"Scurry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... been interesting to see the chickens scurry for cover whenever a noisy flock of blackbirds passes overhead on its way to the southland. They seemed to think, if chickens think, that all the hawks in christendom were swooping down on their devoted heads, and stood not on the order of ...
— The New York and Albany Post Road • Charles Gilbert Hine
... beginning to scurry around them now, showing that the wind was arriving. Frank knew this when he once more started around the peak, for ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... opens on the extreme left, and in a few minutes the artillery are ordered forward, and the six guns pass us at a gallop. They are soon lined up and firing shrapnel at some Boers, who scurry away over the brow of a kopje. The guns limber up and jump the railway line—a pretty stiff little obstacle—the narrow gauge metals being on top of a narrow embankment. Then across a level field of veldt, and they commence to ascend ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch
... They have only loosened the buckles of my care. Yet even so, they are "profitable friends,"[1] And fill my need of "converse with wise men." Yet when I consider how, still a man of the world, In belt and cap I scurry through dirt and dust, From time to time my heart twinges with shame That I am not fit to be master of ...
— More Translations from the Chinese • Various
... the exploder. "Uncoil the wire," he directed. "Go to its full length at right angles to the hole. We have to time this exactly right. When the crystal comes around again, I'll shove the tube into the hole, then scurry for cover. When I'm clear I'll yell and you pump the dynamo. Dominico and Kemp stay with Koa. Make sure no one is in the ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage
... things were the property of her brother, he or his wife might of course take them away if so pleased. "She's got 'em unbeknownst to my Lord, my Lady," said Toff, shaking her head. "I could only just scurry through with half an eye; but when I comes to look there will be more, ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... cupboard they explore, Each creek and cranny of his chamber, Run hurry-scurry round the floor, And o'er the bed ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... The others crouched and followed, stumbling one over the other, their dark evil faces bloodless, their knees knocking together with superstitious terror. They fled from the church and down to the bay, and swam to their craft. Estenega and Chonita rode out. They watched the ugly vessel scurry around Point Lobos; then Chonita spoke for ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... a little germ-culture of humanity cut off from the world. The only way out is, apparently, the railway, though, perhaps, one could get away by the boats that come up to load pulp wood, or by the petrol launches that scurry out on to Lake Superior and its waterside towns. But the roads out of it, there appear to be none. Follow any track, and it fades away gently into ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... the shortest of moments. You must overrun a dog after his first point, since he works too close behind them. The covey will keep together if not pursued with too much haste, and one gets shot after shot; still, at last you must run lively, as the frightened covey scurry along at a remarkable pace. Heavy shot are necessary, since the blue quail carry lead like Marshal Massena, and are much harder to kill than the bob-white. Three men working together can get shooting enough out of a bunch—the chase often continuing for a mile, when the covey gradually ...
— Crooked Trails • Frederic Remington
... the fragrance of young briars and hawthorn mingled with the smell of last year's decaying leaves which carpeted the pathway. She noted the beauty of the foliage against the moon, heard the swift scurry of a frightened rabbit and the faint snort of a hedge-hog on ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... thought my eyes had strucken fire, for I saw lights frisking and frolicking up and down the hill. Then I sat down to watch, and, sure enough, such a puck-fisted rabble, without cloak or hosen, I never beheld—all hurry-scurry up the hill, and some of the like were on the gallop down again. They were shouting, and mocking, and laughing, like so many stark-mad fools at a May-feast. They strid twenty paces at a jump, with burdens that two of the best oxen about ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... him more wary, and when the call for dinner sounded and he knew he was going in to see her, he shrank from it. He took no part in the race of the dust-blackened, half-famished men to get at the washing place first. He took no part in the scurry to get ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... to the door, there was a cry and a scurry within, as Phrony Tripper, after a glance out toward the gate, dashed up ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... about aimlessly from one half-relevant thought to another, the lower unconscious half labouring with some profound and unknowable change. This feeling of ignorant helplessness linked him with those past crises. His consciousness was like the light scurry of waves at full tide, when the deeper waters are pausing and gathering and turning home. Something was growing in his heart, and he couldn't tell what. But as he thought 'England and Germany,' the word 'England' seemed to flash like a line of foam. ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke
... were that night to honor the mistress of it by their presence. All this Rosa Indica had gathered from the chatter of the flowers, and when she came into the big palace she saw many signs of excitement and confusion: servants out of livery were running up against one another in their hurry-scurry; miles and miles, it seemed, of crimson carpeting were being unrolled all along the terrace and down the terrace steps, since by some peculiar but general impression royal personages are supposed not to like to walk upon anything else, though myself I think they must get quite sick of red carpet, ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... coasting-ground; for everybody wished to go down "once more," and then "just once more," and then "one single turn more,"—so that everybody hurried and jumped onto the sleds, and flew down and ran up again in a regular hurry-scurry. ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... you want it done, and then look after it yourself or employ some one in whom you have confidence to superintend it. When any mistake is guarded against, from beginning to end, the work will not be too well done. The cut-and-cover, hurry-scurry methods of doing things, common on some Western farms, will not do in drainage work. Carefulness in regard to every detail is the ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... up, strode around the office, then consulted his watch. There would be time for a cup of coffee before Bond arrived. Time for a cup of coffee, and time for the employees in Sector Fourteen to scurry about, getting their quarters in shape for an inspection. They would have no way of knowing which quarters were to be checked, and all would be put ...
— Final Weapon • Everett B. Cole
... great extent readily accounted for the reason in her heart. From modest shame, she unconsciously became purple in the face, and not venturing to ask another question she continued adjusting his clothes. This task accomplished, she followed him over to old lady Chia's apartments; and after a hurry-scurry meal, they came back to this side, and Hsi Jen availed herself of the absence of the nurses and waiting-maids to hand Pao-y ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... advanced, a remarkable and dilapidated trio, and dragged the door wide. Instantly there was a scurry and we caught sight of women's forms wearing only flowers, and but few of these, running over white sand towards groups of men armed with odd-looking clubs, some of which were fashioned to the shapes of swords and spears. To make an impression ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... by Vulcan's glowing forge, a stand had been fixed by a limelight man, who was now lighting various burners under red glasses. The scene was one of confusion, verging to all appearances on absolute chaos, but every little move had been prearranged. Nay, amid all the scurry the whistle blower even took a few turns, stepping short as he did so, in ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... win to the Eden Tree where the Four Great Rivers flow, And the Wreath of Eve is red on the turf as she left it long ago, And if we could come when the sentry slept and softly scurry through, By the favour of God we might know as much — as our ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... would march in, and settle themselves on benches prepared for them near the sideboard which benches were afterwards carried away by the retiring procession. Lady Aylmer herself always read prayers, as Sir Anthony never appeared till the middle of breakfast. Belinda would usually come down in a scurry as she heard her mother's bell, in such a way as to put the army in the hail to some confusion; but Frederic Aylmer, when he was at home, rarely entered the room till after the service was over. At Perivale no doubt he was more strict in his conduct; but then at Perivale he had special ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... black-skinned otter came after me in lust and gust and swirl; the wild cat fished for me; the hawk and the steep-winged, spear-beaked birds dived down on me, and men crept on me with nets the width of a river, so that I got no rest. My life became a ceaseless scurry and wound and escape, a burden and anguish of watchfulness—and then I ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... and noise and cafedjis and wine-bibbing, having turned two corners, I suddenly gathered my skirts, spun round, and, as fast as I could, was off at a heavy trot back to the quay. She was after me, but being taken by surprise, I suppose, was distanced a little at first. However, by the time I could scurry myself down into the boat, she was so near, that she only saved herself from the water by a balancing stoppage at the brink, as I pushed off. I then set out to get back to the ship, muttering: 'You can have Turkey, if you like, and ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... wind hurls the snow Against the frosted pane And a few flakes dash through the rattling sash, While I hear those words again. The flakes scurry off to a spot on the hill Where a little mound is seen, And they cover it softly and tenderly As the grass with ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... can't yuh? Git outa here! Fight, why don't yuh? Put up yer mits! Don't be a dog! Fight or I'll knock yuh dead! [But, without seeming to see him, they all answer with mechanical affected politeness:] I beg your pardon. [Then at a cry from one of the women, they all scurry to ...
— The Hairy Ape • Eugene O'Neill
... Cromwell's speeches shows the worst-known instance of this; but the best writers of Cromwell's own generation—far better educated than he, professed men of letters after a fashion, and without the excuse of impromptu, or of the scurry of unnoted, speech—sometimes came not ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... purple shadows were falling across the street, a rustle of cool night wind was stirring the tree-tops and the first star was coming timidly out into the gloaming, before they all realized that it was time to hurry and scurry under roof-trees. ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... flares. The Russians were battering their line and spraying all the hinterland, not with shrapnel, but with good, solid high-explosives. The place would be as bright as day for a moment, all smothered in a scurry of smoke and snow and debris, and then a black pall would fall on it, when only the thunder of the guns told of ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... basking in the sun, or wrestling with each other till a slight sound made them scurry under ground. But their alarm was needless, for the cause of it was their mother; she stepped from the bushes bringing another hen—number seventeen as I remember. A low call from her and the little fellows came tumbling out. Then began a scene that I thought charming, but ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... like to go out and walk over the moor?" she asked after a short time. "It's so scented and sweet, and darling things scurry about. I don't think they are really frightened, because I try to walk softly. Sometimes there are nests with eggs or ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... course they all died or fell an easy victim to other cats. The mother was probably an easy prey because in guarding the young, a quail will pretend to have a broken wing and struggle along to attract attention to her and away from her little ones, who scurry to high grass for safety. I have never been very friendly to cats since I ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... a small axe which Garrick had brought sounded on the flimsy outside door, in quick staccato. There was a noise and scurry of feet inside and we could hear the ...
— Guy Garrick • Arthur B. Reeve
... a hidden trail, With stir of lulling rivers along the forest floor, The dream-folk of the gloaming come back to Malyn's door. The dusk is long and gracious, and far up in the sky You hear the chimney-swallows twitter and scurry by. The hyacinths are lonesome and white in Malyn's room; And out at sea the Snowflake is driving through the gloom. The whitecaps froth and freshen; in squadrons of white surge They thunder on to ruin, and smoke along the verge. The lift is black above them, the ...
— Ballads of Lost Haven - A Book of the Sea • Bliss Carman
... to the left at the Corner, something white detached itself from the stragglers on the Embankment and shot down the slope at the galloping horses like a scurry of foam. ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... ahead. The way to almost any place of renown, natural, historic or artistic, is sure to teem with as much interest as that to which we are bound. So rich a palimpsest is French civilization, so varied is French scenery, so multifarious the points of view called up at every town, that hurry and scurry leave us hardly better informed than when we set out. Thus it has ever been my rule to indulge in the most preposterous peregrination, taking no account whatever of days, seasons or possible cons, hearkening ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... man, as for combat, enter— Where is the peril he fears to adventure? See how the puppets speed on to the race,} Each his own fortune pursues in the chase; } How many the rivals, how narrow the space! } But, hurry and scurry, O mettlesome game! The cars roll in thunder, the wheels rush in flame. How the brave dart onward, and pant and glow! How the craven behind them come creeping slow— Ha! ha! see how Pride gets a terrible fall! See how Prudence, or Cunning, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... while feeling labour to be not only a pleasure, but actually a luxury, there is no heat of blood and brain; there is no occasion to either chase or hurry. Life now is not like a game of football on Rugby lines—all scurry, push, and perspiration. The new-comer's prospects are everything that could be desired, and—mark this—he does not live for the future any more than the present. There is enough of everything around him now, ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... forth, god Ku, look forth! Huh! Ku is blear-eyed! Aye, weave now the wreath— A wreath for the dog Pua-lena; 5 A hala plume for Kahili, Choice garlands from Niho-ku. [Page 226] There was a scurry of clouds, earth, groaned; The sound of your baying reached Hawaii the verdant, the pet of the gods; 10 A portent was seen in the heavens. You were kept in a cradle of gourd, Water-gourd of the witch Kilioe, Who haunted the cliffs of Haena— The fiery blasts of the crater ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... rose to go, he saw a small dark object scurry over the snow. At first he thought it a raven. But at last, with a little circle, it appeared to flop over and to lie still, a dark ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell
... early in the evening, so I took my stick and daunered to the hay-shed (which was next to the planting) behind the stackyard, for I liked the noise of the wood, and would lie on the hay and listen to the scurry of the rabbits, the rippling note of the cushats in the tree-tops, and watch for the coming of the white owls that flitted among the trees. And as I lay on the sweet-smelling clovery hay there came over me a drowsiness, for I had been early ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... and controls in operation. Only a few red lights remained now. Rick looked through the glass ports and saw the gantry crane being wheeled away. Jeeps, trucks, and private cars were moving out of the area, haste evident in their spinning wheels and hunched drivers. The movement was like a scurry of ants. Rick watched, taking in everything. He didn't even notice when the massive door was swung shut, closing against its airtight cushion with a ...
— The Scarlet Lake Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... yet in rosy veils, By hidden nests of nightingales, Through lonesome valleys where all day The rabbit people scurry and play, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... branches and bruised stems of forest-trees; and Dante, looking out with fear upon the foam and spray and vapour of the flood, saw thousands of the damned flying before the face of one who forded Styx with feet unwet. 'Like frogs,' he says, 'they fled, who scurry through the water at the sight of their foe, the serpent, till each squats and hides himself close to the ground.' The picture of the storm among the trees might well have occurred to Dante's mind beneath the roof of pine-boughs. Nor is there any ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... reproduced by the Abbe Faillon. This quarter of the Lower Town, so populous under the French regime, and where, according to Monseigneur de Laval, there was, in 1661, "magnus numerus civium" continued, until about 1832, to represent the hurry-scurry of affairs and the residences of the principal merchants, one of the wealthiest portions of the city. There, in 1793, the father of our Queen, Colonel of the 7th Fusiliers, then in garrison at Quebec, partook of the hospitality ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... Tom Fluke. I suppose she got unkivered in the scurry after the Yankee; but bear a hand, and kiver her, unless you wish a fellow to ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... strolled on beneath the shadows of the tall elms, the stillness of the night was broken only by the quick scurry of a rabbit into the tall bracken or the harsh cry of some night-bird startled by ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... that he would never let her get astride "like a laddie," however much she wanted to do so. And when the morning was wet, and the sound of the flails came to her from the barn, she would watch for the moment when her aunt's back would be turned, and then scurry across the yard, like a mouse to its hole; for auntie's first impulse was always to oppose whatever Annie desired. Once in the barn, she would bury herself like a mole in the straw, and listen to the unfailing metronome of the flails, till she would ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... home, remembered alone, would stand embowered forever,—if not among ancestral trees and vines, then in clustering memories far more lovely and more cherished. But what dignity or beauty or quiet or distinctness can attach to the score of tenements that scurry helter-skelter through my memory? It is little better than the vision of the drunken men-at-arms in the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... hardness in the Parliamentary zeal which razed the cross in 1647 than in the stony fidelity of detail which hurts the eye in the modern work, and refuses to be softened by any effect of the mellowing London air. It looks out over the scurry of cabs, the ponderous tread of omnibuses, the rainfall patter of human feet, as inexorably latter-day as anything in the Strand. It is only an instance of the constant futility of the restoration which, in a world so violent or merely wearing as ours, ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... ran out. He watched her scurry down the street with satisfaction wrinkling under his beard. "It was a kind of happy idee and it seems to be workin'," he observed. "I've allus thought I knew enough about cowards to write a book on ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... well-to-do. Mary saw that it was not necessary to gamble in groups. Men and even women, all alone, pushed their way through the thick wall of hats and shoulders round the table, sometimes being lost altogether, or sometimes emerging again in three or four minutes to scurry across the shining expanse of floor to another table. By and by, when she began to feel calmer, Mary ventured near a table in the middle of the room, within full sight of doors which led to other rooms: a long vista straight ahead, where all the decorations seemed ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... was too late. An explosion, a frantic crow from a once lordly cock, a scurry to safer quarters, jeering cheers from heartless throats, and then silence as Mrs. McDougal's ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... twenty, announces that he likewise is on the way to Yuzgat; and after listening attentively to my explanations of how a wheelman climbs mountains and overcomes stretches of bad road, he solemnly inquires whether a 'cycler could scurry up a mountain slope all right if some one were to follow behind and touch him up occasionally with a whip, in the persuasive manner required in driving a horse. He then produces a rawhide "persuader," and ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... a still distant and very slowly moving train. The gate-keeper was a buxom and determined-looking French woman of well past middle age, who turned a deaf ear to the entreaties of the occupants of the leading car that the line of trucks should be allowed to scurry across before the ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... crouched, hesitated, crouched again, and then leaped amazingly upward. He caught at the edge of the aperture and swung back and forth, for a moment, shifting his hold; finally doubled up and disappeared into the darkness above. There was a scurry, a migration of rats, as the ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... statue, which suddenly appeared as it were from the ground,—and now stood in midway, and with uplifted hand as though in warning. Would the horses ride him down? No; there was a sudden check, a scurry, a wild yell, and Buffalo Jim threw up his arms and went backward, rolling over in the sand, while Mary's horse, released, darted forward for fifty yards or so, and was then brought round. She met us half-way toward the place where the riderless horse had dashed into ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... 'Hush! scush! scurry! There you go in a hurry! Gobble! gobble! goblin! There you go a wobblin'; Hobble, hobble, hobblin'— ...
— The Princess and the Goblin • George MacDonald
... of any kind, they were sure to come in hungry, thirsty and foot-sore from some distant part of the field. At Champigny they slept on a billiard-table; upon the Plateau d'Avron they just happened around when the Prussians began the awful bombardment which obliged the French to scurry off, leaving guns and stores. This, they said, was their worst day out, for they half ran, half rolled down the hillside through a rain of shells, about a hundred guns, they maintained, having been concentrated upon that ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... return in the early night from one of my patrols with the shepherd, a friendly face would meet me in the door, a friendly retriever scurry up stairs to fetch my slippers, and I would sit down with the Vicomte for a long, silent, solitary ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton
... her old gray goose continued their stately walk across the meadow. Only once did the goose's dignity forsake it. Grace's excitable rooster crossed its path! The rooster had made a short scurry to the side, his driver trying to persuade him back to the straight path. As the rooster hurried past the old gray goose, the latter stopped short, gave an indignant flap of its wings, rose a few inches from the ...
— The Automobile Girls in the Berkshires - The Ghost of Lost Man's Trail • Laura Dent Crane
... washed the unwilling Lamb, and hurried him into his best clothes, Anthea peeped out of the window from time to time; so far all was well - she could see no Red Indians. When with a rush and a scurry and some deepening of the damask of Martha's complexion she and the Lamb had been got off, ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... surface of the sponge, which a pinch of carmine dust reveals so beautifully. From the deeper aquatic gardens come up great orange and yellow sponges, two and three feet in length, and around the bases of these the weird serpent stars are clinging, while crabs scurry away as the mass reaches the ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... The scurry of hoofs as the horses clambered up the steep banks, the low- spoken words of encouragement which were given their steeds by the robbers, and suddenly the shrill whistle giving the long-looked-for signal rang out on the ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... vibrating. Buckling the fur cape around my shoulders with the platinum clasp, I stamped down the ramp. The sturdy little M-3 robot rumbled after me with my bags. Heading directly towards the main gate, I ignored the scurry of activity around the customs building. Only when a uniformed under-official of some kind ran over to me, did I give the field ...
— The Misplaced Battleship • Harry Harrison (AKA Henry Maxwell Dempsey)
... in the road; for a second or more they looked at the approaching waggon, then, when the necessity dawned upon them, they ran for safety, one one way, one another, and the third, a baby boy, like a chicken, half across the way to the right, then, after a scurry in the middle, back again to the left, ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... short white roots run down in the damp mould, where they find nutriment for the plant. If you work your finger under the stem, and pull gently, it is wonderful to see the long and beautiful wreath slowly disentangle itself from the forest floor, disturbing hundreds of little wood-beetles, which scurry away to hide again among the woodland rubbish. There are two kinds of creeping green very common in all moist wooded lands at the North—the kind with leaves rising in whorls, and that with a stem covered with bristle-like spikes. This last variety has leaves, not very abundant,—which ...
— Harper's Young People, December 23, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... I was innocent of any wrong being done me. For not only I knew no word of the Gaelic; but what with the long suspense of the waiting, and the scurry and strain of our two spirts of fighting, and more than all, the horror I had of some of my own share in it, the thing was no sooner over than I was glad to stagger to a seat. There was that tightness on my chest that I could hardly breathe; the thought of the two men I had shot sat upon me like ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... last, a little after six o'clock, Galbraith said, "Quarter to eight, everybody," and dismissed them with a nod for a scurry to what were evidently dressing-rooms at the other side of the ball, the ship of Rose's hopes had utterly gone to pieces. She had a plank to keep herself afloat on. It was the determination to stay there until he should tell her in so many words that ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... welcome the new day. On other mornings it would be as if he shivered perplexed on the brink of a fathomless abyss, and life engulfed him like chill waters, and he would strive, defensively, to divest himself of himself and be but as one of millions of the ant-like creatures that scurry over the earth's face, of no more significance to himself than were the myriad others. He could just achieve this state of impersonality while he lay in bed. But when he got up, stood on the floor, looked at the world no longer from ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... field. The words are synonyms, but come from different hemispheres of the world. Does it not seem strange that a word descriptive of these treeless wildernesses of North America should be a gift, not of the Indian hunter who used to scurry across them swift as an arrow of death, but should really be the gift of those hardy and valorous French voyagers who had no purpose of fastening a name on the flower-sown, green meadows that swayed in the wind like some emerald sea? So the Incas have christened the plains of South America, ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... was animal. In these days when papers and speeches are full of words like democracy and self-determination, anything really resembling the movement of a mass of angry men is regarded as no better than a stampede of bulls or a scurry of rats. The new sociologists call it the herd instinct, just as the old reactionaries called it the many-headed beast. But both agree in implying that it is hardly worth while to count how many head there are of such cattle. ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... two meek voices, and after a few irrepressible giggles, silence reigned, broken only by an occasional snore from the boys, or the soft scurry of mice in the buttery, taking their ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... acacias, and dark-leaved chestnuts (the leaves of the latter like the palms of human hands) which rock to and fro as though they would fain seize, and detain the driving clouds. Also, from court to court scurry Cossack women who, with skirt-tails tucked up to reveal muscular legs bare to the knee, are preparing to array themselves for the morrow's festival, and, meanwhile, chattering to one another, or shouting to plump infants which ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... preparations to return to Fort Yuma. But to make sure that no more of the crawling trains would be winding along that way this season, myself and another scout, with two days' rations, started on a little scurry eastward. But a tour of four days developed no further sign of emigrants or Indians, so the scout and I returned to find the command all ready to start. We were just about taking up the line of march for Yuma when a teamster on his way ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan
... pavement there was a scurry of sandalled feet; the crowd opened, and a party of girls rushed about the speaker and his fair friend, and began singing and dancing to the tabrets they themselves touched. The woman, scared, clung to the man, who put an arm about her, and, ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... torn and hacked and splintered until first one gun and then another roared into action again. The Frenchman's anchor had been cut away, and the Leda had worked herself free from that fatal hug. But now, suddenly, there was a scurry up the shrouds of the Gloire, and a hundred Englishmen were shouting themselves hoarse: "They're running! They're ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... it looked as if the bullet had gone wide. The next moment it could be seen that something had been hit, but it was hard to tell what. Then out of the scurry and whirl, the old terrier was observed to ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... started to scurry down the street Dick caught Laura's nearer arm to aid her. Dave did ...
— The High School Left End - Dick & Co. Grilling on the Football Gridiron • H. Irving Hancock
... man 's mends church spires 's comin' together to get the cow out o' the mill-wheel. The whole c'mmunity 's goin' down to look on, 'n' I can't see no good 'n' s'fficient reason why you should n't go too. I 'll help you dress, 'n' we 'll scurry along right now. 'F we meet Mr. Weskin 'n' he says lawsuit to you, you jus' up 'n' tell him 's you 're goin' to sue him for throwin' you head foremost into a fever on a'count o' not knowin' where your only son 's been gone all night, 'n' 'f young Dr. Brown ever has the face to so much 's hint ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... slept; and the same might have been said of every part of him. He grovelled most industriously during all his waking hours, until such time as his podgy legs had hardened sufficiently to bear his weight—with many falls, of course—and then he began to scurry about on his feet. His usual style of progression at this period was to take from two to four abrupt, jerky strides, rather with the air of a fussy and corpulent old gentleman who had to catch a train, and then to subside in a confused lump, on chest ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... the liberty of differing from Madame Prunes and Prisms, and, as your physician, I order you to run. Off with you!" said Uncle Alec, with a look and a gesture that made Rose scurry away as fast as ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... top, Of the sweetest potatoes and milk; And you've not left a bit or a drop; But, though an old sow, I'll not grunt: So begone round the barn for a freak, And I'll watch you, dear piggies, fat, curly-tailed piggies, As you hurry and scurry and squeak." ...
— The Nursery, June 1873, Vol. XIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest People • Various
... youngest scarcely dared to scurry across the floor, its little heart beating pit-a-pat, and they found it so hard to get time to look for food that they ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... wild Elephant, came crushing through the jungle, and Hoodo had to scurry out of his way, so that he didn't get ...
— The Jungle Baby • G. E. Farrow
... side, and stuck his toe into the empty stirrup-strap; there was a scattering of pebbles, a scurry of hoofs, and the horse and rider became a gray ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... kept them close. The elephants stood still. I heard a soft scurry, a little rustle, and then a silence—for in that world ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... still asleep; Migwan was coaxing a chipmunk up on the bed with peanuts; Sahwah was noiselessly getting into her bathing suit. Seeing that Gladys was awake, both girls waved their arms in friendly greeting. Talking was not allowed before the first bugle. There was a soft scurry of little feet on the floor, and another chipmunk darted in and paused inquiringly beside Gladys's bed. Migwan tossed her some peanuts and Gladys held one out gingerly to the little creature. He hopped up boldly and took ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... and clarionets, was suddenly heard in the shrubbery; guns were fired at intervals, loud cheers were given, the little girls began to dance again, and heads appeared among the bushes as if they had grown out of the earth. I ran and leaped about in all the hurry and scurry, but as it began to grow dark I only gradually recognized all the faces. The old gardener beat the drum, the students from Prague in their cloaks played away, and among them the Porter fingered his bassoon like mad. When I suddenly ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... then scamper back to the house in fear, tumbling over each other and shouting, the eldest girl making good her escape with the baby. My companion swings his hat, and cries, "Hullo, baby!" And when we have passed the gate, and are under the wall, the whole ragged, brown-skinned troop scurry out upon the terrace, and run along, calling after us, in perfect English, as long as we keep in sight, "Hullo, baby!" "Hullo, baby!" The next traveler who goes that way will no doubt be hailed by the quick-witted ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... laughed loud and long to see the townsfolk scurry off in this fashion, and he commanded them to come back. He soon let them understand that he had been in the forest, and that from that day for evermore he had pardoned Robin Hood. When they found out the tall outlaw ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... and did likewise with the second mate, and so returned in a minute, bearing the bo'sun's cutlass, my own cut-and-thrust, and the lantern that hung always in the saloon. Now when I had gotten back, I found all things in a mighty scurry—men running about in their shirts and drawers, some in the galley bringing fire from the stove, and others lighting a fire of dry weed to leeward of the galley, and along the starboard rail there was already a fierce ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... skill of both to keep the sled from overrunning the dogs, but in the space of four minutes it was accomplished, and with a final rush they took the level trail of the lake's frozen and snow-covered surface. As they did so a gust of wind brought a scurry of snow in their faces, and Benard looked anxiously up ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... civilizations forbear to reach hands across the sea and share with the young and lusty West the fruits of their knowledge. On a May morning, as skillful carriers swing you up to the heights of the South India hills, there is a sudden sound reminiscent of the home barnyard, a scurry of wings across the path, and a gleam of glossy plumage; Mr. Jungle Cock has been disturbed in his morning meal. Did you know that from his ancestors are descended in direct lineage all the Plymouth Rocks and the White Leghorns of the poultry yard, all the Buff Orpingtons that ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren
... fought in the service of the king saw the trembling, weak-kneed figure, which had stood behind them, turn and scurry through the gateway, leaving the men who battled for him ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... came scouring down the meadow, then turned and took to heavy-rolling flight. They were soon overtaken; the mixed throng were pressed together by the sides of the valley, and away they went, pell-mell, hurry-scurry, wild buffalo, wild horse, wild huntsman, with clang and clatter, and whoop and halloo, that made ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... rush and scurry in the corridors of Mr. Crocker's brain, as about six different thoughts tried to squash simultaneously into that main chamber where there is room for only one at a time. He understood now why this woman's appearance had seemed familiar. She ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... automobiles that make Versailles their goal. Even they rarely tarry in the old town, but, turning at the Chateau gates, lose no time in retracing their impetuous flight towards a city whose usages accord better with their creed of feverish hurry-scurry than do the conventions of reposeful Versailles. And these fiery chariots of modernity, with their ghoulish, fur-garbed, and hideously spectacled occupants, once their raucous, cigale-like birr-r-r has died away in the distance, leave infinitely less impression on the placid life of Versailles ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd
... of flame. Suddenly the white leader of the raiders approached the pyre, limping on his wooden stump, with a stick in his hand, and prodded the face of the victim. It was his last act. Solomon was taking aim. His rifle spoke. Red Snout tumbled forward into the fire. Then what a scurry among the Indians! They vanished and so suddenly that Jack wondered where they had gone. Solomon stood reloading the rifle barrel he had just emptied. Then ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... hot-bed of scurry and ulcer. Of the former disease my own corps, I am informed, had in hospital at one time 200 cases above the usual amount of sickness; this arises from the brackish water, the want of vegetables, and lastly the cachexy induced by an utter absence of change, diversion, ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... learned here that the first quality needed to make a great filibuster is Patience, it is not courage, or resources or a knowledge of the Cuban Coast line, it is patience. Anybody can run a boat into a dark bayou and dump rifles on the beach and scurry away to sea again but only heroes can sit for a month on a hotel porch or at the end of a wharf, and wait. That is all we do and that is my life at Key West. I get up and half dress and take a plunge in the ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... the white of an egg," she replied rather haughtily. She was too honest to evade anything, but she flushed. Of course, I knew what he didn't—that the prince had been among the first to scurry to the house, and that he hadn't even ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... sentiment which he was only too delighted to exercise so long as no urgent demands were made upon it. Once or twice women and men younger than himself had made such urgent demands; with what a hurry, a scurry and a scamper had he then run ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... forgive myself? I studied the matter deeply—it wearies me to remember how deeply—till at last I understood that it was wounded vanity that hurt so, and no nobler remorse. Then, and only then, was the ghost laid. If it ever tried to get up again, after that, I only had to call it names to see it scurry back to its grave and pull ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... In a minute or so I heard the trampling of a horse: and then, with a scurry of hoofs, Joan was off on the King's errand, and ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... they are really close to the hare they will make the matter plain to the huntsman by various signs—the quivering of their bodies backwards and forwards, sterns and all; the ardour meaning business; the rush and emulaton; the hurry-scurry to be first; the patient following-up of the whole pack; at one moment massed together, and at another separated; and once again the steady onward rush. At last they have reached the hare's form, and are in the act to spring upon her. But she on a sudden will start up and bring about her ears the ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon
... her lover. The moor was bathed in a flood of silver moonlight, the sea below was lighted up by the same serene effulgence, and the silence of night was only broken by the trickle of the mill stream down in the valley, the barking of the dogs on the distant farms, and the secret scurry of a rabbit under ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... to scurry around to find a pair of old shoes, which may be picked up almost anywhere in China, and putting one crosswise of the other, they let them fall. The way they fell indicated what kind of meat or vegetables they were. If they both fell upside down they were the big black tiger. If both fell on the ...
— The Chinese Boy and Girl • Isaac Taylor Headland |
