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Scaling   Listen
adjective
Scaling  adj.  
1.
Adapted for removing scales, as from a fish; as, a scaling knife; adapted for removing scale, as from the interior of a steam boiler; as, a scaling hammer, bar, etc.
2.
Serving as an aid in clambering; as, a scaling ladder, used in assaulting a fortified place.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Scaling" Quotes from Famous Books



... to slay, he had a momentary thrill of uneasiness, but it was no more than momentary. Finn's towering form stood out clearly in the moonlight, as he stood, with tail curved upward and hackles erect, on the stone ledge outside the den. Lupus was scaling an extremely steep section of the trail at the moment, and, seen against the sky-line, Finn seemed monstrous. But, in justice, one should say that Lupus knew nothing of fear. It was only that for a moment, as he dragged his full-fed weight upward over the stones, the thought passed through his ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson

... the evening charming, and soon singing herself into the good graces of a large audience; ditto, M. COSSIRA, "than which," as the Prophet NICHOLAS would say, "a more competent Romeo—though perhaps a trifle full in the waist for balcony-scaling by moonlight." If he had really trusted himself to that gossamer ladder in the Fourth Act, he would never have got away to Mantua, especially as Juliette, with the thoughtlessness of her age and sex, omitted to secure it in any way. Fortunately it was not a long drop, and ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Volume 101, October 31, 1891 • Various

... course of experiment. There is at present a very general and but too just complaint of the popular education, as tending to inflate rather than to inform; as prompting large numbers of young men especially to aim at scaling to positions above those in which the school found them, a thing that would be well enough were it not inevitable that, in the general scramble, the positions aspired to are at the same time too frequently those above their capabilities, and quite too full without them: as, in few ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various

... of distinguished and renowned craftsmen. It is said that in his youth Cecca was a very good carpenter, and that he had concentrated all his powers on seeking to solve the difficulties connected with engines, and how to make machines for assaulting walls in war—scaling-ladders for climbing into cities, battering-rams for breaching fortifications, defences for protecting soldiers in the attack, and everything that could injure his enemies and assist his friends—wherefore, ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 3 (of 10), Filarete and Simone to Mantegna • Giorgio Vasari

... "For this contretemps," said Guiscard, as he examined their bivouac with his telescope, "we have to thank only ourselves. Valenciennes ought to have been stormed within the first five minutes after we could have cut down those poplars for scaling ladders," and he pointed to the tapering tops of the large plantations lining the banks of the Scheldt; "but we have been quarreling over our portfolios, while the French have been gathering every rambling soldier within a hundred miles; and now we ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various

... of stone, and all the other houses, were on fire, and the island was lighted up for miles. The smoke had cleared away, and the defences of the fort were now plainly visible in the broad glare of the flames. "If we had scaling-ladders," cried Philip, "the fort would be ours; there is not a soul ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat

... Palo-Penang on the 30th May, in the year 1810. There the captain persuaded the governor to let him have about twenty artillery-men and a lot of scaling-ladders; and having learned something more about the chief place in Banda, called Banda-Neira, he kept to the resolution he had all along in his mind, to try and get possession of it. In spite of the south-east monsoon, ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston

... hand, were infinitely more conservative in their estimates of what Germany could pay. Even after certain Allied experts, including Montagu and Loucheur, affirmed the necessity of scaling down the suggested sum of reparations, the difference between the American proposals and those of the Allies was serious.[13] Political considerations, however, interposed, and preventing the settling of a definite total sum which Germany must pay. Neither Lloyd George nor Clemenceau dared ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour

... each integration. Thus a double summation requires say 26 inches of board, and it is impossible to integrate thrice without reproducing the primitive. The fact that the primitive and sum curve are not plotted off on the same base is also troublesome for comparison, and involves scaling of a new base for each summation. I have endeavored to obviate this by always drawing the second sum curve on a thin piece of paper pinned to the board, which can then be moved back to the position of the first primitive. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 794, March 21, 1891 • Various

... leaves and found the thick vine. A moment later he was silently scaling the wall of the house, feeling his way carefully, testing every precarious foothold, dragging himself painfully upwards by means of the most ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon

... division, of which Foedor's regiment formed the vanguard, charged into the town, pursuing the garrison, which only consisted of twelve hundred men, and obliged them to take refuge in the citadel. Pressed with an impetuosity the French were not accustomed to find in their enemies, and seeing that the scaling ladders were already in position against the ramparts, the captain Boucret wished to come to terms; but his position was too precarious for him to obtain any conditions from his savage conquerors, and he and his soldiers were made ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - VANINKA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... could have it back again; for down the vista of the future he caught a glimpse of the inexorable laws of the world. He guessed that nothing succeeds like success, and it cost him something to step down from the first rung of the scaling ladder by which he meant to reach and storm the heights above. Pictures of his quiet and simple life rose before him, pictures fair with the brightest colors of blossoming love. There was David; what a genius David had—David who had helped him so generously, and would die for him at need; he ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... as easily as if he had been a child, the engineer carried him over under a tree, fetched him the can of water, and for the second time climbed the rocky hillside. Scaling his lookout crag, he surveyed the country below him. A mile down the creek two riders were coming up towards the waterhole at an easy canter. He surmised that they were his wife ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet

... of failure in this, as in all other columns, was within 2 ft. of the top, although this column showed some scaling ...
— Some Mooted Questions in Reinforced Concrete Design • Edward Godfrey

... led by Colonels Green, Bagby, and Cook, the remainder of the troops being formed under Scurry in support. A brisk fight followed, but the defenders had the concentrated fire of the fleet to protect them; the scaling ladders proved too short to reach the wharf, and as day began to break, the baffled assailants were about to draw off, when, suddenly, the Confederate gunboats appeared on the scene and in a few moments turned the defeat into a signal ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin

... attack was made upon one of the Boer forts on the north. There seems to be little doubt that the enemy had some inkling of our intention, as the fort was found to have been so strengthened as to be impregnable without scaling ladders. The attacking force consisted of two squadrons of the Protectorate Regiment and one of the Bechuanaland Rifles, backed up by three guns. So desperate was the onslaught that of the actual attacking party—a forlorn hope, if ever there was one—fifty-three out of ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle

... thickets, it hung about him in discoloured shreds like a mop. The sun had touched him a bit. He had taken to always polishing one particular button, which just held on to his left wrist, and to always calling for stationery. I suppose that man called for pens, ink, and paper, tape, and scaling-wax, upwards of one thousand times in four-and-twenty hours. He had an idea that we should never get out of that river unless we were written out of it in a formal Memorandum; and the more we laboured at navigating the rafts, the more he ordered us not to touch them at our peril, ...
— The Perils of Certain English Prisoners • Charles Dickens

... that day, And before it not seldom had granted Thy help to essay. Carry on and complete an adventure,—my shield and my sword In that act where my soul was Thy servant, Thy word was my word,— Still be with me, who then at the summit of human endeavour And scaling the highest, man's thought could, gazed hopeless as ever On the new stretch of heaven above me—till, mighty to save, Just one lift of Thy hand cleared that distance—God's throne from man's grave! Let me ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning

... me facilities for scaling the wall, and a partial screen for my operations if any eye should chance to be looking that way. And now it was done. I was in the park of the Chateau de la Carque, as nefarious a poacher as ever trespassed on the ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... up the steps, which they climbed with agile feet, as if accustomed to scaling high cart wheels. Bobaday sat by his grandmother, and the back seat received this addition to the party without at all crowding aunt Corinne. She looked the boy and girl over with great satisfaction. They were near ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... efforts, as if despairing of success, and allowed the besieged to view the battle at the camp unmolested. Then, while their attention was closely fixed on their countrymen, he made a vigorous assault on the wall, and the soldiers mounting their scaling ladders, had almost gained the top, when the townsmen rushed to the spot in a body, and hurled down upon them stones, firebrands, and every description of missiles. Our men made head against these annoyances for a while, but at length, ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust

... rid of his painful thoughts Sydney worked hard with the men till everything possible under the circumstances had been done. Rocks had been shifted, breastworks built, and the place was so added to, that if an enemy should come, the scaling of the cliff over the landing-place and capture of the lower gun did not mean defeat. There was quite a little fort to attack half-way up the gap, and then there was a stout wall built across behind the ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn

... weather-beaten comrades are up yonder in the back gallery, while this one has elbowed its way among the quality in the stalls. But it is worth a word or two. Take it out and handle it! See how swarthy it is, how squat, with how bullet-proof a cover of scaling leather. Now open the fly-leaf "Ex libris Guilielmi Whyte. 1672" in faded yellow ink. I wonder who William Whyte may have been, and what he did upon earth in the reign of the merry monarch. A pragmatical seventeenth-century ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle

... she had prayed never to be forced to desert—never desiring to bring her heart and imagination back to this dreary world, too like the gloomy coasts of Finland, where the slime and miry slough can only be escaped by scaling the naked granite of the solitary rocks. Fatigued with the massive statue she had sculptured, the Amazonian Lelia; wearied with the grandeur of an Ideal which it is impossible to mould from the gross materials of this earth; she was desirous to form an acquaintance ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt

... Merle were now aimed again and again at the heads and corslets of Guisards, with something of the same exulting excitement as, only higher, more engrossing, and fiercer than, that with which the lads had taken aim at a wolf, or ridden after a fox. Scaling-ladders were planted and hurled down again; stones were cast from the battlements, crushing the enemy; and throughout Berenger's quick eye, alert movements, and great height and strength, made him a most valuable champion, often applauded by a low murmur of commendation from old Falconnet, ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... long after him. The enemy was driven back with fearful loss. Scaling-ladders were thrown down; the archers on the walls, better accustomed to their ground, marking their foes by the torches they carried, but concealed themselves by the darkness, dealt destruction with as unerring ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar

... by warm, plain, or alkaline baths, or hot-water-and-soap washings; in those cases in which the scaling is abundant and adherent, washing with sapo viridis and hot water may be required. Baths of sal ammoniac, two to six ounces to the bath are also valuable in removing the scaliness. The tincture of green soap (tinctura saponis viridis) is especially valuable for cleansing purposes in psoriasis ...
— Essentials of Diseases of the Skin • Henry Weightman Stelwagon

... "Barracouta" sloop. Landing at night, during a violent storm, accompanied by Lieutenant Lyons and several other officers, they made their way to the rear of the citadel. Though discovered, scrambling up by means of scaling ladders, they forced their way in, and in a few minutes became ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston

... into a series of scrapes which more or less threatened his safety. He plotted with the grandsons of Monsieur Hochon to worry the grocers of the city; he gathered fruit before the owners could pick it, and made nothing of scaling walls. He had no equal at bodily exercises, he played base to perfection, and could have outrun a hare. With a keen eye worthy of Leather-stocking, he loved hunting passionately. His time was passed in firing at a mark, instead of studying; and he spent the money extracted from the old doctor ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... glimpsed with her eyes of a young girl those strange souls simple as children's and yet mosaiced with unimaginable and barbarous splendors, she stood blinking and half blinded, awed, fascinated, and avid to know more of that sky-scaling passion with which ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler

... SUN AND FROST.—Sun and frost cause scaling and hair cracks. For work in freezing weather the water, sand and gravel should be heated or salt used to retard freezing until the walk can be finished; it may then be protected from further action of the frost by covering it first with paper and then with a mattress of sawdust, shavings or ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette

... line was trailing from his waist to the bitt—the clear white sea was up to his middle and racing over the taffrail. He had cast away his mitts the better to grip the spokes, and even as I looked he took off his sou'wester and sent it scaling. The wind taking hold of it must have carried it a quarter a mile to leeward. Watching it go, himself looking out under the boom, he laughed—laughed—such a roar of a laugh—stamped his feet and ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly

... delicate. His slim, long-fingered hands reminded her of a bird's claws. The up-rolled sleeves of a blue flannel shirt disclosed forearms well-enough sinewed, but instead of being browned to the hue of a saddle-skirt, they were white underneath and pinkly red above. Moreover, they were scaling in the fashion of a skin not inured to weather beating. Though the man had thought on setting out from civilization that he was suiting his appearance to the environment, the impression he made on this native girl was distinctly foreign. The flannel ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck

... with a river on one flank and a fortress on the t'other—parade manoeuvres—where, at the first check, the enemy retreats, and leaves you free, for the whole afternoon, to write off your successes to the Directory. Had you seen our fellows scaling the Alps, with avalanches of snow descending at every fire of the great guns—forcing pass after pass against an enemy, posted on every cliff and crag above us—cutting our way to victory by roads the hardiest hunter had seldom trod; I ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various

... historic reference concerning it is in the journal of the famous Escalante-Dominguez priestly expedition of 1776. The party returning from its trip northward as far as Utah Lake, reached the river, at the mouth of the Paria, about November 1. The stream was found too deep, so there was a scaling of hills to the Ute ford, ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock

... was accomplished, the officers proceeded to the posts of the several sentinels who had been planted since the last relief, to ascertain if any or either of them had observed aught to justify the belief that an enemy had succeeded in scaling the works. To all their enquiries, however, they received a negative reply, accompanied by a declaration, more or less positive with each, that such had been their vigilance during the watch, had any person come within their beat, detection must have been inevitable. The first ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... benefit of infidel soldiers, and the most sacred buildings were threatened with destruction by the unbelievers. All these conditions led to a determination of an early assault. They had made no adequate provision for scaling walls or battering gates, but expected Divine intervention in their favor. The assault was repulsed, and their losses brought the victory ...
— Peter the Hermit - A Tale of Enthusiasm • Daniel A. Goodsell

... The column led by Colonel Duque, a brave man, was now at the northern wall, and the men were rushing forward with the crowbars, axes and scaling ladders. The Texan rifles, never more deadly, sent down a storm of bullets upon them. A score of men fell all at once. Among them was Duque, wounded terribly. The whole column broke and reeled away, carrying ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler

... determine to which side we should turn for a new route; to right, as to left, arose impenetrable masses of trees and bushes. In truth even the scaling of cliffs would have been more easy. Perhaps if we could get above this wooded slope we could advance with surer foot. Now, we could only go ahead blindly, and trust to the instincts of our two guides. James Bruck was especially useful. I believe that that gallant lad would have equaled a monkey ...
— The Master of the World • Jules Verne

... men for their desperate charge. The obscure words in verse 8, which he speaks to his soldiers, do not need the supplement given in the Authorised Version. The king's quick eye had seen a practical path for scaling the cliffs up some watercourse, where there might be projections or vegetation to pull oneself up by, or shelter which would hide the assailants from the defenders; and he bids any one who would smite the Jebusites take that ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... the highway; 2. Alone, or in a band; 3. By breaking into buildings, or scaling walls; 4. By abstraction; 5. By fraudulent bankruptcy; 6. By forgery of the handwriting of public officials or private individuals; 7. ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon

... protected and preserved in felling and swamping the trees which have been marked for cutting, and in skidding the logs. The disposal of the slash must be looked after, for it has much to do with forest reproduction, and with promoting safety from fire. Then, the scaling of the logs determines the amount of the payment the Government receives for its timber, and there are often regulations governing the transportation of the scaled logs whose enforcement is of great consequence to the ...
— The Training of a Forester • Gifford Pinchot

... unpleasant for other people shone forth conspicuously. It was his habit to ride forth every morning accompanied by a strong band of attendants armed with axes and machetes, and well provided with ropes to assist in the scaling of precipitous slopes, for the purpose of selecting and marking out the day's route, a task which could usually be accomplished in a couple of hours; and then to return and supervise the work of his subordinate, which ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood

... we reached the Trebizond-Erzerum highway at Baiboot, the contrast was so great that the scaling of Kop Dagh, on its comparatively smooth surface, was a mere breakfast spell. From here we looked down for the first time into the valley of the historic Euphrates, and a few hours later we were skimming over its bottom lands toward the embattled ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben

... sad spectacle for me. I had long since lost sight of the Rata. In vain I scanned the smoke-laden horizon for a sight of her. I never saw her more. I could fancy Ludar stalking the deck, or scaling the masts wildly, in search of me; and then, when he found me not, with the cloud deep on his noble brow, crawling to his berth in the dark to tell ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed

... of Lady Feenix's or a dinner party at the Gorings—Vivie as the child of a "fallen" woman had a prescriptive right of entrance to Diana's circle—he had not the slightest intention of running away with her, of nipping his career in two, just as he might be scaling the last heights to the citadel of fame: either as a politician of the new type, the type of high education, or as one of the giants of inductive science. Besides in 1912, if I mistake not, Dr. Smith-Woodward and Mr. Charles Dawson made that discovery of the remains ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston

... engines calculated to make an impression on very massive walls. They knew of but three ways of forcing a stronghold; namely, scaling the walls, sapping them, or bursting open the gates. The plan adopted by their engineers in building the second fort is admirably well calculated to resist each of these modes of attack (fig. 26). The outer walls are long and ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero

... thoughts in my mind, I was speeding with the train toward Buffalo, when, near that city, the sight of a workman doing something on the dizzy edge of a sky-scaling iron construction brought me to my senses very suddenly. And now I perceived, by a flash of insight, that I had been steeping myself in pure ancestral blindness, and looking at life with the eyes of a remote spectator. Wishing for heroism and the spectacle of human nature on the rack, ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James

... have them ready, not one was made.[39] Eventually an insufficient number were got together, but "the 44th, which was appointed to carry them, had either misunderstood or neglected their orders, and now headed the column of attack, without any means being provided for crossing the enemy's ditch, or scaling his ramparts." ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis

... is worse, the deception of the priests or that of the philosophers, who scaling to a height upon a ladder of oratory write a big word upon a piece of paper, flaunting it before you as the legal tender for all your pains. With a beaming countenance the good citizens go home with their strip of ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden

... waited to look for more to come. There were no more, the pack was dead; but waiting he got his breath, then raising his voice for the first time in that fatal scene, he feebly gave a long yell of triumph, and scaling the next low bank, was screened from view in a canyon of ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton

... which in California is known as the Sierras, but which in Oregon changes its name to the Cascades. Nature has thus provided a pathway for the Northern Pacific Road through these mountains, the scaling of which, on the other line, at an elevation of over seven thousand feet (a most wonderful triumph of engineering), cost the Central Pacific millions of dollars, and compelled them for seventy miles to maintain a grade of over one hundred feet to the mile—twice ...
— Minnesota; Its Character and Climate • Ledyard Bill

... immediately sought a concealment among the logs, in which he remained during the remainder of the night and the greater part of the following day, until pretty well assured the Indians were no longer in his vicinity. Then, scaling the cliffy banks of the river, and creeping through the woods, it was his good fortune at last to stumble upon the clearings around Brace's Station, at which he arrived soon after the defeated Regulators had effected their return. Here—having now lost his horse, arms, ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird

... And the matter of the little revolver picked up on the lawn: that belonged to Fenton; he probably dropped it in scaling the fence. By means of a strong glass I saw a number scratched on the metal of the butt. I at once knew this to be a pawnbroker's mark. Fuller, inside three hours, had located the pawnbroker, and the records of the place showed the weapon had been sold to Fenton only ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre

... from jesting with that which is far dearer to me than life itself! But listen to me, Valentine, and I will tell you all about it. I became weary of ranging fields and scaling walls, and seriously alarmed at the idea suggested by you, that if caught hovering about here your father would very likely have me sent to prison as a thief. That would compromise the honor of the French army, to say nothing of the fact that the continual ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... and rushed forward from the reserve, cutting and carving their way through trees and other obstacles with their claymores. The deadly fire still continued from the fort. As no ladders had been provided for scaling the breastwork, the soldiers climbed on to one another's shoulders, and made holes for their feet in the face of the work with their swords and bayonets, but as soon as a man reached the top he was thrown down. Captain John Campbell and a few men succeeded at last ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang

... 1915, the French troops began crossing this bridge and scaling the heights before them, some of whose peaks towered fully a thousand feet above the river. And here it was that they first heard the booming of the Serbian guns, on the other side ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)

... question of minutes when the besiegers should succeed in breaking a door or scaling the walls to the windows and making their entrance. From the office windows they could see a score of those in the rear running forward across the grounds with a ladder which they had secured in the stables. Passing again to the front of the house, ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall

... regardless of their size. If small, they have been crowded or stunted and may as well be cut. Trees with large, healthy crowns composed of many comparatively small branches, and with rough dark bark showing no flat scaling, are sure to be growing rapidly, even if quite large. They are also less desired by the lumberman, who often calls them black pine or black jack, so may often be spared, without much sacrifice, for seed trees or in order to continue ...
— Practical Forestry in the Pacific Northwest • Edward Tyson Allen

... also enters at a point where it may abstract as much heat as possible from the furnace gases before they escape; and by the separation of the top domed chamber from the rest of the boiler the operation of scaling and cleaning is facilitated. The arrangement is also adapted to horizontal and multitubular boilers, to be fired with solid, liquid, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 312, December 24, 1881 • Various

... of the precipitous hill which he had described to Dourlowski as the way up to the frontier from the Albern Woods, by the Cold Spring, the Fontaine-Froide. In all certainty, somebody was scaling the upper portion of that precipice, clinging on to the branches and ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc

... with some little dismay withdrew, for I was uncertain of my way out. I even tried the garden, but was confronted under a veritable thicket of foliage by a padlocked gate. It would be a little too ignominious to be caught scaling a friend's ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors

... ceiling of the waters like thin, black, paper cutouts. Picture a forest clinging to the sides of a peak in the Harz Mountains, but a submerged forest. The trails were cluttered with algae and fucus plants, hosts of crustaceans swarming among them. I plunged on, scaling rocks, straddling fallen tree trunks, snapping marine creepers that swayed from one tree to another, startling the fish that flitted from branch to branch. Carried away, I didn't feel exhausted any more. I followed a guide who ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne

... into the shadow of the trees. Morgan guided his companion, less familiar than he with the windings of the park, until they reached the exact spot where he was in the habit of scaling the wall. It took but an instant for both of them to accomplish that feat. The next moment they were on the ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere

... their suppers and discussing what the visit and review might mean. Some said it was for the secretary to inspect the navy yard; some to examine into the defenses of the fort; and some said that it meant scaling ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... Again it is the silent, smiling country. Now they are buried in the darkness of woods; now sweeping along on the wide plain; now clearing the unopened toll-bar; now trampling over the hollow-sounding bridge, their shadows momently reflected in the placid mirror of the stream; now scaling the hill-side a thought more slowly; now plunging, as the horses of Ph[oe]bus into the ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... Crusades, so well appreciated the valor of the Swiss soldiers that he chose their leader for the honor of first scaling ...
— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven

... wreckage jealously while Crowninshield and forty helmeted men issued from the service door in the lower ultra-light compartment and advanced upon the two halves of the enemy vessel. As no hostile demonstrations ensued, scaling ladders were quickly placed and with weapons at the alert the police boarded the hemispheres, manacled the still helpless beings visible, and, after laying down a fog of stupefying gas, vanished into compartments beyond the metal partitions. ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith

... desperadoes, who, although only armed with powder and a few broken muskets, can put a whole legion of the timid natives to flight. The inhabitants of the town kept firing the whole of the evening, to deter their formidable foe from scaling the wall and taking ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... her eyes riveted upon the open door. Suddenly she leaned forward, for the ominous clanging of irons came to her ears. She thought of the night she had been found scaling the ivy to Daddy's cell—how long she had waited in the darkness for only a little word about him. They had given her none, and her vivid imagination brought back the anguish of that lonely walk through the storm ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White

... question of dulness. In 'Siegfried,' in fact, Wagner's genius reaches its zenith. In power, picturesqueness, and command of orchestral colour and resource, he never surpassed such scenes as the opening of the third act, or Siegfried's scaling of Bruennhilde's rock. It is worth while remarking that an interval of twelve years elapsed between the composition of the second and third acts of 'Siegfried.' In 1857, although 'Der Ring des Nibelungen' was well advanced towards ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild

... hir brother the duke of Yorke, as chefe authour in stealing awaie the said earle of March his sonnes. And further, that the said duke ment to haue broken into the manor of Eltham the last Christmasse, by scaling the wals in the night season, the king being there the same time, to the intent to haue murthered him. For to prooue hir accusation true she offered that if there were anie knight, or esquier, that would take vpon him to fight in hir ...
— Chronicles (3 of 6): Historie of England (1 of 9) - Henrie IV • Raphael Holinshed

... their ends bent over and lashed together, forming arches for the roof. Over the arches are lashed horizontal poles the same as those described in the construction of the Iroquois lodge. Fig. 67 shows one way to prevent "varmints" of any kind from scaling the supporting poles and ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard

... muff from her, rolled up her gloves and took a shot at the piano, then, laughing, unpinned her hat and sent it scaling away ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers

... the lone Chorasmian shore He paused, a wide and melancholy waste Of putrid marshes. A strong impulse urged His steps to the sea-shore. A swan was there, Beside a sluggish stream among the reeds. It rose as he approached, and, with strong wings Scaling the upward sky, bent its bright course High over the immeasurable main. His eyes pursued its flight:—"Thou hast a home, Beautiful bird! thou voyagest to thine home, Where thy sweet mate will twine her downy neck With thine, and welcome thy return with eyes Bright in the lustre ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds

... want to get up the wall we won't want any scaling ladders," remarked Tom grimly. "Oh, if only we knew that Dick and ...
— The Rover Boys in the Jungle • Arthur M. Winfield

... door of one of the lofts over the big packing-sheds. He had evidently gone up there after some baskets, and as soon as I saw him I walked quickly in his direction; but he darted out of sight in the loft; and if I had any idea of scaling the ladder and going up to him to take him by storm, it was checked at once, for a half-sieve basket—one of those flat, round affairs in which fruit is packed—came flying out of the door, and then another ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn

... his piece, in wild terror he bawls— "A legion of devils are scaling the walls!" The guards sallied forth 'mid portentous alarms, Signal-guns were discharged, and the drums beat to arms; And Governor then, and whole garrison, ran To meet the dread foe in this ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... 27 came Majuba, when Sir George Colley designed to retrieve his fortunes and strike an effective blow without the aid of his second-in-command, Sir Evelyn Wood, whom he had sent to hurry up reinforcements. The scaling of the mountain at night was a fine performance. The neglect to take the rocket apparatus or mountain guns, or to fortify the position in any way, or even to acquaint the members of the force with the nature of the position which they had taken up ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick

... surprise, and then the story came out, how, years before, when a city hotel was on fire, and one of its guests in imminent danger from the locality of his room, and his own nervous fear which made him powerless to act, another guest braved fearlessly the hissing flame, and scaling the tottering wall, dragged out to life and liberty one who, until that hour, was ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes

... things. Their knowledge and skill and power appear to him to be superior to his own. He sees the mountain-sheep fleet among the crags, the eagle soaring in the heavens, the humming-bird poised over its blossom-cup of nectar, the serpents swift without legs, the salmon scaling the rapids, the spider weaving its gossamer web, the ant building a play-house mountain—in all animal nature he sees things too wonderful for him, and from admiration he grows to adoration, and the ...
— Sketch of the Mythology of the North American Indians • John Wesley Powell

... with iron and sometimes with raw hides. They were higher than the walls and all the other fortifications of a besieged place, divided into stories pierced with windows. In and upon them were stationed archers and slingers, and in the lower story was a battering-ram. They also carried scaling-ladders, so that when the wall was cleared, these were placed against the walls. They were placed upon wheels, and brought as near the walls as possible. It was impossible to resist these powerful engines, unless ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... had discussed our plans for the liberation of our friends, our minds were too much occupied to allow us to speak. Captain Radford's was the boldest plan of all. He proposed to bring the crew of his own ship and that of two or three others into the town, by scaling the walls, which he thought might be done at night; and while one party carried off Aveline from the house where she was retained in captivity, others were to attack the prison in which Madam Clough and her companions were shut up; and a third party was to liberate Master Overton, if his place ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston

... an hour of this sort of work, the party came suddenly upon a point whence it was possible to see much of the face of the mountain they were scaling. Cautioning his men to keep within the concealment afforded by the thick timber, Mr. Billings and his comrade-lieutenant crept forward and made a brief reconnoissance. It was evident at a glance that the farther they went the steeper grew ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King

... her. She was scaling the stairs. On the way Mrs. Beamish accompanied her. She wished she could tell her father. Yet, if she told him, how could she account for what she did with the money? And would it be a hundred? Perhaps fifty, ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus

... quickly and furiously discharged at me.... Presently the American guns came rapidly forward, but their commanders were wary, and did not seem to like to risk them too close. There was a short lull, while immense scaling ladders, made by the Americans for attacking the city walls in case the relief had failed to get in any other way, were rushed up. The idea was evidently to storm the walls and batter in the gates, line upon line, ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale

... scene. Nothing could save the interior of the tower—that was past praying for; but a shout went up that there was a man inside, and the firemen threw their ladders against the walls and prepared their scaling-irons and life-saving apparatus. The smoke rolled out in dense volumes now, and through the gloom a voice shouted, 'It 's all right! He 's ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan

... but unsuccessfully. He also attempted to surprise Berwick by a night attack, and had placed his scaling ladders against the wall, when the garrison was alarmed by the barking of a dog, and the assailants were repulsed. The Scots recrossed the frontier laden with an ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty

... emotion is what counts, not the spectacular scaling of peaks. Staking all on high moments is ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various

... forests,—"hangers," as White of Selborne would have called them,—sloping far upward and backward into the distance, had always an air of menace blended with their wild beauty. It seemed as if some heaven-scaling Titan had thrown his shaggy robe over the bare, precipitous flanks of the rocky summit, and it might at any moment slide like a garment flung carelessly on the nearest chance-support, and, so sliding, crush the village out of being, as the Rossberg when ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... by the time he had done his chores and breakfasted. The only benefit the storm had brought him was that it did away with the necessity of carrying water for his washing. He had acquired the agility of a cliff-dweller from scaling the embankment by means of the "toe-holts"; yet, at that, it was no easy matter to transport a bucket of water without ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart

... of these gentlemen and souldiers put our selues on foote, and commaunded that the crosse-bowes and harquebusiers shoulde giue the assault, and shoulde beate the enemies from the walles, that they might not hurt vs, and I assaulted the walles on one side, where they tolde me there was a scaling ladder set vp, and that there was one gate: but the crossebowmen suddenly brake the strings of their bowes, and the harquebusiers did nothing at all: for they came thither so weake and feeble, that scarcely they coulde stand ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Volume I. - Voyages Of Discovery And Early Explorations: 1000 A.D.-1682 • Various

... been thrilling indeed, and a few of the girls shared with Jane the suspicions now settling upon the two freshmen, Shirley Duncan and Sarah Howland. Their presence at Dol Vin's shop, the sobbing heard behind doors, and that wild run of the girl who tried to get away from the place by actually scaling a back fence, and who was recognized as the demure little Sarah, all this furnished plenty of material for a ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft

... scaling swiftly upward, mile after mile; but the long tangent at which he had started to clear the summit of Katahdin did not prove sufficient, and by and by they found themselves within a very few yards of the ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood

... had swept away The new divorced leaves, that from each side Left the thick boughs to dance out with the tide. At further end the creek, a stately wood Gave a kind shadow (to the brackish flood) Made up of trees, not less kenn'd by each skiff Than that sky-scaling peak of Teneriffe, Upon whose tops the hernshew bred her young, And hoary moss upon their branches hung; Whose rugged rinds sufficient were to show, Without their height, what time they 'gan to grow. And if dry eld by wrinkled skin appears, None could ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... plan, Mahommed drew in his irregulars, and massed them in the space between the intrenchment and the ditch; and by bringing his machines and small guns nearer the walls, he menaced the whole front of defence with a line amply provided with scaling ladders and mantelets. Behind the line he stationed bodies of horsemen to arrest fugitives, and turn them back to the fight. His reserves occupied the intrenchments. The Janissaries were retained at his quarters ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace

... scaling party was rather dubious about tackling the sultan with only one scaling ladder, but they finally compromised on very short switches, so short in fact that Alice was worried lest the sultan should promptly take a header off the roof in his efforts ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie

... some of the details of a spot whose general aspect is one of sterility. The mountains rise in a succession of irregular steps or terraces, whose faces are so precipitous that they cannot be ascended. To accomplish the feat of scaling the mountain-tops it would be necessary to clamber up a ravine until the first terrace should be gained, then, walking along that, ascend the next ravine, and so on. At the upper end of the lake (as we shall hereafter call this wide part of the river) lies a low island, ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne

... Front-de-Boeuf. "These outlaws have indeed a daring captain; but without machines, scaling ladders, and experienced leaders, my ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... as they mustered on the summit. The officers and soldiers of the garrison rushed out naked, but sword in hand. The assailants seized the cannon. Lord Fleming, the governor, leaped the wall into the boat that had brought the scaling ladders and was rowed away. The garrison, thus deserted, surrendered, and the guilty prelate was ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt

... the reef upon the windward side like a jumper who runs backward, that he may be able to leap with greater force; then gathered up to the stature of a hill and crowned with roaring foam, it would return with soft tread, but terrible might, scaling the rock, and flinging its white arms around the waist of the tower. Throughout the tumult, flocks of sea-birds, driven from the surface, and bewildered in the dense darkness of the storm, would fly for the light and smite the lantern; and then they would fall backward into the surf, as ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins

... within the polar regions, and to foreshadow, if attempted, barren results, apart from the suffering and death among its members. Dr. Nansen, so far as I know, has had no Arctic service; his crossing of Greenland, however difficult, is no more polar work than the scaling of Mount St. Elias. It is doubtful if any hydrographer would treat seriously his theory of polar currents, or if any Arctic traveller would indorse the whole scheme. There are perhaps a dozen men whose Arctic service has been such that the ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen

... behind, as if some large body was forcing its way along the ravine; and as Jem backed slowly into the cavern, Don cautiously peered from behind a mass of stone into the hollow, to see that some one or something was approaching rapidly, as if with the intention of scaling the rock, and climbing ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn

... time in scaling the ladder which led to the upper half-storey of the building. It was a garret—nothing better—where the cold stars looked through knot-holes in the poplar shingles, and the ends of the shingle-nails were tipped with frost. Another wall-lamp burned uncertainly ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead

... could see nothing. The Naval Brigade, who had the hardest part of the position to take, lost terribly, but did the job in a way that every one says was perfectly splendid. It is said, however, that they made the mistake, in the scaling of the hill, of closing together, and so offering a more compact mass to the enemy's fire. We came on behind the infantry with our friends the Lancers, and passed through a gap in the range and on ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps

... over eight years, and of the expenditure of a fortune in bringing his broad conception to a concrete possibility. In the patient solving of tremendous problems he had toiled up the mountain-side of success—scaling its topmost peak and obtaining a view of the boundless prospect. But, alas! "The best laid plans o' mice and men gang aft agley." The discovery of great deposits of rich Bessemer ore in the Mesaba range of mountains in Minnesota a year or two previous ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin

... crossbows, cannon, and muskets. Such was the fortress that Gustavus, late in July, resolved to storm. He began by throwing up a line of earthworks, behind which he placed his heavy guns, hoping to batter down the towers and ramparts, while his pikemen and halberdiers were scaling the unprotected parts. But his men at first were lukewarm. The task seemed herculean, and every effort to ascend the ramparts met with certain death. Those in the castle fought like maniacs, the men with guns and crossbows, and the women firing stones. ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson

... Every kind of uniform, moreover, generates a military habit of thought, and a smart, straight-forward carriage. All boys are born soldiers, whatever you do with them. You have only to watch them at their mock fights and games, their storming parties and scaling parties." ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... your not giving them a larger dose than enough to produce a deep sleep. You will take care to prepare me a good ladder for to-night; after which you will go and wait for me in my boat, where you will find Numa and Bonaroux. They have my orders. I shall not want you in scaling the fortress; I have my ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... right arm of Rudolph at a single stroke. For this valiant deed, Henry IV. created Godfrey Duke of his province of Bouillon; or, according to some historians, Lower Lorraine. At the subsequent siege of Rome, Godfrey made himself again prominent by scaling the city walls among the first. This action colored his whole life. All his contemporaries portray his nature as displaying the loftiest integrity and deepest piety. Sound and clear as his intellect was, he yet shared in the superstition of his times, and was led ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various

... their retinue, sung an alarm, which ended, the two canons were shot off, 'the one with sweet powder and the other with sweet water, very odoriferous and pleasant, and the noise of the shooting was very excellent consent of melody within the mount. And after that, was store of pretty scaling-ladders, and the footmen threw flowers and such fancies against the walls, with all such devices as might seem fit shot for Desire. All which did continue till time the defendants came in.' These were above twenty in number, ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... grenadiers soon appeared, and the dark column, half-climbing, half-running, were seen scaling the height. A rifle-bullet sent the French leader tumbling from the precipice; and a cheer—mad and reckless as the war-cry of an Indian—rent the sky, as the 71st and 79th Highlanders sprang ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... here parked. Other cannon were mounted for the defense of the fort itself. Muskets, rifles, and sabers had been accumulated. A portable barricade had been constructed in the event of possible street fighting—a sort of wheeled framework that could be transformed into litters or scaling-ladders at will. Mess offices and kitchens were there that could feed a small army. Flags and painted signs carrying the open eye that had been adopted as emblematic of vigilance decorated the main room. A huge alarm bell had been mounted upon the roof. Mattresses, ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White

... the heights of Inkerman, the charge of the noble Six Hundred, the fearful onslaught of the Guards at Waterloo, the scaling of Lookout Mountain,—have all been sung in story, and perhaps always will be; but they all pale beside the glory that will ever enshroud the heroes who, with perhaps not literally "cannon to right of them" ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various

... of the loose and broken shoe. For, like the sin, the punishment is awful: he shall carry about for ages the phantom-body of the girl, knowing that her soul is away, sitting with the soul of his brother, down in the deep ravine, or scaling with him the topmost crags of the towering mountain-peaks. There are some who, from time to time, see the doomed man careering along the face of the mountain, with the lady hanging across the steed; and they say it always betokens ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald

... Pharaoh were then thundering in hot pursuit. Even so, Boy, is poor Jane now tramping her patch of desert, which narrows daily to the measure of her despair. Migdol is HIS certainty that HER love could only be pity. The Red Sea is the confession into which she must inevitably plunge, to avoid scaling Migdol; in the chill waters of which, as she drags him in with her, his love is bound to drown, as waves of doubt and mistrust sweep over its head,—doubts which he has lost the power of removing; mistrust which he can ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay

... looking to the security of my horse's trail-rope, I placed my rifle where I had slept, and set out to cross the barranca, taking only my knife. I could have no use for the gun, and it would hinder me in scaling the cliffs. ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid

... Only by scaling its steps of chalk Would see something no other hill Ever disclosed. And now I walk Down it the ...
— Poems • Edward Thomas

... four parties of sixty men to carry scaling-ladders and wool-bags. Two of these parties were held in reserve, and did not advance. Captain Peel was in command, and was wounded, as was Mr. Wood, a midshipman of H.M.S. "Queen," who acted as his aide-de-camp. The three officers of one detachment were all wounded, and ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty

... August 13, we heard firing at the gates of the city, and knew that our deliverers were near. The next day, scaling the walls or battering down the gates, they forced their way into the city and effected our rescue. The day following, the Roman Catholic Cathedral was relieved,—the defence of which forms the brightest page in the history of the siege, and in the afternoon ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord

... parties of distracted women and children sent forward from La Tour—some of whom, in their terror and despair, asserted that the work of blood had already begun—they pressed onward without a moment's pause, springing from rock to rock, sliding down precipices, scaling giddy heights, leaping chasms which at another time they would not have dared to attempt, and tearing through the rushing, roaring mountain torrents already ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley

... held the bridge, and some strong towers upon the bridge; and here the Maid of Orleans attacked them. The fight was fourteen hours long. She planted a scaling ladder with her own hands, and mounted a tower wall, but was struck by an English arrow in the neck, and fell into the trench. She was carried away and the arrow was taken out, during which operation she screamed and cried ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens

... the reports of others, yet never content to be outdone even in veriest trifles; a tropical heart and a cool brain; full of strong prejudices and fine charities, generous and exacting, heedless and sympathetic, quick to forgive, slow to resent, firm in love, transient in hate; to-day scaling the heavens with frantic zeal, to-morrow relaxing in long torpor; fond of long, solitary journeys, and given to conviviality; tender eyes that a word or a thought would fill, and hard lips that would never ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various

... seated in the darkness meditating on her stone bench, a young human form started up suddenly near her; someone who had come in sandals, without making more noise than the silk owls make in the air, from the rear of the garden doubtless, after some scaling, and who stood there, straight, his waistcoat thrown over one shoulder: the one to whom were addressed all her tender emotions on earth, the one who incarnated the ardent dream of her heart and ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti

... the River of the Three Roads, which flows through the phantom-world. Pale blue her robe is; her hair and skin are white; her face is strangely wrinkled; her small, keen eyes are hard. The statue is very old, and the paint is scaling from it in places, so as to lend it a ghastly ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn

... on in the passage. I could feel the cool draught from the open gate,—they must have opened it from the inside after scaling the wall by the broken plaster,—and smelled rather than saw that one man held the passage against Tse-tse. He was armed with a stone hammer, which is no sort of weapon for a narrow passage. Tse-tse had caught bow and quiver from the arms that hung always ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al

... thirty feet up. The stick did not lodge. Yaqui tried again. This time it caught in a crack. He pulled hard. Then, holding to the lasso, he walked up the steep slant, hand over hand on the rope. When he reached the shelf he motioned for Gale to follow. Gale found that method of scaling a wall both quick and easy. Yaqui pulled up the lasso, and threw the stick aloft into another crack. He climbed to another shelf, and Gale followed him. The third effort brought them to a more rugged bench a hundred feet above the slides. The Yaqui worked round to the left, and turned ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey

... scaling a small rock that my long-expected fall came. Alat, my horse, floundered badly at an angle of forty-five degrees and lost his balance completely. The doctor, who was behind, shouted to me to pull him up, but ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon

... now reached the adjoining house, and, scaling the roof, approached another building, which seemed to be, at least, one story loftier than its neighbours. Apparently, Jonathan was well acquainted with the premises; for, feeling about in the dark, he speedily ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth

... instant the grand vizier, perceiving that the populace had forced the guard of horse, crowded the great square before the palace, and were scaling the walls in several places, and beginning to pull them down to force their way in, said to the sultan, before he gave the signal, "I beg of your Majesty to consider what you are going to do, since you will hazard your palace ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... do not require to be continued. A short examination of the cliff suffices to convince you that the design of scaling it by ladders could not have succeeded. The ledge against which rests the top of the highest must have been found too narrow to support another; or rather, the rocks above and projecting over would render it impossible to place ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid

... peacefully to meet him, suddenly crumpled him in his arms and threw him down on top of the captain. The driver was a young giant, and when he climbed on his load and poised a lump of coal in both hands, a policeman, who was just scaling the waggon from the side, let go and dropped back to earth. The captain ordered half-a-dozen of his men to take the waggon. The teamster, scrambling over the load from side to side, beat them down with ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London

... the ordinary vicissitudes of life; but to be confronted with an exigency that finds and leaves him utterly helpless is enough to crush the bravest spirit. The Irish soldiery that four times tried to scale Marye's Heights, which were not for scaling by any mortal men, felt this bitterness, and the mere memory of them preserves the image for the world. It is this same feeling that makes the injured football player cry like a child after he is recalled to the sidelines, and that makes a man in the grip ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble

... a share in the storming of Istabulat, as will be seen; as the ghost of Bishop Adhemar, who had died at Antioch, was said to have gone before Godfrey of Boulogne's scaling-ladder when the Crusaders took Jerusalem. ('Thank God!' said they. 'He was not frustrate of ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson

... able to give very close attention to his angelic reasons, being occupied in watching the frequent falls people were having on the slippery street. Some I could see with ladders scaling the tower, and having reached the highest rung, falling headlong to the bottom. "Where do those fools try to get to?" I asked. "To a place that is high enough- -they are endeavouring to break into the treasury of the princess." ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne

... ample and solid bulk, and giving purpose and finish to it, conscience, morals, and all the spiritual attributes, shall surely rise, like spires above some group of edifices, firm-footed on the earth, yet scaling space and heaven. ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... go over the top. They are going up the scaling-ladder and out into All Man's Land. Perhaps love of adventure tempts them, perhaps love of money, or a fine spirit of service, but whatever the propelling motive, we are seeing them make ...
— Mobilizing Woman-Power • Harriot Stanton Blatch

... just as they shouted Varney arose, and after a moment or two's stagger he set off at full speed, which produced another shout from the mob; and just at that moment, a body of his pursuers were seen scaling the ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... felt an impulse—so desperate seemed the case—to dash across the open valley, and scaling the untimbered height, right in the face of the watchful foe, open a way of deliverance to his little master; or, failing in the attempt, bring life to the bitter end at once. But this was a thought not worth the second thinking. And in another moment he had nearly determined ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady

... travel; Over them wander the scattered tribes of Ishmael's children, Staining the desert with blood; and above their terrible war-trails Circles and sails aloft, on pinions majestic, the vulture, Like the implacable soul of a chieftain slaughtered in battle, By invisible stairs ascending and scaling the heavens. Here and there rise smokes from the camps of these savage marauders; Here and there rise groves from the margins of swift-running rivers; And the grim, taciturn bear, the anchorite monk ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... and found many pieces that gave warning of scaling off. Several large flakes, each weighing some hundredweight, lay beneath the table rock,-upon the under surface of which could be distinctly traced the mould of ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker

... those very slings and arrows of variant if not always outrageous fortune which form the chief indices of his dingy profession, cuts a mean enough figure in the cult of it. "Jim" Fisk had traits like these, but who now applauds them? As well admire the courage of a house-breaker in scaling a garden-wall at midnight, or his exquisite tact in selecting a bed-chamber well-stored with jewels and money. The so-called "great men" of Wall Street are foes of society—foes merciless and malign. Their ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various

... escape. Whilst chained immovable to a ring-bolt on his own vessel's deck, this was clearly a simple impossibility; and as he now glanced round the enclosure in which he found himself, he recognised the fact that it was still equally so. It was true that the place was open to the sky, and that the scaling of the barricade would be, to a strong, active, free man, simply a pleasant gymnastic exercise; but he was not free; his hands were shackled behind him; a sentinel, armed with cutlass and gun, was promptly placed ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood

... were come to the place where their ways severed. The old grey moors were all about them; in the midst a few sheep wandered; and they could see on the one hand the straggling caravan scaling the braes in front of them for Cauldstaneslap, and on the other, the contingent from Hermiston bending off and beginning to disappear by detachments into the policy gate. It was in these circumstances that they turned to say farewell, ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the road, and up a blind lane, of which the wall—there, risen to some eight or ten feet high—formed one side. Crouching down in a corner, peeping up the lane, the next object that Young Jerry saw, was the form of his honoured parent, pretty well defined against a watery and clouded moon, nimbly scaling an iron gate. He was soon over, and then the second fisherman got over, and then the third. They all dropped softly on the ground within the gate, and lay there a little—listening perhaps. Then, they moved away on ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens

... Morgan was encouraged and strengthened by the return of the detachment that had been engaged against it. As a device, moreover, to compel the Spanish governor to yield the principal castle, the pirate chief caused its walls to be planted round with scaling ladders, upon which, in front of his own men, the religious prisoners in his hands, priests and nuns, were forced to ascend. But although these people called to the governor in the name of all their saints to yield and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... to the fender, that I might gaze more nearly at the live thing roaring and raging behind it; and I dare say I dimly wondered by what blessed dispensation this creature was allowed in a domain so peaceful as my nursery. I do not think I ever needed to be warned against scaling the fender. I knew by instinct that the creature within it was dangerous—fiercer still than the cat which had once strayed into the room and scratched me for my advances. As I grew older, I ceased to wonder at the creature's ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm

... King of France!—scarce a day but there is some commission in hand, by which some of his followers may win both coin and credit. Think not that the bravest and most dangerous deeds are done by daylight. I could tell you of some, as scaling castles, making prisoners, and the like, where one who shall be nameless hath run higher risk and gained greater favour than any desperado in the train of desperate Charles of Burgundy. And if it please his Majesty to remain behind, and in the background, ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott

... you have done me the favour to read it aright, has been a chronicle of desperate heroism on the part of almost all the principal personages represented. But not the Countess de Saldar, scaling the embattled fortress of Society; nor Rose, tossing its keys to her lover from the shining turret-tops; nor Evan, keeping bright the lamp of self-respect in his bosom against South wind and East; none excel friend Andrew Cogglesby, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... she run off for?" cried Jasper, scaling the platform steps. Polly glanced quickly up into ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney

... passed; he had attained his twentieth year. One day he was standing in the kitchen watching the cook, who was busy scaling a perch. She was a pretty young woman with a delicate complexion. He was teasing her and finally put ...
— Married • August Strindberg

... striking thing which caused him to meditate deeply, like a warning whisper from Providence itself: the scaling of that wall, the passing of those barriers, the adventure accepted even at the risk of death, the painful and difficult ascent, all those efforts even, which he had made to escape from that other place of expiation, he had made in order to gain entrance into this ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... scaling this almost inaccessible stronghold was made by a Mr. Arthur, who had been an ensign in the Scots' Guards and quartered in the castle, and was, therefore, familiar with its interior arrangement. He found means to gain over, by cash and promises, a sergeant and two privates, ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... one night to the house of a rich man, and scaling the roof, peeped through a hole to see whether any part of the family were yet stirring. The master of the house, suspecting something, said secretly to his wife, "Ask me in a loud voice how I got my property, and do not stop until ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various

... conclusion during a long walk around the valley, during which he once more noted the absolute seclusion of the place and the impossibility of escape by scaling the cliffs. The doctor was fishing again by the brook, but paid no heed when Uncle John tramped by. The sight of the dapper little man gave Mr. Merrick a thought, and presently he turned back and ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne

... dung heap that stood immediately below. He was a little stunned, but instantly recovering himself, flew with the fleetness of a deer to Mackenzie's camp, and informed his chief of the state of matters within the stronghold. Kintail renewed the siege and brought his scaling ladders nearer the castle. The defenders seeing this, and knowing that their mishap and consequent plight had been disclosed by Duncan to the enemy, they offered to yield up the castle on condition that their lives would be spared, and ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie

... had swept it flat with his hand, but there stood the earthen wall of the boulevard, beyond the fosse. Then, all orderly, marched forth a band of men in the colours of Florent d'Illiers, bearing scaling-ladders, and so began the escalade, their friends backing them by shooting of arbalests from behind the remnant of the palisade. A ladder would be set against the wall, and we could see men with shields, or doors, ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang

... our next hard work must be to hide your money and paint that schooner of yours. We'll go about it openly and above board. We'll say she is scaling,—if she isn't she ought to be, for it is a long time since she saw a brush,—and that she needs another coat of paint to protect ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon

... That hath beside well in his person wrought, To be set high in place, we did commend To your remembrances; but you have found, Scaling his present bearing with his past, That he's your fixed enemy, and REVOKE ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... followed by fierce contests between the two armies. At length the Romans arrive before a walled city (probably Sarmizegethusa) where all the incidents of a siege, including personal adventures, are portrayed. A Roman soldier, standing at the top of a scaling ladder, has struck off the head of one of the Dacians on the wall, whilst the latter are seen hurling stones and other missiles at those engaged in the assault. Then comes another application for peace, a Dacian prince kneeling at the feet of Trajan; whilst in the ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson

... voluntary submission or surrender, Albuquerque resolved upon carrying the place by assault, but found the enterprise more difficult than he expected. Having landed his men early in the morning, the troops advanced to the walls with scaling ladders: but after a considerable number had got up to the top of the wall, the ladders broke under the weight of the multitudes who pressed to get up; so that Albuquerque was obliged to order down those who had already ascended, by means of a single ladder constructed out ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr

... as at Thermopylae, a handful of valiant warriors might defy whole armies. As a natural consequence, the entrance of Fantaua is regarded as the real key to the whole island. There was no other means of taking it than by scaling one of its most precipitous sides, and pressing forward upon the narrow ledge of rock above, so as to take the enemy in the rear. The governor, Monsieur Bruat, announced that he would confide this dangerous enterprise to volunteers, and he soon had more than he could ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer

... consists of four bare rubble walls, enclosing a grouted floor, worn unevenly, and here and there in holes, and puddly. There were but two rooms in the tenement, one on the ground, and one over-head; which latter is with no small difficulty got at by scaling a ladder-like stair-case that fronts the cottage-door. This upper chamber, the common dormitory, for all but Thomas, who sleeps down stairs, has a thin partition at one end of it, to screen off the humble truckle-bed where Grace Acton forgets by night the troubles of the ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... of wand'ring to and fro, Like restless spirits; scaling mountain heights; Dwelling among the countless, rare delights Of lands historic; turning dusty pages, Stamped with the tragedies of mighty ages; Gazing upon the scenes of bloody acts, Of kings long buried—bare, ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... the bustle of warfare opened in earnest. Smoke was poured out in volleys from shot-holes; the besieging forces pushed forward in masses, regardless of the fire; the moat was filled with the crowd; and, amid much confusion and scrambling, scaling-ladders were raised against the walls. Then was the grand tug of war. The leaders of the forlorn hope who first ascended were opposed with great gallantry by the defenders; and this was, perhaps, the most interesting part of the exhibition. The chief of the assailants did wonders; he was ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse

... harmony with the colonial mansions poised on little hillocks, from which they look down on you with benevolent condescension and invite you to climb the long flights of steps that lead to their very hearts, grand but hospitable, which you do in a glow of high-pitched ambition, as if you were scaling an arduous but fascinating intellectual height. Having reached the summit, you stop an instant on the landing, partly for breathing purposes, but more especially to exult a moment on ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett



Words linked to "Scaling" :   escalade, grading, ordering, mount, mensuration, scale, measuring, measurement, order, scaling ladder, climb, measure



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