Something up above was calling him imperiously, and he made for the steep little tunnel which answered in his case to the gravelled carriage-drive owned by animals whose residences are nearer to the sun and air. So he scraped and scratched and scrabbled and scrooged, and then he scrooged again and scrabbled and scratched and scraped, working busily with his little paws and muttering to himself, "Up we go! Up we go!" till at last, pop! his snout came out into the sunlight and he found himself rolling in the warm grass of a great meadow.
Wiktionary.org gives a definition that fits:
Etymology 2
Verb
scrooge (third-person singular simple present scrooges, present participle scrooging, simple past and past participle scrooged)
(UK, US, dialect) To crush or press; to squeeze (past, into, together, etc.).
Clearly Mr Dickens knew the word with this meaning when naming the principle character of his story A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge, but I did not.