"Rat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... none. No genial fount, no graceful tree, rise with their pleasant company. Never a beast or bird is there, in that hoary desert bare. Nothing breaks the almighty stillness. Even the jackal's felon cry might seem a soothing melody. A grey wild rat, with snowy whiskers, out of a withered bramble stealing, with a youthful snake in its ivory teeth, in the moonlight grins with glee. This is their ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... request you to introduce Mr. Peter Bell to the respectable family of the Fudges. Although he may fall short of those very considerable personages in the more active properties which characterize the Rat and the Apostate, I suspect that even you, their historian, will confess that he surpasses them in the more peculiarly ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... off jist when they's a big lot o' treasure goin' over the line, an' the management was sure mad. They told us 'uns agin somethin' had to be done, an' despert quick this time. So we got busy. We begun to round ol' Pocatello up, an' he seemed to smell a rat or somethin' wuss, an' started up Pocatello Crick yander, that there canyon, see? He went almighty fast too when he got started; so did we, now I tell you, an' we jist kep' a-foller'n', an' foller'n', an' foller'n', we did—a hull lot ov ...
— Trail Tales • James David Gillilan
... an angle of the road where a few withered tree branches alone separated them from the others. They perceived the brown body of the carriage, half open like a huge rat-trap, and beside it the forbidding faces of their would-be captors. Trenck launched these words through ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... the eyes, and protruding teeth of a dull red. These we especially detested for their villainous habit of calmly swimming up to a pendant line, and nipping it in twain, apparently out of sheer humour. Well have the Samoans named the leather-jacket Isu'umu Moana—the sea-rat. ...
— "Five-Head" Creek; and Fish Drugging In The Pacific - 1901 • Louis Becke
... thee, Arvid Horn; yield thee to our unconquerable nozzle," came the summons from the yacht; "yield thee, or I will drown you out like a rat in ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... corner board, then to gnaw. All night long at intervals he sounded like a big rat in a barn. Sometimes he rested, panting hard, then ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... is not found in the Old World, which is a little singular, as other rats so abound there, and as those slow-going English streams especially, with their grassy banks, are so well suited to him. The water-rat of Europe is smaller, but of similar nature and habits. The muskrat does not hibernate like some rodents, but is pretty active all winter. In December I noticed in my walk where they had made excursions of a few yards to an orchard ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... rat-faced man explained that there was a young man in a neighboring city, reputed to be a multi-millionaire, who had written a book against the war, and was the financial source of much pacificism and sedition. "These people ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... front, they walked around the old house and gazed through several of the broken-out windows. Inside all was dirt and cobwebs, with a few pieces of broken-down furniture scattered about. As he looked in one window Tom saw a big rat scurry across the floor. ...
— The Rover Boys on the Farm - or Last Days at Putnam Hall • Arthur M. Winfield (AKA Edward Stratemeyer)
... catch them and roast 'em and eat 'em."[FN88] "Thou sayest sooth," said the two others, "but by Allah, however that may be, none amongst us is weaker of wits than thou." "If ye do not believe me," said Bukhayt, "let us enter the tomb and I will rouse the rat for you; for I doubt not but that, when he saw the light and us making for the place, he ran up the date tree and hid there for fear of us." When Ghanim heard this, he said in himself, "O curstest of slaves! ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... offering its hospitalities to the legislative, flock. He found refuge at last, I have learned, in a great public house in the northern section of the city, where, as he said, the folks all went up stairs in a rat-trap, and the last I heard of him was looking out of his somewhat elevated attic-window in a northwesterly direction in hopes that he might perhaps get a sight of the Grand Monadnock, a mountain in New Hampshire ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... pausing in his task, "you are occasionally inspired, but the weakness of your character results in a lack of caution. In this matter, therefore, be warned: 'The crocodile opens his jaws; the rat-trap closes his; keep ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... finally, on arriving at the place of her birth, had, according to the farmer, "fired the divil's pelt of a kick into her own mother's stomach". Moreover, she "hadn't as much sound skin on her as would bait a rat-trap"—I here quote Mr. Trinder—and she had fever in all ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... ponds stole many a secret path, veined with clumsy roots, shadowed with the thick bush of many a clustering parasite, and echoing sometimes beneath from the hollowed shelter of coot or water-rat. Lilies floated in circles about the ponds, like the crowns of sunken queens, and sometimes a bird broke the silence with a ...
— The Worshipper of the Image • Richard Le Gallienne
... felt its heart beating, he put it into a cage, where it soon plucked up courage to twitter and hop about. The old man was fond of all creatures, and every morning he used to open the cage door, and the sparrow flew happily about until it caught sight of a cat or a rat or some other fierce beast, when it would instantly return to the cage, knowing that there no ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... group in front of the hangar-tent. Workmen were hammering on wooden sheds back of it. He recognized the owner, Dr. Bagby, from his pictures: a lean man of sixty with a sallow complexion, a gray mustache like a rat-tail, a broad, black countrified slouch-hat on the back of his head, a gray sack-suit which would have been respectable but unfashionable at any period whatsoever. He looked like a country lawyer who had served two terms in the state ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... It must be able to annihilate both time and space, and to deal with millions of individuals together in one group or class. Only in this way can our thinking go beyond that of the lower animals; for a wise rat, even, may come to see the relation between a trap and danger, or a horse the relation between pulling with his teeth at the piece of string on the gate latch, and securing ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... did come there, Nettie did not see how the matter could be mended. She sat down on her little bed, so much frightened that she forgot how tired she was. Her ears were as sharp as needles, listening to hear the scrape of a rat's tooth upon a timber or the patter of ...
— The Carpenter's Daughter • Anna Bartlett Warner
... the strange sonority of his own name, ran to hid himself under a bookcase in an orifice so small that a rat could not have squeezed ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... is one point in what Mr. Stenson has been saying which I think we might and ought to consider a little more fully, and that is, what guarantees have we that Freistner really has the people at the back of him, that he'll be able to cleanse that rat pit at Berlin of the Hohenzollern and his clan of junkers—the most accursed type of politician who ever breathed? We ought to be very sure about this. Fenn's our ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... him into his back shop, after inspecting every possible and impossible place of concealment, he commenced: 'Eh, doctor! Well—all under the rose—snug—I keep no holes here even for a Hanoverian rat to hide in. And, what—eh! any good news from our friends over the water?—and how does the worthy king of France? Or perhaps you are more lately from Rome?—it must be Rome will do it at last—the church must light its candle at the old lamp. Eh! what, cautious? I like ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... called softly. "Come, pussy dear! Come here, you mangy, rat-tailed little beast! ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... young pigeons carried off last night by a whacking big rat. Oh, a monster he must have been; you could tell by the size of the hole he made breaking into ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... was the feeble reply; "but it had to be done, and I thought I could make a better finish out of the job. I say, nice example to set you two lads. It has made me feel as weak as a rat. Ugh! It was very horrid when that stone gave way. ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... to have a little fun with her afore ye git her," he said. "I love to see her damn face go white and red, and her teeth shut tight like a rat-trap. She won't do none of them things when you git done with ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... those they had always known. So they gave those the same names. A Khatkan lion is furred, it is a hunter and a great fighter, but it is not the cat of Terra. However, it is in great demand as a tri-dee actor. So we summon it out of lurking by providing free meals. One shoots a poli, a water rat, or a landeer and drags the carcass behind a low-flying flitter. The lion springs upon the moving meat, which it can also scent, and the rope is cut, leaving a ...
— Voodoo Planet • Andrew North
... they, my father and all of them, are doing at this moment? Sprawling on the floor looking at a new rat-trap. Two pounds of butter vanished the other night out of the dairy; they had been put in a shallow pan with water in it, and it is averred the rats ate it, and Peggy Tuite, the dairymaid, to make the thing more credible, ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... to hunt, and never killed a rat, And isn't much on tricks or looks or birth—well, what of that? That might be said of lots of folks whom men call great and wise, As well as of that yellow dog that ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... but only descend in spring. Swans and pelicans are also birds of passage, and occasionally visit these unknown lands. The natives are clever in trapping these animals. This they do either by means of pitfalls or by large traps, made after the fashion of ordinary rat-traps. ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... squeaked, and sometimes vi'lent, And when he squeaked he ne'er was silent: Though ne'er instructed by a cat, He knew a mouse was not a rat. ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... dog made no attempt to move, and Sunny began to lose patience. "Come along, pups," he cried, with increasing force. "Come on, you miser'ble rat. Don't stan' ther' waggin' your fool tail like a whisk-broom. Say, you yaller cur, I'll—" He started to fetch the creature, but in a twinkling it had fled, to the accompaniment of a fresh outburst ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... wished, and cursed himself for a fool, and wished again.... At last he could bear it no longer, so he went to a water-rat who was so old that he was said to be wise, and ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... he's coming, ain't you? To think they shot Lincoln and let him live! Before I'd run after any man living, much less the excuse of a man like him! A shiny-haired, square-faced little rat like him!" ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... that the novice wanted him to worship heathen gods. Then Hugh the novice lost his temper. He just cried, "Out!" put his arm under the farmer's fat leg, and heaved him from his saddle on to the turf, and before he could rise he caught him by the back of the neck and shook him like a rat till the farmer ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... the steps, and my friend let the brass knocker drop just once, for only Americans give a rat-a-tat-tat, and the door was opened by a white-whiskered butler, who took our cards and ushered us into the library. My heart beat a trifle fast as I took inventory of the room; for I never before had called on a man who was believed to have refused the poet-laureateship. A dimly lighted ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... saw a boy coming out of the yard, at a quarter past eight last night. It was too dark for him to say for certain, but he thought it was me. A quarter of an hour later the dog died of poison, and this morning they picked up a cover of one of those rat powders you sell. I couldn't say where I was at a quarter past eight, when the coachman saw the boy; for as you know, mother, I told you I had walked out a bit, after I came out from the school, to get the stiffness out of my leg. ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty
... to the indestructible thistles, grasses, and clover, are a little herbaceous oxalis, producing viviparous buds of extraordinary vitality, a few poisonous species, such as the hemlock, and a few tough, thorny dwarf-acacias and wiry rushes, which even a starving rat refuses. ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... behind Rage, could swell the soul to Raggedness, looped and windowed Rags, the man forget not in Rain from heaven droppeth Rainbow, add another hue unto the Rake, woman is at heart a Ralph to Cynthia howls Rank is but the guinea's stamp Rat, I smell a Rattle, pleased with a Ravens, He that feedeth the Ravishment, divine, enchanting Ray, tints to-morrow with prophetic Read, mark, learn Reap, as you sow, y' are like to Reason, no other but a woman's —upon compulsion —noble and most sovereign ...
— Familiar Quotations • Various
... women were scattered along both the slough and the river banks, talking earnestly and seriously. Rasba, bound up town to buy supplies, heard the name of Palura on many lips; the policemen on their beats waltzed their heavy sticks about in debonair skilfulness; and stooped, rat-like men passing by, touched their hats nervously ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... of the brothers brought me a beautiful opossum, which had been caught in the fowl-house a little before sunrise. It was not so large as a rat, and had soft brown fur, paler beneath and on the face, with a black stripe on each cheek. This made the third species of marsupial rat I had so far obtained— but the number of these animals is very considerable ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... this gleaming light, near the mirror, which was surrounded by porcelain flowers, amid flasks gilded and enamelled, a rosy Cupid was drawing a bow with a golden arrow, a marble cat lay at the feet of a statuette, which held a dove rat its bosom; on a small desk of lapis-lazuli as blue as the sky, a bronze statuette personifying the Dew was inclining gracefully an amphora above an open book, skeins of various colored silks were hanging at little looms. Amid all these tones ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... 'It is a marvel that any man in such desperate case as is the King can moon around in this torpid way, and see his all go to ruin without lifting a finger to stay the disaster. What a most strange spectacle it is! Here he is, shut up in this wee corner of the realm like a rat in a trap; his royal shelter this huge gloomy tomb of a castle, with wormy rags for upholstery and crippled furniture for use, a very house of desolation; in his treasure forty francs, and not a farthing more, God be witness! ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... holding a convention, there was a more than usual run of transients besides the regular boarders, and supper was ordered for the whole push. All the help she had was a girl she just knew didn't have sense enough to pound sand into a rat-hole. Under those circumstances I was mighty glad to help. I put water on to heat and then forgot Miss Em'ly, I was enjoying helping so much, until I heard a door slam and saw the stage drive away ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... to the blase warrior of later battlefields, but, as there are some whose last experience abroad was during Laventie days and who may read these lines, I feel bound to recall our old friend (or enemy) the trench mortar, the rent-free (but not rat-free) dug-out among the sandbags, the smelly cookhouses, whose improvident fires were the scandal of many a red-hatted visitor to the trenches, the mines, with their population of Colonial miners doing mysterious work in their basements of clay and flinging up a welter of slimy ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... boys got used to the largest of the French rat species. During the hours of the night they traveled flat-footed over the faces and forms of sleeping soldiers, also played havoc with all soldier equipment stored in the billet. It may sound like myth, but it is a fact that a rat in ...
— The Delta of the Triple Elevens - The History of Battery D, 311th Field Artillery US Army, - American Expeditionary Forces • William Elmer Bachman
... Ebearhard," he said, "that I boasted prematurely in thinking good luck would attend me now that I lead what appears to be an obedient following. Here we are in a trap, and unless we can escape through rat-holes, I admit that I fail to see for the moment how we are ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... master like man's a true saying. I can hardly hold myself in and I'm not hot-headed by nature, but once let me get a start and I don't care two cents for my own mother. All right, I'll catch you in the street, you rat, you toadstool. May I never grow an inch up or down if I don't push your master into a dunghill, and I'll give you the same medicine, I will, by Hercules, I will, no matter if you call down Olympian Jupiter himself! I'll take care of your eight ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... of the great war that Kikki-tikki-tavi fought single-handed, through the bath-rooms of the big bungalow in Segowlee cantonment. Darzee, the tailor-bird, helped him, and Chuchundra, the musk-rat, who never comes out into the middle of the floor, but always creeps round by the wall, gave him advice; but Rikki-tikki did ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... old rat," he answered jokingly. She was too nervous for any pleasantries, and releasing her hold on his arm, ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... ye fool! We're a going out o' the buffuler country, an' into perts where theer ain't a anymal bigger than a rat. On t'other side o' the mountings, theer ain't no beests o' any kind— neery one; an' its jess theer we'll want that eer bag o' meel. Ef we don't take it along, ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... in a trap!" he jeered at himself. "Like a rat in a trap, Ned Trent! The fates are drawing around you close. You need just one little thing, and you cannot get it. Bribery is useless! Force is useless! Craft is useless! This afternoon I thought I saw another ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White
... again for home, carrying his suspects over his shoulder at the end of a pole, an object of derision to the children, who took him for the hawker of rat-poison. His thoughts were gloomy. No doubt, he did not live only by his dancing-dolls; he used to paint portraits at twenty sols apiece, under the archways of doors or in one of the market halls, among the darners and old-clothes menders, where he ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... and he had to jump in and get me out. He told me not to go to a certain part of the lake. He had been all over it and tried it before I got my skates on, but I forgot and went. A boy was with me, a skunky little rat, who, when he saw the ice was cracking, tried to pull me back, and then he let go my hand and flop I went in and flop came Billy behind me while the little Fur Coat stood off and bawled for help and said afterward he didn't know how to swim. Having on heavy clothes, I went ...
— Kitty Canary • Kate Langley Bosher
... "A baited rat-trap," he muttered. Then he quickened his pace. With the first active spring from rock to rock his unacknowledged doubts vanished. He might find stores of priceless utility. The reflection inspired him. Jumping and climbing ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... harangued with her son, who was as poor as a rat, for the purpose of persuading him to make a good match and thus enrich himself. Her son, who had no desire to marry, allowed her to talk on, and pretended to listen to her reasons: She was delighted—entered ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... are 'Holes,' as Froghole, Foxhole). What an exhibit for London! Did he realise his own value, he would soon come forth. I joke, but the existence of this antique person is firmly believed in. Sparrows are called 'spadgers.' The cat wandering about got caught in the rat-clams—i.e. a gin. Another cat was the miller's favourite at the windmill, a well-fed, happy, purring pussy, fond of the floury miller—he as white as snow, she as black as a coal. One day pussy was ingeniously examining the machinery, ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... and heronies are craneries. A determined sportsman, who used to eat every heron he could shoot in revenge for their ravages among the trout, at last became suspicious, and examining one, found in it the remains of a rat and of a toad, after which he did not eat any more. Another sportsman found a heron in the very act of gulping down a good-sized trout, which stuck in the gullet. He shot the heron and got the trout, which was not at all injured, only marked on each side where the beak had cut it. The fish ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... equal, is the most "correct thing" in the University; none can compete with them, unless it be the gentlemen commoners of Magdalen. The Christchurch noblemen, or tufts, are considered the leaders of fashion, whether it be in mediaeval furniture, or rat hunting, boating, or steeple- chase riding, ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... head, and his consort marshalled the procession. After the chariot followed a vast procession of rats, each of whom carried a torch, and the sparks which flew from the torches fell to the earth as jewels. Some of the rats were shouting "Zurkielis" incessantly; and whenever a rat uttered this cry, a piece of gold fell from his mouth. The procession was followed by a great number of fantastic forms, which collected the gold from the ground, and put it into large sacks. When the farmer ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... Galors, and the alms your people want I spell with an 'r.' I know Master Galors, and he me. If he comes here the town will be carried, the men hanged, the women ravished, and I shall be killed like a rat in a drain. Now I set little store by my life, but I and the man I have brought with me intend to die in the open. Do what you choose, but understand that unless things alter to my liking, I take myself, my sword, and my head ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... bellowed. "Drayton sent you here? The rat! The pup! Why, I made that kid. I put him where he is. ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers
... ancient hereditary property called Lauckend, about as valuable as the patrimonial estate of Don Quixote, and which, in like manner, conferred an hereditary dignity upon its proprietor, who was a laird, and, though poor as a rat, prided himself upon his ancient blood, and the standing of his house. He was accordingly called Lauckend, according to the Scottish custom of naming a man after his family estate, but he was more generally known through ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... have made on the good Lord's handiwork I do not know. Skipper Tommy Lovejoy, being on the road to Trader's Cove from the Rat Hole, where he lived alone with his twin lads, had spied us from Needle Rock, and now came puffing up the hill to wish my mother good-day: which, indeed, all true men of the harbour never failed to do, whenever they came near. He was a short, marvellously broad, bow-legged old man—but ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... animals talking of a conspiracy against us. I was going west the other morning when I heard a crier announcing a general war upon Stone Boy and his people. The crier was a Buffalo, going at full speed from west to east. Again, I heard the Beaver conversing with the Musk-rat, and both said that their services were already promised to overflow the lakes and rivers and cause a destructive flood. I heard, also, the little Swallow holding a secret council with all the birds ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... nature of the soil is not tenacious enough to retain that element at the surface. The woods are abundantly stocked with a small species of kangaroo of which we saw only the traces; nor did we see the animal, on account of whose numbers and resemblance to a rat the island received its name from Vlaming in 1619. M. Peron says that it forms a new genus, and of a very remarkable character.* Rottnest Island does not appear ever to have been inhabited or even visited by the natives from the ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... There was a gentle rat-tat-tat on the door. It was so gentle that Luther thought his ears were deceiving him, for while he stopped reading, he made no motion to rise, but sat listening. Again they came, three polite taps, seeming to say, "I should like ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... Deacon Henzy's, he had got up a great invention, a new rat trap, that wuz peculier and ...
— Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... with slight hesitation, which did not escape the priest, who was leaning over him with ears pricked. He smelt a rat. ...
— The Inferno • Henri Barbusse
... from within his waistcoat a long, thick pocketbook, and from that a number of bills; which must have been for high amounts, for he rapidly counted out only a score or two of them, repocketing the rest, and at that time, thereabouts, "a rat in shape of a horse," as Washington himself had complained a month before, was "not to be bought for less than L200."[4] Peyton handed her the bills he had counted out. "There's a fair price, then," said he; "allowing for depreciation. The ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... fastened his rat-like eyes upon him, compressed his hard, unfeeling lips, and, after surveying him for ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... answered; "but there must be something curious in it. I take him to be a harmless sort of a person, and a tolerably honest one; but his manners, being so furtive, remind me of those of a rat,—a rat without the mischief, the fierce eye, the teeth to bite with, or the desire to bite. See, now! He means to skulk along that fringe of bushes, and approach us on the other side ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... water rat," muttered Nic, commencing to undress; and, confident that there was nothing likely to injure him, he plunged in, had his swim, crept out, rubbed, and was going on with his dressing again behind a clump of wattle scrub, when the splash excited his ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... apples, scallions, peaches, a whip, a knife, and what had been sent him; as sparrows, a flye-flap, raisons, Attick honey, night-gowns, judges robes, dry'd paste, table-books, with a pipe and a foot-stool: After which came in an hare and a sole-fish: And there was further sent him a lamprey, a water-rat, with a frog at his tail, and a bundle ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... knocker—seemingly a brazen hand that had been cut off at the wrist, and nailed against the oak as a warning to malefactors—extended itself in a kind of grim appeal to everybody. It seemed to possess strange fascinations for all seafaring folk; and when there was a man-of-war in port the rat-tat-tat of that knocker would frequently startle the quiet neighborhood long after midnight. There appeared to be an occult understanding between it and the blue-jackets. Years ago there was a young Bilkins, one Pendexter Bilkins—a sad losel, we fear—who ran away to try his fortunes ...
— A Rivermouth Romance • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... "But if you taink dat I ought to pay for de damage you're mistaken. If you lend me your cat"—here he began to make the argumentative movement with his thumb, as though scooping out imaginary kosher cheese with it; "If you lend me your cat to kill my rat," his tones took on the strange Talmudic singsong—"and my rat instead kills your cat, then it is the fault of your cat and not the ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... dungeon, where, lying among the straw, was an equally impressive wax-work figure of a prisoner, wretched, unkempt, and bound hand and foot with chains. A pitcher of water lay by his side, and a stuffed rat peering from the straw added a further touch of realism. Winona shuddered. It was a ghastly sight, and she was thankful to run up the stairs and go from the keep out into the spring sunshine. She had always ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... a rat," she whispered, smiling, and lowered herself. He followed. She was crouching in the shadow of the wall, and drew him down beside her. Somebody had ceased to sleep in the tent, and was gabbling drowsily, in a ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... up. I slipped off a rock in the lower swirl of the rapid, and went into the river over head and ears. Pete, who was with me, gave audible expression to his amusement at my discomfiture as I crawled out of the water like a half drowned rat; but I could see no occasion for his hilarity ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... of accomplishing both these objects. Corn is a great article of trade; and they have noble granaries for depositing it. Apparently there is a great conflux of people, and much business stirring. I quickly perceived, in the midst of this ever-moving throng, my old friend the vender of rat-destroying powders—busied in the exercise of his calling, and covered with his usual vestment of white, spotted or painted with black rats. He found plenty of hearers and plenty of purchasers. ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... forever putting into port for fresh bread and meat, milk and eggs, for she could eat none other. If the wind got up but ever so little, we had to run into shelter and anchor until the sea was smooth. The manners of the sailors shocked her. She would scream at night when a rat ran across her, and would lose her appetite if a living creature, of which, as usual, the ship was full, fell from a beam onto her platter. I was tempted, more than once, to run the ship on to a rock and make an ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... shut, and will not open, and abut on pitchy darkness! I wonder why it is not enough that these distrustful genii stand agape at one's dreams all night, but there must also be round open portholes, high in the wall, suggestive, when a mouse or rat is heard behind the wainscot, of a somebody scraping the wall with his toes, in his endeavours to reach one of these portholes and look in! I wonder why the faggots are so constructed, as to know of no effect but an agony of heat when they are lighted and replenished, and an agony ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... squirrel and three little just-hatched ones in a bunch," Stonie answered with due dramatic weight at Rose Mary's plea. "Mis' Rucker thought it were a rat and jumped on the bed and hollowed for Tobe to ketch it, and Peg and Jennie acted just like her, too, after Tobe and me had ketched that mouse in the barn just last week and tied it to a string and let it run at 'em all day ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... a miracle, O turtle! For thy head is the head of a serpent, thy tail the tail of a water rat, thy bones are bird's bones and thy covering is of stone; and yet thou knowest love as it is known by men. And from thy eggs, O turtle of stone, ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... and park-like area, out of which, within brick walls, the vegetable garden had been carved. Old Jolyon avoided this, which did not suit his mood, and made down the hill towards the pond. Balthasar, who knew a water-rat or two, gambolled in front, at the gait which marks an oldish dog who takes the same walk every day. Arrived at the edge, old Jolyon stood, noting another water-lily opened since yesterday; he would show it to Holly to-morrow, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... hung in disreputable parlors, dead to the eye, but loathsomely alive at an involuntary touch. Rats scuttled when we entered, and I had not been long alone when they returned to bear me company. I am not a natural historian, and had rather face a lion with the right rifle than a rat with a stick. My jailers, however, had been kind enough to leave me a lantern, which, set upon the ground (like my mattress), would afford a warning, if not a protection, against the worst; unless I slept; and as yet I had not lain down. The rascals had been considerate enough, ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... away, till at length Rachel woke with a start thinking that a hand had been laid upon her face, to see by the faint light of dawn which struggled into the hut through the cracks of the door-boards that the hand was only a great rat that had crawled over her and now nibbled at her hair. She sat up, frightening it and its companions away, then rose and washed herself with water that stood by in great gourds while without she heard the women ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... of bigotry he was no bigot. Puritan fanaticism, exasperated by the persecution it had endured under James and Charles, often went to the utmost extremes, even as "Hudibras"[1] said, to "killing of a cat on Monday for catching of a rat on Sunday." ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... the mob they were encountering? The yellow party, doubtless, but in a disreputable condition. Who or what was that object in advance of it, supported between Drake and the lawyer, and looking like a drowned rat, hair hanging, legs tottering, cheeks shaking, and clothes in tatters, while the mob, behind, had swollen to the length of the street, and was keeping up a perpetual fire of derisive shouts, groans, and hisses. The scarlet-and-purple halted in consternation, and Lord Mount Severn, ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... You do that too freely; but Janetta quite agrees with me about him. A man with a sword, that goes slashing about, and kills a rat, that was none of his business! A more straightforward creature than himself, I do believe, though he struts like a soldier with a ramrod. And what did he mean, in such horrible weather, by dragging you out to take a deposition in a place ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... tell em ha to mak brass goa farther, they'll be content to give up th' Union. But aw think it goas far enuff—what they want is to keep it nearer hooam, to let less on it goa to th' ale haase, to spend less o' dog feightin', pigeon flyin', an' rat worryin'; an' if they'd niver spend owt withaat think in' whether it wor for ther gooid or net, they'd find a deal moor brass i'th' drawer corner at th' month end, an' varry likely a nice little bit to fall back on i'th' Savings bank at th' ...
— Yorkshire Ditties, Second Series - To which is added The Cream of Wit and Humour - from his Popular Writings • John Hartley
... see, when Jenny came here the first time she lay on the knees of a fine lady from the town, and had a blanket on her back and a cloth about her head. Hush, Jenny; it is true that you had it! And I thought what a little rat it was. But do you know when that little creature was put down on the ground here some memories of her childhood or something must have wakened in her. She scratched, and kicked, and tried to rub off her blanket. And then she behaved like the ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... unusual, my King," crackled the Pole's voice thinly. "During three whole days I have done naught but think, and that would incommode an elephant, leave alone a rat like me." ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... Patou—Elodie. Rightly or wrongly, she received a certain impression from your charming luncheon party of yesterday. Andrew, as you are aware, is not the man with whom a woman can easily make a scene. There was no scene. A hint. With that rat-trap air of finality with which I am, for my many failings, much more familiar than yourself, he said: 'We will cancel our engagement and go to Vichy.' This morning, as I wrote, I was called to Clermont-Ferrand. ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... scrub as inconspicuously as a rat, while two of the tinklers came up the slope from the waterside. Dickson in a fever of impatience cursed Wee Jaikie for not cutting his remaining bonds so that he could at least have made a dash for freedom. ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... difficult to breathe in spite of the windows being open. At the head of the long table sat Jentham, drinking brandy-and-soda, and speaking in his cracked, refined voice with considerable spirit, his rat-like, quick eyes glittering the while with alcoholic lustre. He seemed to be considerably under the influence of drink, and his voice ran up and down from bass to treble as he became excited in ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... full tide of this retired joy Paul hears a step at the bottom of the lumber-room stairs, and knows it for his mother's. She is coming here, and there is no hiding-place for anything bigger than a rat. The motherly temper is sharp, and the motherly hand is heavy. He has been called and has not answered—a crime deserving punishment, and sure to earn it. The step grows nearer and trouble more assured. ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... distinguish her from one of her rivals far less clever than herself, belongs to the highest class of those women whose social utility cannot be questioned by the prefect of the Seine, nor by those who are interested in the welfare of the city of Paris. Certainly the Rat, accused of demolishing fortunes which frequently never existed, might better be compared to a beaver. Without the Aspasias of the Notre-Dame de Lorette quarter, far fewer houses would be built in Paris. Pioneers in fresh ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... in that," said Raymond, "that the plan is intolerable. Briggs's nephew took the plan of what he calls a German Rat-house, for the town-hall, made in gilt gingerbread; and then adapted the church to a beautiful similarity. If that could be staved off by waiting for the bazaar, or by any other means, there might be a chance of something better. So poor Fuller thinks, ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... The rat-hunting referred to in the foregoing "summary" was not a mere fiction of Buzzby's brain. It was a veritable fact. Notwithstanding the extreme cold of this inhospitable climate, the rats in the ship increased to such a degree that at last they became a perfect nuisance. Nothing was safe ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... with the weapons of a soldier, you have even resorted to the barbarity of the poison-wasp. Pardon me, but you Yankees do not seem to have any mercy or fairness for a foe. We shall give you better treatment. You shall not be killed like a rat in a trap. You shall have a chance for your life. Had you halted, had you been a coward, you would not have been worthy to fight in this arena. You would not have come where you are standing, and possibly even now your grave would have been filled. If you survive ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... only one thing to live for—the post! And though the rat-tat rang through the house three or four times a day, there was ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... corporeall, substantiall creature, and forceth that Creature (he working in it) to his desired ends, and useth the organs of that body to speake withall to make his compact up with the Witches, be the creature Cat, Rat, ...
— The Discovery of Witches • Matthew Hopkins
... some of the sheep off in the river. All the sheep then made a rush to follow the unfortunate ones. Barney Hill, who was on the back end of the boat, got knocked off and could not swim and the boys had a good laugh at him climbing over the sheep, looking like a drowned rat trying to get out of a molasses barrel. Dick Stewart was a good swimmer and so he landed back ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... pointed out (Contes de Lorraine, p. xi. seq.) that the incident of the rat's-tail-up-nose to recover the ring from the stomach of an ogress, is found among Arabs, Albanians, Bretons, and Russians. It is impossible to imagine that incident—occurring in the same series of incidents—to have been invented more than once, and if that part of the story has been borrowed from ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Collected by Joseph Jacobs
... should have a fine expression of countenance—I could point it out, but it is difficult to describe upon paper. It should be mild, serene, and expressive. The animal should be fine in the bone, with clean muzzle, a tail like a rat's, and not ewe-necked; short on the legs. He should have a small well-put-on head, prominent eye, a skin not too thick nor too thin; should be covered with fine silky hair—to the touch like a lady's glove; should have a good belly to hold his meat; should ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie
... hollows under his wandering eyes, and in them the anxious, wistful look of a half-starved cur which has found a bone and fears that it will be taken away from him. It occurred to the Kid that even a rat like Gillis might have feelings—such feelings as may be touched by hunger and physical discomfort. And there was no mistaking the desperate earnestness of ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... loose stones lying on the roads were tossed in the air "like peas on a drum," But this was even less pronounced than the horizontal movement, the range of which was at least eight or nine inches, and during which people felt as if they were being shaken like a rat by a terrier. The period of these vibrations was ...
— A Study of Recent Earthquakes • Charles Davison
... honest, homely, industrious, wholesome, BROWN BRICK PLAYHOUSE. You have been struggling for independence and elbow-room these three years; and who gave it you? Who helped you out of Lilliput? Who routed you from a rat-hole five inches by four, to perch you in a palace? Again and again I answer, MR. WHITBREAD. You might have sweltered in that place with the Greek name {26} till doomsday, and neither LORD CASTLEREAGH, ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... of you, rat that you are, if you talk in such a way about my wife. What you think doesn't matter. Hold your tongue, and come to business. I asked you here to take ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... answer is packed up and ready for delivery in the barrel of the guard's blunderbuss. Rats again! there are none about mail-coaches, any more than snakes in Van Troil's Iceland; except, indeed, now and then a parliamentary rat, who always hides his shame in the "coal cellar." And, as to fire, I never knew but one in a mail-coach, which was in the Exeter mail, and caused by an obstinate sailor bound to Devonport. Jack, making light of the law and the lawgiver ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... the cure slept soundly, his body shrouded in the blankets like some carved Gothic saint of old. The silence was intense—a silence that could be heard—broken only by the brisk ticking of the cure's watch on the narrow shelf. Occasionally a water-rat would patter over the sunken roof, become inquisitive, and peer in at me through the slit within half a foot of my nose. Once in a while I took down the fat opera-glass, focussing it upon the dim shapes that resembled ducks, but that ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... moor-hen, flapper, coot, water-rail, dab-chick, and sand-piper, to say nothing of rats in abundance, and an otter now and then. If you crept upon the islet very quietly, you could hear the rats before you saw them. Carefully listening to the sounds, you frequently discovered the rat himself, generally on the stump of some old tree, or on the bare part of the bank overhanging the water. There he would be, sitting upon his hind-legs, holding in his fore-feet the root of a bulrush, ...
— A Vanished Hand • Sarah Doudney
... or dandy about town, was this young officer. Boxing, rat-hunting, the fives court, and four-in-hand driving were then the fashion of our British aristocracy; and he was an adept in all these noble sciences. And though he belonged to the household troops, who, ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... one morning by the sensation of something running over me as I lay in my berth, I conceived a method of retaliation. It seemed to me possible that, in the event of another visit, I might, by seizing the proper moment, kick the rat up to the ceiling with such force as to produce concussion of the brain and instant death. Very soon I had an opportunity of putting my plan into execution. A significant shaking of the little curtain at the foot of the berth showed that it was ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... all know, live on plants, but it came upon botanists as a surprise when our countryman Ellis first discovered that some plants catch and devour insects. This he observed in a North American plant, Dionsea, the leaves of which are formed something like a rat-trap, with a hinge in the middle, and a formidable row of spines round the edge. On the surface are a few very sensitive hairs, and the moment any small insect alights on the leaf and touches one of these hairs ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... against the wall, to examine the back. The hinges were immovable. Despondent, I ran my hand further down the back at random, and, to my surprise, felt a small irregular hole, through which I could thrust two fingers. It was evidently a rat hole, for I saw now that when close to the wall, it must have corresponded to a chink between ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... lad," said the smuggler with a laugh. "Bring your lanthorn, I've ketched a rat or some'at. ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... the keen face of Seymour Michael peered nervously, restlessly from side to side. He was distinctly suggestive of a rat in a trap. And beyond him, in the gloom of the old arras-hung hall, a third man, seemingly standing guard over Seymour Michael, for he was not looking into the room but watching every movement made by the General—tall man, dark, upright, with a silent, clean-shaven face, a total ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... a rat," Bart exclaimed wrathfully, as he nursed his wounded hand. "The beggar jumped straight at it. It feels as though he'd made his ...
— Army Boys on German Soil • Homer Randall
... bring the money with him," he thought. "I'd like to have matters all arranged to-day, before he smells a rat. If I get the money once in my hands, he may scold all he pleases about the horse. It won't disturb ...
— Try and Trust • Horatio Alger
... the arrow of light at the prow pierced ebon blackness, while the plash of the oars made a curious sound, full of sudden desolation and weariness. A bat flitted over the arrow of light and vanished, and the head of a swimming rat was visible for a moment, pursued by ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... strength, as do the predatory Wasps; he accepts it as hazard presents it to him. Among his finds there are little creatures, such as the Shrew-mouse; animals of medium size, such as the Field-mouse; and enormous beasts, such as the Mole, the Sewer-rat and the Snake, any of which exceeds the powers of excavation of a single grave-digger. In the majority of cases transportation is impossible, so disproportioned is the burden to the motive-power. A slight displacement, caused by ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... like a malefactor from his gibbet. From amongst these cloaks, and behind that curtain, the Nun was said to issue. I did not believe this, nor was I troubled by apprehension thereof; but I saw a very dark and large rat, with a long tail, come gliding out from that squalid alcove; and, moreover, my eye fell on many a black-beetle, dotting the floor. These objects discomposed me more, perhaps, than it would be wise to say, as also did the dust, lumber, ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... the relationship between soil fertility and human health. McCarrison, a physician and medical researcher, worked in India contemporaneously with Albert Howard. He spent years "trekking around the Hunza and conducted the first bioassays of food nutrition by feeding rat populations on the various national diets of India. And like the various nations of India, some of the rats became healthy, large, long-lived, and good natured while others were small, ...
— Organic Gardener's Composting • Steve Solomon
... one that did n't want a little of something or other. Mother used to ask them if they had met Dad? None ever did until an old grey man came along and said he knew Dad well—he had camped with him one night and shared a damper. Mother was very pleased and brought him in. We had a kangaroo-rat (stewed) for dinner that day. The girls did n't want to lay it on the table at first, but Mother said he would n't know what it was. The traveller was very hungry and liked it, and when passing his plate the second ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... the wall, In under the dusty barn they crawl, Dressed in their Sunday garments all; And a very astonishing sight was that, When each in his cobwebbed coat and hat Came up through the floor like an ancient rat. And there they hid; And Reuben slid The fastenings back, and the door undid. "Keep dark!" said he, "While I squint an' see what the' is ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... of use. Guided by the radiant moonlight, I could see the very spot on which Mary and I had stood to watch the snaring of the ducks. Through the hole in the paling before which the decoy-dog had shown himself, at Dermody's signal, a water-rat now passed, like a little black shadow on the bright ground, and was lost in the waters of the lake. Look where I might, the happy by-gone time looked back in mockery, and the voices of the past came to me with their burden of reproach: See what your life was once! Is ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... King strength. That afternoon were summoned in haste the members of his Council: fat old Friese, young Marschall with the rat face, austere Bayerl with the white skin and burning eyes, and others. And to them all the King disclosed his royal will. There was some demur. Friese, who sweated with displeasure, ranted about old enemies and broken pledges. But, after all, the King's will was dominant. Friese ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... was a good instance of his taste. The silver-plate on it was really remarkable. There was a delightful Caroline tankard in the middle, placed there for the sheer pleasure of looking at it; there was a large silver cow with a lid in its back; there were four rat-tail spoons; the china was an extremely cheap Venetian crockery of brilliant designs and thick make. The coffee-pot and milk-pot were early Georgian, with very peculiar marks; but these vessels were at present hidden under the folded newspaper. There were ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... "You—you rat!" hissed the bully and came at Andy with a rush. But the acrobatic youth dodged, and Ritter ran ...
— The Mystery at Putnam Hall - The School Chums' Strange Discovery • Arthur M. Winfield
... ban cap an bad bag can map as mad gag fan nap at pad hag pan rap ax sad lag ran hap rat gad tag tan jam sat sap fag ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... with which he had fallen aside, thanked his recapturers as for a service, and rejoined the caravan with all his usual gallantry and cheerfulness of mien and bearing. But it is certain he had smelled a rat; for from thenceforth he and Secundra spoke only in each other's ear, and Harris listened and shivered by the tent in vain. The same night it was announced they were to leave the boats and proceed by foot, a circumstance which (as it put an ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sat an ugly dwarf on the top of his ladder, with a red-edged volume upon his bony knees, his head half-buried in a rough fur cap, small grey eyes, wide misshapen mouth, humps on back and shoulders, a most uninviting object, the familiar spirit—the rat, as Sperver would have it—of this last refuge of all the learning belonging to the ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... seek it for yourself, Ki? To you, doubtless, it would be a small matter to take the form of a snake or a rat, or a bird, and creep or run or fly into ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard
... The vast mind was sheeted with stone; and each compartment in the depths of it was safe and dry. The night-watchmen, flashing their lanterns over the backs of Plato and Shakespeare, saw that on the twenty-second of February neither flame, rat, nor burglar was going to violate these treasures—poor, highly respectable men, with wives and families at Kentish Town, do their best for twenty years to protect Plato and Shakespeare, and ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... fixed stillness, as if she were waiting—expecting! They ate their chocolates. The sun set, dew began to fall; the river changed, and grew whiter; the sky paled to the colour of an amethyst; shadows lengthened, dissolved slowly. It was past nine already; a water-rat came out, a white owl flew over the river, towards the Abbey. The moon had come up, but shed no light as yet. They saw no beauty in all this—too young, too passionate, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... mercy of our likes and dislikes. He did indeed mention himself, but only to say that once in the street of a village he saw the horse at some distance with a child in his teeth shaking him like a terrier with a rat. He ran, he said, but was too far off. Ere he was half-way, the horse's groom, who was the only man with any power over the brute, had come up and secured him—though too late to save ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... helplessness. And when she hit in on the beach—when she hit the sand—it would be over and over she'd roll, and out of her he would come and be smothered. For a second he'd be smooth and sleek as a wet rat ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... in with their own ancient legend of King Lear. Nennius calls it Cair Lerion; and that unblushing romancer, Geoffrey of Monmouth, makes it at once into Cair Leir, the city of Leir. More probably the name is a mixture of Legionis and Ratae, Leg-rat ceaster, the camp of the Legion at Ratae. This, again, grew into Legra ceaster, Leg ceaster, and Lei ceaster, while the word, though written Leicester, is now shortened by south midland voices to Lester. The third Legionis Castra remained always Welsh, ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... thunder-storm from south-west. Our dogs caught a female kangaroo with a young one in its pouch, and a kangaroo rat. ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... of rather an unusual nature took place in the house of a respectable innkeeper in Ireland. The parties concerned were, a hen of the game species, and a rat of the middle size. The hen, in an accidental perambulation round a spacious room, accompanied by an only chicken, the sole surviving offspring of a numerous brood, was roused to madness by an unprovoked attack made by a voracious cowardly rat on her unsuspecting chirping companion. The shrieks ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst
... seem'd to find it not the same; So round she ran, most sadly flurried; And, coming back, thrust out her head, Which, sticking there, she said, "This is the hole, there can't be blunder: What makes it now so small, I wonder, Where, but the other day, I pass'd with ease?" A rat her trouble sees, And cries, "But with an emptier belly; You enter'd ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... clearing, a blackbird called to his mate in the thicket, but save for this, nothing stirred; a great quiet was upon the place, a stillness so profound that Barnabas could distinctly hear the scutter of a rat in the shadows behind him, and the slow, heavy breathing of the sleeper down below. And ever that crouching figure knelt beside the broken shutter, very silent, very ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al |
