"Helter-skelter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the lady who still sat near the bank, smiling more bewitchingly than ever. On reaching the top of the hill, he perceived that the sheep had already strayed down into the valley, when he hastened after them, but only to see them enter a narrow glen helter-skelter, as if they were running for dear life. He now recollected the fiddle would save him all further trouble, and drew the bow across the strings as the lady had told him, but instead of the exquisite music ...
— Up! Horsie! - An Original Fairy Tale • Clara de Chatelaine
... running away, yelling with terror. The space around the guillotine was cleared. And the prefect of police, rallying his men, drove everybody back to the prison, helter-skelter, like a disordered rabble: the magistrates, the officials, the condemned man, the chaplain, all who had passed through the archway two ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... the Baptist Church to race with Dr. McGarry. And the Piper was so shaken up he couldn't play at all. And young Mr. Martin's horse took fright at the noise and confusion, and nearly ran away, and just escaped throwing all the children into the ditch. And so they all scampered gaily, helter-skelter, back to the village, the hero far in the rear, hidden in clouds of dust, with his friends gambolling ahead. And indeed Gavin's homecoming was no more like a triumphal procession than any of the foot-ball games in which he used to take part in ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... still huddled in the doorway, they rushed away helter-skelter into the street, there to proclaim the judge's condition and its probable cause;—an event which to many quite eclipsed in interest the more ordinary one which had just released to ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... chief sins of our time is hurry: it is helter-skelter, and devil take the hind-most. Off we go all too swift at starting, and we neither run so fast nor so far as we would have done, had we taken it cannily at first. This is true of a boy as well as of a blood ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... record of it all, and it is not the purpose of this true chronicle to do more than recall with utmost brevity the chief incident of that memorable encounter, the Polish Lancers galloping back with the report that the narrow pass was held against them in strong force: the Old Guard climbing helter-skelter out of carts and wagons, examining their arms, making ready: Napoleon stepping quickly out of his coach and ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... nothing, and was therefore quite fresh, was brought into action, and made a resolute attack on the plateau of Auvours. There was a fairly long fight, which could be seen from Yvre. But the Germans were too strong for Paris's men, who at last disbanded, and came, helter-skelter, towards the bridge of Yvre in terrible confusion. Flight is often contagious, and Gougeard, who had fallen back from Champagne in fairly good order, feared lest his men should imitate their comrades. He therefore pointed two field-pieces ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... Why—Imagination, thou art an ass, and thy long ears at all times greedy of deception! 'Tis but a country Schoolhouse pouring forth its long-imprisoned stream of life as in a sudden sunny thaw, the Mad Master flying in the van of his helter-skelter scholars, and the whole yelling mass precipitated, many of them headlong, among the snow. Well do we know the fire-eyed Poet pedagogue, who, more outrageous than Apollo, has "ravished all the Nine." Ode, ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... demesne of passing richness, fair with orchard lawns and corn lands, if you should slay me? This you shall hardly do. I have discomfited you once already. Have you forgotten how when you were alone I chased you from your herds helter-skelter down the slopes of Ida? You did not turn round to look behind you; you took refuge in Lyrnessus, but I attacked the city, and with the help of Minerva and father Jove I sacked it and carried its women into captivity, though Jove and the other gods rescued you. You think they will protect ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... it is!" he reflected, as he looked about. "All sorts of odds and ends stuck about helter-skelter, and the house-keeping things trying to ...
— Different Girls • Various
... no brooklet in this wild, Smooth-resting on its mosses sleek, Like loving lips upon a cheek Soft as the face of maid or child— Just boulders, helter-skelter piled. ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... continuous narrative I have never read. But it supplied facts, hit off odds and ends of character, and—what the autobiography seldom does—it gave the ipsissima verba of conversations written in helter-skelter fashion with flowing pen, sometimes in excellent French, sometimes in English, which beginning in the elaborate style of his letter broke down into queer vernacular; it was charmingly devoid of self-consciousness, so that the man as he was, and not as he imagined himself to be or ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... of the sea. On the plains, it will often blow for forty-eight hours, accompanied by torrents of pelting, pitiless rain, and is sometimes so violent, that there is hardly any possibility of making headway against it. Sheep race before it as hard as they can go helter-skelter, leaving their lambs behind them to shift for themselves. There is no shelter on the plains, and, unless stopped by the shepherds, they will drive from one river to the next. The shepherds, therefore, have a hard time of it, for they must be out till the wind ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... have half a dozen married couples all separating, getting rid of their ribs and buckling again, helter-skelter, every man to somebody else's wife; and the parish parson refusing to do the work; just to show the ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... is their excellence." Indeed, as we have already noted in passing, simplification is the method of every art. Every artist, in his own way, simplifies life: first by selecting essentials from the helter-skelter of details that life presents to him, and then by arranging these essentials in accordance with a pattern. And we have noted also that the method of the artist in narrative is to select events which bear an essential logical relation ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... the street, helter-skelter on a sweating thoroughbred, came Maharajah Gungadhura Singh just in time to see the back of the carriage as it rumbled in through the gateway and the iron doors clanged behind it. Scowling—altogether too round-shouldered for the martial stock he sprang from—puffy-eyed, and not so ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... from side to side, gave a couple of leaps and with a swish of its tail disappeared into the skirt of the wood. At the same instant, with a cry like a wail, first one hound, then another, and then another, sprang helter-skelter from the wood opposite and the whole pack rushed across the field toward the very spot where the wolf had disappeared. The hazel bushes parted behind the hounds and Daniel's chestnut horse appeared, dark with sweat. ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... guards who had remained at the ramparts had also heard the shots, and thinking that the insurgents had entered by means of some subterranean passage, they ran up helter-skelter, in groups of five or six, disturbing the silence of the streets with the tumult of their excited rush. Roudier was one of the first to arrive. However, Rougon sent them all back to their posts, after reprimanding them severely for abandoning the gates of the town. ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... perfect consternation among the already excited negroes. They no doubt supposed it the musical exercise set apart for the performance of the angel Gabriel on the day of judgment, and in less than ten minutes all without exception had come pell-mell, helter-skelter, running to "the house." The dairymaid left her churn, and the housemaid put down her broom; the ploughs stood still, and when the horses turned their heads to see what was the matter they found they had no driver; she also who ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... then, what a scene ensued! Away went the mules, the horses and the donkeys; away ran men and women and children, carrying chairs and trunks, and boxes and bedding. The wind was blowing, and the dust whirled up as they dashed helter-skelter through the gate and started off on a hot race, down the dock to the depot. Two wagons came together, one of which was overturned, scattering the broken boxes of a Scotch family over the pavement; but while the poor woman ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... is! One wild race for the crest, one headland charge down the slope beyond, and they are rolling over a band of yelling, scurrying, savage horsemen, whirling them away over the opposite ridge, driving them helter-skelter over the westward prairie, until all who escape the shock of the onset or the swift bullet in the raging chase finally vanish from their sight; and then, obedient to the ringing "recall" of the trumpet, slowly they return, gathering again in the ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... just when he was goin' to pull 'em down the van started as they had heard and seen it. After a while he got on to his knees and managed to wrench a corner; of the front curtain clear of the button and get his head out. And there was the van going helter-skelter, and feeling like Tam o'Shanter's mare (the old man said), and he on her barebacked. And there was no horses, but a cloud of dust—or a spook—on ahead, and the bare pole steering straight for it, just as the professor had said it would be. ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... did for three hours, worked with a kind of frenzied delight in action and pricked on by a ravenous hunger. In and out of the combers they dashed, playing a desperate game of chance with Death. Helter-skelter, hit-or-miss, in a blind orgy of rescue, at first they pulled out everything they could reach. Repeatedly, Frank Merrill stopped to lecture them on the foolish risks they were taking, on the stupidity of such a waste of energy. "Save what we need!" he iterated and reiterated, bellowing ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... that it made you long to stroke it. She was perfection, and nothing less! I was the first to discover this curious arrangement. I was walking up and down outside one evening, smoking my pipe, after they thought I had gone to bed. The children came in helter-skelter, tumbling over one another like so many puppies. It was fun to watch them. Then they had supper with their father and mother. I strained my eyes to see the young Jewess through the clouds of smoke that her father blew from his pipe; ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... saloon was the kitchen, a hot, steaming place, where men, mostly cooks, in dirty white jackets, rushed helter-skelter into each ...
— Eric - or, Under the Sea • Mrs. S. B. C. Samuels
... novels which I had often longed to read. I read the first chapters of four of them, and then lost myself in Gordon, and sat on my dressing-table in my nightgown, regardless of cold, until brought to my senses by the breakfast-bell. I made great pace, scrambled into my clothes helter-skelter, and appeared at table when the others had been seated and ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... made a castle, and were standing on the top of it, all crowded together, waiting for a big wave to come and surround them; and when at last it came, it carried half their fortress away with it, and they all hopped off into the water, and splashed up through it helter-skelter, with shouts of laughter, to ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... gentleman referred to is of large mould, and until we saw his tumbling feat yesterday, we had no idea that he was such a sprightly gymnast. His down-going and up-rising were greeted with shouts of laughter, in which he good-naturedly joined. The erring camel went helter-skelter through the crowd, and was not secured until he showed to admiration how speedily can go ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... branches and twigs that the trees had been too lazy to shed; short shrift for them on the first spring-cleaning night. Down they came, helter-skelter, and no notice taken of the tree's groaning, or its ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... achieving prizes of riches and pleasure and are not disturbed, who look on the world and the universe they are born in with quite other eyes. To them it appears not as a bazaar to buy and to sell in; not as a ladder to scramble up (or down) helter-skelter without knowing whither or why; but as a fact—a great and mysterious fact—to be pondered over, studied, and perchance in some small measure understood. By the multitude these men were sneered at as eccentric or feared as supernatural. Their calm, clear, contemplative ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... suits and there are wild animals, than to practise horsemanship in combination with the chase. But when these resources fail, a good exercise may be supplied in the combined efforts of two horsemen. (9) One of them will play the part of fugitive, retreating helter-skelter over every sort of ground, with lance reversed and plying the butt end. The other pursues, with buttons on his javelins and his lance similarly handled. (10) Whenever he comes within javelin range he lets fly at the retreating foeman with his blunted missiles; or whenever ...
— On Horsemanship • Xenophon
... his Grace's path, for truly Sidonia might be amongst them. From this, it came to pass that as soon as it was rumoured in the town, "His Grace is coming," all the old mothers seized up their pattens, and scampered off, helter-skelter, to get out of reach of ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... aware of Jane Map rushing towards him and of Jane Map kissing him rapturously on the mouth. 'Come on,' cried Jane Map, and pulled him by the hand, helter-skelter, until they came in front of a blaze of light and the ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... no other conclusion," said Father Waite. "But, that granted, a flood of deductions pours in that sends human beliefs and reasoning helter-skelter. For an infinite mind would eventually disintegrate if it were not perfect ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... material it has read when some note or hint suggests all of it. This kind of mind depends upon the inestimably valuable art of note-taking, a method quite as worthy as the two just considered if its results justify its employment. Note-taking does not mean a helter-skelter series of exclamatory jottings. It means a well-planned, regularly organized series of entries so arranged that reference to any portion recalls vividly and exactly the full material of the original. Books and speeches are ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... sanctioned newspaper article specified its exact position. A few days after the article appeared, in fact, as soon as a copy of the paper reached Germany, a thunderstorm of shells broke on the brewery. Out of it poured a helter-skelter stream of stark-naked men, who ran wherever they could for cover. From one point of view it was vastly comic. In the meanwhile the building containing all their clothes, and all the spare clothing for a brigade, was being scientifically destroyed. That was more comic still. The bather cut off ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... the fashion among tourists, because of the absence from its precincts of all that was fashionable and new, stood near the middle of the town, and formed a corner where in winter the winds whistled and assembled their forces previous to plunging helter-skelter along the streets. In summer it was a fresh and pleasant spot, convenient for such quiet characters as sojourned there to study the geology and beautiful natural ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... bear had been seen the previous night. The two large hounds, Ringwood and Jowler, kept at their master's heels, being trained to understand and perform all the duties required of them, while the curs and terriers were running helter-skelter far ahead, or striking out into the woods without aim, and always returning without effecting any thing. At length the two hounds paused, and scented the earth, giving certain information that they had arrived at the desired point. The curs and terriers ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... helter-skelter haste I found time to remember that the gorge as we had last seen it had been well besprinkled with armed Cherokees lying in wait for us. If they were still there we should be like to have a hot welcome; and some reminder of this I gasped out ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... France has introduced into the Dumas theatre some preeminently un-Dumas-like stage-business: the characters, between assignations and combats, toy amorously with ideas. That is the difference which at a stroke dissevers them from any helter-skelter character in Dumas as utterly as from any of our clearest ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... be rushing higgledy-piggledy, helter-skelter, into each other's arms," interrupts my companion, looking at me ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... Ch'un and Hsi Ch'un interposed with an ironic laugh, "what's the use of the hurry-scurry you're in the whole day long! Even when you're having your meals, or your tea, you're in this sort of fussy helter-skelter!" ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... at the windows, and in at the door, And through the walls, helter-skelter they pour, And down from the ceiling, and up through the floor, From the right and the left, from behind and before, From within and without, from above and below, And all at once to the Bishop they go. They have whetted their teeth against the stones; And now ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... admiration of the scene before him with the utmost freshness and enthusiasm. "I'm just a plain Scotchman, an' no such a fule at climbin' either! Why, man, I've been up Goatfell in Arran, an' Ben Lomond an' Ben Nevis—there's a mountain for ye, if ye like! But a brae like this, wi' a' the stanes lyin' helter-skelter, an' crags that ye can barely hold on to—and a mad chap guidin' ye on at the speed o' a leapin' goat—I tell ye, I havena been used to't." Here he drew out his flask and took another extensive pull at it. Then he added suddenly, "Just look at Errington! ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... demurred stoutly but without avail. She eagerly questioned her sister as to Laura's plans for the wedding, but plainly she considered that Deborah was no woman to give her the full information she wanted. She must see Laura herself at once. For though she had thoroughly disapproved of the gay helter-skelter existence of her youngest sister, still Laura was now to be married, and ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... hive no longer ago than yesterday was this morning still, deserted, empty and dead. Those who had rushed hitherward seeking gold were gone; be the explanation where it might, shacks stood with doors flung wide; tents had been torn down, outworn articles discarded, dumped helter-skelter into the road. The atmosphere was like that of a circus grounds when the circus was moving on, only a few things left for the last crew to ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... the room with the briskness of a March flurry of snow. Her cheeks were poppy-red, her eyes sparkled with the mere joy of living. And she chuckled happily as she tucked back the curly scolding locks that were flying about, all helter-skelter, like feathers unloosed or fluffy chicks blowing ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... had displayed in its trim beds and borders a wondrous wealth of choice blossoms. And the same plants could still be found; but perpetuated, grown into such numberless families, and scampering in such mad fashion throughout the whole garden, that the place was now all helter-skelter riot to its very walls, a very den of debauchery, where intoxicated nature had hiccups ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... 60)[obs3]; confused; deranged &c. 61; topsy-turvy &c. (inverted) 218; shapeless &c. 241; disjointed, out of joint. troublous[obs3]; riotous &c. (violent) 173. complex &c. 59a. Adv. irregularly &c. adj.; by fits, by fits and snatches, by fits and starts; pellmell; higgledy-piggledy; helter-skelter, harum-scarum; in a ferment; at sixes and sevens, at cross-purposes; upside down &c. 218. Phr. the cart before the horse; <gr/hysteron proteron/gr>[Grk][Grk]; chaos is come again; "the wreck of matter and the ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... then, plunging helter-skelter into the silent, heartless wood. The trees miraculously opened up a way for them as they dived and stooped and wriggled forward. In which direction they were going neither of them had the least idea, but as neither one nor the other disappeared, it was clear they had ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... of his own party were moored at the steps; the rest were half a mile off, contending hopelessly against the swollen and rapid Waal. Schenk, desperately wounded, was left almost alone upon the wharf, for his routed followers had plunged helter-skelter into the boats, several of which, overladen in the panic, sank at once, leaving the soldiers to drown or ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... to valorous deeds. Some of the veterans took arms themselves, and sallied forth with tottering steps. In this way, the savage chivalry of the village to the number of five hundred, poured forth, helter-skelter, riding and running, with hideous yells and war-whoops, like so many bedlamites or demoniacs ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... proceeded slowly in the usual order. The discussion grew hotter, and went helter-skelter from subject to subject. Such is said to be the Russian manner in argument. Perhaps it is the universal manner of people when discussing something that touches ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... so high that his crown tumbled off, and the Queen was in such a delightful agitation that she could not confine her steps to a walk, and so the King and the Queen, and the Duchess, and all the maids of honour and pages, ran helter-skelter, as fast as they could, ...
— The Apple Dumpling and Other Stories for Young Boys and Girls • Unknown
... officers, whom they knew personally, and were assured in case of accident of absolution given by one of their priests, who marched in the rear file of the first company, with his cassock tucked up and his Roman hat over his eyes. These country fellows walked briskly, a little helter-skelter, like their ancestors in the time of Stofflet and M. de la Rochejaquelin, but with a firm step and their muskets well placed upon their shoulders, by Ste. Anne! They looked like ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... team in the pathway below uttered wild cries of terror, as they saw their danger, and began to scramble helter-skelter up the ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood
... Hum, hum, hum—m—m! Kettle slow and steady. Chirp, chirp, chirp! Cricket going in to finish him. Hum, hum, hum—m—m! Kettle not to be finished. Until at last they got so jumbled together, in the hurry-skurry, helter-skelter, of the match, that whether the kettle chirped and the Cricket hummed, or the Cricket chirped and the kettle hummed, or they both chirped and both hummed, it would have taken a clearer head than yours or mine to have decided with anything like certainty. But of this there ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... those of Victor Emmanuel. Riding over the vast plains of Capitanata, we would discern against the sky outline the figure of a solitary horseman. This we knew to be a picket. Then there was no time to be lost, and away we would go for him helter-skelter across the plain; he would instantly gallop in on the main body, probably occupying a masseria. If they thought they were strong enough they would show fight. If not they would take to their heels ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... to see the plain thus suddenly fill'd with rabble, all running from the south, and the silly startled sheep rushing helter-skelter, and huddling together on the tors above, that I forgot my own likely danger if any of this revengeful crew should come upon me lying there: and was satisfied to watch them as they straggled over the moors toward the road. ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... and clatter of pebbles near me, and discovered Fred Maxim at my side. "Look!" he said, hoarse with excitement. "Already!" He pointed to a string of dim little figures galloping helter-skelter over the neck and down the gap in the ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... It was really wonderful to see these fifteen baby ducks, yellow as canaries, beaks and webbed feet pink, swarming around the big patient sitting mother, ducking under her wings, to come out presently and clamber helter-skelter onto her broad back. As often happens with nurses, Yollande loved the ducklings as her own children, and without worrying about their shape or plumage, so different from her own, she showered upon them proofs of the tenderest affection. ...
— The Curly-Haired Hen • Auguste Vimar
... sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety-two, Did the English fight the French,—woe to France! And the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter through the blue, Like a crowd of frightened porpoises a shoal of sharks pursue, Came crowding ship on ship to St. Malo on the Rance, 5 With the ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... three hundred men to spend a couple of days exploring the country, and finding out where the Indians were. After marching a few miles, they came across two Indians. Both were killed by the advanced horsemen. All four of the field officers of the militia—two colonels and two majors—joined helter-skelter in the chase, leaving their troops for half an hour without a leader. Apparently satisfied with this feat, Trotter marched ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... yells and shouts. Frantic now, the animals wheeled back. But few of them ran up out of the winding shallow ground along which the fence had been cunningly built. He drove them back, up over the slow ascent, toward the great dusty swarm of horses that ran helter-skelter under the ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... very interesting to watch a marked ant during her journey back to her nest, after she has been carried away and placed among unfamiliar scenes and surroundings. At first, owing to her fright, she will dash away helter-skelter; but soon recovering, she will head in the direction of home, and moderate her pace until she creeps along at a very cautious and circumspect gait, indeed. Every now and then she will climb a tall ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... roots of a large evergreen bush, glaring at them from under the foliage. They fired and struck, not the lion, but a great block of sand-stone, which they bad mistaken for him; but beyond which he was actually lying. With a furious growl he bolted from the bush; the Mulattoes fled helter-skelter, leaving the Scots with empty guns, tumbling over each other in their haste to escape. In a twinkling he was upon them, with one stroke of his paw dashed John Rennie to the ground, and with one foot upon ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... the point of asking eager questions regarding this new mystery, but before she could begin to utter them a long and piteous howl—the howl of a lost dog—sent them helter-skelter ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... clear daylight over all the wonders gathered in this museum. For a museum it truly was, in which clever hands had spared no expense to amass every natural and artistic treasure, displaying them with the helter-skelter picturesqueness that distinguishes a ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... halfway between ward and servant. Across the fields and along shaded wood paths they ran joyously to a sheltered bay with a sandy beach from which the open fjord could be seen in the distance. The children stripped helter-skelter and went into the shallow water as nature had made them, but Mina, who was to assist them, had for want of bathing suit put on a starched white petticoat. The upper part of her body was bare, showing two beautifully ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... then. That's disposed of. Everything in its turn. We old operators, go by order and system—no helter-skelter business with us. What's the next thing on the docket? The carrying on of the materialization—the bringing it down to date. I will begin on that at once. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... man flying through the phantasmagoric happenings of a dream, knowing neither how nor whither. I tore along what I suppose was a broad passage, through a door at the end into what, I fancy, was a drawing-room. Across this room I dashed, helter-skelter, bringing down, in the gloom, unseen articles of furniture, with myself sometimes on top, and sometimes under them. In a trice, each time I fell, I was on my feet again,—until I went crashing against a window which was concealed by curtains. It would not have been strange had I crashed through ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... is somewhere here. You can't fool me," he yelled. "I saw the spot your eyes lit on when I first came into the room. Is it behind these books?" he growled, pulling them out and throwing them helter-skelter over the floor. "Women is smart in the hiding business. Is it behind these ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... thunder is continuous, a dismal pulverization of 90,000 men! Never before has anything equal to this been seen; never before has an army been overwhelmed beneath such a downpour of lead and iron! At one o'clock all is lost! The regiments fly helter-skelter into Sedan! But Sedan begins to burn, Dijonval burns, the ambulances burn, there is nothing now possible but to cut their way out. Wimpfen, brave and resolute, proposes this to the Emperor. The Third Zouaves, desperate, have set the example. Cut off ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... no doubt, far from the respectable society of the neighbouring planets, and blundering about right and left, pell-mell, helter-skelter among the fixed stars— itself, "and all which it inherit" in that glorious state of confusion so admirably described by ...
— The Comic Latin Grammar - A new and facetious introduction to the Latin tongue • Percival Leigh
... and all the king's men could never make it stir an inch. Twice the effort was made, and twice it failed. First, the hooks slipped off the end, and as the horses were pulling and tugging with all their might, directly the weight was removed away they went helter-skelter down the steep hill, up which they had just climbed with so much difficulty, being utterly unable to stop themselves on the steep slippery ground. Next time the chain broke as the horses were straining every muscle, and the same tantalising process was repeated with even more striking effect. ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... had made on the purchase price was eaten up by the extra weight owing to the excessive freight rates from the coast and on the branch line to Meadows. More than that, Jennings had disobeyed his explicit orders to box the smaller parts of each machine together. All had been thrown in the car helter-skelter. ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety-two, Did the English fight the French,—woe to France! And, the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter thro' the blue, Like a crowd of frightened porpoises a shoal of sharks pursue, Came crowding ship on ship to St. Malo on the Rance, With the ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... those I met coming back helter-skelter over the Wilderness Trace had been of that stripe, they'd have more men ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... a' the rest, and ye needna say muckle to ane whose heart is e'en the sairer that she has been a thought to blame. But there has been mony a challenge, as they ca' it, passed in my house, when thae daft lads of the Wildfire Club and the Helter-skelter were upon their rambles; and they had aye sense eneugh to make it up without fighting, sae that I really did not apprehend ony thing like mischief.—And ye maun think, moreover, Mr. Bindloose, that it would have been an unco thing if a guest, in a decent and creditable public ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... in at the windows, and in at the door, And through the walls helter-skelter they pour, And down from the ceiling, and up from the floor, From the right and the left, from behind and before, From within and without, from above and below; And all at once to ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... The men fled helter-skelter in the wildest panic that had come upon them since the outbreak of the war. In vain their officers shouted and cursed at them. The iron bonds of discipline snapped like threads. Soldiers rushed hither ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall
... that crossed her will or temper would set Jemima's tongue-machine a-going; and when once started, it rattled away like a medley of tin, glass, and stones turned in a churn. It threw out words like razors, darts, fire-brands, scorpions, wasps, mosquitos, flying helter-skelter in all directions about the head of poor Job, and he seldom escaped without wounds which lasted for days together. He has been known to receive cuts and bruises that have prevented his speaking to his "darling" for ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... his own hand to the guillotine, with the same joy and lust which he had felt when he ordered one hundred and thirty-eight women of Nantes to be stripped naked by the soldiery before they were flung helter-skelter into the river. ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... whole family, who were taking a case of chaplets, plaster Virgins, and framed engravings away with them. You heard a confused tramping of feet and violent bursts of conversation coming from the first floor, all the helter-skelter of people whom the approaching departure and the packing of purchases lying hither and thither drove almost crazy. In the adjoining dining-room, the door of which had remained open, two children were draining ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... did not help us much, 'tis true; they could only approach with their smallest vessels, and that not near enough;—besides, their shot fell sometimes among our troops. It did some good, however! It broke the French lines, and raised our courage. Away it went. Helter-skelter! topsy-turvy! all struck dead, or forced into the water; the fellows were drowned the moment they tasted the water, while we Hollanders dashed in after them. Being amphibious, we were as much in our element as frogs, and hacked away at the enemy, ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... down the sides of the table. The mob wavered, turned, and were lost! Helter-skelter they fled, tumbling over one another in their haste to escape. The lamp was smashed. The benches were upset. In the smoky hall a furious din arose,—as if Sir Galahad and Sir Percivale were once more hewing their way through the castle of Carteloise. Fear fell upon the multitude, ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... ship that is to sail to France during the remainder of the autumn. These things are provoking enough, but they drive me for consolation to you. But for you I should shut myself up in Beaumanoir, and let every thing go helter-skelter to the devil." ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... wrong, and beat him down on his knees, and then started for her spell of the merry canter over turf: an example to the English of the punishment they get for their stupid Puritanic tyranny—sure to be followed by a national helter-skelter down-hill headlong. And Mrs. Lawrence was not one of the corrupt, he argued; she concealed what it was decent to conceal, without pouting hypocritical pretences; she had merely dispensed with idle legal ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... his side. Hardly had he uttered these words of caution when the bull gave a vicious jerk with its head, and with a shrill scream charged down upon us with the greatest fury. Away we all went, helter-skelter, through the dry grass, which whistled in my ears, over the hidden rocks, at full gallop, with the elephant tearing after us for about a hundred and eighty yards at a tremendous pace. Tetel was a sure-footed horse, and ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... the horses set off in a wild helter-skelter along the edge of the sea, with crowds cheering them on from the sandhills. As they got small in the distance it was not easy to see which horse was leading, but after a sort of check, as they turned the post, they began nearing again a few yards from the waves, with the ...
— In Wicklow and West Kerry • John M. Synge
... which, by the way, Van Dorn ascribed[75] much of his recent ill-success, all helped to make the retirement of the Confederates from the Pea Ridge battle-ground pretty much of a helter-skelter affair. From all accounts, the Indians conducted themselves as well as the best. The desire of everybody was to get to a place of safety and that right speedily. Colonel Watie and his regiment made their way to Camp Stephens,[76] ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... the lady of the caravan, scooping the crumbs out of her lap and swallowing the same before wiping her lips. 'Yes, to be sure—Who won the Helter-Skelter Plate, child?' ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... personal comfort. I rather think he looked on me as dangerous. He put me off and put me off, until I was glad to snatch at a position in a next-of-kin agency. But in a fortnight or two I was even more glad to leave it. Then I went back to Lord Boxspur, who this time sent me helter-skelter back to Paris, to bribe a blackmailing newspaper woman from giving the details of his wife's misfortunes to the Continental correspondent of a London weekly. But even when that was done, and I had ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... about our ears. The Frenchmen endeavoured to slew round some of their guns to fire down on us, but before the muzzles were run through the embrasures, we were climbing over the parapet in a somewhat helter-skelter fashion, and, headed by the gallant captain of the Buckingham, leaping down into the fort. So rapid had been our advance that the soldiers had no time to reload their pieces, and as our cutlasses flashed in their faces, they hurled ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... whole being was fixed and concentrated in an astonishing command of words. It is in the multitude of his words that the fertility of Rabelais' spirit most obviously shows itself. His book is an orgy of words; they pour out helter-skelter, wildly, into swirling sentences and huge catalogues that, in serried columns, overflow the page. Not quite wildly, though; for, amid all the rush and bluster, there is a powerful underlying art. The rhythms of this extraordinary prose ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... Nicholas; albeit, the cookery, as an abstract fact, might have been of the simplest. We had venison-steak, pork, ham, jerked venison stew, fresh trout, broiled partridge, cold roast duck, a fricassee of wood rabbits, and broiled pigeon upon our table, coming in courses, or piled up helter-skelter on great platters of birch bark, some on tin plates, and now and then a choice bit on a chip! We had coffee, and tea, and the purest of spring water, by way of beverage, and truth compels me to admit, that under the advice of the Doctor, a drop or two ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... suburban estate near Philadelphia, a generation ago; we have met the then young mistress of the mansion, at the Grand Central Station. It was a home of richness, a home of discriminating wealth, a home of artistic beauty; it was a home of nervous tension. This neurotic intensity was not of the cheap helter-skelter, melodramatic sort; there was a splendid veneer of control. But all the mother's plans and activities depended on the moods, whims and impulses of little Lawrence, the only child, then glorying in the hey-day of his three-year-old babyhood. ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... the study would be to learn whether the motion of the reported UFO's was random or ordered. Random motion is an unordered, helter-skelter motion very similar to a swarm of gnats or flies milling around. There is no apparent pattern or purpose to their flight paths. But take, for example, swallows flying around a chimney—they wheel, dart, and dip, but if you watch them closely, they have a definite ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... possibilities of a "vertical" classification as well as a "horizontal" one. That is, each class must be divided into what are termed Gifted, Bright, Average, Dull, Normal, and Defective. In the past the helter-skelter crowding and over-crowding together of all classes of children of approximately the same age, produced only a dull leveling ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger
... her cheeks radiant with color, her eyes shining. "Oh, washing your dishes? Wait a minute, I'll help." She flung off her coat in a helter-skelter way, and ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... one man. A French squad was already fixing bayonets noisily and excusing their rattle and cursing on account of the dark; the Austrians had deployed and were already advancing. "Pas de charge," called a French middy. Somebody started tootling a bugle, and helter-skelter we were off down the street, with fixed bayonets and loaded magazines, a veritable massacre for ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... the fugitives there appeared, between the trunks of the poplars, amongst the large tufts of grass, what looked like a pack of gray beasts speckled with yellow. They sprang up from all directions, waves crowding waves, a helter-skelter of masses of foaming water, shaking the sod with the rumbling gallop ...
— The Flood • Emile Zola
... Eversleigh," said the surgeon, calmly. "You must remember, that on such an occasion as this, there is nothing so important as presence of mind—self-command. If I alarm your servants, all the guests assembled here will take the alarm; and they will rush helter-skelter to Yarborough Tower, to testify their devotion to Sir Oswald, and to do him all the harm they possibly can. What would be the effect of a crowd of half-drunken men, clustering round him, with their noisy expressions of sympathy? ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... spread out on the green sward, planks raised a foot or so, for every one would sit on the grass. Some of the Indian women had booths, and were already selling birch and sassafras beer, pipes and tobacco, and maple sugar. Little ones were running helter-skelter, tumbling down and getting up without a whimper. Here a knot of men were playing cards or dominoes. It was a pretty scene, and needed only cavaliers and the glittering, stately stepping dames to make it a ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... noise of the big bells and the vibration of the shaky old walls! Once I had begun I couldn't leave off for my life, but went on tugging and tugging and quaking and quaking until—have you forgotten it?—all the people came running helter-skelter under the impression that the town was afire. And then, behold, it was only little me, trembling like a leaf and crying like a ninny! I remember I was scolded and smacked and dismissed into outer darkness (it was the chip vault, ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... looked at separately, they shared the same huge, lovable nature in the bulk, which murmured and swayed and quivered all the time the dancing and juggling and love-making went on in front of it, slowly laughed and reluctantly left off laughing, and applauded with a helter-skelter generosity which sometimes became unanimous and overwhelming. Once William saw Katharine leaning forward and clapping her hands with an abandonment that startled him. Her laugh rang out with the laughter ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... the tops of the tallest trees a whole clan of large bushy-tailed monkeys; there must have been a hundred or more, some old, and some young, gambolling about and playing all sorts of pranks. No sooner did they catch sight of us than they stopped, and scampered off helter-skelter, the old ones catching hold of the young ones in their arms, all equally anxious to make their escape. Some took prodigious leaps, catching the branches with their long tails, and, after a swing or two, ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... as modern man makes! Nor a roof such as is made by the lowest aborigines of to-day. It was infinitely more clumsy than the clumsiest handiwork of man—of man as we know him. It was put together in a casual, helter-skelter sort of way. Above the fork of the tree whereon we rested was a pile of dead branches and brush. Four or five adjacent forks held what I may term the various ridge-poles. These were merely stout sticks an inch or so in diameter. On them rested the ...
— Before Adam • Jack London
... then proceeded into the Secretary's office in search of it. The Secretary's habit was to take the papers from his table, and after marking on them with his pencil the disposition he wished made of them, he threw them helter-skelter into a large arm-chair. This chair now contained half a bushel; and the President and I set to work in quest of the letter. We removed them one by one; and as we progressed, he said with an impatient smile, "it is always sure to be ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... three persons are comfortably seated at the tea-table, enjoying their waffles, cold tongue, and canned peaches, and asking and answering questions helter-skelter in the delightful confusion of reunion after long separation, let us briefly inform the reader who ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... are in the world!" said the voice in emphatic accents of supreme contempt—"What braying asses!—What earth- snouting swine! Saw you not yon crowd of whimpering idiots flying helter-skelter like chaff before the wind, weeping, wailing, and bemoaning their miserable little sins, scattering dust on their addled pates, and howling on their gods for mercy,—all forsooth! because for once in their unobserving lives they behold the river red instead of green! Ay me! 'tis a ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... made, it seemed to me that I was touching her hands. When the evening had fallen, a passing officer noticed us, made inquiries, and we were mustered. We plunged into the night of the building. Our feet stumbled and climbed helter-skelter, between pitched walls up the steps of a damp staircase, which smelt of stale tobacco and gas-tar, like all barracks. They led us into a dark corridor, pierced by little pale blue windows, where draughts came and went violently, a corridor spotted at each end by naked gas-jets, their ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... found it necessary to modify the arrangement by always visiting his friend, whom he usually found in bed. It was William Clerk who sat for the picture of Darsie Latimer, the hero of Redgauntlet,—whence we should suppose him to have been a lively, generous, susceptible, contentious, and rather helter-skelter young man, much alive to the ludicrous in all situations, very eager to see life in all its phases, and somewhat vain of his power of adapting himself equally to all these phases. Scott tells a story of Clerk's being once baffled—almost for the first time—by a ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... grunted and staggered to her feet to go with them, but she was fat and slow of motion, so that by the time she was fairly standing, they were far down the field and running helter-skelter by the side of the fence. As she stared dully after them she could see the twenty-two curly tails bobbing along, and she heard the soft patter of eighty-eight sharp little ...
— Among the Farmyard People • Clara Dillingham Pierson
... came in haste, and encamped above it, hoping to pass the straits next day. There Castruccio fell upon them about midnight, putting all to confusion. Horse and foot fell foul upon one another, and both upon the baggage. There was no way left for them but to run, which they did helter-skelter in the plain of Pistoja, where each man shifted for himself. But Castruccio followed them even to Peretola at the gates of Florence, carrying Pistoja and Prato on the way; there he coined money under their walls,[145] ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... Caught same Daily paper. Up it sailed In the air; Courage failed Then and there. Scared well Out of wits; Nearly fell Into fits. Off they sped, Helter-skelter, 'Till they'd ...
— Pepper & Salt - or, Seasoning for Young Folk • Howard Pyle
... interest, save for its constant change and the primitive manner in which the majority attacked their food supply, which was piled helter-skelter upon the long tables, yet he ran his eyes searchingly over the numerous faces, seeking impartially for either friend or enemy. No countenance present, as revealed in the dim light of the few swinging lamps, appeared familiar, and satisfied that he remained unknown, Keith began devoting his ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... "rough-and-tumble landing." Such a landing is constructed by driving long timbers into the mud at the water's edge, below a steep piece of bank. Along the inner side of these are laid horizontally a certain number of logs, to form a water front; and into the space behind are tumbled helter-skelter from the tops of the bank the logs of the winter's chopping. It is a very simple and expeditious way of storing the logs. But when the ice has run out, and it is time to start the lumber down-stream, then comes trouble. The piles sustaining the whole ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... forester's—the young lady and the odd man came across to the barn to unpack the case. The man rolled it across the threshing-floor; and, as soon as it was outside, they saw what had happened. Everything rolled out helter-skelter and higgledy-piggledy: coffee, tea, cinnamon, spices, sugar-candy, all without end and all mixed up together and spoilt. There was not a bag but had ...
— The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories • Carl Ewald
... were—half-lying, half-sitting—six men in shirts, and in unbuttoned rough overcoats; two of them had no caps on; huge feet in boots were swinging and hanging over the cart-rail, arms were rising and falling helter-skelter... bodies were jolting backwards and forwards.... It was quite clear—a drunken party. Some were bawling at random; one was whistling very correctly and shrilly, another was swearing; on the driver's seat sat a sort of giant in a cape, driving. They went at a ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... a la baionnette!" ("At them with bayonet.") A fierce roar from our chests, and the only bugler left alive in our company sounds the charge. Away we go with our bayonets. We scarcely reach them when the bouches are put to rout. Some of them escape helter-skelter, throwing down rifles and knapsacks. "Halt!" commands our Captain. We lie down and keep up the firing on the retreating remnants of the enemy. "Back to the trenches!" is the next command. A few more volleys in the direction of the Germans, then comes the command, "Cease firing. Take ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various |
