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Scrambling   Listen
adjective
Scrambling  adj.  Confused and irregular; awkward; scambling. "A huge old scrambling bedroom."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Scrambling" Quotes from Famous Books



... interests. In 1883, when the simplified-spelling movement first tried to make a noise, I was indifferent to it; more—I even irreverently scoffed at it. What I needed was an object-lesson, you see. It is the only way to teach some people. Very well, I got it. At that time I was scrambling along, earning the family's bread on magazine work at seven cents a word, compound words at single rates, just as it is in the dark present. I was the property of a magazine, a seven-cent slave under a boiler-iron contract. One ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... me, once or twice plunged into quagmires, through which I followed, until I was almost spent. At length a faint light, at some distance, caught our eyes. Onwards we urged, until we could distinguish a cottage, from whose small window the light proceeded. After scrambling over a low, loose stone wall, we found ourselves in the cottage garden. I looked in at the window, and could perceive a man and two women—one old, the other young—seated by the fire. There was no other light of any ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various

... reported; and generally believed, that Farnese himself had been in imminent danger, that Schenk had fired his pistol at him unsuccessfully, and had then struck him on the head with its butt-end, and that the Prince had only saved his life by leaping from his horse, and scrambling through a ditch. But these seem to have been fables. The alarm at last became general, the dawn of a summer's day was fast approaching; the drums beat to arms, and the bold marauders were obliged to effect their retreat, as they best might, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... they were unable to drive out the men who had entered the town, and that others were scrambling over the wall to their assistance, they turned and fled, closely pursued by the sailors. Within twenty minutes the whole English force held the village. Before long, Fred, Charlie, and Ping Wang found themselves close to the wall of Chin ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various

... scrambling aboard. We turned the boy over, and took him below. Shortly afterwards the tug hove in sight, and we let the beast lie whilst we got our anchor and manoeuvred with the tow-rope. I am sorry to say the boy was dead. On our arrival a doctor came and looked at him, and a ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell

... two arms straight up into the air for some moments, then she suddenly crossed them twice, turning at the same moment and scrambling over the barricade. A long shrill whistle rang out over the heads of the mob, and its effect was almost instantaneous. The "flares" disappeared like magic. Dark figures swarmed up the lamp-posts and extinguished the feeble ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman

... scrambling from her chair and crossing to her desk for her history. She would take the note back to Petty. It was utter nonsense of course, but it was Petty's and if she was pleased with such nonsense, she was welcome to it. She looked hurriedly through ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... home, and set his unwilling horse to scrambling downward at an angle he could not guess, into blackness he could feel, trusting the animal to find a footing where his own eyes ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy

... scrambling in her bag worse than she had in the bureau drawer. Everything came out—purse, tickets, gloves, handkerchief, the tiniest little looking-glass, a letter or two, a silver thimble, two coughdrops stuck together, a sample of ...
— Betty Gordon at Mountain Camp • Alice B. Emerson

... flames, of bluish backs and rosy fins. Some came out from the caves silvered and vibrant as lightning flashes of mercury; others swam slowly, big-bellied, almost circular, with a golden coat of mail. Along the slopes, the crustaceans came scrambling along on their double row of claws attracted by this novelty that was changing the mortal calm of the under-sea where all follow and devour, only to be devoured in turn. Near the surface floated the medusae, living parasols of an opaline whiteness with circular borders of lilac ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... Rachel came, and the Acadian and Spaniards, who, from the cessation of our fire, guessed that we were either unloaded, or had expended our ammunition, now sprang forward, and by climbing, and scrambling, and getting on one another's shoulders, managed to scale the side of the mound, almost perpendicular as you see it is. And in a minute the Acadian and half a dozen Spaniards, with axes, were chopping away at the palisades, and severing the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various

... rather, it was sixty to five. For the redskins had increased the odds by shooting down the driver. The second bullet he received drilled him through the heart. The guard, scrambling for shelter, joined the four men in the ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens

... the mild sway of the republic which still in his mellower moments he terms a usurpation. Yet prejudices so obstinate have not made him an ungentle or impracticable companion. If the truth must be told, the life of the aged loyalist has been of such a scrambling and unsettled character—he has had so little choice of friends and been so often destitute of any—that I doubt whether he would refuse a cup of kindness with either Oliver Cromwell or John Hancock, to say nothing of any democrat now upon the stage. In another paper of this series I may ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... bed, and, as a precautionary measure, buried her head under the clothes before she began to say her prayers, which, under the circumstances, she had thought she might be excused for leaving till she had lain down. But her prayers were suddenly interrupted by a terrible noise of scrambling and scratching and scampering in ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... from the shrubs here is of an aromatic and a resinous nature, which sounds nice, but it isn't; for the volumes of smoke it gives off when burning are suffocating, and the boys, who sit almost on the fire, are every few moments scrambling to their feet and going apart to cough out smoke, like so many novices in training for the profession of fire-eaters. However, they soon find that if they roll themselves in their blankets, and lie on the ground to windward they escape most ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... roasted skin. Where the four walls had been there was blackness of immeasurable space. He could hear the thousand-footed cannibals of night creep nearer—driven in toward him by the dinning of the tom-toms. He felt that his bed was up above a scrambling swarm ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy

... obvious," said Sir Nigel. "There is a sort of cynicism in the openness of the siege. My impression is that almost every youngster who has met her has taken a shot. Tommy Alanby scrambling up from his knees in one of the rose-gardens was a satisfying sight. His much-talked-of-passion for Jane Lithcom was temporarily ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... their school life?—how far, in the adult life of this nation, the Fine Arts may advisably supersede or regulate the mechanical Arts? Plain questions these, enough; clearly also important ones; and, as clearly, boundless ones—mountainous—infinite in contents—only to be mined into in a scrambling manner by poor inquirers, as their present tools ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... stupid I am!" he said to himself at last; and hastily scrambling on his clothes, he went down-stairs and out on to the cliff, to be almost startled by the heavy thunder of the great billows that came tumbling in, every now and then one of them coming with a tremendous smack upon the pier, when the whole harbour was deluged, the foam and spray flying ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn

... earth business has Riddell with your cribs, I'd like to know?" exclaimed Parson, indignant, not at all on the question of morality, but because the last straw on which he had relied for scrambling through his ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed

... tyrant Time! Whose winter all the streams of rhyme, The flowing waves of Love sublime, In bitter passage freezes. I only see the scrambling goat, The lotos on the water float, While an old shepherd with an oat Pipes ...
— London Lyrics • Frederick Locker

... the beast fairly on the snout. It fell back, but uprose again, growling horribly. The girl stood, too dazed to move, but Jack grasped her roughly by the shoulder, turned her about and shouted, hoarsely, "Run!" then made another blow at the scrambling animal. She reeled for a moment, then gathered herself together and ran like a scared doe. As she ran she screamed—about one scream to each five yards, as carefully estimated by the young man ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo

... the door of the house being opened, I saw without a great crowd of people. Now I had much gold in my sleeve, which I had provided against the like of this occasion; so I fell to scattering it among the people, to divert their attention from me; and whilst they were busy scrambling for it, I set off running through the by-streets of Baghdad, and this cursed barber, whom nothing could divert from me, after me. Wherever I went, he followed, crying out, 'They would have bereft me of my master and slain him who has been a benefactor to me and my family ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous

... children, it's only your papa," said a kind, chattering voice, and Mr. Monkey, with a bunch of bananas slung over his back, came scrambling up ...
— Mappo, the Merry Monkey • Richard Barnum

... Scrambling out of this aperture with thankfulness, we found ourselves upon the slope of a kind of huge ditch of lava which ran first downwards for about eighty paces, then up again to the base of the great cone of the inner mountain which ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard

... describes how one party worked. The ground was selected, the men tearing up the grass and plants, and erected the huts, whilst the women looked after the canoes, properties, and provisions, and collected firewood; and he kept the children and some of the oldest of the party out of mischief by scrambling the contents of his pockets amongst them. At the same time he noticed that however busy the men might be, they took care to be within easy reach of their weapons; and he on his side had a strong ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson

... far down the chimney as she could and waited till she heard a little animal scratching and scrambling about in the chimney close above her; then she gave one sharp kick and waited to ...
— Alice in Wonderland • Lewis Carroll

... forgiven the joyous kicks he had recently received from the attorney's heels, came to a sudden halt by the side of the quagmire, and, putting down his head, and flinging up his legs, cast him into it. While Potts was scrambling out, the animal galloped off in the direction of the clough, and had just reached it when he was seized upon by James Device, who suddenly started from the covert, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... so spurred me on, that I Strained every nerve, behind him scrambling up, Until the ...
— Dante's Purgatory • Dante

... side of a declivity among little scattered trees. A stream trickled through willow bushes and tall grass in the bottom of the hollow, and the men. had trouble in forcing the cattle to leave the water. Before they accomplished it, Edgar had got very wet and had scratched himself badly in scrambling through ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss

... contrived to scramble, although not without difficulty; but on reaching the bottom we had the mortification to find the water salt; and as it would have been very laborious to follow its course along the bottom of the ravine over the mud, mangroves, and rocks which filled it, we had the pleasure of scrambling up again as ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey

... The sound of the scrambling, struggling hoofs was lost in the strife of waters, the swaying figures disappeared in the gloom, and the man who was left behind turned grimly and went ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell

... jump, and he knew it all along. When Rambler rose gamely to it, with tensed muscles and forefeet flung forward to catch the bank beyond, he knew it better. And when, after a sickening minute of frenzied scrambling at the crumbling edge, they slid helplessly to the bottom, he cursed his idiocy for ever ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower

... hand as an invitation to Montgomery to come to him. The student did so and led with his left, but got a swinging right counter in the ribs in exchange. The heavy blow staggered him, and the Master came scrambling in to complete his advantage; but Montgomery, with his greater activity, kept out of danger until the call of "time." A tame round, and ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle

... and, after following the little stream which trickled at its bottom for a short distance, turn abruptly up the opposite side, and run for a while along a crest or ridge of scoriae or disintegrated lava, only, however, to plunge into another ravine beyond. And thus alternately scrambling up and down, yet gradually ascending diagonally, we worked our way towards the hut where we were to pass the night. The slopes of the mountain were already in shadow, and the gloom of the dense forests ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... keeping down stream, and then fording it again, a rider might hit upon the Middleton road, near the rock that warned the public of the blood-hounds. This bridle-road kept a great distance from the cliffs overhanging the perilous Scarfe; and the only way down to a view of the fall was a scrambling track, over rocks and trunks, unworthy to be called a foot-path. The lady with the bag had no choice left but to follow this track, or else abandon her intention. For a moment she was sorry that she had not been satisfied with some less troublesome destruction of her foe, even ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... falling, leading our scrambling horses, we got down the wall on the other side. It was easier going, but slippery with heather and that green moss of the mountains, which looks so tempting but which gives neither foothold nor nourishment. Then, ...
— Tenting To-night - A Chronicle of Sport and Adventure in Glacier Park and the - Cascade Mountains • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... on the dome now. I took a last shot as we lifted. My bullet punctured one of them: he slid, fell scrambling off the rounded dome and dropped out ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings

... nobody does anything well that they cannot help doing: work is only done well when it is done with a will; and no man has a thoroughly sound will unless he knows he is doing what he should, and is in his place. And, depend upon it, all work must be done at last, not in a disorderly, scrambling, doggish way, but in an ordered, soldierly, human way—a lawful way. Men are enlisted for the labour that kills—the labour of war: they are counted, trained, fed, dressed, and praised for that. Let them be ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... he answered, in a mechanical way, as if thinking of something else. "But my coat was nearly torn off my back scrambling through the chaparral yonder." He had not taken the chair she pointed out to him, but stood—leaning with the heaviness of fatigue against the shelf that served as a table—looking at her in the lamp-light. She saw how pale and haggard and half-famished-looking ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... however, on gratifying her curiosity, she desired him to lead the way; and accordingly he did so over crag and stone, anxiously pointing out to her the resting-places where she ought to step, for their mode of advancing soon ceased to be walking, and became scrambling. ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... out that, by sending this message, we implied in so many words, that we would not land until the lighters came out from England. He assumed that we had definitely turned down any plan of scrambling ashore forthwith, as best we could? I said, "Yes," and that the Navy were with me in that view, a statement confirmed by de Robeck and Wemyss who nodded their heads. Birdwood said he only wanted to be quite clear about it, ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton

... morning, determined to see the sights, he was in New York, and drifted about to all places night and day, till his money was mostly gone, and nothing to show for it but a somewhat pleasure-beaten face and a deep hatred of the crowded, scrambling East. So he suddenly bought a ticket for Green River, Wyoming, and escaped from the city that seemed to numb ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister

... been a bit lonely and blue this afternoon, for the day has reminded me of the past. I won't be weak and womanish any more. I think some political questions interest a great many women deeply. It must be so. We don't dote on scrambling politicians; but a man as a true statesman makes a ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe

... sorts of ugly, jerky, and noisy music, but none of it is in the remotest degree like a storm at sea, or anywhere else. At last, after Kurz had become hoarse with his nautical disquisitions, and Haydn's fingers were tired of scrambling all over the piano, the little musician in a rage crashed his hands down on the two extremes of the instrument, exclaiming: "Let's have done ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various

... be in haste, be in a hurry &c. n.; have no time, have not a moment to lose, have not a moment to spare; work against time. quicken &c. 274; accelerate, expedite, put on, precipitate, urge, whip; railroad. Adj. hasty, hurried, brusque; scrambling, cursory, precipitate, headlong, furious, boisterous, impetuous, hotheaded; feverish, fussy; pushing. in haste, in a hurry &c. n.; in hot haste, in all haste; breathless, pressed for time, hard pressed, urgent. Adv. with haste, with all ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... a bit surprised, but no smile came over his spattered rainbow face as he led the way into the drink-shop. The place was crowded with men and women scrambling for penny sandwiches and drinks fermented and spirituous. Some of these women had babies at their breasts, the babies being brought by appointment by older children who stayed at home while the mothers worked. And as the mothers ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard

... men, unbelieving still, were amusing themselves by rolling large stones down the slope, when suddenly there was a sound of scrambling, and across an opening in the scrub, in sight of us all, a huge hyaena scurried away "on three legs." I sent a man post-haste for my rifle, which I had not brought with me, never expecting to require it until a regular campaign could be arranged. As soon ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)

... lightning flash, a sharp ringing report, a yell in the distance, followed by the sound of scrambling. Hamlin laughed, as he ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish

... which seemed to lead to a higher street. As soon as the party began to go up these steps, they saw several children running down from above to meet them. When these children reached the place where Rollo was, they began saying something very eagerly in Italian, scrambling up the steps again at the same time, so as to keep up with Rollo ...
— Rollo in Rome • Jacob Abbott

... singular discovery when travelling among the mountains to the east of the Dead Sea, where the ruins of Ammon Jerash and Ajoloun well repay the labour and fatigue encountered in visiting them. It was a remarkably hot and sultry day. We were scrambling up the mountain through a thick jungle of bushes and low trees, which rises above the east shore of the Dead Sea, when I saw before me a fine plum-tree, loaded with fresh blooming plums. I cried out to my fellow-traveller: 'Now, then, who will arrive first at the plum-tree?' and as he caught ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 450 - Volume 18, New Series, August 14, 1852 • Various

... splendid animals were still in view—bounding up a stony hillside some distance off, in straggling twos and threes, and going at a prodigious speed. But where was the light-colored stag? Certainly not among those brown beasts whose scrambling up that steep face was sending a shower of stones and debris down ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black

... to Lynton is along the coast-road, which is soon reached from the valley. Beneath the road the cliffs fall precipitously hundreds of feet to the sea, and a few little horned sheep and some white goats, scrambling on the face of them, seemed to have the same hold as flies on a window-pane. Ravens are often seen even now amongst these almost inaccessible rocks. The road runs through a fir-wood, and as it rises and falls one may catch delicious ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote

... car and waved his arms with all his might: "Drop them shovels! Git to the tunnel, every man of ye: here,—this way!" and he plunged on, the men scrambling after him. ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith

... They were all dressed very showily, and heavily powdered and painted, excepting some mere babies who were plainly dressed. Troops of little girls, from four to five years of age, swarmed out of the neighboring 'flower-boats' and gathered around us, screaming and scrambling, falling, laughing, and following us the full length of the street, which was made up of about twenty such boats on either side. And none of these innocent little things at all realized the fate in store for them. In one place we saw two very ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell

... Don Luis exclaimed, as he seemed to be scrambling into his clothes. "The negroes out again! I heard that they were showing signs of unrest. I will be with you in a moment. Nay, do not be alarmed, carissima, the danger is certainly not immediate; you will have ample time to rise and dress ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood

... of the cliff. Here he paused, looking over the bank to see if he could get down and continue his walk along the shore, but the soft sandy bluff here jutted so that he could not even see at what level the tide lay. After spending some minutes in scrambling half-way down and returning because he could descend no further, he struck backwards some paces behind the farm buildings, supposing the descent to be easier where bushes grew in the shallow chine. In the ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall

... the seeds of those we eat and plant them near our camp," said Stephen; "we shall soon get a supply without having to come here to fetch them. Besides, these will attract the pigs and enable us to get fresh meat without having the trouble of scrambling through the forest, and tearing ourselves and our ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty

... been carried off by a good night's rest; a droll, scrambling breakfast had been eaten, German fashion, with its head- quarters on the kitchen table; and everybody running about communicating their discoveries. Bobus and Jock had set off to school, and poor little Armine, who firmly believed that his rejection was ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge

... skirted a thicket of arbutus, and came upon the long volcanic ridge, with divinest outlook over Procida and Miseno toward Vesuvius. Then once more we had to dive into brown sandstone gullies, extremely steep, where the horses almost burst their girths in scrambling, and the grooms screamed, exasperating their confusion with encouragements and curses. Straight or bending as a willow wand, Giuseppe kept in front. I could have imagined he had stepped to life from one ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... face surprise; the boarding party, convinced that they had fallen into a trap, melted away. One moment they were sweeping forward, vicious and formidable, confident of victory; the next they were floundering weaponless, scrambling anyhow for safety, multiplying and transforming, with the quick imagination of panic terror, these two horses into a troop ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis

... around an impracticable slope of shale stuff and went on. The herder followed. When he was within twelve feet or so of the bottom, there was a sound of pebbles knocked loose in haste, a scrambling, and then came the impact of his body. Andy teetered, lost his balance, and went to the bottom in one glorious slide. He landed with the bug-killer on top—and the bug-killer failed to remove his person as ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower

... bull's-eye on the captain's forehead showed the head and body of the reptile, which remained as motionless as if cast in bronze, while Dick held the skiff in place that the launch might come near. With the roar of the blank cartridge came the scream of a girl and the quick scrambling of the alligator into the water. Every one wanted to continue the hunt, but the rising of the moon put ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock

... scrambling over, and his feet scarcely touched the ground when his rifle whizzed end over end after him. It required all his activity to dodge it, and, while doing so, he received a sound thump from the gun of his friend, who seemed to be flinging ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis

... in his bare, lonely, room in the great city, the world in its madness raged—struggling, pushing, crowding, jostling, scrambling—a swirling, writhing, mass of life—but the man did not heed. On every side, this life went rushing, roaring, rumbling, thundering, whirring, shrieking, clattering by. But the man noticed the world now no more than it noticed ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright

... extremely wild and hilly country, scrambling up and down ravines, wading brooks, and scratching our hands and faces with brambles, on which grew a plentiful crop of wild mulberries, to gather some of which we occasionally made a stop. Owing to the roughness of ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... day of painful and fruitless scrambling, Mr. Hunt gave up the attempt to penetrate in this direction, and, returning to the little stream on the skirts of the mountain, pitched his tents within six miles of his encampment of the preceding night. He now ordered that signals should be made for the stragglers in ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving

... He hastened up, scrambling up the rocky path, and entered the house. I followed him, perhaps rather indiscreetly. This queer atmosphere of poverty had affected me, I think, and I suddenly became eager to see whether I could ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick

... an unlucky beggar," he said, in his careless way. "There's very little use in going over old ground. Some men never get fairly on the high-road of life. They spend their existence wading across swamps, and scrambling through bushes, and never reach any particular point at the end. My career has been ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... hold of the rope we gave them, they hauled close up, and a little thin shrivelled old man came scrambling over the taffrail: he was dressed in a long black serge coat, check shirt, and black trousers, and as soon as he had regained his breath, after the violent exertions he had made, presented me with ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes

... decided the issue and had bolted of her own accord. There was a streak of yellow through the bushes, a scrambling of dogs, wild, frightened cries from the approaching camera porters, and the ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine

... red dust. We had to break through it, as firemen dash through the smoke of a burning house; and when our arabeahs stopped at the foot of a mountainous mound, about a mile out of Medinet, the dust had come too. Scrambling up, with the wind on our backs, we began to breathe; but it was not until we had ascended to the old guard house on top of the pottery strewn height, that we could draw a clean breath. Then the reward was worth ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson

... plenty of scrambling before it was over. A woman who had been lying in wait for tourists at the gate, guided them to the bend of the glen, where they were to climb up to pay their respects to the waterfall. The ascent was not far from perpendicular, ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... were scrambling like monkeys along the side of the hill; so were the country boys with their curs; old Trinder moved parallel with them along its base. Jerry galloped away to the ravine, and there dismounting, struggled up by zig-zag cattle paths to the comparative levels of the summit. ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross

... from the platform that, as the singing contest was over and the award of the banner would not be made by the judges till the afternoon, lunch would now be served. Thereupon the audience rose to its feet and began to surge outward. There was much scrambling for baskets and hunts for suitable spots about the grounds for spreading table-cloths. Saunders, as had long been his custom, had prepared food for all who could be induced to accept his hospitality, and he now had his hands full directing ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben

... quackers he pitched before him, fearing that by the time he got back to camp—if ever he did?—their flesh would be too bruised to look like respectable meat; for he was obliged to have one hand free to help him in scrambling over each fallen tree. ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook

... there was a sudden check, followed by a babel worse than when a dozen pi-dogs fight over a rubbish- heap. You couldn't make head or tail of it, except that something desperate was happening in front, until suddenly a man with a knife in his hand, too wild with fear to use it, came leaping and scrambling over the backs of Sikhs, like a forward bucking the line. The Sikh in front of me knelt upright and collared him round the knees. The two went down together, I on top of both of them with blood running down my arm, ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy

... the girl into a trot again, and they plodded on heavily. It was impossible for him to speak now, but he pointed at the rocks below St. Michel where two men were scrambling down, and Barbara understood that they ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie

... told them to go to me, and receive priestly benediction, saying that they would thence obtain great advantage. But they, having run together in somewhat too barbarous fashion, some dragged me before, some behind, some sideways; and those who were further off, scrambling over the others, and stretching out their hands, plucked my beard, or seized my clothes; and I should have been stifled by their too warm onset, had not he, shouting out, dispersed them all. Such usefulness has ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley

... sound of a cry; but he never got it. He listened with the grin fixed on his face; and of a sudden he heard a scrambling struggle, like as a dog with the colic jumping at a wall; and presently, as the sticks blazed and the smoke rose denser, a thick coughin', as of a consumptive man under bed-clothes. Still no cry, nor any appeal for mercy; no, not from the time he lit the ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes

... shillings, and deliver them within the half-hour, which was a signal for all the rest to set-to and abuse them, their coachman, and his horse, which they swore had been carrying "stiff-uns" [14] all night, and "could not go not none at all". Nor were they far wrong; for the horse, after scrambling a hundred yards or two, gradually relaxed into something between a walk and a trot, while the driver kept soliciting every passer-by to "ride," much to our sportsmen's chagrin, who conceived they were to have the "go" all to themselves. Remonstrance ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees

... Tim's voice at his back. "Boot him some more for luck. Hey, you! Back up or I'll drill ye for keeps!" This to a pair of the Peruvian paddlers who had come scrambling through ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel

... his blushing bride, with downcast eyes, clad in a white robe and slippers, and wearing a wreath of white roses in her hair. The friends and relatives brought up the procession; and a troop of village urchins came shouting along in the rear, scrambling among themselves for the largess of sous and sugar-plums that now and then issued in large handfuls from the pockets of a lean man in black, who seemed to officiate as master of ceremonies on the occasion. I gazed on the procession till it was out of sight; and when the last wheeze of the clarionet ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various

... Already several of the most active of them were scrambling up the cliffs with heavy loads on their backs; and, while Stanley and his wife were yet conversing, two of them approached rapidly, bearing the large canoe on their shoulders. The exclamation that issued from the foremost of these ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne

... seeking a good place for the glorious spectacle, is knocked over in the stampede for the door. Nobody minds Rosalie. Rosalie doesn't mind—anything to see this entrancing sight! Away they go, flying over the meadow, shouting, scrambling, falling. Out after them plunges Harold, shirt-sleeved, one boot half on, hobbling, leaping, bawling. Glorious to watch him! He outruns them all; he outbellows them all. Of course he does. He is a man. He is one of those splendid, ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson

... Imp; and with a wave of his hand he turned and scrambling up the bank disappeared. Of the existence of Mr. Selwyn I was already aware, having been notified in this particular by the Duchess, as I have told in the foregoing narrative. Now, a rival in air—in the abstract, so to speak—is one thing, but a rival ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol

... boys perform their exercises, according to an ancient custom still continued at Capri. He gave them likewise an entertainment in his presence, and not only permitted, but required from them the utmost freedom in jesting, and scrambling for fruit, victuals, and other things which he threw among them. In a word, he indulged himself in all the ways of amusement ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various

... scrambling after the mess of tubes, condensers and power packs scattered over the rug. Some of them were still wired together, but most of them had broken loose. Elmer was certainly one heck of a sloppy workman. Hadn't even soldered the ...
— The Aggravation of Elmer • Robert Andrew Arthur

... pray, but he answered nothing; yet within an hour he prayed before him and his own lady very devoutly, and bemoaned his own weakness both inward and outward, saying, "I dare not knock at thy door, I ly at it scrambling as I may, till thou come out and take me in; I dare not speak; I look up to thee, and look for one kiss of Christ's fair face. ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... round the well and in a moment the little peaceful spot was the scene of noisy confusion; men shouting, scrambling and gesticulating, horses squealing, and above all the creaking whine of the tackling over the well droning mournfully as the bucket rose and fell. Said swung himself easily to the ground and held ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull

... nightly entertainment. It was well patronized by the troops. The building used had seating accommodation for about seven hundred, and generally long before the hour of opening a queue of soldiers would assemble. There was no pushing or scrambling for tickets. The Australian good-humouredly submitted to the queue system, and patiently waited his turn. Mr. Frank Beaurepeare, of swimming fame, successfully managed the picture show, and eventually got together a few vocalists and comedians, ...
— Over the Top With the Third Australian Division • G. P. Cuttriss

... poop were about. He got no answer, though he could see the shape of a man standing by himself aft, and apparently watching him. He was going to repeat his hail for the third time when he heard the rattling of tackles followed by a heavy splash, a burst of voices, scrambling hollow sounds—and a dark mass detaching itself from the brig's side swept past him on the crest of a passing wave. For less than a second he could see on the shimmer of the night sky the shape of a boat, the ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad

... Athalie, scrambling the eggs, which same eggs would endure no other mode of preparation, leaned over sideways and kissed ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers

... in her bag and was busy scrambling eggs when she said that. Meg was setting the table in the kitchen, for one half of the room was designed to be used as the dining-room, and Dot and Twaddles were filling the salt cellars amiably. Father Blossom had lighted the oil stove, and Bobby ...
— Four Little Blossoms on Apple Tree Island • Mabel C. Hawley

... beyond his line, the enemy came swarming up the undefended slope, steep as it was, and some of the foremost were already scrambling over the last few feet intervening. He yelled to the men, pointing to the danger spot and then toward the trenches, making a sign immediately thereafter to deliver a telling volley into the ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon

... and, watching her chance, darted across the factory yard out through the stables, to the road beyond. A decrepit old elm-tree, which had evidently made heroic effort to keep tryst with the spring, was the one touch of green in an otherwise barren landscape. Scrambling up the bank, Nance flung herself on the ground beneath its branches, and between the bites of a dry sandwich, proceeded to give vent to some ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice

... see any way at all," said Henry, looking out into the lane. "I shall get up, and so see over into the bend of the road;" and Hal mounted to the topmost bar of the gate, and sat astride there, John scrambling after him not quite so easily, his legs being less long, and his dress less convenient. Both knew that their Papa strongly objected to their climbing on this iron gate, the newest and handsomest thing about the place; but thought Hal, "Of course no one will care what I do when I am ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the oar, Which, providentially for him, was washed Just as his feeble arms could strike no more, And the hard wave o'erwhelmed him as 't was dashed Within his grasp; he clung to it, and sore The waters beat while he thereto was lashed; At last, with swimming, wading, scrambling, he Rolled on the beach, half-senseless, from ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... now perceived scrambling up to the ridge—towards which the whole of the travellers had advanced to ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid

... my blood boil with rage, and suddenly run cold in my veins. Swathed in the brilliant cloud, we heard the sounds of quarrelling and scrambling die away; cries of "Ready! ready!" an unexpected and brutal laugh. ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

... some assistance to madame,' said I, scrambling out from among the bushes into the glare of the lamps. A woman in distress is a sacred thing to me, and this one was beautiful. You must not forget that, although I was a colonel, I was only ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle

... the wreck of the sacrificial pyre. A ray of hope shot up in his heart. Scrambling out of the ruins, unobserved and unpursued, he fled down the nearest lane with the utmost speed. Anxious to obtain shelter, he, without even a thought, climbed a garden wall; once within which he was safe, for a moment, from pursuit. Rushing through a shaded alley of the garden, ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage

... some pleasant people and went out rowing; I had Dora, and came to grief on a confounded rock. She could swim, no harm done, only the scare and the spoilt gown. She took it well, and we got friendly at once—couldn't help it, scrambling into that beast of a boat while the rest laughed at us. Of course we had to stay another day to see that Dora was all right. Demi wanted to. Alice Heath is down there and two other girls from our college, so we sort of lingered along, and Demi kept taking pictures, and we danced, and got into ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott

... Scrambling to his feet, Scorio gibbered madly, for the six-inch figure was growing. He became as large as the average man, and then much larger. His head cleared the high ceiling by scant inches. His mighty hands reached ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak

... band of Alonso de Aguilar come in sight of the Moors than fury flashed from their eyes. "Remember the mountains of Malaga!" cried they to each other as they rushed to combat. Their charge was desperate, but was gallantly resisted. A scrambling and bloody fight ensued, hand to hand and sword to sword, sometimes on land, sometimes in the water. Many were lanced on the banks; others, throwing themselves into the river, sank with the weight of their armor and were drowned; some, grappling together, fell from their horses, ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving

... over that plagued box, that's all; and after limping around for a spell thought I'd better come back and put some witch-hazel on the bruise," explained the other, turning down his trousers' leg, and scrambling to his feet to ascertain how ...
— The Outdoor Chums - The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club • Captain Quincy Allen

... infancy to call him, Mr. Groves, as he was more properly designated by the neighbourhood—and myself, I must return to the bright June morning upon which, after my usual fashion, I descended the Zig-zag, running, scrambling, sliding, with Frisk scampering and capering at my side, making wild snaps at pieces of cake which I broke off for him from time to time, and held up as high as I could reach, that he might ...
— The Story of the White-Rock Cove • Anonymous

... in a moment," I answered with a blank grin, determined to be cool and composed, though my sudden plunge had somewhat dazed me; and scrambling out of the primitive cistern, I regained the roof by means of a ladder standing against a cherry-tree not ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor

... I was up betimes, eager to make acquaintance with my new surroundings. My first impression on coming out of my hut was that I was hemmed in on all sides by a dense growth of impenetrable jungle: and on scrambling to the top of a little hill close at hand, I found that the whole country as far as I could see was covered with low, stunted trees, thick undergrowth and "wait-a-bit" thorns. The only clearing, indeed, appeared to be where the narrow track for the railway ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson

... whooh-whooh, exactly to the best position I could wish for receiving a second shot; but, alas! on turning sharply round for the spare rifle, I had the mortification to see that both the black boys had made off, and were scrambling like monkeys up a tree. At the same time the rhinoceros, fortunately for me, on second consideration turned to the right-about, and shuffled away, leaving, as is usually the case when conical bullets are used, no traces ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke

... was a split-second when I thought it was the end of me. But I was still alive. The bodies of Venza and Snap struck my head and shoulders; knocked me down. I felt Molo's ray upon me. Not death, but only his gravity ray, like a giant hand pulling me. Apparently he wanted us alive. I was scrambling on the rocks, entangled with Venza and Snap. Molo's radiance clung. All three of us went tumbling forward toward him. I flashed my own ray, but I was rolling end over end, and ...
— Wandl the Invader • Raymond King Cummings

... of the skin he remembered the cop-psychos the gangs had warned him about in his scrambling and desperate childhood, and what they were supposed to do to you when they caught you in ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye

... time Mustapha was prone upon his face, piling imaginary dust from the spotless mosaic pavement upon his woolly pate, scrambling to his shaking knees on a word ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest

... drift, and the water churns and gurgles in their boots. They leave the track and try across country with a gambler's desperation, for it seems as if it were impossible to make the situation worse; and, for the next hour, go scrambling from boulder to boulder, or plod along paths that are now no more than rivulets, and across waste clearings where the scattered shells and broken fir-trees tell all too plainly of the cannon in the distance. And meantime the cannon grumble out responses ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... our fire, the Sioux scattered and hugged the shelter of the river bank, beyond which they rode along the sand or in the shallow water, scrambling up the bank after they had gotten out of fire. Our men were firing less, frequently at the last of the line, who came swiftly down from the bluff and charged across behind us, sending in a scattering flight ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough

... ourselves. On the other side of the screen of broad leaves we sensed the presence of life. It did not intrude on us, nor were we permitted to intrude on it. But it was there. We heard it rustling, pattering, scrambling, whispering, scurrying with a rush of wings. More subtly we felt it, as one knows of a presence in a darkened room. By the exercise of imagination and experience we identified it in its manifestations—the ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White

... she threw so much wood on the fire that it instantly smothered the red glow and began smoking like a chimney. The smoke drove the girls from that side of the fire and caused them to cough violently, while there was a lively scrambling of feet over by the trees, and ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... had made herself very comfortable on the verandah, and had no intention of stirring just yet. Go scrambling about over rocks, and tearing herself to pieces among bushes? Hardly. Besides, one glance had shown her that Professor Merryweather was uncommonly good-looking. She settled herself gracefully in her chair, and gave ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards

... afternoon I have been devoting to writing my journal, which I here break off to commence a hearty good supper, in revenge for the scrambling sort of dinner one has had to-day. The beef doesn't look roasted as they would put it on the table at the Clarendon, or at Astor House even; but none of those who sit down to the Clarendon table, at any rate, have such an appetite as I now have, far away beyond care and civilisation, ...
— California • J. Tyrwhitt Brooks

... his ice-cake, and carried him over a space of churned torrent to the edge of another floe. Gripping this with his mighty forearms till he pulled it half under, he succeeded in clawing out upon it. Scrambling across, he launched himself again, desperately, sank almost out of sight, rose and began swimming, with all the energy of courage and ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts

... the hedge-bank among scarlet hips and green and russet leaves. She did not care much for blackberries herself; but she had heard Cynthia say that she liked them; and besides there was the charm of scrambling and gathering them, so she forgot all about her troubles, and went climbing up the banks, and clutching at her almost inaccessible prizes, and slipping down again triumphant, to carry them back to the large leaf which ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... discovery, Pike went scrambling down the rocky hillside in the direction of camp. He no longer took any precautions about concealing his "trail." He well knew that in the two or three trips it would take to bring their stores and then Kate and the children up to the cave, such "signs" would be left that ...
— Sunset Pass - or Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land • Charles King

... next morning, and came scrambling to the cellar doors when she opened them. But the following morning he did not answer her call, and she discovered, on going into the bin, that there was a second big heap of dirt near the first. She plugged the ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates

... noisy, tumultuous, promiscuous, crowding, crushing, perfumed, feathered, flowered, painted, gabbling, sneering, idle, gossiping, rest-breaking, horse-killing, panel-breaking, supper-scrambling evening-party is much better imagined than described, for the description is not worth the time ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 363, Saturday, March 28, 1829 • Various

... that he scarcely heard the alarm. Yet he responded automatically to the sound that now sent him scrambling into his exposure suit. He fitted one varium-protected oxy-tank to his helmet and tucked another one under his arm ...
— The Marooner • Charles A. Stearns

... of misery—the first thing that did me any good was coming here. But I was completely set up by six or seven weeks at Arolla in the Valais. The hotel was 6400 feet up, and the wife and daughters and I spent most of our time in scrambling about the 2000 feet between that and the snow. Six months ago I had made up my mind to be an invalid, but at Arolla I walked as well as I did when you and I made pilgrimages—and earned the only honest sixpence (I, at any rate) ever got for hard labour. Three months ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley

... shriek, Gage turned and fled through the swamp, plunging through marshy places and jungles, falling, scrambling up, leaping, staggering, gasping for breath, feeling those staring eyes at his back, feeling that they would pursue him to ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish

... that, and first kissed on the chin and then on the nose, and then on the spectacles, and to hear the peals of laughter which were raised on every side; but it was a still more pleasant thing to see Mr. Pickwick, blinded shortly afterwards with a silk-handkerchief, falling up against the wall, and scrambling into corners, and going through all the mysteries of blind-man's buff, with the utmost relish of the game, until at last he caught one of the poor relations; and then had to evade the blind-man himself, which he did with a nimbleness and agility that elicited the admiration ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various

... them, And yet another four; And thick and fast they came at last, And more, and more, and more— All hopping through the frothy waves, And scrambling to the shore. ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various



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