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Scamper   /skˈæmpər/   Listen
Scamper

noun
1.
Rushing about hastily in an undignified way.  Synonyms: scramble, scurry.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Scamper" Quotes from Famous Books



... smokes, there the flue is blocked with birds' nests. In certain country inns, the flimsy gossamer of spiders makes an undesirable fretwork over the greenish knobs of the ill-puttied panes. Mice, rats, and "such small deer" scamper uncannily the live-long night along the worn waxcloths and unspeakable carpets. As he undresses by the light of a three-inch candle, he has his soul horrified by early Victorian prints, of Paul tumbling from his horse on the way to Damascus, of the gory relief of Lucknow, or of some ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes

... Saint Remy there was nothing to be done. The corner-stone of my undertaking was finding a boat and launching it, and the Frenchmen—in their panic-stricken scamper from a danger that was mainly in their own lively imaginations—had carried all their boats away. It was necessary, therefore, that I should go on a cruise among the other wrecks lying around me in search of a boat still in a condition to swim; but I was very careful ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier

... thou, my child, to whom harsh fate has dealt A captive's birthright—thou wilt never scamper With winged feet across the windy veldt, Where are no crowds to stare nor bars to hamper; Thou wilt not ring upon the rhino's pelt In wanton sport. But there—why put a damper On thy young spirits by recounting what Africa is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 10, 1917 • Various

... his pen behind his ear and watch him. It was quite a scene in a play to see how Fred would start at the least sound. A mouse nibbling behind a box of iron chains made him beside himself until he had scared the little gray thing from its hole, and saw it scamper away out of the shop. But after the first hour the watching FOR NOTHING became a little tedious. There was a "splendid" game of base ball to come off on the public green that afternoon; and after that the boys were going to the "Shaw-seen" for a swim; then there was to be a picnic on the ...
— The Errand Boy • Horatio Alger

... his neck). Infamous! most infamous Charles! Oh, had I not my forebodings, when, even as a boy, he would scamper after the girls, and ramble about over hill and common with ragamuffin boys and all the vilest rabble; when he shunned the very sight of a church as a malefactor shuns a gaol, and would throw the pence he had wrung from your bounty into the hat of the first beggar he ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... a nice scamper, and had turned to come back not far from the Park, when who do you think came riding up?—Lord Valmond! The last person one expected to see down here! He never waited a second when he saw me, but jumped off his horse and beamed—just as if we had parted the best of friends!!! Did you ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn

... I need say afraid, for our amusement was innocent enough, and you must remember that we were two boys, who resembled Juno, the dog, in this respect that we were let loose for a time, and enjoying the freedom of a scamper over the hills. ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn

... started in the furnace, which is the shrine of a Gopher Prairie home, Carol began to make the house her own. She dismissed the parlor furniture—the golden oak table with brass knobs, the moldy brocade chairs, the picture of "The Doctor." She went to Minneapolis, to scamper through department stores and small Tenth Street shops devoted to ceramics and high thought. She had to ship her treasures, but she wanted to bring them ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis

... a time, he would not lie down and go to sleep like any other sheep-dog, but would spend his vacant time "amusing of hisself" on some smooth slope where he could roll over and over; then run back and roll over again and again, playing by himself just like a child. Or he would chase a butterfly or scamper about over the down hunting for large white flints, which he would bring one by one and deposit them at his master's feet, pretending they were something of value and greatly enjoying the game. This dog, Caleb ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson

... little son, "scamper down to the tavern in the village, and tell the jolly fellows there that Ethan Brand has come back, and that he has found the ...
— Short-Stories • Various

... days, for one had real leisure. One varied the turning over of books in the Great Parlour with a scamper on one's pony, with visits to the strawberry bed, and with stretching oneself full- length on a sofa, or the hearth-rug in the Hall, reading four or five books at a time. In such an atmosphere it was easy to forget one's ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey

... sun shone down from the sky, and melted the snow and ice in the street and on the tops of the houses, so that it came tumbling down upon the sidewalks, and the streets were overflowing with the great flood. Charley was looking out of the window to see it fall, and the people dodge and scamper along to save themselves from the great slides that would have been very dangerous if they had hit any one on the head. He was thinking too of the poor little ragged boys, as they went by, some with matches, some with newspapers, and ...
— The Pearl Story Book - A Collection of Tales, Original and Selected • Mrs. Colman

... heard a scamper of bare feet, the squeals of mischief-making children escaping from ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes

... connoisseur of wine ever revelled in the juices of the choice vintages of Spain and France. Then he would shake and clap his hands because of what he called the 'hot ache' that seized them, only to scamper off again after some new object around which to weave another dream ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather

... miles in three heats: — Ah, my sonny, The horses in those days were stout, They had to run well to win money; I don't see such horses about. Your six-furlong vermin that scamper Half-a-mile with their feather-weight up; They wouldn't earn much of their damper In a race like the ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson

... given vent to coarse bellows as they stood staring in upon him. Presently he heard a man's voice shouting to the cattle to "git along out of that. What's the matter with ye, anyway?" Then a stick was hurled at them, which caused them to scamper away. Soon the man appeared, and when he saw what had caused the commotion among the cattle, he, too, stood and stared in amazement for a few seconds. Then he took several steps forward, and held up the stout stick he was carrying ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody

... butter-trees, the flour-trees, the silk-trees, which grow on our ground like briers alongside your roads.... Finally, we are shepherds; we own ever-increasing flocks, whose numbers we don't even know. Our goats, our bearded sheep may be counted by the thousand; our horses scamper freely through paddocks as large as cities, and when our hunch-backed cattle come down to the Niger to drink at that hour of serene splendor the sunset, they cover a league of the river banks.... And, above everything else, ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola

... as captured by their clever flanking movement, they accepted the invitation gladly and remained enjoying her hospitality about two hours, or just long enough for Putnam and his men to slip out of the trap and scamper along the North River ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober

... but then this is sport, and there is immense pleasure in dashing right across country behind a pair of fleet horses, thinking yourself well repaid if you bag a couple or three hares in the afternoon's scamper. For wolf and wild-boar hunting one must penetrate into the forests which extend in the rear of the southern slopes of this Tokay ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse

... with people," the President said, when relating the story afterward. "When I can't give them what they want, they're dissatisfied, and say harsh things about me; but when I've something to give to everybody they scamper off." ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure

... down around each tue, or little mound of earth covered with moss and tiny berry plants. Ptarmigans roam about in solitary pairs, murmuring when any one comes too near their nests; gnats and horseflies buzz through the air; and cows, with tails set straight up, scamper friskily about, trying to escape ...
— Lisbeth Longfrock • Hans Aanrud

... Eleanor with great earnestness and diligence; by him at least with singular delight. Eleanor kept up the conversation with unflagging interest; it was broken by a proposal on Mr. Carlisle's part for a gallop, to which she willingly agreed; held her part in the ensuing scamper with perfect grace and steadiness, and as soon as it was over, plunged Mr. Carlisle ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner

... She waited until Miss Clark had made her usual tour of inspection, and the door of the room was shut for the night, then, leaning over, she opened the cage and allowed its occupants to escape. They made full use of their liberty, and at once began to scamper about, investigate ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... the small Bobbseys to scamper upstairs. Flossie carried her doll with her, and Freddie took along his fire engine, for that was the gift he had most wanted, and for which he had begged and pleaded for ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Snow Lodge • Laura Lee Hope

... hapless gudgeon come dangling upward between stream and sky, with a look of sheepish surprise and shame, as of a school-boy caught stealing apples, in their foolish visages. Pleasant new national schools at the bridge end, whither the urchins scamper at the sound of the two o'clock bell. Though it be an ugly pile enough of bright red brick, it is doing its work, as Whitbury folk know well by now. Pleasant, too, though still more ugly, those long red arms of new houses which Whitbury is stretching out along its fine ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley

... of tiny feet, a scamper, a rush, a succession of ecstatic little growls followed by a still more ecstatic yelp of rapture and glee. Melchisedek had emerged from his temporary retirement and come prancing upon the scene. He bore something in his mouth, something ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray

... could stroll over the country and lose her way, and get run at by wild cattle, and stared at by naughty gentlemen? Clary was not so mean-spirited, though she was physically lazier than Dulcie; she was eager to scamper across the stubble fields (where Cambridge expected chickens to roam in flocks), and to wander, book in hand, by yon ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler

... by the bars if you can," said Ernest. "It will be fun to see this outfit scamper over, and besides it will be ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb

... stream—great paper cocked-hats. When they vanished under the bridge which marks the boundary of the strictly private grounds about Eyebright House, he would give a great shout and run round and across Tormat's new field—Lord! how Tormat's pigs did scamper, to be sure, and turn their good fat into lean muscle!—and so to meet his boats by the ford. Right across the nearer lawns these paper boats of his used to go, right in front of Eyebright House, right under Lady Wondershoot's eyes! Disorganising folded newspapers! ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells

... the large window that opened into the bakery and there stand gazing wistfully down upon the loaves of fresh bread as they were taken from the large oven. Sometimes some crusts or stale biscuits were given them, and with these they would scamper away to the pump to moisten the bread before dividing it. It sometimes happened that there was not sufficient bread for each child to have even a bit, and when it happened thus, Edwin always gave ...
— The Poorhouse Waif and His Divine Teacher • Isabel C. Byrum

... carrying a long wand of office over his shoulder, and I think also a horn, stalks majestically along with all the dignity of a royal marshal of processions, and the goats follow him, with a good deal of lagging behind for play, or nibbling, if they should chance to see anything green. Still, they scamper after their generalissimo in the end, and meanwhile he is much too dignified to look back. Taking advantage of this, I have seen women come out of their cottages on the roadside and milk a goat or two as it passed; and from the way the animal made a full stop, ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street

... themselves I am just a prig and an egotist and an impractical bore, they escape from a great deal more than my poor propositions. They escape from the doubt in themselves. By dismissing me they dismiss their own consciences. And then they can scamper off and be sensible little piggy-wigs and not bother any more about what is to happen to mankind in the long run.... Do you begin to realize the sort of fight, upside down in a dustbin, that that Committee ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells

... arrived home merry and lighthearted, how fervently I would embrace my parents, as though I had not seen them for ten years. Such a fussing would there be—such a talking and a telling of tales! To everyone I would run with a greeting, and laugh, and giggle, and scamper about, and skip for very joy. True, my father and I used to have grave conversations about lessons and teachers and the French language and grammar; yet we were all very happy and contented together. Even now it thrills me to think of those moments. For my father's sake I ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... Sam and Andy brought the horses up to the posts, apparently greatly refreshed and invigorated by the scamper of the morning. ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... eating his supper. When he git up from de table us lil' niggers would allus hear de sliding o' his chair, kaize he was sech a big fat man. Den he go into de missus room to set by de fire. Dar he would warm his feets and have his Julip. Quick as lightning me and John scamper from under de steps and break fer de big cape jasamine bushes long de front walk. Dar we hide, till Anderson and Newt come out a fetching ham biscuit in dey hands fer us. It would be so full of gravy, dat sometime de gravy would take and ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... feelings, into a proper and useful subjection, centring all in the one absorbing and capacious receptacle of self. I do not claim for my father any peculiar quality in this respect, for I have often observed that many of those who (like giddy-headed horsemen that raise a great dust, and scamper as if the highway were too narrow for their eccentric courses, before they are fairly seated in the saddle, but who afterward drive as directly at their goals as the arrow parting from the bow), most indulge their sympathies at the commencement ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper

... scamper to and fro; They have no tasks to do. It's here and there and high and low For them, the whole day through; Up to the tops of highest trees, In holes and caves, and where ...
— Zodiac Town - The Rhymes of Amos and Ann • Nancy Byrd Turner

... stowed in the car were not enough, a tremendous breakfast on a table loaded with flowers was provided for us. But just as we sat down, at ten o'clock, a servant on duty as scout appeared, panting after a scamper across fields, to say that a motor had passed. Our chauffeur sent word that it was the motor; and was ready to ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... Bishopsgate-street.] he strutted before us, dress'd just as he came from keeping Sheep, Hogs, &c.... his shoes fill'd full of stumps in the heels. He looking about him, slip'd up ... his nails were unus'd to a flat pavement. I remember viewing him as he scamper'd up ... how small he was. Little thought, that little fatherless Boy would be one day known and esteem'd by the most learned, the most respected, the wisest and the best ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield

... walk home. There were shells to scamper after, wire to scramble through, old trenches to explore. The return of "Ernest" brought a deep content to ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)

... as Jim thought best, although I pitied the little fellow and had rather have let him loose and seen him scamper away over the hills to ...
— Chief of Scouts • W.F. Drannan

... ragged enough to scare the crows, was clean from his bare head to his bare sea-bleached feet. He munched the rest of the pasty, talking between mouthfuls. To his discourse Dicky paid no heed, but slipped away for a scamper on ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... I was awakened by an unusual noise in the cattle-fold, and looking out, saw all our horned cattle spring over the high thorn fence, and scamper round the place. Fancying that a hyaena, which I had heard howling when I went to bed, had alarmed the animals, I sallied forth to have a shot at it. I, however, could not find any cause for the disturbance, and calling a Hottentot to drive back the cattle, and shut ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee

... soon they would hear the call: 'Come, children! it is time to be going.' And then they would scamper back, their hands full of their dear dove flowers. No wonder they felt that in leaving this sunny spot they were leaving one of the happiest places on earth. If only they could stay there! If only some one could be enjoying it always! What a pity that ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin

... soup, a cat or a dog. The animal instinctively scented out the man's infirmity, and, softly approaching, commenced eating noiselessly, lapping up the soup daintily; and, when a rather loud licking of the tongue awakened the poor fellow's attention, it would prudently scamper away to avoid the blow of the spoon directed at it by the blind man ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant

... gentleness of his character. A horse which was remarkable for its antipathy to strangers, one evening, while bearing his master home from a jovial meeting, became disburthened of his rider, who, having indulged rather freely, soon went to sleep on the ground. The horse, however, did not scamper off, but kept faithful watch by his prostrate master till the morning, when the two were perceived about sunrise by some labourers. They approached the gentleman, with the intention of replacing him on his saddle, but every attempt on their part was resolutely ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley

... Thayer. It was the Blue's turn to cheer then and she performed valiantly. Claflin tried Edwards's end, but made nothing of it, poked Cox past Crewe for a couple of yards, made three around Holt and then punted. St. Clair misjudged the distance and the ball went over his head and there was a scamper to the goal line. Carmine finally fell on the ball for a touchback and the excitement in the stands subsided. Brimfield smashed Otis at the Blue's centre and reached the twenty-five-yard line. St. Clair made three on a skin-tackle play at the right and Rollins got the distance ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour

... becoming too preposterous. The lecture was discussed with much warmth. There was a tendency to adopt the form "than which" with some frequency. Bursts of laughter startled a company of rats in the wainscoting, and there was a lively scamper behind the walls. No obvious opposition was offered. Miss Temperley's views were examined with gravity, and indeed in a manner almost pompous. But by the end of that trying process, they had a sadly bedraggled and plucked appearance, much to their parent's bewilderment. ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird

... Ninette peered about in a dazed sort of way, and gave an alarmed little "Baa!" for she had not before missed Beppo, who, while she was asleep, had managed to push open the door of the fold and scamper off, ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith

... this type will, like Tolstoy, be an anti-militarist. He will advocate a general gaol delivery for criminals. He will be a vegetarian. He will not allow an animal's life to be taken in his house, though the mice scamper over his floors. And he will, consistently with his conviction that it is immoral to resort to force, refuse to take any part in legislation ...
— The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage • Almroth E. Wright

... a body can now scarcely meet on the road wi' ony think waur than themsell. Mony a witch, de'il, and bogle, however, did my grannie see and hear tell of, that used to scud and scamper hereaway ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir

... about the human pale, I love to scamper, love to race, To swing by my irreverent tail All over the most ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... followed uncle Tom whithersoever he went, came skurrying out of the stables as the dog-cart drove off, and joined in the general scamper. ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron

... could not be devised by even the inquisitor, Torquemada, of everlasting execration. The Indian is hard and cruel, indifferent to pain in himself or others. A serpent may sting a comrade, and he takes no notice; but let one find food and there is a general scamper to the spot. The Chaco savage is barbarous in the extreme. The slain enemies are often eaten, and the bones burnt and scattered over their food. The children of enemies are traded off to ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray

... pick them up and then scamper; you are always in mischief!" scolded Cis, vexed with herself, and the heat, and the accident, and the ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott

... county divisions might affect the early fashions in gravestones was one of my first questions, and, having seen much of Kent, time was soon found for a scamper through the country bordering Epping Forest and along ...
— In Search Of Gravestones Old And Curious • W.T. (William Thomas) Vincent

... ingenious, elegant and charming. Apartments so decorated can have been meant only for the recreation of people greater than any we know, people for whom life was impudent ease and success. Margaret Farnese was the lady of the house, but where she trailed her cloth of gold the chickens now scamper between your legs over rotten straw. It is all inexpressibly dreary. A stupid peasant scratching his head, a couple of critical Americans picking their steps, the walls tattered and befouled breast-high, dampness and ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James

... their deadly rifles, the British officers, clad in scarlet uniforms, fell with frightful rapidity. They were a terror to the Hessians. As Morgan would often say in high glee, "The very sight of my riflemen was always enough for the Hessian pickets. They would scamper into their lines as if the devil drove them, shouting in all the English they knew, 'Rebel in de bush! rebel in ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell

... ox, or donkey bitten by a tsetse wastes and dies in the course of a fortnight or even in a few days. The local animals understand the danger which threatens them, for it happens that whole herds of oxen, when they hear its hum near a waterfall, are thrown into a wild stampede and scamper in all directions. ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... the hole down which the stream plunges at the Pas de Souci, and which the peasant believes existed from the beginning of the world. St. Enimie followed at his heels as closely as she could, and he led her a wild scamper over the rocks. She hoped that St. Ilere, her confessor, who lived in a cavern of the gorge, would stop the fiend in his flight, but the saint was so busy praying that he did not notice the arch-enemy as he sped on his frantic course. St. Enimie was quite out ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker

... between mushrooms from the moor on the one hand and mushrooms from the market on the other! What memories of the soft summer mornings; the fresh and fragrant air; the diffused and misty sunshine; the sparkle of the dew on the tall wisps of speargrass; the beaded and shining cobwebs; the scamper, barefooted, across the glittering green! It was part of childhood's wild romance. And, in the sterner days that have followed those tremendous frolics, we have learned that life is full of just such suggestive things. ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham

... Todd and I needed the traffic cop's "Get on out of there, you corn-sheller!" to push us past the busy intersection of Broad and Main streets. We conquered our tendency to scamper panic-stricken for the sidewalk at the raucous bark of a jitney bus. In the winding roads of the park we learned to turn corners on two wheels and rest the other pair for the ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various

... There was a scamper of feet along the deck; and up the shrouds a scurry of dark figures. Above was ordered bustle; from the deck a sounding voice ruled all, as God ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant

... hour in the sun watching the sports of the village children on the edge of the surf. Now they chase the retreating wave far down over the wet sand; now it steals softly up to kiss their naked feet; now it comes onward with threatening front, and roars after the laughing crew as they scamper beyond its reach. Why should not an old man be merry too, when the great sea is at play with those little children? I delight, also, to follow in the wake of a pleasure-party of young men and girls strolling along the beach after an early supper ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... their busy inquisitive natures. And this strange passivity, this almost human lassitude, seemed to me sadder than the misery of starved and beaten animals. I should have liked to rouse them for a minute, to coax them into a game or a scamper; but the longer I looked into their fixed and weary eyes the more preposterous the idea became. With the windows of that house looking down on us, how could I have imagined such a thing? The dogs knew better: THEY knew ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton

... how the White Pig felt when she heard this; how her small eyes twinkled and the corners of her mouth turned up more than ever. She was just about to scamper over and root with them, when she remembered something else that her mother had told her: "Never run after other Pigs. Let them run after you. Then they will ...
— Among the Farmyard People • Clara Dillingham Pierson

... pleasurable pain of such a mood he drew his bow across the strings with a sweeping stroke, and then, for an instant, he ran hither and thither on the strings testing the quality and finding the range and capacity of the instrument. It was a scamper of hieroglyphics which could only ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... suddenly let loose. In they poured, thousands upon thousands of them, scrambling, pushing and jumping, scurrying and hurrying, falling and tumbling, as they pressed onwards through the wide doors and then dispersed in the vastness of the gigantic arena, like ants that scamper away ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... I have become a kind of thermometer, hopeless and headachy and listless the next day, if I overdo myself the very least; so that I have merely to encourage them by precept, not by example. They have ponies and bicycles, and scamper about all over the country. Edward has been brought home once in a cart, but not seriously damaged; and I like to leave them to themselves in these things—they won't damage themselves a bit the less for fussing and fretting over them, and ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson

... beating when he saw his father, and consequently young Rabbit, for the first and perhaps only time in his life, was very glad to see the old man. The class was dismissed; and if you had seen these four youngsters scamper off, shaking their white tails and jumping half a yard high as they ran to the Warren, you would have thought it was a good thing to have the ...
— The Comical Creatures from Wurtemberg - Second Edition • Unknown

... a ghost! a ghost! haste, scamper off, My friends; we've kill'd the body, and I know The ghost will ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding

... a regular farmer's name, isn't it—Hiram?" and she laughed—a clear and sweet sound, that made an inquisitive squirrel that had been watching them scamper away to ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd

... into the air like a ball. How beautifully the sunshine gleams upon his golden hide! He has cleared it, and the others come after him in numberless succession, all except the fawns, who cannot jump so far, and have to scamper over the doubtful path with a terrified bah. What is that yonder, moving above the tops of the mimosa, in the little dell at the foot of the koppie? Giraffes, by George! three of them; there will be marrow-bones for supper ...
— Allan's Wife • H. Rider Haggard

... sweep foam away, whole ranks: However, Heaven knows how, the Fate who levels Towns, nations, worlds, in her revolving pranks, So order'd it, amidst these sulphury revels, That Johnson and some few who had not scamper'd, Reach'd the interior ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... scamper for safety. I was carried with the throng. It was not until I was hauled on board once more that I thought of my friend. He still knelt where we had fled from him, a wrapt, strange expression ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes

... had tasted that summer. Once during the afternoon a red squirrel came jumping over the fir needles, and looked up impudently into my face. The sight of so much ugliness almost overcame him, but he managed to scamper off at a good speed. I tried hard to attract this, my only friend, by pretending to be Hiawatha, and calling him an "Adjidaumo," but this ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight

... afforded me many a happy hour in watching their antics. I was in great hopes of their breeding, for they had made a great pile of debris between the banana trees, into which in the day-time they would always scamper when any one passed, and my natives told me that the end of the rainy season was the incubating period. As it was within a few weeks of that time, I was filled with pleasurable anticipations, and counted the days. Alas, for my hopes! One night, a predatory village pig, smelling the fruit which ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke

... took each a horse out of his team and scamper'd; their example was immediately followed by others; so that all the waggons, provisions, artillery, and stores were left to the enemy. The general, being wounded, was brought off with difficulty; ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin

... blue cloth, yellow breeches, silk stockings, and top-boots. Great was the love he bore his horses, which were numerous, and as good as Virginia could boast. It is amusing to notice that the horse upon which this pattern aristocrat used to scamper across the country, in ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton

... deer scrape away the snow below the trees in search of alpenrose or bear berry leaves or dry blades of grass. They suffer more than the chamois after a heavy snowfall because they are not so strong and cannot scamper through it. At the beginning of this season, Klosters had a snowfall of some two metres and the roe deer were driven down to the villages where the peasants fed them in stables till the weather improved. Four were caught on the railway, having got on to the line at a crossing ...
— Ski-running • Katharine Symonds Furse

... tantrums high; Though ne'er a madam of them all, Whose silken kirtle sweeps the hall, More varied trick and whim displays To catch the admiring stranger's gaze. Doth power in measured verses dwell, All thy vagaries wild to tell? Ah, no! the start, the jet, the bound, The giddy scamper round and round, With leap and toss and high curvet, And many a whirling somerset, (Permitted by the modern muse Expression technical to use)—These mock the deftest rhymester's skill, But poor in art, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... movement, I laid my paw on hers; and, involuntarily raising my head in the air, I sent forth a howl which shook the rotten timbers of the old kennel, and so frightened the assembled party as to make them scamper out of the place like mad things. The sound even called back the departing senses of the dying doggess. She drew me to her with her paws, and made an effort to lick me. The action quite melted me. I put down my head to hers and felt a singular pleasure ...
— The Adventures of a Dog, and a Good Dog Too • Alfred Elwes

... drought or any other such cause the numbers of their animals grew uncomfortably diminished, they would raid the European settlements, and, taking the colonists by surprise and slaughtering without mercy, would sweep the country-side clear of live stock, and scamper away to their ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel

... the confinement and restraint of school life. To be obliged to study lessons and play games at specified hours, all within a certain limited area, seemed an utter contrast to the freedom in which she had hitherto revelled; and she would long for a scamper with Bute and Barney, her two terriers, or a sail with her father down the creek and out into the Atlantic. She would pour enthusiastic descriptions of her home into Janie's ears, until the latter felt she knew Kilmore Castle ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil

... my good master. You have nothing else to do but to give me a bag and get a pair of boots made for me that I may scamper through the dirt and the brambles, and you shall see that you have not so bad a portion in ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various

... little woman in her! As he was passing on his way home from the works, trying to make himself as small as possible among the bookbinders in their long working-blouses like nightgowns—busy merry young women whose hungry eyes stripped him as he passed,—how eagerly he would scamper away to Rainette's window! He was grateful for his little friend's infirmity: with her he could give himself airs of superiority and even be a little patronizing. With a little swagger he would tell her about the things that happened in the street and always put himself in the foreground. ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland

... first order with which to make invidious comparisons. But beside the cantoria it is almost insignificant. The Prato children dance too, but without the perennial spring; they have plenty of movement, but seem apt to stumble. They do not scamper along with the feverish enthusiasm of the other children: they must get very tired. Moreover, several of the panels are confused. They are, of course, crowded, for Donatello liked crowds, especially for his children; but his crowds were well marshalled and the individual figures which composed ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford

... rapidly that had any people been out of doors at the time the flames would have quickly betrayed them. Their task being accomplished, they set off at a rapid speed towards the boat, Dick as before leading. The midshipmen enjoyed the scamper, and they had every reason to believe that they should get back in safety. They had not got far, however, when they heard the voices of people from the neighbouring cottages, who had been, it was evident, aroused by the glare, and who would soon, from the nature of the ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston

... happen in awaking to notice a few black or brown beetles running about your pillow, restrain your murderous hand! If you kill them you commit an act of unnecessary bloodshed; for though they may playfully scamper around you, they will do you ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace

... was seven and the cap was his uniform; he was collecting the pennies for the chairs. So I gave him two soldi and another for himself and saw him scamper happily away and join a knot of brother Cupids who were playing together round a lamp-post. He showed them the soldo I had given him for himself and the meeting became as ebullient and full of excitement ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones

... aloud, talking; going round the country at Jerry's heels, or on the back of Mrs. Stoutenburgh's pony—for there she was put, just so soon as she could bear it, passing by degrees from a gentle trot on level ground to a ladylike scamper over the hills. Faith had not been so strong for many a day as the longest day of that ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner

... one's glance so fearlessly, to her small feet that danced about the room between her trips up and down the stepladder. Her skirts were very short, and her legs were very long and thin, so that she reminded one of a young colt kinking up its heels for a scamper about the pasture. ...
— Peggy in Her Blue Frock • Eliza Orne White

... may give a good specimen of the whole livelong Sunday, which presented only an alternation of similar scenes until sunset, when a universal unchaining of tongues and a general scamper proclaimed that the ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... chicks are scattered in search of food, upon seeing a hawk, utters a note of warning which we have all heard, and the young scamper to her for protection beneath her wings. When she has laid an egg, Cut-cut-cut-cut-ot-cut! announces it from the nest in the barn. When the chicks are hatched, her cluck, cluck, cluck, calls them from the nest in the ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [August, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various

... the sordid life around it. Still come into it the Brinsmades to marriage and to death. Five and sixty years are gone since Mr. Calvin Brinsmade took his bride there. They sat on the porch in the morning light, harking to the whistle of the quail in the corn, and watching the frightened deer scamper across the open. Do you see the bride in her high-waisted gown, and Mr. Calvin in his stock and his blue tail-coat ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... having sinned against his manhood. Jammed close to him was her old nurse, whose puffy, yellow face was pouting with emotion, while tears rolled from her eyes. She was trying to say something, but in the hubbub her farewell was lost. There was a scamper to the carriage, a flurry of rice and flowers; the shoe was flung against the sharply drawn-up window. Then Benjy's shaven face was seen a moment, bland and steely; the footman folded his arms, and with a solemn crunch the brougham wheels rolled ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... as he went on: "Just wait until the lightning begins to play around some of these birds. Then you'll see them scamper. I'm going to the city to-morrow to have a talk with the C.E. and I've just got a sneaking hunch that ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton

... chiefly conjectured, so secretive are the little people of Naboth's field. Only when leaves fall and the light is low and slant, one sees the long clean flanks of the jackrabbits, leaping like small deer, and of late afternoons little cotton-tails scamper in the runways. But the most one sees of the burrowers, gophers, and mice is the fresh earthwork of their newly opened doors, or the pitiful small shreds the butcher-bird ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin

... sun His little flying feet Scamper as softly fleet As ever the rabbits run. He is gone like a flash, and then In a ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates

... elevation, as it was termed, she was called, might, since she held long a great sway over Charles's fancy, be suffered to scamper about Ham House—where her merry laugh perhaps scandalised the now Saintly Duchess of Lauderdale,—just to impose on the world; for Nell was regarded as the Protestant champion of the court, in opposition to her French rival, the Duchess ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton

... the hand—with a part of me; diversion flows in these ways for the dreary man. But gaiety is what these children want; to sit in a crowd, tell stories and pass jests, to hear one another laugh and scamper with the girls. It's good fun, too, I believe, but not for R.L.S., aetat. 40. Which I am now past forty, Custodian, and not one penny the worse that I can see; as amusable as ever; to be on board ship is reward enough for me; give me the wages of going on—in a schooner! Only, if ever I were ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... and mango They scamper, they slither and slide In the throes of a tropical tango, In the grip of a Gibbony glide; 'Tis thus in these desolate spaces, Away from humanity's ken, They mimic the civilised races And strive ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 11, 1914 • Various

... street, that, if any one saw him, he might see he was not afraid, and hesitate to rouse an attack on him. As to the dogs, ever since the death of their two companions, a shadow that looked like a mattock was enough to make them scamper. As soon as he reached the archway of the city gate he turned to reconnoitre the baker's shop, and perceiving no sign of movement, waited ...
— The Princess and the Curdie • George MacDonald

... they stared, how they scamper'd, By furze-bush, by fern, by no obstacle stay'd, And the few that held council, were terribly hamper'd, For some were vindictive, and some were afraid. I saw they were dress'd for a masquerade train, Colour'd rags upon sticks they all brandish'd ...
— May Day With The Muses • Robert Bloomfield

... pace for more than an hour, and about midnight drew near to his own quarter again. He had just turned up by the Middlesex Hospital, and was at no great distance from Clipstone Street, when a yell and scamper caught his attention; a group of loafing blackguards on the opposite side of the way had suddenly broken up, and as they rushed off he heard the word 'Fire!' This was too common an occurrence to disturb his equanimity; he ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing

... coffee-mill on his conscience? To own up to the entire truth, the cat was feeling decidedly unwell; when suddenly the cook popped his head in at the scullery entry, crying, "How now, how now, you vagabonds! The war is done, but the breakfast is not. Hurry up, scurry up, scamper and trot! The cakes are all cooked and are piping hot! Then why is the coffee so slow?" The King was in the dining-hall, in dressing-gown and slippers, ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various

... you back again; only I wish you'd conduct yourself a little less like a sparrow with a residence on the house-top, and not go in and out constantly without letting the servants know. This is about the twentieth time I've had to scamper up those countless stairs to that painting-room of yours, all to no purpose, because your people thought you were at home. Such incidents ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot

... night without lightning and thunder, slipped by mistake into the packet of June weather; and they trotted invisibly under the carriage, carrying their tails down, and their lolling tongues close to the puddles they were obliged to scamper through or skip. Boswell and Johnson remembered their experiences at the lonesome Susan house, where they lay in the deep weeds and were forgotten until morning by the harassed family; and they rolled their eyes occasionally, with ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... questioned Willis in a voice which betrayed his feeling. They advanced cautiously toward the corner. There was a scamper of tiny feet, and a large gray rat bounded across the floor and dropped out of sight through a long opening between the floor and the wall. In a moment Willis was down on ...
— Buffalo Roost • F. H. Cheley

... beginning of the action much, but took it, with all the tents, baggage, etc. etc two hundred and fifty pieces of cannon, six thousand prisoners, and they say, Prague since. The Austrians have not stopped yet; if you see any man scamper by your house you may venture to lay hold on him, though he should be a Pandour. Marshal Schwerin was killed. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... away and miss all the foxes we could get at the carcass of that whale this fall," said Rob one morning, as he stood at the sea-wall and watched three or four of these animals scamper off up the beach when disturbed at their feeding on the carcass. "In fact, I feel just the way we all do, pretty much attached to this place where we've had such a jolly good time, after all; but we've got to think of getting home some ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough

... I saw the boy who had been speaking with Henry dart off suddenly, and scamper away in the direction of the village. Henry at ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton

... size. It is lined with buffalo robes, in the midst of a bundle of which the occupant reclines luxuriously, while the dogs drag him slowly through the soft snow, and among the trees and bushes of the forest, or scamper with him over the hard-beaten surface of a lake or river; while the machine is prevented from capsizing by a voyageur who walks behind on snow-shoes, holding on to a line attached to the back part of the cariole. The weather during winter is ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne

... scamper'd about— Plunge! through the hedge he drove: 20 The mob pursue with hideous rout, A bull-dog fastens on his snout; 'He gores the dog! his tongue hangs out! He's ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... this speech from his perch on the tree, became much frightened, for he knew the nature of jaguars and realized they could climb trees and leap from limb to limb with the agility of cats. So he at once began to scamper through the forest as fast as he could go, catching at a branch with his long monkey arms and swinging his green body through space to grasp another branch in a neighboring tree, and so on, while the Jaguar followed him from below, ...
— The Tin Woodman of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... furs. After his twists, turns, jumps and capers, he munched two grains of corn, sat upon the heap like a king in full court, and fancied himself the most illustrious of shrew-mice. At this moment they came from their accustomed holes the gentlemen of the night-prowling court, who scamper with their little feet across the floors; these gentlemen being the rats, mice, and other gnawing, thieving, and crafty animals, of whom the citizens and housewives complain. When they saw the shrew-mouse they took fright, and all remained ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac

... swarm of mice, spying Grimalkin afar, scamper quicker to their holes than do the youths of Templeton vanish before the distant view of Cresswell. Victor and vanquished, knowing and unknowing—all but one, fade to sight, and ere the monitor can stop the fight, ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed

... card ran—I had known for years. He was basking on the topmost branches now, stretched out in the sunshine of social success, swaying to every movement made by his padrones. He was a little country squirrel when I first came across him, frisking about the root of the tree and glad enough to scamper close to the ground. He had climbed a long way since then. All the blossoms and tender little buds were at the top, and Tommy was fond of buds, especially when they bloomed out into yachts and four-in-hands, ...
— A Gentleman's Gentleman - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith



Words linked to "Scamper" :   scurry, crab, rush, haste, skitter, run, rushing, hurry



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