Louis and Cincinnati, and Memphis was so rapidly filled that the supply was far greater than ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox

... mountainous sea without divesting himself of any clothing; even his boots had to be taken off in the water. The ship was promptly brought to the wind, and skilfully manipulated towards the drowning man and his rescuer. The order was given to lower the cutter, and a scramble was made for the distinction of being one of the crew. The two men battled with the waves until the boat reached them. They were taken into her and saved. A short paragraph in the newspapers telling the simple story was all that was heard ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman

... rather a scramble, and nowhere more so than at a Public School. The usual Fernhurst breakfast lasted about ten minutes. Hardly anyone spoke, only the ring of forks on plates was heard and an occasional shout of "Tea" from the Sixth Form table. They alone could ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh

... these things!" he exclaimed. "You are only a girl at best, or something of a boy-girl at worst, and yet you have, or think you have, got into those places which are reserved for the old-timers in life's scramble. You talk ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... awaiting them, were told their luggage was safe, and after sitting till they were tired, shot onwards watching the beautiful glimpses of the lights in the ships off Kingstown. They would gladly have gone on all night without another disembarkation and scramble, but the Dublin station came only too soon; they were disgorged, and hastened after goods. Forth came trunk and portmanteau. Alas! none of theirs! Nothing with them but ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... and unwraps a little gift. Or a large paper sack filled with wrapped bonbons is hung between folding doors, each child blindfolded in turn, given a cane and instructed to hit the sack if he can. Presently the paper is broken and the youngsters scramble for the contents. Each little guest should thank the giver of the party and the mother for the pleasure enjoyed. The little host or hostess should stand where they can make their adieus, for it is no longer proper to "take French ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... that ever struck a mortal blow. She was alone in London: and the whole town of marvels and mud, with its maze of streets and its mass of lights, was sunk in a hopeless night, rested at the bottom of a black abyss from which no unaided woman could hope to scramble out. ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad

... piano, "We'll do Afternoon Tea." There was a momentary pause then, filled with subdued chatter, while the girls and men re-alined themselves for the new number—a pause taken advantage of by an exceedingly blond young man to scramble up on the stage and make a few remarks to the director. He was the musical director, Rose found out afterward. Galbraith, to judge from his attitude, gave his colleague's remarks about twenty-five per cent. of his attention, keeping his eye all the while on the chorus, ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster

... and the states of Languedoc, will, I believe, hardly scramble off; having only reason and justice, but no terrors on their side. Those are political and constitutional questions that well deserve your attention and inquiries. I hope you are thoroughly master of them. It is also worth your while to collect ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield

... were at work, to tell them that he had seen Mr Hope riding a pony in the oddest way, in the lane behind his lodgings. He had a side-saddle, and a horse-cloth put on like a lady's riding-habit. He rode the pony in and out among the trees, and made it scramble up the hill behind, and it went as nicely as could be, wherever he wanted it to go. Mr Hope's new way of riding was easily explained, the next time he called. Miss Young was certainly included in the invitation to Dingleford woods: it was a pity she should not go; and ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau

... acting, and one Tubero had come with his son, and had demanded the office. Ligarius had refused to give it up, and the two Tuberos had departed, leaving the province in anger, and had fought at the Pharsalus. After the battle they made their peace with Caesar, and in the scramble that ensued Ligarius was banished. Now the case was brought into the courts, in which Caesar sat as judge. The younger Tubero accused Ligarius, and Cicero defended him. It seems that, having been enticed to open his mouth on behalf of Marcellus, he found himself launched again into ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope

... It contained a few articles of wearing apparel, a pair of boots, and a pipe and pouch of tobacco. The big Indian kept the latter articles, grunting with satisfaction, and threw the boots and clothes to the others. Immediately there was a scramble. One brave, after a struggle with another, got possession of both boots. He at once slipped off his moccasins and drew on the white man's foot-coverings. He strutted around in them a few moments, but his proud manner soon changed ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey

... stop for a few minutes you may all come out," Mr. Bobbsey said. "But it is always risky to get off and have to scramble to get back again. Sometimes they promise us five minutes and give us two, taking the other three to ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore • Laura Lee Hope

... coach stopped at a distance. I flew into the Blacksmith's Shop to put on my wedding things, and Sir S. disappeared next door with clothes under one arm and a hat under the other. I should think no bride and bridegroom ever dressed in such a scramble. ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... heavily; but they kept on, somewhat disordered by the entanglement as well as by their losses, and came to the ditch. No doubt its depth and the high face of the parapet surprised them, for they had no scaling ladders. They jumped into the ditch and tried to scramble up the slope of the earthwork. Some got to the top, only to be shot down or captured. The guns flanking the ditch raked it with double charges of canister. Shells were lighted and thrown as hand-grenades into the practically ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... Line up!" ordered Dunston Porter, and after a general scramble and amid much merriment, the boys lined up. Then came the order "Go!" and all of them struck out lustily for the ...
— Dave Porter At Bear Camp - The Wild Man of Mirror Lake • Edward Stratemeyer

... it must apparently mean. He hastened to scramble to his feet again, and no sooner had he accomplished this than he was, of course, busily engaged ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson

... have not the mortification of seeing. Gaze on these objects, namely, the horrid seething pot or cauldron, the gloomy volcanic slit, and the spectral, shadowy Devil's Bridge for about three minutes, allowing a minute to each, then scramble up the bank and repair to your inn, and have no more sight-seeing that day, for you have seen enough. And if pleasant recollections do not haunt you through life of the noble falls and the beautiful wooded dingles to the west of the bridge of the Evil One, and awful ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow

... Slievemore) the Great Mountain, in front, with many others stranger still of name. Then the Sound came in sight, with the iron viaduct-bridge which has turned the island into a peninsula. Then the final dismount, and a scramble among rusty rails, embankments, sleepers, and big boulders strewn about in hopeless chaos. Then the little inn, with a stuffed fox and a swan in the porch. A glance at the day-before-yesterday's paper, which has just arrived, and is considered to serve up news red-hot; and then invasion of the island. ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... I haven't washed my face. Half the time I don't, before breakfast. There's that old mattress has to be turned; and, when I sleep over, I just do that first, and then scramble my clothes on the best way I can. Any thing not ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge

... man called Bertie dashed forward, and barely succeeded in snatching the child from under the wheel. A scramble of horses' feet, an imprecation or two shouted by the irritated driver, a noisy declaration from the "fare" that he should lose his train, and the scuffle ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander

... but some houses, whose tenants are solitary folk made morose by company, congregate in the remoter coves—where the shore is the shore of the open sea and there is no crowd to trouble—whence paths scramble over the hills to the Tickle settlement. My uncle's cottage sat respectably, even with some superiority, upon a narrow neck of rock by the Lost Soul, outlooking, westerly, to sea, but in the opposite direction dwelling in a way more intimate ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan

... they have a sense of privilege—the good women of the houses will come out and talk to them as one might to a pet canary. Very often the house-wife throws broken food to them, and laughs at their scramble for it—the birds' queer difficulty in settling downward on the water, the wide sweeps they take to reach what lies beneath, the awkward dives and tumblings when they are near the surface. In full flight they are graceful ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon

... was being put in the pot to be cooked for the old men who had performed the feast, some unmannerly young fellow started to make away with one piece of the flesh. Immediately there was a scramble which was joined by some three or four hundred Ifugaos of all the different rancherias. Then the feasters (I think there were about one thousand who attended the feast) leaped for their spears and shields. The people who had come from Kiangan rushed ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox

... relay of slippers ready, and there was a scramble as to who should put them on; but she settled that question by making 'Pollo rise, with his fiddle in his arms, and lend her his chair for a minute while she pulled them on herself. Then she let Pete and Pierre each have one of the discarded ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various

... bull lay rolling on his back. That twist of his head had overbalanced him. And before he could recover himself and scramble to his feet, we had sprang over the fence and got him securely tied ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay

... of 3000 men hurriedly collected appeared under the leadership of Clodius Glaber, and occupied the approaches to Vesuvius with the view of starving out the slaves. But the brigands in spite of their small number and their defective armament had the boldness to scramble down steep declivities and to fall upon the Roman posts; and when the wretched militia saw the little band of desperadoes unexpectedly assail them, they took to their heels and fled on all sides. This first success ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... a young man, a shop assistant in Woking I believe he was, standing on the cylinder and trying to scramble out of the hole again. The crowd had ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells

... in the embrasure of the window. I tried to scramble on to a ledge of the wainscoting, hanging on by the fastening of the shutters with my back against the wall, in such a position that my feet could not be visible. When I had carefully considered my points of support, and the space between me and the curtains, ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac

... young man, with tremendous spirits, which made up for wit. He was just about to reply, when a loud shriek was heard from Jocko's place of banishment: a sort of scramble ensued, and the next moment the door was thrown violently open, and in rushed the terrified landlady, screaming like a sea-gull, and bearing Jocko aloft upon her shoulders, from which "bad eminence" he was grinning ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... a hen does he come across; they are suspicious, and roost out of reach. At last, half dead, he desires to drink, and sees a well with two pails on the chain; he descends in one of the pails, and finds it impossible to scramble out: he weeps for rage. The wolf, as a matter of course, comes that way, and they begin to talk. Though wanting very much to go, hungrier than ever, and determined to make the wolf take his place, Renard ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand

... dusty road, the carriage-wheels grinding, crunching, and skidding within a foot of his head. Luckily the reins held, and when, after being dragged a hundred yards or so, and half choked by the thick dust, he managed to scramble to his feet, he pulled with frenzied, convulsive strength on the off-side rein. The horses swerved to the fearful saw on their jaws, and pulled nearly into the left-hand hedge. Acton's desperate idea was ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson

... check him he was safe enough, being humble-minded and obedient. Men used to say he must have been born under a lucky star, for, notwithstanding his natural inaptitude for all sorts of backwoods life, he managed to scramble through everything with safety, often with ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... throats came six yells of fear; there was a noise of chairs being pushed back and a wild scramble to find safety under the table. Jud, risking a moment's delay, knocked the chimney off the lamp before he dived. The flame leaped once and went out, but the pale moonshine poured through the window and filled the room with a ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand

... and looked over the stone wall of the park. Surely Vicky Van had not had time to scramble over that wall before we reached the corner. It had been not more than a few seconds after we saw her flying form turn down the Avenue, and she couldn't have crossed the street and scaled the wall ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells

... furnished with sticks, are permitted to walk towards and try to hit it. Scores fail, others just graze the globe of paper, all amid loud laughter from the spectators. Finally some one hits the globe full and fair, bringing down the contents amid vociferous applause. Then commences a general scramble for the contents, consisting of ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou

... learn the hymns that the forest and waterfalls have been singing for ages; never really know the song of the hermit thrush or the mystery and grandeur of mountains, if you are unwilling to pay the price. You must be willing to climb high mountains, scramble down rocky gorges and ravines, thread the almost impenetrable bogs and marshes, endure fierce heat, mosquito bites, hunger and toil, "but once you are admitted into the secrets of the out-of-doors you will begin to wonder why you ever dined in hot stuffy restaurants, spent your holidays ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand

... of the island was rockier, though, and the bushes were thicker. Still, Meg and Bobby managed to scramble though, and half an hour's steady tramping brought them to ...
— Four Little Blossoms on Apple Tree Island • Mabel C. Hawley

... honour of it to Ireland; but as nothing in England was ready, this plan was settled. You may think it strange that to this moment Burke does not know a word of all this, and his family are indeed, I believe, suffering a little under the apprehension that he may be neglected in the general scramble. I believe there never were three cabinet counsellors more in harmony on any subject than we were, nor three people ...
— Burke • John Morley

... lawsuit just in the nick of time, and was obliged to scrape together every farthing of available money that he possessed to pay for the luxury of going to law. If he could have saved his seven shillings, he would certainly have sent me to scramble for a place in the pit of the great university theater; but his purse was empty, and his son was not eligible therefore for admission, in a gentlemanly capacity, at ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins

... ordered the general. "Get up a squadron. Scramble the Moon patrol and send out reserves from Earth ...
— Double Take • Richard Wilson

... start from Port Tampa, nine miles distant by rail, at daybreak the following morning; and that if we were not aboard our transport by that time we could not go. We had no intention of getting left, and prepared at once for the scramble which was evidently about to take place. As the number and capacity of the transports were known, or ought to have been known, and as the number and size of the regiments to go were also known, the task of allotting each regiment or fraction of a regiment to its ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt

... wall ladder, push it along that narrow hallway, moving boxes aside as he went, and stop somewhere along the wall. Then he'd scramble up the ladder, pull out a bin, fumble around in it, and come out with the article in question. He'd blow the dust off it, polish it with a rag, scramble down the ladder, and say: "Here 'tis. Thought I had one. Let's go back in the back and give ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett

... he came to the great sea serpent himself, lying dead at the bottom; and as he was too thick to scramble over, Tom had to walk round him three quarters of a mile and more, which put him out of his path sadly; and when he had got round, he came to the place called Stop. And there he stopped, and just ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester

... man-of-war that rode at anchor a mile away. At once his suspicions were aroused, and with a strong glass he watched the movements of the British. As he had expected, the boat steered straight for the American merchantman; and through his glass Macdonough could see the boarders scramble over the bulwarks of the vessel, and soon thereafter return to their boat, taking with them a man dressed in the garb of a merchant seaman, ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... every possible difficulty on our way: the small streams overflowed, and the ice was so bad on the rivers as to preclude travelling on them. We were therefore under the necessity of taking to the woods, through a horridly rugged country, now ascending hills so steep that we could only scramble up their sides by holding on by the branches and underwood, the descent on the opposite side being equally difficult and laborious; now forcing our way through deep ravines overgrown with underwood, all but impervious; ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean

... not as spectacular as they might be considering the landscape. They shoot themselves or take poison, which shows a certain consideration for other people. It is not a pleasant job, you know, to row to this remote spot and scramble about the cliff at the risk of a broken neck, collecting shattered fragments of ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... village, with a little Lutheran church, and some show of gardening and cultivation. They seemed delighted to stick to their German speaking, and would not even try to speak English. One amusing feature in the scramble as to allotments was that each tried, in most cases, to get trees, stones, and rocks in preference to clear ground, as if so much additional wealth. The trees might have had value for firewood, but in the other ...
— Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne & Victoria • William Westgarth

... very light and trashy, but grammatically O.K. He said he never read novels, not having time, but he thought that "The Crimson Cord" was just about the sort of thing a silly public that refused to buy his "Some Light on the Dynastic Proclivities of the Hyksos" would scramble for. On the whole I ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various

... prepared for seven or eight was often compelled to contain fifteen or sixteen.' There was a 'deficiency of knives and forks, plates and glasses. The attendance was in the same style.' There were 'two or three undisciplined domestics. The host left every one at perfect liberty to scramble for himself.' 'Rags' is certainly a strong word to apply to any of the company; but then strong words were what Johnson used. Northcote mentions 'the mixture of company.' Northcote's Reynolds, ii. 94-6. See ante, iii. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell

... parts of the meat, otherwise he would make such a noise as disturbed the whole company. When his father and mother were sitting at the tea-table with their friends, instead of waiting till they were at leisure to attend him, he would scramble upon the table, seize the cake and bread and butter, and frequently overset the tea-cups. By these pranks he not only made himself disagreeable to everybody else, but often met with very dangerous accidents. Frequently did he cut himself with knives, at other times throw heavy things ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day

... calmed, and, resolving to make for this light, he groped his way downward. It was a long and wearisome scramble, involving many a slip and slide, and not a few falls, (for it was made, of course, in total darkness), and the distant light did not appear to become stronger or nearer. At last it seemed as though it were growing. Then John found himself ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne

... came a heavy step up the stair. He had but a moment in which to scramble back into the interior of the great stove, when the door opened and the two dealers entered, bringing burning candles with ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee

... red-tape business at the War Office. They'd give her a passport to travel out with him, but not to join him afterwards, so she thought she'd better take the opportunity and go out with him while she could. It must have been a terrific scramble for her to get off. I believe she just bundled her things together and bolted, and left ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... made his joyous entry into Meun. Now it was a part of the formality on such occasions for the new King to liberate certain prisoners; and so the basket was let down into Villon's pit, and hastily did Master Francis scramble in, and was most joyfully hauled up, and shot out, blinking and tottering, but once more a free man, into the blessed sun and wind. Now or never is the time for verses! Such a happy revolution would turn the head of a stocking-weaver, and set him jingling rhymes. ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson

... talked on Klutchem's tightly knit brows began to loosen. He hadn't heard such things for a good many years. Life was a scramble and devil take the hindermost with him. If anybody but Fitz—one of the level-headed men in the Street—had talked to him thus, he might not have paid attention, but he knew Fitz was sincere and that he spoke ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith



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