"Scamper" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... partook heartily of the dish, whenever it was on the table. At night they frequently stretched their hammocks from tree to tree for their cabin was uncomfortably hot. After a refreshing bath in the cool phosphorescent water and a scamper up and down the level sands in lieu of a towel, they would turn in and enjoy a sound sleep. They were generally awakened before daylight by the shrieking and chattering of the parrots and monkeys. Then with a spring from their hammock, they would dash merrily in to the reviving water. After ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... time to time. The skipper promptly accepted the offer and, besides, arranged a system by which I was to write Mr Purchase's messages, carry them from the crow's-nest to the ground, and deliver them over to one of two midshipmen in waiting, who would at once scamper off with it, while I ascended the Jacob's ladder again for further information, to be transmitted by the second midshipman—if, meanwhile, the first had not had time to return. This system acted admirably, for it kept the captain fully informed of the course of events, and at the same ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... be toward the rising sun in three weeks, less one day," Ree answered. "But scamper along; let's get back to the store and find out first how Jim was hurt and how badly. It will be a sorry job for Pete ...
— Far Past the Frontier • James A. Braden
... the thinness of the shell wall, but such men as it killed were not a pretty sight. Fortunately, too, the shells could be seen both by day and night, and rose to such a height before dropping that men could scamper for shelter from the threatened spot. But no dug-out could withstand its explosion, and a series of craters, eight or ten feet in depth and twelve feet in diameter, marked the ...
— From the St. Lawrence to the Yser with the 1st Canadian brigade • Frederic C. Curry
... one sound to the listening ear; even their eloquent silences were as deep, and, I wot, perhaps as dangerous, as the darkened pool that filled so noiselessly a dozen yards away. So quiet were they that the tremor of invading wings once or twice shook the silence, or the quick scamper of frightened feet rustled the dead grass. But in the midst of a prolonged stillness the young man sprang up so suddenly that Nellie was still half clinging to his neck as he stood erect. "Hush!" he ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... Tammie; "but a body can now scarcely meet on the road wi' ony think waur than themsell. Mony a witch, de'il, and bogle, however, did my grannie see and hear tell of, that used to scud and scamper hereaway ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... all this grief of separation, you would go away from us again? No, no! I tell you, Violet, we shall never find you your real self until you have been braced up by the sea breezes. I mean the real sea breezes. You want a scamper among the heather—I can see that; for I have been watching you of late, and you are not up to the right mark. The sooner we all go the better. ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... offerer for a lease is often the person least entitled to be preferred as a tenant. Above all, it will complete the destruction of those execrable quacks, terming themselves land-doctors, who professed, from a two days' scamper over your estate, to tell you its constitution,—in other words its value,—acre by acre. These men, paid according to the golden hopes they held out, afforded by their reports one principal means ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... I take a hair-pencil and sweep the living burden from one of my Spiders, making it fall close to another covered with her little ones. The evicted youngsters scamper about, find the new mother's legs outspread, nimbly clamber up these and mount on the back of the obliging creature, who quietly lets them have ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... of them, scrambling, pushing and jumping, scurrying and hurrying, falling and tumbling, as they pressed onwards through the wide doors and then dispersed in the vastness of the gigantic arena, like ants that scamper away to ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... name, isn't it—Hiram?" and she laughed—a clear and sweet sound, that made an inquisitive squirrel that had been watching them scamper away to his ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... a ghost! a ghost! haste, scamper off, My friends; we've kill'd the body, and I know The ghost will have no mercy ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... wouldn't come back when it grew dark. He had crept part way up the hall at the first hint of night and stretched himself out to wait until he could be sure that those dreadful Yellow Jackets had gone to sleep. He had just about made up his mind that it was safe for him to scamper out when Jimmy Skunk's voice came down the hall to him. Poor Peter! The sound of that voice almost broke ...
— The Adventures of Jimmy Skunk • Thornton W. Burgess
... valiantly. Claflin tried Edwards's end, but made nothing of it, poked Cox past Crewe for a couple of yards, made three around Holt and then punted. St. Clair misjudged the distance and the ball went over his head and there was a scamper to the goal line. Carmine finally fell on the ball for a touchback and the excitement in the stands subsided. Brimfield smashed Otis at the Blue's centre and reached the twenty-five-yard line. St. Clair made three on a skin-tackle play at the right and Rollins got the distance ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... who, returning from a search for food with her young babe, was ignorant of the state of the mighty male's temper until suddenly the shrill warnings of her fellows caused her to scamper ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... woman in the scamper across country with you and dear uncle in my long habit; neither of you knew how I hated to don my short frock on ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... I would away to the summit of the Watchman—a scamper and a mad climb—to watch the doughty little schooners on their way. And it made my heart swell and flutter to see them dig their noses into the swelling seas—to watch them heel and leap and make the white dust fly—to feel the rush of ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... darted off, perhaps a trifle too vivaciously for a learner of the noble art of horsemanship. But the girl kept her seat bravely, and the conceded scamper being brought to a close, she came round to where Laurence awaited, and slid ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... ensign of Priapus) in her hand. More than that we could not get to see; for they no sooner perceived us, than they set up such a shout, that the roof of the temple shook agen, and withal endeavoured to lay hands on us; but we scamper'd and made what haste we could to ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... built their webs in the angles of the walls and ceilings; and sometimes, when Oliver walked softly into a room, the mice would scamper across the floor, and run back terrified to their holes. With these exceptions, there was neither sight nor sound of any living thing; and often, when it grew dark, and he was tired of wandering from room to room, he would crouch in the corner of the passage by the street-door, ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... down, by straying a little from the road, we get a really imposing view of Bardale, into which the ground falls suddenly from our very feet. Sheep scamper nimbly down their convenient little tracks, but there are places where water that overflows from the pools among the bent and ling has made blue-grey seams and wrinkles in the steep places that give no foothold even to ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... a wild scamper for safety. I was carried with the throng. It was not until I was hauled on board once more that I thought of my friend. He still knelt where we had fled from him, a wrapt, strange expression ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... the windy pines, And wanders, like a gloomy bat, where never morning shines! That steals about amidst the rout of broken stones and graves, When round the cliffs the merry skiffs go scudding through the waves; When, down the bay, the children play, and scamper on the sand, And Life and Mirth illume the Earth, and Beauty fills the Land! God help the man! He only hears and fears the sleepless cries Of smitten Love—of homeless Love and moaning Memories. Oh! when a rhyme of olden time is sung ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... "Scamper off," exclaimed the good-natured Mr. Jollyface; then he added, "you know you can eat chocolate in bed quite as well as you can anywhere else. I used to enjoy it as a boy more than I should have done upon a plate in the dining-room. ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... panted Betty; and off they went again, one to scramble up a pile of stones and look over the wall into the avenue, the other to scamper to the spot they had just left. Still, nothing appeared but the dandelions' innocent faces looking up at Bab, and a brown bird scared from his bath in the spring ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... on the floor and watched it scamper about the room, looking for an exit. "Yes, we might as well. I don't like this business at all. I wish to get it over with as soon as possible, and——" Peter eyed Mirestone squarely. "I expect to be paid well for my trouble." He was trying to make himself believe that that was his only reason for ...
— The White Feather Hex • Don Peterson
... moment"—here she whispered discreetly, looking around to see that no one was listening,—"at this moment in a snug nest dug out of the sand on the banks of the Congo, Mrs. Crocodile has covered with leaves to hide them from your enemies sixty smooth white eggs. And in a few weeks out of these will scamper sixty little wiggly Crocodiles, your dear, homely, scaly, hungry-mouthed children. Yes, we all lay eggs, my silly friend, and so in a sense we are all brothers, as the ...
— The Curious Book of Birds • Abbie Farwell Brown
... I was awakened by an unusual noise in the cattle-fold, and looking out, saw all our horned cattle spring over the high thorn fence, and scamper round the place. Fancying that a hyaena, which I had heard howling when I went to bed, had alarmed the animals, I sallied forth to have a shot at it. I, however, could not find any cause for the disturbance, and calling a Hottentot to ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... long time the two ships continued to race up and down. The NX-1 would plunge, pirouette around the other, and scamper away towards the ceiling as if enjoying it all hugely, abruptly to forsake her course and come zooming down once more. She would weave in romping circles and seem to go utterly crazy as her jumbled navigator ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... cocking the pistol would startle him and prevent my getting a quiet shot. But patience was rewarded. When satiated, the brute retired as stealthily as he had advanced; and as he passed within seven or eight yards of me I let him have it. Great was my disappointment to see him scamper off. How was it possible I could have missed him? I must have fired over his back. The men jumped to their feet and clutched their rifles; but, though astonished at my story, were soon at rest again. After this the kettle ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... butter-trees, the flour-trees, the silk-trees, which grow on our ground like briers alongside your roads.... Finally, we are shepherds; we own ever-increasing flocks, whose numbers we don't even know. Our goats, our bearded sheep may be counted by the thousand; our horses scamper freely through paddocks as large as cities, and when our hunch-backed cattle come down to the Niger to drink at that hour of serene splendor the sunset, they cover a league of the river banks.... And, above everything else, we are free men and ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... twenty-mile run from Concord to Bunker's Hill, he would have learned that they "were so much exhausted with fatigue, that they were obliged to lie down for rest on the ground, their tongues hanging out of their mouths, like those of dogs after a chase." One rout is as much like another as the scamper of one flock of sheep like that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... see how they stared, how they scamper'd, By furze-bush, by fern, by no obstacle stay'd, And the few that held council, were terribly hamper'd, For some were vindictive, and some were afraid. I saw they were dress'd for a masquerade train, Colour'd rags upon sticks they all brandish'd in view, And of such idle things they ...
— May Day With The Muses • Robert Bloomfield
... Philibert, the friend and fellow-student of her brother: he spent so many of his holidays at the old Manor-House of Tilly, when she, a still younger girl, shared their sports, wove chaplets of flowers for them, or on her shaggy pony rode with them on many a scamper through the wild woods of the Seigniory. Those summer and winter vacations of the old Seminary of Quebec used to be looked forward to by the young, lively girl as the brightest spots in the whole year, and she grew hardly to distinguish the affection she ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... the scamper there is at this moment for the tubs of water, and the reason for it is this—that the tubs are limited, perhaps three allowed to each mess of twenty boys, and considering the washing has to be done in a short ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... him hopeful and yet helpless. It was just possible that this escapade signified something other than even a slight suspicion of him. Perhaps it was some regular form or sign. Perhaps the foolish scamper was some sort of friendly signal that he ought to have understood. Perhaps it was a ritual. Perhaps the new Thursday was always chased along Cheapside, as the new Lord Mayor is always escorted along it. He was just selecting a tentative inquiry, when the old Professor ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... heard breaking down the ears, and then the dogs were let loose. They cautiously and silently crept towards the unsuspecting foe. But the sharp ears and keen scent of the raccoon seldom let him fall into the clutch of the dogs without a scamper for life. The coon was almost always near the woods, and this gave him a chance of escape. As soon as a yelp was heard from the dogs, we knew the fun had begun, and pushing forward in the direction of ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... practised the same exercises on the old piano on successive mornings before breakfast. When we became more intimate, I used to keep watch on the clock for the benefit of the one who was practising. At half-past eight she was released, and shutting up the book with a bang would scamper off, in summer to stretch herself, and in winter to warm her hands and toes. I used to watch their fingers with childish awe, wondering how such thin pieces of flesh and bone hit such hard blows to the notes without cracking, and ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... the soldiers! Oh-hoo-hoo-hoo!" There was a scamper and a scurry, a trampling of horses. The two trembling hands, getting in each other's way, unfastened the door, which was not even locked, and beheld Pucklechurch gathering himself up with a bleeding head, a cloud of smoke and flame, ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of the creatures" said Bridget; "yonder, on the further side of the prairie—I dare say the two parties will join each other, and have a famous scamper, in company." ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... there is chiefly conjectured, so secretive are the little people of Naboth's field. Only when leaves fall and the light is low and slant, one sees the long clean flanks of the jackrabbits, leaping like small deer, and of late afternoons little cotton-tails scamper in the runways. But the most one sees of the burrowers, gophers, and mice is the fresh earthwork of their newly opened doors, or the pitiful small shreds the ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... the camp, and mass is celebrated with becoming solemnity on Sundays. The "brules" attend, looking very serious and grave until a herd of buffaloes appear; when the cry of "La vache! la vache!" scatters the congregation in an instant; away they scamper, old and young, leaving the priest to preach to the winds, or perhaps to a few women and children. Two trips in the year are generally made to the prairie; the latter in August. The buffalo hunter's ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... There was a scamper of feet along the deck; and up the shrouds a scurry of dark figures. Above was ordered bustle; from the deck a sounding voice ruled all, as ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... the soup, a cat or a dog. The animal instinctively scented out the man's infirmity, and, softly approaching, commenced eating noiselessly, lapping up the soup daintily; and, when a rather loud licking of the tongue awakened the poor fellow's attention, it would prudently scamper away to avoid the blow of the spoon directed at it by ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... death. Five and sixty years are gone since Mr. Calvin Brinsmade took his bride there. They sat on the porch in the morning light, harking to the whistle of the quail in the corn, and watching the frightened deer scamper across the open. Do you see the bride in her high-waisted gown, and Mr. Calvin in his stock and his blue tail-coat ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... who were members of the Makado tribe, were howling lustily, and one of them waved his bark hat in the air. Kennedy took aim at him, fired, and his hat flew about him in pieces. Thereupon there was a general scamper. The natives plunged headlong into the river, and swam to the opposite bank. Immediately, there came a shower of balls from both banks, along with a perfect cloud of arrows, but without doing the balloon any damage, where it rested with its ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... a funny sight to watch a helper carefully placing nuts at regular intervals in an open furrow and a big fox squirrel following 10 feet behind him, removing the prizes as fast as he could scamper up and down a nearby hollow oak. Our ideas concerning appropriate locations for walnut trees did not coincide with those of Mr. Bushytail. We learned that the simple way to plant walnuts in the woods was to pile a half a bushel here and there. The tree climbers took their toll, but did a good job ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Eighth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... odd sensation of having sinned against his manhood. Jammed close to him was her old nurse, whose puffy, yellow face was pouting with emotion, while tears rolled from her eyes. She was trying to say something, but in the hubbub her farewell was lost. There was a scamper to the carriage, a flurry of rice and flowers; the shoe was flung against the sharply drawn-up window. Then Benjy's shaven face was seen a moment, bland and steely; the footman folded his arms, and with a solemn crunch the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... even as a dog; Such mighty power had grief to wrench her soul. Bet ne'er the Furies or of Thebes or Troy With such fell cruelty were seen, their goads Infixing in the limbs of man or beast, As now two pale and naked ghost I saw That gnarling wildly scamper'd, like the swine Excluded from his stye. One reach'd Capocchio, And in the neck-joint sticking deep his fangs, Dragg'd him, that o'er the solid pavement rubb'd His belly stretch'd out prone. The other ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... shouted Turnbull as MacIan snatched up the sword and joined in the scamper. "Chase him over a county! Chase him into the ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... again set up a rude screen from the still piercing wind; and, each wrapped in a gay blanket, lunch as operatic gypsies might, in a romantic glen, enjoying mightily our steaming chocolate, and the warmth of our friendly stove—for dessert, taking a merry scamper for flowers, over the ragged ascent from whence the boulders came. Everywhere about is the trumpet creeper, but not yet in bloom. The Indian turnip is in blossom here, and so the smaller Solomon's seal, ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... cocked-hats. When they vanished under the bridge which marks the boundary of the strictly private grounds about Eyebright House, he would give a great shout and run round and across Tormat's new field—Lord! how Tormat's pigs did scamper, to be sure, and turn their good fat into lean muscle!—and so to meet his boats by the ford. Right across the nearer lawns these paper boats of his used to go, right in front of Eyebright House, right under Lady Wondershoot's eyes! Disorganising ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... being one of the party, and having already supped, said to her mother that she was going to find Skipping Rabbit and have a run with her. You see, Moonlight, although full seventeen years of age, was still so much of a child as to delight in a scamper with her little friend, the youngest child of ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... marvelled to find myself so shaken. Leaping up in sudden fierce anger I wrenched open the door and rushed forth, only to fall headlong over some obstacle; and lying there bruised and dazed heard the soft thud and scamper of rats in the dark hard by. So I got me back to my bunk, and lying there fell to a gloomy reflection. And the more I thought, the fiercer grew my anger that any should dare so to ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... not better, Eugenius, fly for my life? 'Tis my advice, my dear Tristram, said Eugenius—Then by heaven! I will lead him a dance he little thinks of—for I will gallop, quoth I, without looking once behind me, to the banks of the Garonne; and if I hear him clattering at my heels—I'll scamper away to mount Vesuvius—from thence to Joppa, and from Joppa to the world's end; where, if he follows me, I pray God he ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... moment when Clara was with him and he had a good retreat through folding-windows to the lawn, in case of cogency on the enemy's part, to attack his cousin regarding the preposterous plot to upset the family by a scamper to London: "By the way, Vernon, what is this you've been mumbling to everybody save me, about leaving us to pitch yourself into the stew-pot and be made broth of? London is no better, and you are fit for considerably better. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... clump of trees nodded together in the friendliest fashion. Yonder a solitary tree, well-grown and clean, was contented with its own bright company. A bush crouched tightly on the ground as though, at a word, it would scamper from its place and chase rabbits across the sward with shouts and laughter. Great spaces of sunshine were everywhere, and everywhere there were deep wells of shadow; and the one did not seem more beautiful than the other. That sunshine! Oh, the glory of it, the goodness and ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... thou, my child, to whom harsh fate has dealt A captive's birthright—thou wilt never scamper With winged feet across the windy veldt, Where are no crowds to stare nor bars to hamper; Thou wilt not ring upon the rhino's pelt In wanton sport. But there—why put a damper On thy young spirits by recounting what Africa is but Regent's Park ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 10, 1917 • Various
... family cannot stir out of doors, not even into the gardens; and then think of what a comfort it would be to have a dry and airy and elegant promenade and place of exercise within their own walls. Then the children may scamper about, if it be, a proper cloister external to the house, and make that joyous noise which is so essential to their health, without any fear of annoying even the most nervous of mammas. Within an instant they may all be under her own personal inspection, and yet they ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... his head, and into the mire, his head and three-cornered hat only remaining above the surface. Having served his master this shabby trick, old Battle took to his heels, and dashing down the enemy's lines, sent such a thrill of terror to the hearts of the superstitious Kaloramas as made them scamper for dear life. In truth they fancied him the pale horse of the devil, so often described to them by the priests. Dashing onward with increased speed and wildness, the bewildered animal ran with great force upon the King's mule, prostrating animal and ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... some of them, but at that moment a burrowing owl that had been perched upon one of the mounds, rose up, and commenced hovering in circles above the intruder. This drew the attention of the marmot sentries to their well-known enemy, and their warning cry was followed by a general scamper of both tawnies and leopards towards ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... an answer ready for everybody without losing aught of his affability. Since early morning he had been resisting the assault of the petty painters of his set who found their pictures badly hung. It was the usual scamper of the first moment, everybody looking for everybody else, rushing to see one another and bursting into recriminations—noisy, interminable fury. Either the picture was too high up, or the light did not fall upon it properly, or the paintings near it destroyed its effect; in fact, some ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... clumsy wooden shoes he wore, and the soldier fell back half stunned into the sea. The rest of the fellows instantly raised their guns, but George did not wince; he perceived what they in their wild scamper after him had not noticed, that they had dragged their muskets through the water, and for the time had rendered the weapons useless. The boy laughed in spite of his predicament, as he hastily ran up the ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead
... munched two grains of corn, sat upon the heap like a king in full court, and fancied himself the most illustrious of shrew-mice. At this moment they came from their accustomed holes the gentlemen of the night-prowling court, who scamper with their little feet across the floors; these gentlemen being the rats, mice, and other gnawing, thieving, and crafty animals, of whom the citizens and housewives complain. When they saw the shrew-mouse they took ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... deadly rifles, the British officers, clad in scarlet uniforms, fell with frightful rapidity. They were a terror to the Hessians. As Morgan would often say in high glee, "The very sight of my riflemen was always enough for the Hessian pickets. They would scamper into their lines as if the devil drove them, shouting in all the English they knew, 'Rebel in de bush! rebel ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell
... in the weather had something to do with it, but we found the Dent du Jaman not nearly so difficult to climb as the Roches de Naye. After the scamper across the snow and the climb over this little ice-collar down which the Chancery Barrister had slipped, there is no more snow. We climb up by steps worn by the feet of many adventurers. The top is a level cone with an area not much greater ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... Ninette peered about in a dazed sort of way, and gave an alarmed little "Baa!" for she had not before missed Beppo, who, while she was asleep, had managed to push open the door of the fold and scamper off, no ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... in my steed to listen for the sounds which his sensitive ear had detected. "They may be simply wild cattle, or riderless horses, taking a scamper," I observed, laughing. ...
— Adventures in Australia • W.H.G. Kingston
... His scamper of sheep flocked into the sedge, parting around the prostrate figure by a circle of coals now dead, and plunged into the pasture. The boy inspected the earth and shook his head. It was too wet for a long stay, inviting as it seemed. But here his flock ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... on perceiving these new enemies, at once separated into three distinct swarms, each swarm selecting its victim; so that not only Ossaroo, but Karl and Caspar as well, now danced over the ground like acrobats. Even Fritz was attacked by a few—enough to make him scamper around, and snap at his own legs as if he ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... singular delight. Eleanor kept up the conversation with unflagging interest; it was broken by a proposal on Mr. Carlisle's part for a gallop, to which she willingly agreed; held her part in the ensuing scamper with perfect grace and steadiness, and as soon as it was over, plunged Mr. Carlisle deep again ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... because my old mustang would not move; and they could have had all our availables for the asking; but it was saving time in them to run when they heard us call out in that hated "Yankee language," and they did scamper off most expeditiously. ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... queries, About which we Gourmands have had much discussion— I've tried all these mountains, Swiss, French, and Ruggieri's, And think, for digestion,[10] there's none like the Russian; So equal the motion—so gentle, tho' fleet— It in short such a light and salubrious scamper is, That take whom you please—take old Louis DIX-HUIT, And stuff him—ay, up to the neck—with stewed lampreys,[11] So wholesome these Mounts, such a solvent I've found them, That, let me but rattle the Monarch well down them, The fiend, Indigestion, would fly far away, And the regicide ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... with every kind of domestic and imported fertilizer in cunning little hillocks just bursting forth into fragrance by the roadside, then the vast island was a quaking swamp or covered by impervious forests of gigantic trees, up which with coarse and shameless glee would scamper the nobility. ...
— Comic History of England • Bill Nye
... matter, so when the wolf said: "Little pig, why are you here before me? Are they nice apples?" he replied at once: "Yes, very; I will throw down one for you to taste." So he picked an apple and threw it so far that whilst the wolf was running to fetch it he had time to jump down and scamper ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... the small, resolute girl and the smaller dog. Her arm remained rigidly extended, and determination was written large in her set features. The puppy uttered a sharp bark, as if in forgiveness, and began to scamper playfully about. Cucumbra threw a final glance at ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... him. It was quite a scene in a play to see how Fred would start at the least sound. A mouse nibbling behind a box of iron chains made him beside himself until he had scared the little gray thing from its hole, and saw it scamper away out of the shop. But after the first hour the watching FOR NOTHING became a little tedious. There was a "splendid" game of base ball to come off on the public green that afternoon; and after that the boys were going to the "Shaw-seen" for a swim; then there ...
— The Errand Boy • Horatio Alger
... not play these tricks upon travellers; cast him loose immediately." One of the men pulled his knife from his breast, and cutting the cord which fastened the poor Spaniard to the ladder, let him scamper off. Unluckily for the gravity of the officers, however, and that of the crew, Jacko did not run below, or jump into one of the boats out of sight, but made straight for his dear friends the marines, drawn ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... went to pieces. I had to catch him as he tried to scamper past me like a scared rabbit. I stretched him out and got a foot on his chest, but he squirmed like a worm, although I appealed repeatedly to his sense of propriety and the duty he owed to himself as a gentleman not ...
— Options • O. Henry
... day. In its morning bright We frolic and scamper, free and light. 'Tis a happy path that we have to run, The way is pleasant when new-begun. The sky of our youth is clear and blue, With no clouds to impede our raptured view; There's a prize to win in its golden hours— ...
— Lays from the West • M. A. Nicholl
... going mad that squirrels kept whirling their wheel and tigers running round and round their cages. They want notice, and change, and work, or they cannot bear it. The stagnation kills them—or I wish it did kill them quicker than it does. Look at your Bruce, born to work sheep, to scamper over miles of country, free as air, to be mates with some man who would know the value of such a friend, and be worthy of him. Oh, it ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... how fervently I would embrace my parents, as though I had not seen them for ten years. Such a fussing would there be—such a talking and a telling of tales! To everyone I would run with a greeting, and laugh, and giggle, and scamper about, and skip for very joy. True, my father and I used to have grave conversations about lessons and teachers and the French language and grammar; yet we were all very happy and contented together. ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... the far North, we take you to LOCH ASSYNT, in Sutherlandshire, and to a little loch near it,—LOCH AWE by name. The journey to Assynt is long and weary: train to Lairg, and then between thirty and forty miles driving, is a good long scamper for fishing, but it is worth it. The inn at Inchnadamph is good, but when we were there in 1877 the boat accommodation was poor enough: perhaps they have improved upon that since. The first day after our arrival we had to go to Loch Awe, as the boats ...
— Scotch Loch-Fishing • AKA Black Palmer, William Senior
... that. It will mean a scamper over the sands when we get there, but that will do you good. Stay as you are! I ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... curly-headed rascal, scamper down to the village immediately, and bring up a basket of something to eat; and tell Morgan Price that Mr. Grey says he is to send up a couple of beds, and some chairs here immediately, and some plates and dishes, and everything else, and don't forget some ale;" so saying, ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... lieutenant, "you scamper along, and tell the principal to hurry up with letting out the school. I sent him one message now this ...
— The Boy With the U.S. Census • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... wanted to shut the door on my silly past first. I shall only let in, hereafter, that part of it that I choose. When I saw a man looking at me, Aunt Dorrie, where before I had been seeing a doctor, there was nothing to do but scamper. He hadn't the least idea what was happening—he saw only the bag of bones that he had rescued, but I wasn't going to let him run any risks. You see, I've learned more than ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... in three heats: — Ah, my sonny, The horses in those days were stout, They had to run well to win money; I don't see such horses about. Your six-furlong vermin that scamper Half-a-mile with their feather-weight up; They wouldn't earn much of their damper In a race ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... the graceful skunk opossum And the stylish leopard mink Scamper as you come across 'em, Climb upon the canon's brink, Gambol with the pony musquash, Claimed not for a collar yet— Far away from London's bus-squash And advertisements of tusk-wash Are my ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 21st, 1920 • Various
... would furnish the comic relief. Nor did Ikey disappoint them. He was a wayward son. When his parents were laboriously engaged in a boxing-match, or dancing to the "Merry Widow Waltz," or balancing on step-ladders, Ikey, on all fours, would scamper to the foot-lights and, leaning over, make a swift grab at the head of the first trombone. And when the Countess Zichy, apprised by the shouts of the audience of Ikey's misconduct, waved a toy whip, Ikey would ...
— The Nature Faker • Richard Harding Davis
... seemed alive, from her gray eyes that met one's glance so fearlessly, to her small feet that danced about the room between her trips up and down the stepladder. Her skirts were very short, and her legs were very long and thin, so that she reminded one of a young colt kinking up its heels for a scamper ...
— Peggy in Her Blue Frock • Eliza Orne White
... pupil reached the hay-field, and then ensued a scamper, a rush. Marjorie, Eric, Basil, Lucy, all crowded round their sister. They were unfeignedly delighted to have her with them, and Ermie could not but reflect how happy she would now ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... intending to reach his own fortress by the hole down which the stream plunges at the Pas de Souci, and which the peasant believes existed from the beginning of the world. St. Enimie followed at his heels as closely as she could, and he led her a wild scamper over the rocks. She hoped that St. Ilere, her confessor, who lived in a cavern of the gorge, would stop the fiend in his flight, but the saint was so busy praying that he did not notice the arch-enemy as he sped on his frantic course. St. Enimie was quite out of breath and ready to drop ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... grasp, the doe bestowed a well directed kick on its foe's head, which tumbled him over on his back. The animal then sprang up, but aware there was no chance of escape by running, faced about and plied its bony head so furiously against Joe's breast and sides that he was forced to scamper away ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... inquisitive natures. And this strange passivity, this almost human lassitude, seemed to me sadder than the misery of starved and beaten animals. I should have liked to rouse them for a minute, to coax them into a game or a scamper; but the longer I looked into their fixed and weary eyes the more preposterous the idea became. With the windows of that house looking down on us, how could I have imagined such a thing? The dogs knew better: THEY knew what the house would tolerate and what it would not. I even fancied that they ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... speed detector, radar trap, air speed gauge, wind sock, wind speed meter; pedometer. V. move quickly, trip, fisk^; speed, hie, hasten, post, spank, scuttle; scud, scuddle^; scour, scour the plain; scamper; run like mad, beat it; fly, race, run a race, cut away, shot, tear, whisk, zoom, swoosh, sweep, skim, brush; cut along, bowl along, barrel along, barrel; scorch, burn up the track; rush &c (be violent) 173; dash on, dash off, dash ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... would be more relishing without so strong a flavor of napkin, and my gingerbread more easy of consumption if it had not been pulverized by being sat upon. People act as if early traveling didn't agree with them. Children scream and scamper; men smoke and growl; women shiver and fret; porters swear; great truck horses pace up and down with loads of baggage; and every one seems to get into the wrong car, and come tumbling out again. One man, with three children, a dog, a bird-cage, ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott
... day is a busy day with Striped Chipmunk at this season of the year, for the sweet acorns are ripe and the hickory nuts rattle down whenever Old Mother West Wind shakes the trees, while every night Jack Frost opens chestnut burrs just to see the squirrels scamper for the plump brown nuts the ...
— Mother West Wind's Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... Doggy, don't you think you should very faithful be, For having such a loving friend to comfort you as me? And when your leg is better, and you can run and play, We'll have a scamper in the fields and see them ...
— Pinafore Palace • Various
... becomes a moving force; Coats glide down from their pegs in the humble dark; The sticks grow live to the stride of their vagrant course. You scamper the stairs, Your body informed with the scent and the track and the mark Of stoats and weasels, moles and ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... that here is democratic America, where every man has to earn his living or marry rich, people will scorn my high-born love of the fox-chase, and speak in a slighting manner of my wild, wild yearn for the rush and scamper of the hunt. By Jove, but it is joy indeed to gallop over the sward and the cover, and the open land, the meet and the cucumber vines of the Plebian farmer, to run over the wife of the peasant and tramp her low, coarse children into the rich mould, ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... the same. He and Elsie went together, and it never had occurred to him that it ought to be different. He didn't care for Robbie: Elsie didn't, and so he didn't. Elsie said he was a spoilt baby, therefore Duncan knew he must be one; and certainly he couldn't scamper over the moor, and climb the trees, and fly here, there, and everywhere, like he and ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... one was coming softly up the back stairs. All the outer doors were locked, she was sure; all the boys lay in their places, for she could see and count the three long figures and little Gus in a bunch on the sofa. The girls had not stirred, and this was no rat's scamper, but a slow and careful tread, stealing nearer and nearer to the study door, left ajar when the last load ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... eating his supper. When he git up from de table us lil' niggers would allus hear de sliding o' his chair, kaize he was sech a big fat man. Den he go into de missus room to set by de fire. Dar he would warm his feets and have his Julip. Quick as lightning me and John scamper from under de steps and break fer de big cape jasamine bushes long de front walk. Dar we hide, till Anderson and Newt come out a fetching ham biscuit in dey hands fer us. It would be so full of gravy, dat sometime de gravy would take and run plumb ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... have a great deal of sport about him; and were rude enough not to care a fig, although Bellerophon saw and heard it. One little urchin, for example, would play Pegasus, and cut the oddest imaginable capers, by way of flying, while one of his schoolfellows would scamper after him, holding forth a twist of bulrushes, which was intended to represent Bellerophon's ornamented bridle. But the gentle child, who had seen the picture of Pegasus in the water, comforted the young stranger more than all the naughty boys could torment him. The dear little fellow, ...
— My First Cruise - and Other stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... joyous walk home. There were shells to scamper after, wire to scramble through, old trenches to explore. The return of "Ernest" brought a deep ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... the knights to accompany him, and the boat, rowed by galley slaves, was soon on its way. All were glad at the change afforded to the monotony of their life on board, and at the prospect of a scamper on shore. ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... to scamper up to her room, and hide the precious treasures in her kist, there to wait all night, like the buried dead, ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... Sam and Andy brought the horses up to the posts, apparently greatly refreshed and invigorated by the scamper ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... We did not entirely understand the situation but it seemed quite proper to give the mafus permission to do the head-breaking, and they went at it with a will. After a volley of blows, there was a scamper of feet on the frozen ground and the soldiers retired considerably the ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... how the White Pig felt when she heard this; how her small eyes twinkled and the corners of her mouth turned up more than ever. She was just about to scamper over and root with them, when she remembered something else that her mother had told her: "Never run after other Pigs. Let them run after you. Then they will think ...
— Among the Farmyard People • Clara Dillingham Pierson
... harmed they soon put out their heads again to see what is taking place. Hunters who have walked through a dog-village, hoping to get a shot at one of the little householders, have been amused to see them scamper indoors as they approached, and come out again as soon as they had passed. All around, within the range of a gun, there was not a marmot to be seen, but at a safe distance there were hundreds, or even thousands, ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... others,—the colonel and Jake and the general and Watts, and even Molly,—what do these people mean to you, these common people, in their old clothes, with their old hearts and their rusty sins and their homely sorrows? Milord and his lady will not scamper across these pages; no rooms with rich appointments will gladden your eyes, and perhaps in the whole book you will not find a man in evening dress nor a woman in a dinner gown. And now the only thing there is to offer is Jake Dolan, aged fifty-seven, ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... sun His little flying feet Scamper as softly fleet As ever the rabbits run. He is gone like a flash, and then In ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates
... races, and could tell an old sword-cut and a ballet-mark in two seconds from a scar got by falling against the fender, or a mark left by king's evil. He could not be expected to share our own prejudices; for he had heard nothing of the wild youth's adventures, or his scamper over the Pampas at short notice. So, then, "Richard Venner, Esquire, guest of Dudley Venner, Esquire, at his elegant mansion," prolonged his visit until his presence became something like a matter of habit, and the neighbors began to think ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... towing off the casks. I was in charge of the boat again, with Swinburne as coxswain. As we pulled in, there were a number of negroes bathing in the surf, bobbing their woolly heads under it, as it rolled into the beach. "Now, Mr Simple," said Swinburne, "see how I'll make them niggers scamper." He then stood up in the stern sheets, and pointing with his finger, roared out, "A shark! a shark!" Away started all the bathers for the beach, puffing and blowing, from their dreaded enemy; nor did they stop to look for him until they were high and dry out of his reach. Then, when we ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... thing he serves up. He, reclined, rejoices in the change of his situation, and acts the part of a boon companion in the good cheer: when on a sudden a prodigious rattling of the folding doors shook them both from their couches. Terrified they began to scamper all about the room, and more and more heartless to be in confusion, while the lofty house resounded with [the barking of] mastiff dogs; upon which, says the country-mouse, 'I have no desire for a life like this; and so farewell: ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... I slung my stone with so good aim that it went bang against the hog's flank as if against the head of a drum; but it had no other effect than that of causing the animal to start to its feet, with a frightful yell of surprise, and scamper away. At the same instant Jack's bow twanged, and the arrow pinned the little pig to the ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... guide had been stationed together behind a tree. At the first gun-shot, says the Captain Church story, King Philip "threw his petunk (shot pouch) and powder-horn over his head, catched up his gun, and ran as fast as he could scamper, without any more clothes than his small-breeches ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin
... went off merrily enough, and when the bride and bridesmaids left the table, and the dining room door was safely shut, there was much girlish laughter in the hall, and an undignified scamper up the stairs, also a tussle as to who should take the first pin from the bride's veil and be married next, and much amusement when Mrs, Frayling's elderly maid unconsciously appropriated it herself in the way ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... the rattling broughams and hansoms as the veriest mongrel that ever led a vagrant life in London streets. Berekely Square?—here there was comparative quiet, with the gas lamps shining up on the thick foliage of the maples. In Grosvenor Square he had a bit of a scamper; but there was no rabbit to hunt. In Oxford Street his master took him into a public-house and gave him a biscuit and a drink of water; after that his spirits rose a bit, and he began to range ahead in Baker Street. But did Oscar ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... but they are promptly knocked down by the others, and make no further progress. The steamer continues her fire out there leisurely, and the officer on the pier, being satisfied at last that she will come no closer, gives her a volley of musketry. In a moment the decks are cleared with a scamper, and no man is anywhere visible; whilst, at the same time, the steamer hastily puts about, and never stops until ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... got closer up I saw their flags actually over the parapet of Fort Hindman, and the rebel gunners scamper out of the embrasures and run down into the ditch behind. About the same time a man jumped up on the rebel parapet just where the road entered, waving a large white flag, and numerous smaller white rags appeared above the parapet along the whole line. I immediately ordered, "Cease ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... such a mood he drew his bow across the strings with a sweeping stroke, and then, for an instant, he ran hither and thither on the strings testing the quality and finding the range and capacity of the instrument. It was a scamper of hieroglyphics which could only mean ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... weeks, which is nothing compared to an English battue of a single day; but then this is sport, and there is immense pleasure in dashing right across country behind a pair of fleet horses, thinking yourself well repaid if you bag a couple or three hares in the afternoon's scamper. For wolf and wild-boar hunting one must penetrate into the forests which extend in the rear of the southern slopes of this ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... assured them that I was perfectly inoffensive, and would hurt nobody, some of them ventured so far as to examine the texture of my clothes; but many of them were still very suspicious; and when by accident I happened to move myself, or look at the young children, their mothers would scamper off with them with the greatest precipitation. In a few hours, however, they ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... and barking. "What is that?" said the Country Mouse. "It is only the dogs of the house," answered the other. "Only!" said the Country Mouse. "I do not like that music at my dinner." Just at that moment the door flew open, in came two huge mastiffs, and the two mice had to scamper down and run off. "Good-by, Cousin," said the Country Mouse. "What! going so soon?" said .the other. ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... grasshoppers, and that are so sagacious that they always station one of their number on a height to keep watch, and when danger is approaching he strikes the rock with his foot, and then the others scamper off and disappear like ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various
... unfortunately disturbed a large swarm of bees near where the coffle had halted. The bees came out in immense numbers, and attacked men and beasts at the same time. Luckily most of the asses were loose, and gallopped up the valley; but the horses and people were very much stung, and obliged to scamper in all directions. The fire which had been kindled for cooking being deserted, spread, and set fire to the bamboos; and our baggage had like to have been burnt. In fact, for half an hour the bees seemed to have completely put an end ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... even give a thought to picking up the scissors, but crawling up on to his feet again, he tried to scamper outside. But just at that very moment Pao-ch'ai and the rest of the young ladies were dismounting from their vehicles, and the matrons and women-servants were closing them in so thoroughly on all ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin |
