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Clamber   Listen
verb
Clamber  v. t.  To ascend by climbing with difficulty. "Clambering the walls to eye him."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Clamber" Quotes from Famous Books



... gladly agree to our guide's suggestion of ascending to the happy daylight. Our way is still the same; although we mount by another shaft, most appropriately named Himmelfahrt—the path of heaven; but we clamber up the same steep steps; feel our way along the same slimy walls, and occasionally drive our hats over our eyes against the same low, dripping roof. With scarcely a dry thread about us; our hair matted and dripping; beads of perspiration streaming down our faces, we reach the top at last; ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie

... With a suddenness that came within an ace of toppling him from his crotch he swung over and scurried higher up the tree. Kawook was not at all excited. Now that Iskwasis was gone he was entirely absorbed in the anticipation of his dinner. He continued to clamber slowly upward, and at this the horrified Neewa backed himself out on a limb in order that Kawook might have an unobstructed trail ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood

... she, as a girl at Haytersbank, liked to spend half her time in the open air, running out perpetually without anything on to scatter crumbs to the poultry, or to take a piece of bread to the old cart-horse, to go up to the garden for a handful of herbs, or to clamber to the highest point around to blow the horn which summoned her father and Kester home to dinner. Living in a town where it was necessary to put on hat and cloak before going out into the street, and then ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell

... a sea voyage, landing at Port Said is amusing. The steamer anchors in mid-stream, and is quickly surrounded by gaily painted shore boats, whose swarthy occupants—half native, half Levantine—clamber on board, and clamour and wrangle for the possession of your baggage. They are noisy fellows, but once your boatman is selected, landing at the little stages which lie in the harbour is quickly effected, and you and your belongings are safely deposited at the station, and your journey ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Egypt • R. Talbot Kelly

... slight push with the foot, or a thrust with a stick, will swing the climber twenty feet to a side. Few rocks are so precipitous but that a climber can generally make some use of his hands and feet; enough to cling to the rock when he wishes, and to clamber about its face. The wind is seldom a gale above, but the air will be comparatively quiet upon the face; and therefore there is no danger of a chance gush dashing the climber against the rocks. A short stick is useful, but not necessary. There are three cautions to be borne in mind. 1. ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton

... above the distant sea-line, and the bay was lying motionless as a mirror, with a rosy hue thrown across its placid surface, when I awoke on the following morning, stiff from the clamber of the preceding day. The short half-hour before the rays of the sun have attained an unpleasant fierceness is most enjoyable in Australia, particularly in a wild region such as Cardwell, where birds, ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden

... suffer a sensation akin to sea-sickness; and having once suffered, you can understand that it is something else than the democratic love of travelling in common that persuades the people of New York to clamber on the overhead railway, or to take its chance in ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley

... he had plainly perceiv'd such a shining Substance as the Indians Tradition mention'd, and being stimulated by Curiosity, had slighted those Superstitious Fears of the Inhabitants, and with much ado by reason of the Difficulty of the way, had made a shift to clamber up to that part of the Hill, where, by a very heedful Observation, he suppos'd himself to have seen the Light: but whether 'twere that he had mistaken the place, or for some other Reason, he could not find it there, though ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle

... the canary creeper, which had been quietly active all the morning, began to clamber over the window and darken it very greatly, and the darker it got the more and more clearly Mrs. Skinner perceived that her position would speedily become untenable. And also that she had lived many ages since Skinner went. She peered out of the darkling window, through ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells

... of a man who knows exactly where he is and whither he is going, the man-at-arms began to clamber up a narrow fern-lined cleft among the rocks. It was no easy ascent in the darkness, but Simon climbed on like an old dog hot upon a scent, and the panting Aylward struggled after as best he might. At last they were at the summit ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle

... canal. These men, in winter, attend to keeping the surface free from obstruction and garbage. After a snowstorm they are expected to sweep the feathery covering away before it hardens into a marble pretty to look at but very unwelcome to skaters. Now and then the boys so far forgot their dignity as to clamber among the icebound canal boats crowded together in a widened harbor off the canal, but the watchful guards would soon spy them out and order them ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge

... to her own resources and rushed to the stern. She helped Wyn clamber into the boat. Then she hoisted the sail again, and got way upon the boat. She raised the canvas only a little, for she had risked all the weight she dared upon the ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe

... by a passion far out of the common. I know nothing more terrifying than the chill embrace of the sea at night-time. To strike out through the slimy weeds which lie close along the surface at the ebb point of a spring tide, to clamber on low rocks, half awash for an hoar or two at midnight, these are things which I would not ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham

... be surrounded by hills on almost every side. "Quel pays barbare!" said Antonio, who now joined me; "the farther we go, my master, the wilder everything looks. I am half afraid to venture into Galicia; they tell me that to get to it we must clamber up those hills: the horses will founder." Leaving the market-place I ascended the wall of the town, and endeavoured to discover the gate by which we should have entered the preceding night; but I was not more successful in ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... class which serves a function somewhat similar to that served by the populace of old time in Rome. This is the unstable, mob-minded mass, which sits on the fence, ever ready to fall this side or that and indecorously clamber back again; which puts a Democratic administration into office one election, and a Republican the next; which discovers and lifts up a prophet to-day that it may stone him to-morrow; which clamours for the book everybody else is reading, for no reason under the sun save ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London

... slightly above the surface of the deck is bordered, where its shadow falls, by dismal trenches. There is a range of hills crossing the deck before him. As he approaches he estimates the difficulty of the ascent. At its apparent foot he reaches to clamber the steep sides, and the sierra is still a step beyond his reach. Drawing still nearer, he prepares to crawl up; his hand touches the top; ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various

... so excited by these heavy minute-guns following one another that I so far forgot my personal safety and my scalded hands as to clamber up into the hedge and stare towards Sunbury. As I did so a second report followed, and a big projectile hurtled overhead towards Hounslow. I expected at least to see smoke or fire, or some such evidence of its work. But all I saw was the deep blue sky above, ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells

... pulled up to the side of the yawl, was evidently telling the young officer who we were; he turned from him to us as we prepared to clamber aboard and addressed us without ceremony, as if we had been parted from him but a few minutes since our ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher

... shipped with such a crew, have left on record many curious stories of the way in which sailors, utterly unable to walk on shore or on deck for intoxication, would, at the word of command, spring into the rigging, clamber up the shrouds, shake out reefs, and perform the most ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot

... Milton, Pope, Wordsworth, Shelley—what a constellation of lordly words! Not a single common-place name among them—not a Brown, not a Jones, not a Robinson; they are all names that one would stop and look at on a door-plate. Now, imagine if Pepys had tried to clamber somehow into the enclosure of poetry, what a blot would that word have made upon the list! The thing was impossible. In the first place a certain natural consciousness that men would have held him down to the level of his name, would have prevented him from rising above ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... was entirely owing the little incident which had so pleased and surprised them. "A happy Christmas to you, dear papa and mamma!" said little Aubrey, about eight o'clock the next morning, pushing aside the curtains, and trying to clamber up on the high bed where Mr. and Mrs. Aubrey were still asleep—soon, however, they were awakened by the dear welcome voice! The morning promised a beautiful day. The air, though cold, was clear; and the branches of the trees visible from their ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren

... They had to clamber over great rocks and down the sides of cliffs. Drifts of snow blocked their way in places. At last they had to stop. They stood on the edge of a cliff. Below this cliff was a ridge or shelf of rock. By tying themselves together, and so helping one another ...
— Stories of American Life and Adventure • Edward Eggleston

... loved. The sight screwed up his courage. He remembered that he was Lemnian and a seafarer. He would be conquered neither by rock, nor by Hellene, nor by the Great King. Least of all by the last, who was a barbarian. Slowly, with clenched teeth and narrowed eyes, he began to clamber down a ridge which flanked the great cliffs of Kallidromos. His plan was to reach the shore and take the road to the east before the Persians completed their circuit. Some instinct told him that a great army would not take the track he had mounted by. There must ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan

... "Well done, Corrie. Clamber over the stern, and slide down by that rope into the little boat that floats there. Take one of the oars, which you will find muffled, and scull to the shore and bring off Thorwald and his men. And, hark 'ee, boy, bring off my shirt and boots. Now, look ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne

... to Irene's side. She was trying to clamber through a trellis of iron and splintered wood. She was stretching her hand out to Drury, where he lay unconscious, deep in the clutter. Crosson dragged her away from a flame that swung toward her. She struck his hand aside and thrust her body into ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes

... in the still summer weather, the sound of their childish voices and clear laughter would come ringing across the street, into the drooping air of the room in which she sat. Then they would climb and clamber upstairs with him, and romp about him on the sofa, or group themselves at his knee, a very nosegay of little faces, while he seemed to tell them some story. Or they would come running out into the balcony; and then Florence would hide herself quickly, lest it should check them in their ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... had that sense of cold finger-tips making a keyboard of his spine. An impulse rose in him to clamber up the ladder to the safety of the open-skyed roof. He was a son of the wide outdoors. It went against his gorge to be blotted out of life in this trap ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine

... at the edges. If there had recently been a great conflagration and almost all the whole city were being rebuilt, it would have looked much as it did at the time of my visit. To enter the post-office one had to clamber over heaps of stone and plaster, to stride over tumbled beams and jump across great puddles, entering at last by shaky stairs a place which looked like the waiting-room of an unfinished railway station. The style of building is peculiar, and looks so temporary ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing

... opposite the hut, they began their walk, going towards the eastern end of the sand-bank. They found that the shore was everywhere sand until they had gone some half a mile and nearly reached the end of the island, when they came upon a ledge of rocks over which they had to clamber, and which stretched out for quite a long distance into the sea. The two ventured out some few hundred yards along the ridge to seaward, and found that it had deep water on each side of it, the rock seeming to run perpendicularly down to the sandy bottom. The ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... hidden boulder? Nerving myself for one grand effort, I breasted the current, and, to my joy, found I was nearing the rock; striking out with the strength of despair I reach the refuge—the waves dash me against its sides—I clutch at the jagged ends that project out of the water, and by their aid clamber out of the reach ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman

... was to rush up the bank. He saw that the bear, or whatever it was, was resolved to keep right on; and the only way to avoid an encounter would be to leave the channel free. He therefore made a dash at the bank, and tried to clamber out. The clayey slope, however, chanced to be wet and slippery, and before Karl could reach the top his feet flew from under him, and he came back to the bottom faster than he ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid

... captain is determined to out-trick the Indians, and he permits only twelve of his men at a time on deck. Darkness has barely fallen on the river before the waters are alive with canoes, and naked warriors clamber to the decks like scrambling monkeys, so sure they have outnumbered their prey that they forget all caution. At the signal of a hammer knock on deck,—rap—rap—rap,—three times short and sharp, up swarm the soldiers from the hatchway. ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut

... seeing two men come up to the beggar, and enter into discourse with him, he was afraid of being pursued, and therefore ran as fast as he was able over several fields. At last he came into a lane which led into a farmer's orchard, and as he was preparing to clamber over the fence, a large dog seized him by the leg and held him fast. He cried out in agony of terror, which brought the farmer out, who called the dog off, but seized him very roughly, saying, 'So, sir, you are caught at last, are you? You thought you might come day ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day

... the vessel is crowded to the full as much as the genteeler quarter. There are four carriages, each with piles of imperials and aristocratic gimcracks of travel, under the wheels of which those personages have to clamber who have a mind to look at the bowsprit, and perhaps to smoke a cigar at ease. The carriages overcome, you find yourself confronted by a huge penful of Durham oxen, lying on hay and surrounded by a ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray

... of the way seemed all too short. We regretted—but for the sake of our boatman—that there were not twenty- five more rapids still to be passed before we reached our destination. We regretted, too—who could help it?—that we were not hardy pedestrians, able to clamber amid the rocks overhead, and make that wonderful expedition on foot described by the discoverers of this region, as the writers I have before alluded to may indeed be called. But if the half may not always prove better than the whole in travel, at least it ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... for though the way was long, and the current often swept him aside, Rob struggled on gallantly until, after what seemed an interminable period of suspense, his friends saw him clamber into the boat as she lay on the sandbank. Then for some minutes there was no movement, and though it was to be expected that he would need a rest after his exertions, the faces on shore began to lengthen as time passed by, and brought no sign of ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey

... way was comparatively smooth, and they made rapid progress. Then they began to encounter various obstacles. Here a mass of rock had fallen from the roof, and they must clamber over it. In another place a quantity of waste material had so dammed a ditch that for nearly a quarter of a mile the gangway was flooded with cold, black water, through which they had to wade. It was ...
— Derrick Sterling - A Story of the Mines • Kirk Munroe

... ramparts of the castle. Agents laden with letters and fresh provisions managed, in various disguises and by various shifts, to cross the sheet of water which then lay on the north of the fortress and to clamber up the precipitous ascent. The peal of a musket from a particular half moon was the signal which announced to the friends of the House of Stuart that another of their emissaries had got safe up the rock. But at length the supplies were exhausted; and it was necessary ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... then impossible to shoot them. Their food consists of aquatic plants, and grasses of many descriptions. Not only do they visit the margin of the river, but they wander at night to great distances from the water if attracted by good pasturage, and, although clumsy and ungainly in appearance, they clamber up steep banks and precipitous ravines with astonishing power and ease. In places where they are perfectly undisturbed, they not only enjoy themselves in the sunshine by basking half asleep upon the surface of the water, but they lie upon the shore beneath the shady trees, upon the river's bank; ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker

... to scramble down the kind of street, or rather goat's-path, which leads to the Japanese Nagasaki—with the prospect, alas! of having to climb up again at night; clamber up all the steps, all the slippery slopes, stumble over all the stones, before we shall be able to get home, go to bed, and sleep. We make our descent in the darkness, under the branches, under the foliage, among dark gardens and venerable little houses ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti

... sprang across the court and darted through the outer tower, only to find that and the gateway equally unguarded. Nor was it until I had passed through the latter, and stood on the brow of the slope, which we had had to clamber with so much toil, that I ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman

... were as sharp as ever. They looked at Ulysses, as if they expected him to clamber up the cliff again, and come back with another fat deer upon his shoulders. Instead of setting out, however, he summoned the whole crew together, and told them it was in vain to hope that he could kill a stag every day for their ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various

... speech. There they troop up the Sacred Way, the shock-headed, wool-draped, beak-nosed Romans; there they stand together in groups at the corner of Saturn's temple; there the half-naked plebeian children clamber upon the pedestals of the columns to see the sights, and double the men's deep tones with a treble of childish chatter; there the noble boy with his bordered toga, his keen young face, and longing backward look, is hurried home out of the throng by the tall household slave, who ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... fright, and flap her wings; but the male would look down calmly with his big, glistening eyes, watching the wolf slowly clamber, slip and fall headlong downwards, bringing a heap of snow with it, tumbling over and over ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak

... sit or stand quiet by the hour on the cliff-top watching the men as they drilled and fixed the dynamite, and waiting for the bang of it. Best of all, however, were the days when his grandfather allowed him inside the light-house, to clamber about the staircase and ladders, to watch the oiling and trimming of the great lantern, and the ships moving slowly on the horizon. He asked a thousand questions ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... kind of adhesion or tenacity, as in cleave, clay, cling, climb, clamber, clammy, clasp, to clasp, to clip, to clinch, cloak, clog, close, to close, a clod, a clot, as a clot of blood, clouted cream, a ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson

... uphill and get at the head of the ravine, and then take the bulls down it and catch Shere Khan between the bulls and the cows; for he knew that after a meal and a full drink Shere Khan would not be in any condition to fight or to clamber up the sides of the ravine. He was soothing the buffaloes now by voice, and Akela had dropped far to the rear, only whimpering once or twice to hurry the rear-guard. It was a long, long circle, for they did not wish to get too near the ravine and give Shere ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling

... went round and managed to clamber upon the roof, which was only four feet from the ground. But a brief trial served to convince our young adventurer that it is a good deal easier sliding down a roof than it is climbing up. The shingles being old were slippery, and though the ascent was not steep, Ben found ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger

... cried Violet; for her brother was at the other side of the garden. "Bring me those light wreaths of snow that have rested on the lower branches of the pear tree. You can clamber on the snowdrift, Peony, and reach them easily. I must have them to make some ringlets ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various

... strength; but remnants of the old battlements and machicolations are interspersed with the homely chambers and earthen-tiled housetops; and all along its extent both grapevines and running flower-shrubs are encouraged to clamber and sport over the ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... we have had a close shave," exclaimed Rooney, as he held out his hand to assist Ippegoo, who was the last of the party to clamber up the rugged side of the berg from the broken floe-pieces which were grinding ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne

... little labour, the small vessel was got into the water, and Mr Lutter, taking a scull in his hand, paddled over to the other side, and embarked the gentleman in the blue coat. Paddling towards an undefended part of the castle, he taught him how to clamber up the wall; and Mr Samson, wiping the stains of his climbing from the knees of his nether habiliments, looked round the castle-yard. "Well! who'd have thought that such a monstrous strong-looking place should be stormed by a middle-aged ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various

... position. After a moment Kut-le raised her gently to her feet. Here, however, she pushed him away and walked unsteadily to her horse. Kut-le's hands dropped to his side and he stood in the moonlight watching the frail boyish figure clamber with infinite ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow

... from behind us. We saw the long line of men below clamber on to the surface, a bayonet gleaming here and there, and begin to walk steadily between the shell-holes towards the edge of the hill. From where we were you could not see the enemy's trench in the valley—only the brown ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean

... to convert the shapeless lagoon into a perfectly symmetrical pond just out of the reach of the stubby tongue. Hence the scolding. Three witnesses—each ardently on the side of the bird—watched intently. Decently mannered, it refused to clamber on to the edge of the plate, for it was ever averse from defilement of food. The tit-bit was just beyond avaricious exertions—just at that tantalising distance and just so irresistibly desirable as might be directly stimulative of original ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield

... have been less than fifteen feet in height, and had doubtless been originally straight, but wind and weather, or the crumbling of the soil, had gradually suffered it to tilt over until it inclined at such an angle that an active man might clamber up to the summit. On the top of this ancient stone, cross-legged and motionless, like some strange carved idol of former days, sat Decimus Saxon, puffing sedately at the long pipe which was ever his comfort in moments of difficulty. Beneath ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... father's. That was on the very crest of the west bluff, overlooking the Neosho Valley. It fronted the east, and across the wide street before it the bluff broke precipitously four hundred feet to the level floor of the valley below. Sometimes the shelving rocks furnished a footing where one could clamber down half way and walk along the narrow ledge. Here were cunning hiding-places, deep crevices, and vine-covered heaps of jagged stone outcrop invisible from the height above or the valley below. It was a bit of rugged, untamable cliff rarely found in ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter

... a shout from the pavement and I distinctly saw him clamber into the motor car, which shot off as though it had started in fourth speed. An elderly gentleman, who had rushed from the shop, was halfway across the street already. There was a chorus of shouts; ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... little painted bark, In which I row'd you o'er the lake; See there, high waving o'er the park, The elm, I clamber'd for your sake. ...
— Fugitive Pieces • George Gordon Noel Byron

... the dockyard, assumed the garb of a pilot, put down his name on the list of workmen, wielded with his own hand the caulking iron and the mallet, fixed the pumps, and twisted the ropes. Ambassadors who came to pay their respects to him were forced, much against their will, to clamber up the rigging of a man of war, and found him enthroned on ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... too much for me. I believe I screamed aloud, and started to clamber from the van. But before I could do anything the two fanatics had begun to pummel each other. I saw Andrew swing savagely at Mifflin, and Mifflin hit him square on the chin. Andrew's hat fell on the road. Peg stood placidly, ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley

... Sir Roland continued to clamber down. Now he stood upon the floor of the hiding-hole, at the foot of the figure. We saw him stoop, raise the man's head, and bend the body upward until the back rested against the other ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux

... "boys'" camp attracted our attention, and we found Jackeroo the centre-piece of the camp, preparing to repeat some performance. For a second or so he stood irresolute; then, clutching wildly at an imaginary something that appeared to encumber his feet, with a swift, darting run and a scrambling clamber, he was into the midst of a sapling; then, our silence attracting attention, the black world collapsed ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn

... we were glad to crawl; and having got to the secure side of it, prepared ourselves, by a little rest, to proceed further; but not, I assure you, without some apprehensions, that if there was no better road down, we must have become hermits. After a second clamber, not quite so dreadful as the first, but much longer, we got into some flowery and serpentine walks, which lead to two or three of the nearest hermitages then visible, and not far off, one of which hung over so horrible a precipice, that it ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse

... Cheri, we can't!" cried Jeanne. "From where I am I can see that the water gets wider again a little farther on. And the rocks come quite sharp down to the side. There is nowhere we could clamber on to, and I dare say the water is very deep. There are lots of little streams trickling into it from the rocks, and the boat could go quite well if we could but get it ...
— The Tapestry Room - A Child's Romance • Mrs. Molesworth

... Charlottetown, His Royal Highness had a real Canadian welcome, tinged not a little with excitement. While he was on the racecourse one of the stands took fire, and there was the beginning of a panic, men and women starting to clamber wildly out of it and dropping from its sides. The Prince, however, kept his place and continued to watch the races. His presence on the stand quieted the nervous and checked what might have been an ugly rush, while the fire was very quickly ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton

... of movement, I leave his side, dart between a carriage and a van, duck under the head of a cab-horse, and board a 'bus going westward somewhere—but anyhow, going in exactly the reverse direction to the botanist. I clamber up the steps and thread my swaying way to the ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells

... there in their play costumes and painted faces, with mortal fright showing through the rouge—some trembling, some in tears—the screams and calls, confused talk—redoubled, trebled—two or three manage to pass up water from the stage to the President's box—others try to clamber up. Amidst all this, a party of soldiers, two hundred or more, hearing what is done, suddenly appear; they storm the house, inflamed with fury, literally charging the audience with fixed bayonets, muskets, and pistols, shouting, 'Clear out! clear out!'.... And in the midst of that pandemonium ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... her bow in readiness to board as soon as she touched the Tarifa were literally swept away. Another half minute she was alongside the Spaniard, and the Moors with wild shouts of vengeance tried to clamber on board. ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty

... sung unaccompanied, and almost in a whisper, and the effect in the church below is really entrancing. To reach this tower-chamber we had to mount endless flights of stairs to the choir-boys' dormitory, and then to clamber over their beds, and squeeze ourselves through an opening about a foot square (built as a fire-escape for the boys) in our surplices. After negotiating this narrow aperture, I shall always sympathise with any camel attempting to insinuate itself through the eye of a needle. In ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton

... leave we Hob to clamber out, Queen Mab and all her Fairy rout, And come again to have a bout With Oberon yet madding: And with Pigwiggen now distraught, Who much was troubled in his thought, That he so long the Queen had sought, And through ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick

... even to secure a striking view, but merely to say he had been there. After an hour on the summit of the enormous mass of stone, he came down; and I should have liked to ask him what he reckoned to be the net profit accruing to him for his little exploit. Wise men do not want to clamber up immense and dangerous Alps; there is a kind of heroic lunacy about the business, but it is not useful, and it certainly is not inviting. If a thoughtful man goes even in winter among the mountains, their vast repose sinks on his soul; his love of them never slackens, and he returns ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman

... that night from this man Jenkins calmed him still further. The woman had acknowledged, on leaving him, that she was going to seek work at the factory. "A little old for the job," the man volunteered, "but spry. How she did clamber up that bank!" ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green

... land you may find choice little spots, farm-houses, over which the woodbine and the honeysuckle clamber, while the surrounding wheat fields—(I have lost my volume of WHITMAN, and forget what the wheat fields do, poetically.) Perhaps it is my duty to here introduce some remarks about farming, but, as the Self-made Man is struggling with that subject, and as a certain innocent, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 14, July 2, 1870 • Various

... them with a fearful retribution should they attack us. As they still came on we fired a well-aimed volley at the two nearest, bringing several of their warriors to the deck, while we quickly again loaded. In another instant they might have been attempting to clamber up the sides of the ship, when the people on board the other prahus saw the approach of the brig, which almost immediately opened fire with her long gun run out through her bow port. A panic on this seized most of the fleet, and pulling round away ...
— The Mate of the Lily - Notes from Harry Musgrave's Log Book • W. H. G. Kingston

... spring! Will patience avail a man any thing in such a predicament, when he ought rather to run like an Arab, or dive like a dolphin, "splash, splash, towards the sea," notwithstanding the chance of his breaking his neck among the rocks, or being drowned while trying to round a crag which he cannot clamber over? Let us hear Mr Scrope's account of his third cast, one fine morning, when he came ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various

... slowly into view from where it had been concealed by the apparatus, and Blake forgot all thought of the strange mechanisms as he watched the monstrous thing clamber stiffly from the platform and halt squarely in front of the captives to stare at them through the transparency of the ...
— Zehru of Xollar • Hal K. Wells

... investigations. Arrived at the top of the stairs, I heard what drove me from the house at once. It was my sister's voice—Adelaide's. She was in the building, and I stood almost on a level with her, with a bottle in my pocket. It did not take me a minute to clamber through the window. I did not stop to wonder, or ask why she was there, or to whom she was speaking. I just fled and made my way as well as I could across the golf-links to a little hotel on Cuthbert Road, where I had been once before. There I emptied my bottle, and was so overcome by ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green

... We clamber up into the long jungle grass region and go on our way across a series of steep-sided, rounded grass hillocks, each of which is separated from the others by dry, rocky watercourses. The effects produced by the seed-ears of the long grass round us are very beautiful; ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... moment Davie Summers mounted to the top of a hummock, part of which overhung the pool, and launched a harpoon down upon its back. This latter blow seemed to revive its ferocity, for it again essayed to clamber out on the ice, and looked up at Davie with a glance of seeming indignation, while Buzzby, who had approached, fell backward as he retreated from before it. At the same time Saunders succeeded in getting his musket to go off. The ball struck it in the eye, and, entering the ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... the scene of so many sorrows and little jealousies, so many midnight Indian attacks and bilious attacks by day, became a solemn ruin, and a few shattered tombstones, over which the jimson-weed and the wild vines clamber, show to the curious traveller the place where civilization first sought to establish itself on the James ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye

... very little fear of his daughter not being able to accomplish the descent of the rocks safely enough: it was a matter of dignity. And so Sheila was at length persuaded to go across the plain to a sheltered place, to wait there until the others should clamber down to the great and naturally-formed tunnel through the rocks that the artist ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various

... is just the same. Its long-deserted streets, bordered by ancient houses, lie in terraces half-way up the steep hill-side. Above it Mount Subasio[1] proudly towers, at its feet lies outspread all the Umbrian plain from Perugia to Spoleto. The crowded houses clamber up the rocks like children a-tiptoe to see all that is to be seen; they succeed so well that every window gives the whole panorama set in its frame of rounded hills, from whose summits castles and villages stand sharply out against a sky ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier

... clamber over the stones until he stood by the window. To be sure, if a man stood there, he could easily have fired into the room and into the breast of a man sitting on the far side of the table. Armstrong was found there. Bull looked down ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand

... this place to be Gatun. Talbot found us a native hut in which were hammocks we could rent for the night. The hut was a two-storied affair, with a notched pole by which to clamber aloft. I took one look and decided to stay below. My weight seemed sufficient to bring the whole ...
— Gold • Stewart White

... yet they all pressed forward, and there grew a thundering sullen sound. There was a valley and a ridge of rock before them, and they had to clamber first down the rugged precipice they were upon, then to cross the valley, and then to struggle up the opposite side, a trembling motion growing perceptible as they advanced, before they stood on a sort of broad ledge, which they perceived at the angles that jutted ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various

... Millicent that he was about to get out of the window, but whether he intended to clamber down by the ivy, or creep in at the next attic, she did not stop to ascertain; only praying that she might have strength to gain a place of safety she sped on, staggering under the weight of her little one, who clung to her ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various

... on, past the mouth of the Paris moat, and then made for the left bank. Exhaustion seized me as I laid hold of the earth, but I had strength to clamber up. I fell into a sitting posture and rested my tired arms and legs. What pains of cold and heat I felt I cannot describe. Presently, with returning breath, came the strength to walk,—a strength of which I would have to avail ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens

... chokingly. "Try to make them understand I want my hands freed. It's bad enough trying to clamber up this infernal road, anyhow, without having to go at it all trussed ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... climb up to the Bath House at Fideris, after leaving the road leading up through the long valley of Prattigau. The horses pant so hard on their way up the mountain that you prefer to dismount and clamber up on foot to ...
— Moni the Goat-Boy • Johanna Spyri et al

... Mainpuri. In many fields these young slingers and their platforms are but a couple of hundred yards apart, the range of their weapons covering the entire crop-area around. Sometimes I endeavor to secure one of these excellent subjects for my camera, but the youngsters invariably clamber down from their perch at seeing me dismount, and become ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... hissed the nearest, a man of gigantic proportions and development of strength. 'Why should I not leap out of the arena where these men place me to play a fool's part; and scrambling over the ranges of seats, plunge this dagger into his heart? Ye gods! were I once to begin to clamber up, no force could stop me from reaching him, were he at the very topmost range! ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... Linder drew his automobile up in front of the Transley summer home with Grant and Murdoch on board. Wilson had been watching, and rushed down upon them, but before he could clamber up on Grant a great teddy-bear was thrust into his arms and sent him, wild ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead

... and strikes one's feet. Mine tries to cling to me and pull me up and throw me to the ground. With this malignantly heavy thing, animated with barbarous and powerful movement, I cross the ruins of a railway station, all stones and beams. We clamber up an embankment which slips away and avoids us, we drag and push the rebellious and implacable burden. It cannot be reached, that receding height. But we reach ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse

... the front part of each step instead of the top of it, as we would have done if the stairs had been in their proper position. When we got to the floor of the cabin, which was now perpendicular like a wall, we had to clamber down by means of the furniture, which was screwed fast, until we reached the bulkhead, which was now the floor of the cabin. Close to this bulkhead was a small room which was the steward's pantry, and here we found lots of things to eat, but all jumbled up in a way ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton

... eyes, the beauty and brilliant colour of the picture presented by the emerald island in its setting of sapphire sea; but as I sprang into the rigging I noticed that her gaze followed me; and when I swung myself out to clamber over the rim of the top—a performance which, to the eye of the landsman, appears distinctly hazardous—she suddenly clasped her hands upon her breast, as though in terror for my safety. The action was trifling enough, perhaps, ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood

... the middle of the bowling-green, where, finding flight impossible, as there was no apparent outlet at the further end of the garden, while it was certain that the tipstaves would pluck him from the wall with their hooks if he attempted to clamber over it, he turned, ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth

... clambered over it in safety. Aghast at the awfulness of what had happened, I stood still, till I saw the great blade of a Matuku spear pass up between my feet. That brought me to my senses, and I began to clamber up the rock like a cat. I was half way round it. Already I had clasped the hand of that brave girl Maiwa, who came down to help me, the men having scrambled forward with the ivory, when I felt some one ...
— Maiwa's Revenge - The War of the Little Hand • H. Rider Haggard

... bowing and smiling, descended and opened the door, and they all scrambled in and were hugged and kissed, and Polly admired their beauty and exclaimed at their growth. Then the door was clapped to again, but not before Harry had managed to slip out and clamber to the box beside Uncle Robin, who, having driven through the gate, handed him the reins, with a caution to keep his eye upon Peacock. In the estimation of the boy, this sleek and overfed Peacock seemed little less than a raging lion whom ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux

... to clamber round the side of the van so as to get to the doors at the back, but a pantechnicon has a wheel-base which forbids leaping from wheel to wheel, especially, when the wheels are under water. Hence he was obliged to climb on to the roof, and so ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... themselves to be petted just like cats, and would catch my finger in their ideally delicate little rosy hands, and lick it in the friendliest way. They used to be let out at the end of our meals, and would clamber up the arms, the shoulders, and the heads of the guests, emerging from the sleeves of coats and dressing-gowns with marvellous skill and agility. All these performances, carried out very prettily, were intended to secure permission to forage among the remains of the dessert. They ...
— My Private Menagerie - from The Works of Theophile Gautier Volume 19 • Theophile Gautier

... such as attacks the wealthy gluttons who eat too many truffles. And on a dish by the side of these, the hard grey goats' milk cheeses, about the size of a child's fist, resembled the pebbles which the billy-goats send rolling down the stony paths as they clamber along ahead of their flocks. Next came the strong smelling cheeses: the Mont d'Ors, of a bright yellow hue, and exhaling a comparatively mild odour; the Troyes, very thick, and bruised at the edges, and of a far more pungent smell, recalling the dampness of a cellar; ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola

... sight, and had reached the base of the cliffs, where the smugglers' cave was. The children had been there ever so many times before, and knew of a little gap in the rocks where, if only their boat would drift near enough, they could land, and clamber up to the roadway again. The boat, however, passed the gap, and drifted straight underneath the cave, from whence came ...
— Dick, Marjorie and Fidge - A Search for the Wonderful Dodo • G. E. Farrow

... cunning villains have set a watch over every road," murmured Mr. Haydon. "Do you know of any way to get out without following a path, Me Dain, any way by which we can clamber over the hills?" ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore

... narrower and narrower," continued Mr. George, "until it is finally lost among the rocks, and you have to clamber around the point of some rocky cliff a thousand feet in the air, with scarcely any thing but the jagged roughness of the rocks ...
— Rollo in Switzerland • Jacob Abbott

... try to clamber through in the dark. Look after Winnie, Nigel—and don't leave the spot where you stand, dear one, for there are cracks and holes about that might ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... snug library, so eager in her wifeliness to clamber up to her husband's small planks, and if need be, spread her prettily flounced skirts over the rotting places, was memorizing, with more pride than understanding, extracts from the controversial article for quotation at the Woman's Club ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.

... her lofty stern I found hanging therefrom a tangle of ropes and cordage whereby I contrived to clamber aboard, and so beheld a man in a red seaman's bonnet who sat upon the wreckage of one of the quarter guns tying up a splinter-gash in his arm with hand and teeth; perceiving me he rolled a pair of blue eyes up at ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol

... and walked along the mule path to the left of the stream to that queer hollow among the precipices, Blau See, where the petrifying branches of trees lie in the blue deeps of an icy lake, and pine-trees clamber among gigantic boulders. A little inn flying a Swiss flag nestles under a great rock, and there they put aside their knapsacks and lunched and rested in the mid-day shadow of the gorge and the scent of resin. And later they paddled ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells

... Saint Antoine bristling with barricades. We make ourselves known and the insurgents help us to clamber over the heaps of paving-stones. As we draw near to the Hotel de Ville, from which the roar of a great crowd reaches our ears, and as we cross some ground on which are buildings in course of erection, we see coming towards us with hurried steps M. de Rambuteau, ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo

... Birds-nest Caves," drew up a very interesting report on them, informed me that, though he had found it impossible to explore right to the end, he had been a long way in and was confident that the cave was of very large size. To reach the upper series of caves, you leave Simud Hitam and clamber up the hill side—a steep but not difficult climb, as the jagged limestone affords sure footing. The entrance to this series, known as Simud Putih, or "white entrance," is estimated to be at an elevation of 300 feet above sea level, and the ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher

... see from what I told you that it was easy to follow a straight course right through that old park. Sometimes we had to clamber over piles of old boards and we had to work our way kind of in and out through the old rotten trestle of the scenic railway. That thing crossed our path like a big, long, wriggling snake. Some of the old booths were boarded up and some of them were ...
— Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... done now?" said he. "It is useless our attempting to clamber to the top of the rock, for no one could do it with ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat

... performs a much more important part in the work of building up concepts than the previous discussion would indicate. As fast as psychical concepts are formed we clamber upon them and try to get a better view of the field around us. Like captured guns, we turn them at once upon the enemy and make them perform service in new fields of conquest. If a new case or object appears we judge of it in the light of our acquired concepts, no matter ...
— The Elements of General Method - Based on the Principles of Herbart • Charles A. McMurry

... blissful rides Shall our shouting offspring clamber Up your broad and beetling sides; Ne'er again, when eventide's Coming turns the skies to amber And the fluting blackbirds call, Poised above a bale of fodder In your well-appointed stall Will you muse upon it all, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 10th, 1920 • Various

... from the crowd of curious passengers who were whispering and speculating behind him, pointing him out to each other, wondering what notable he might be; as Craddock started down the platform away from there, the voice of the conductor warning all to clamber aboard, the waiting cowboy tightened the reins a little, causing his horse to prick up its ears and start with a thrill of expectancy which the rider could feel ripple over its smooth hide under the pressure ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden

... flat spaces, then broken boulders to clamber over, then steep, rugged climbs, when they grasped the rough rocks with both hands and moved on with painful slowness. It seemed to the girl that they had been climbing for long, tedious hours since they had slipped ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory

... the leader of the expedition, as he started to clamber aboard; "don't let up on 'em a minute, men! Just remember the account said something about the thieves being young chaps, with smooth faces. This is the boat to a dot; and I reckon we've got ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel

... a very remarkable degree of activity to clamber from the window to the porch, and so down to the ground. To Gimblet it was as easy as going downstairs. In two minutes he was stealing away under the trees in ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce

... the rocks, and decided to make the attempt. It was a long and tedious journey, especially as I had to clamber from rock to rock, and then lift Ruth. We managed it, however, and after a time stood safely on the ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking

... to clamber up into the spreading family-tree of fiction, it is not here that we must seek for the stem from which the Mowgli stories ultimately flowered. These stories are not directly derived from the beast-fable, altho ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews

... bright fish fled past him like living arrows, and huge crabs scuttled away as he appeared. Suddenly, lying on her side in a little ravine of the mountain, he saw a ship—the black ship of the Emerald of the Sea! Weary and weak though he was, it took the sailor but a moment to clamber aboard, and hurry past the broken masts into the captain's cabin. A steady, green radiance shone in one corner of the weedy room, and hastening toward it, the sailor found, at last, the Emerald ...
— The Firelight Fairy Book • Henry Beston



Words linked to "Clamber" :   climb, mount, skin, scramble, struggle, shinny, shin



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