"Rat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... vague discomfort caused by her occasional absence. But that first journey was unforgetable. The maze of winding burrows, the myriad eyes peering at him through the darkness, the ceaseless patter of tiny feet, before, behind, and on all sides, the great brown rat sniffing dubiously as it passed, the jostling, the chattering, the squeaking. He had been a proud mouse when he had returned, and told his faint-hearted brothers what the great world outside was ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... vulgarized the whole thing. He's a parson—a weak little rat, but I was sorry for him. Then an aunt came on the scene—a most gentlemanly lady,"—he laughed a little at the recollection,—"and I promised not to go out of my way to see Her again. It was quite easy. The bloom was already brushed from the adventure. ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... the rat meaning Ratcliffe, the cat Catesby, and the hog King Richard, whose cognisance was a boar. Robert Catesby, the descendant of the "cat," was said to be one of the greatest bigots that ever lived; he was the friend of Garnet, ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... we were compelled to exchange our perfectly good uniforms for some old rags that would disgrace a wharf rat!" was Ned's indignant response. "Then we simply took the privilege of putting on these garments. They are not what we would have chosen, ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... Forth ran the O-ho-li (or albino antelope). The Wolf seized and threw him. The Jack Rabbit was let out. The Eagle poised himself for a moment, then swooped upon him. The Cotton Tail came forth. The Prey Mole waited in his hole and seized him; the Wood Rat, and the Falcon made him his prey; the Mouse, and the Ground Owl quickly ...
— Zuni Fetiches • Frank Hamilton Cushing
... will come. I cannot work him immediate harm; but I will lead him to a height from which he will assuredly fall headlong. Thou must depart from this place; for it is perilous to thee, and if thou stayest here, ill will befall thee. I will send a rat to thy dungeon, which shall daily devour the provisions, so that the monks shall not know thou hast fled. In thirty and one years shall the abbot's doom be accomplished. Two years before that time thou mayst return. Then come alone to Pendle Hill on a Friday night, and beat the water ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... came the rat-tat-tat. We all gazed expectantly at the closed door. Glancing at Holmes I saw his face turn rigid, and he leaned forward in intense excitement. Then suddenly came a low gurgling, gargling sound and a brisk drumming upon woodwork. Holmes sprang frantically across the room and pushed at ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... with his hammock clothes. He turned pale, and tears came into his eyes,—whether from a feeling of injured friendship, or from disappointment, Salve could not quite make out. The expression of his face, with his restless small black eyes, resembled that of a disturbed rat. At last he fell on Salve's neck in his impetuous way, ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... on the box. He has a pen in his hand. A big rat is in the box. Can the dog catch ...
— McGuffey's First Eclectic Reader, Revised Edition • William Holmes McGuffey
... tumblers, broken wineglasses, phials of forgotten physic, papers of unknown powders, seeds and dried herbs, tops of teapots, and stoppers of departed decanters—from the rag hole in the garret, to the rat hole in the cellar, no place escapes unrummaged. It would seem as if the day of general doom had come, and the utensils of the house were dragged ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... heard of a frog in an opera hat, 'Tis a very old tale of a mouse and a rat, I could sing you another as pleasant, mayhap, Of a kitten that wore a high caul cap; But my muse on a far nobler subject shall drop, Of a bull who got into a china shop, With his right leg, left leg, upper leg, under leg, St. Patrick's ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... by skinning the twenty small mammals (one of which was a new rat) that our traps had yielded. We took a good many photographs and several rolls of "movie" film showing the efforts of the mafus to get the mules aboard. Some of them went in quietly enough but others absolutely refused to step into the boat. One of ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... hourly despatches for my paper; then I drove to Newcastle, a cold, dark journey of a couple of hours, and scribbled my latest bulletin at the Journal office. This done, I lay down on a pile of newspapers in the rat-haunted office, and snatched a few hours' sleep before returning to the post of duty. But some nights it was impossible to leave the mouth of the pit even for a moment, for none could tell when the captives might be reached; so I sat with the doctors, ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... building, and however difficult it may be for strangers to get to it, those living in the neighbourhood know its whereabouts, many having derived improvement from it, and if more went to it, pigeon-flying, gambling, Sunday rat hunting, tossing, drinking, and paganism generally—things which have long flourished in its ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... sure enough, right out of that grain bin overhead came a moaning and whimpering, and then a scratching against the door. My hair stood on end. Blended with the drip, drip of the rain, and the occasional scurrying of a rat overhead, that noise had a super-natural sound. I was really frightened; perhaps my nerves were a trifle unstrung from our recent tour in ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... for any girl against you," he was cut short again. "But I do know this girl. I won't say how. I know you're the dirt under her feet, and if I hadn't made sure every way that she was out of the house, I'd have set the police onto you as—as I wouldn't set terriers onto a rat." ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... the fires are lighted at the Rocher de Cancale; the horses are pawing the ground; my irons are getting hot. —Oh, I know your Madame Marneffe by heart!—Everything is ready. And there are some boluses in the rat-trap; I will tell you to-morrow morning if the mouse is poisoned. I believe she will ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... Liberal fighter in Parliamentary warfare, who entered politics about the time Mr. Balfour did, told me this story the other day. "I've watched Balfour for about forty years as a cat watches a rat. I hate his party. I hated him till I learned better, for I hated that whole Salisbury crowd. They wanted to Cecil everything. But I'll tell you, Sir, apropos of his visit to your country, that in all those years he has ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... a present of a hundred kine with one bull. Having slain a dog or bear or camel, one should perform the same penance that is laid down for the slaughter of a Sudra. For slaying a cat, a chasa, a frog, a crow, a reptile, or a rat, it has been said, one incurs the sin of animal slaughter, O king! I shall now tell thee of other kinds of expiations in their order. For all minor sins one should repent or practise some vow for one year. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... Run and hide!" called Jane Fuzzy-Wuzzy, and all the rabbits ran and hid. The ferret, which was a long, slender animal, something like a white rat, had been put into the burrow by the hunter, who stood outside at the back door, hoping the rabbits would run out so he could shoot them. But they did not. Instead, they went into the darkest part of the underground house. ...
— Sammie and Susie Littletail • Howard R. Garis
... conscience! Remorse is the echo of a lost virtue, and virtue he never knew. Had he to live again, he would live the same. But more terrible than the death-bed of a believing and despairing sinner that blank gloom of apathy,—that contemplation of the worm and the rat of the charnel-house; that grim and loathsome NOTHINGNESS which, for his eye, falls like a pall over the universe of life. Still, staring into space, gnawing his livid lip, he looks upon the darkness, convinced that darkness is forever ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... county. Isn't that nice? I feel like a big somebody. I was just wondering if the mayor will call on me. I think he ought to, but I really couldn't see him. My time is all occupied. They have asked me to make a talk. They've got me down for a few minutes' harangue, and I don't know more than a rat what I'll say. We are going to try for a State appropriation in our section, meet the members of the Legislature, and do some wire- pulling and ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... could be written about all that had happened during that wonderful Christmas, how Hamlet the Dog caught a rat to his own immense surprise; how the Coles' Christmas dinner was followed by a play acted with complete success by the junior members of the family, and it was only Mr. Jellybrand the curate who disapproved; how Aunt Amy had a new dress in which, by general consent, she ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... saw Major (by misplaced courtesy) Wentworth Caswell. I knew him for a type the moment my eyes suffered from the sight of him. A rat has no geographical habitat. My old friend, A. Tennyson, said, as he ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... exactly," she said. "But I had the most awful feeling, ma'am. And yes—well, something did happen! I heard a kind of rustling in the room. It would leave off for a time, and, then begin again. I tried to put it down to a mouse or a rat—or something of ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... the phalanger, a marsupial which lives in thick, dark forests, where it feeds upon leaves and fruit; and the tarsier, a kind of jerboa, a very harmless, inoffensive little animal with reddish-coloured hair, about the size of a rat, but whose body bears some resemblance to that of an ape. Among the birds, the most remarkable were the parroquets and cockatoos, the birds of Paradise of which so many fabulous accounts were given, and which until then had been believed to be without legs, the king-fishers, and ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... he is dry," Drusie said, inclined at first to be a little offended. But his laughter was infectious, and Jumbo did after all look so very much like a drowned rat that she could not help ...
— A Tale of the Summer Holidays • G. Mockler
... through which the air had entered and moaned up the broad-mouthed flue that opened above the range. This was the ominous 'signal' we had heard in answer to the footsteps. The dust was thick over everything, and the only signs of life were the rat-tracks on the floor. We stood still for a few moments, overwhelmed at this solution of the occult 'influence' that had so subtly acted on Annie's nerves, and filled me with ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... indigestible parts as Hawks do. Mr. Couch, in the 'Zoologist' for 1874, mentions having taken a Misseltoe Thrush from the throat of one; and I can quite believe it, supposing it found the Thrush dead or floating half drowned on the water. I have seen my tame ones catch and kill a nearly full-grown rat, and bolt it whole; and young ducks, I am sorry to say, disappear down their throats in no time, down and all. They are also great robbers of eggs, no sort of egg coming amiss to them; Guillemots' eggs, especially, they ...
— Birds of Guernsey (1879) • Cecil Smith
... facing the place where Suffa Culli and Jung Perchad stand to take up passengers, and looks out keenly for cats. That is Charley. He is all right when you know him, is Charley, and I have it on the best authority that there are no flies on him. A rat on the straggle has been known to turn up in this aviary and run the gauntlet of all the cages—till he reached Charley; nothing alive and eatable ever got past him. I have all the esteem and friendship for Charley that any eagle ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... skin crept and crawled till I was nearly frantic. Grunting, groaning, and snoring arose like the sounds emitted by some sea monster, and several times, afflicted by nightmare, one or another, by his shrieks and yells, aroused the lot of us. Toward morning I was awakened by a rat or some similar animal on my breast. In the quick transition from sleep to waking, before I was completely myself, I raised a shout to wake the dead. At any rate, I woke the living, and they cursed me roundly ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... waterfall dividing it into two distinct caves. Plemont is the spot where the cable comes in from England, crawls out of the ocean like a great dripping hoary old sea-serpent to trail through a cleft to the station on the cliff above. This is a rat-hole beside those caves." ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... apostatized and came to Ireland. He was sent to Athlone to superintend the erection of the bridge by Sir Henry Sidney; but, according to the legend, he was constantly pursued by a demon in the shape of a rat, which never left him for a single moment. On one occasion he attempted to preach, but the eyes of the animal glared on him with such fury that he could not continue. He then took a pistol and attempted to shoot it, but in an instant it had sprung on the weapon, giving him, at the ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... in Californy It makes the tourist mad, But folks that's got the crops to raise Is feelin' mighty glad; I stand out in the showers, Wet as a drownded rat, And watch the grain a-growin', ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... their sale. All skunk, marten, mink, fox, 'possum, otter, weasel, civet, lynx, fisher and muskrat have to be treated this way. Other animals should be cut open, such as the beaver, wolf, coyote, 'coon, badger, bear and wild cat. They cut off the tails only of such chaps as have a rat-like appearance—'possum and muskrat. In all other cases the tail is a part of the fur, and a valuable one, too, as I have found out to my cost. The bone is of course taken out, which can be done with only a ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... Wilhide's Celebrated Noiseless Self-setting Rat and Mouse Traps. Thoroughly introduced. Traps sold by all dealers. Address ...
— Scientific American, Volume 40, No. 13, March 29, 1879 • Various
... a little proud of her collection of jewels, although she seldom wore anything but her pearls. She had left it when she went abroad, in the safe deposit vault, and she sent a quick terrified glance in the coffer's direction like that of a cornered rat. ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... He found a clutch of four eggs; not having leisure at the time to blow them, he placed them in a bowl on the drawing-room mantelshelf. On the evening of the following day he heard some squeaks, but, thinking that these sounds emanated from a musk-rat or one of the other numerous rent-free tenants of every Indian bungalow, paid little heed to them. When, however, the same sounds were heard some hours later and appeared to emanate from the mantelpiece, he ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar
... will be weighed, and angels will measure their blood, and the angels of God will see that the weight of the sins does not exceed the weight of the body and the blood. Do you understand? God will not condemn the wolf for devouring a sheep, but if a miserable rat should be guilty of the sheep's death, God will ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... like the "Black Hawk;" although anything is good enough for me when I can't get nothin' better, which is the true philosophy of life. If there is a good dish and a bad one set before me, I am something of a rat, I ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... "Woods rat, Foscar goes to his burial fire. And he shall take a slave with him to serve him beyond the sky—a slave to run at his voice, to shake when he thunders. Slave-dog, you shall run for Foscar beyond the sky, ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... not, you simple Humfrey, that, as I said methinks some time since, it is well sometimes to give a rogue rope enough and he will hang himself? Close the trap too soon, and you miss the biggest rat of all. So we waited until the prey seemed shy and about to escape. Babington had, it seems, suspected Maude or Langston, or whatever you call him, and had ridden out of town, hiding in St. John's Wood with some of his ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... called The German Pulpit, contains, along with a few sermons of more spiritual tone, many sermons by preachers of this school. See on this school Am. Saintes, ch. viii. Mr. Rose also has collected many facts in reference to this part of the subject; also Stauedlin in his Gesch. des Rat. und Supernat., and P. A. Stapfer (Arch. du Christianisme, 1824), quoted by Rose ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... I when I was over there. It was to our interest to know the real force of that nation of little men with rat-like eyes." ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... something in this world; anyway, for the poor craven souls. Riding is one thing; but crashing through timber and undergrowth, dodging overhanging branches, leaping fallen logs, and stumbling and plunging over crab-holed and rat-burrowed areas, to say nothing of charging bulls turning up at unexpected corners, is quite ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... feet on another chair, and drawing the candle closer to the paper. "It says, by the way, that the Duke of Dunderhead is certainly making up to Mrs. Thumps, the rich cheesemonger's widow;—a precious good hit that, isn't it? You know the Duke's as poor as a rat!" ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... Rat-tat-tat, I went upon the door like a well-drilled footman. "Any one at home?" I said, and stooped ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... frantic, and disregard all present things, as becomes a madman to do. I am infinitely pleased (though it is a gloomy joy) with the application of Dr. Swift's complaint, that he is forced to die in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole." Let the lover of solitude muse on its picture throughout the year, in the following stanza by ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... stared at me with insolent familiarity. I jerked my head in hurriedly, and, shutting the window, turned my attention to Little Lottie. It was not long before my tea-kettle was singing merrily. I was about to sit down to the first meal in my new abode, when an insinuating rat-tat sounded on the door. I opened it to find the ill-looking young fellow leaning languidly against the door-jamb, a cigarette between ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... like a rat in a trap. Yet somehow he did not feel as if it could be true that he was to be taken out at daybreak and shot. It must be some ridiculous joke Fate was playing on him. Something would turn ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... of the eggs, and broke one, out of which came a little carriage of polished steel ornamented with gold, drawn by six green mice. The coachman was a rose-coloured rat, the postilion a grey one, and the carriage was occupied by the tiniest and most charming figures, who could dance and do wonderful tricks. Fiordelisa clapped her hands and danced for joy when she saw this triumph of magic art, and as soon as ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... strangely, a most inexplicable contortion. His little rat eyes focused on the ranchero, and he drew back in a sort of fear. Convoy her whom people called Jacqueline through the lawless Huasteca, at the bidding of this man! "No, no, no!" he cried, ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... insects, as we 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 two halves of the leaf close ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... for him, when he was alone with her, but the moment that Mrs. O'Brien came into the house he would get as far away from her as he could, and then lie perfectly still and watch her, for all the world, as John said once, like a rat in a trap watching a cat. Ellen said that it was because he always remembered that it was Mrs. O'Brien who had dropped him once. To this John replied: "Then maybe he'ld be making you less trouble, Ellen, ...
— Fairies and Folk of Ireland • William Henry Frost
... silence of those untenanted rooms, and that never opened door on the left side of her hall, which she must pass whenever she went in or out of her house. There were those who said that she was never seen to look towards that door; and that whenever a noise, as of a rat in the wall, or a blind creaking in the wind, came from that side of the house, Mrs. Billy turned white, and shuddered. Well she might. It is a fearful thing to have lying on one's heart in this life the consciousness that one has been ever so ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... appearance from these. The mounds of the prairie-dogs have a hole in the top or on one side. These, you see, have not. The hole is in the ground beside them, and the hill is in front, made by the earth taken out of the burrow, just as you have seen it at the entrance of a rat's hole. They are marmots, I have no doubt, but of a different species from ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... black apparition, who Chia Jui readily concluded, in his mind, must be lady Feng; so that, unmindful of distinguishing black from white, he as soon as that person arrived in front of him, speedily clasped her in his embrace, like a ravenous tiger pouncing upon its prey, or a cat clawing a rat, and cried: "My darling sister, you have made me wait till I'm ready ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... maverick, with the Ramblin' Kid swaying uncertainly on her back, had appeared on the track for the two-mile run, the tout, his eyes like those of a harried rat, sneaked out of the crowd in front of the book-makers' booths and hurried toward the Santa Fe railroad yards. An hour later he slipped into an empty freight car—part of a train headed for the West—and Eagle Butte saw him ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... tried to make me believe I wasn't within seven miles of Dad Frazer's camp I got my suspicions up. The idea of that little town rat trying to mix me up on my range! Well, I was a little off on my estimate of where the wagons were, but that was because they'd been moved so many times while I was ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... last seems, from occasional peeps through the blinds, a most mysterious building. The chimneys, recesses, vats, and cisterns—to say nothing of certain galvanic communications, which, you are told, traverse the whole building in a way capable of killing a rat at an incredible remove from the bland professor—utterly fatigue your wonder! You humbly trust—though you have doubts upon the point—that you will have the capacity to grasp it all, when once you shall have arrived at the ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... said, "and I earned it myself and so I ain't poking it down any rat-hole without being condemned sure that I'll be able to pull it all back again with just as much more sticking to it. That wouldn't be sooavable—and from what you know ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... story of the moon, the rat, and death. Caroline Islands story of the moon, death, and resurrection. Wotjobaluk story of the moon, death, and resurrection. Cham story of the moon, ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... was doing no good" there, and his father thought it was "time he settled down to his medical study in Edinburgh," never heeding the fact that his son had already one passion in life, apart from "shooting, dogs, and rat-catching," which stood a very good chance of saving him from becoming the disgrace to the family that his good father feared. So that while Wallace was imbibing his first lessons in Socialism at 14 years of age, Darwin at ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... whispered, and Philo Gubb stepped into the room. Instantly the door slammed behind him, the key turned in the lock, and he heard a heavy iron bar clank as it fell into place outside. He was a prisoner, caught like a rat in a trap, and he knew it! He threw himself against the door, but it did not give. The electric light above his head went dark. He put out his hand, and the wall gave slightly. He drew the revolver ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... LEMMING RAT, a rodent, which "travelling in myriads seawards from the hills," as seen in Norway, "turns not to the right or the left, eats its way through whatever will eat, and climbs over whatever will not eat, and perishes before reaching the sea, its consistent rigidly straight journey, a journey nowhither." ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... landing. This unexpected landing had cut the French off from Louisburg. Retreating in panic, they abandoned their batteries and fifty dead. The English had lost one hundred and nine in the surf. It is said that Wolfe scrambled from the water like a drowned rat and led the rush with no other weapon in ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... mother, who in her youth, could perform every species of trick upon stilts, was discovered by her trained nurse mounted on stilts and perambulating the garden on them, in her eighty-sixth year, for the better instruction of her little great-grandson. Again, during a great rat-hunt we had organised, the nurse missed her ninety-year-old charge, to discover her later, in company with the stable-boy, behind a barn, both of them armed with sticks, intently watching a rat-hole into which the stable-boy had just ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... the pad of snow on the soles of his shoes, he made the doorway and softly tried the lock. It gave beneath his pressure, and he glided within the dark hallway, musty and dusty in its odor, forbidding, evil and dark. A mountain rat, already disturbed by the entrance of Rodaine, scampered across his feet, and Fairchild shrunk into a corner, hiding himself as best he could in case the noise should cause an investigation from above. But it did not. Now Fairchild could hear voices, and in a moment more they became louder, ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... walked to the village to see about horses and a lodging for the night. The latter was soon found—a flat-roofed mud hut about thirty feet square, devoid of chimney or furniture of any kind. The floor, cracked in several places, was crawling with vermin, and the walls undermined with rat-holes; but in Persia one must not be particular. Leaving our baggage in the care of one "Hassan," a bright-eyed, intelligent-looking lad, and instructing him to prepare a meal, we made for the bazaar, a hundred yards away, through a morass, knee deep ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... take up the floor for her, same as they did in Number Nine when the rat croaked. Big medicine—heap big medicine! Phew! Oh, Lord, I wish I could ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... most frequently seen in the woods where there is no longer any large game are the chipmunk, the red, the gray, and the black squirrel, the rabbit and hare, the fox, weasel, pine-marten, woodchuck, raccoon, opossum, and skunk, also the pack-rat (of the west), the white-footed and field mouse. In deeper and wilder forests there are deer and porcupine, though deer are found quite near habitations at times. In more remote places there are the moose and caribou; ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard
... wuz a sweet young girl, the only child of Adonirum Snow, who left Jonesville poor as a rat, went to Californy and died independent rich. She wuz jest out of school, had been to Paris for a few months to take special studies in music and languages; a relation on her ma's side, a kind of gardeen, travelin' with ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... would the wretch be at?— Shifted a letter of the cipher RAT, And said it was a god's name! Straight arose Fantastic priests and postulants (with shows, And mysteries, and mummeries, and hymns, And disputations dire that lamed their limbs) To serve his temple and maintain the fires, Expound the law, manipulate the wires. Amazed, the populace ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... of the notice of one who seemed to him a man, and an adept in all athletic games. It was a dangerous intimacy, and her heart sank as she found that the pleasures to which he had been introducing Gilbert, were not merely the free exercise, the rabbit-shooting and rat-hunting of the farm, nor even the village cricket-match, all of which, in other company, would have had her full sympathy. But there had been such low and cruel sports that she turned her head away sickened at the notion of any one dear ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that save for four maidservants, a page, two dogs, three gardeners, and the kitchen-clerk, Mrs Gater was alone in the Hall. During the late afternoon and early evening they had all been to assist at a rat-catching in the stables, and the burglar must have been aware of this. It passed Mrs Gater's comprehension how the criminal had got clear away out of the gardens and park, for to set up a hue and cry had ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... she had dragged out twenty years of her broken life. Here she remained for seven years, until, on the Tsar's death, an even worse fate befell her. She was then, by Catherine's orders, taken from the convent, and flung into the most loathsome, rat-infested dungeon of the fortress of Schlussenberg, where she remained for two years ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... uninteresting, pursuit was left entirely to her own discretion—for no one ever dreamed of ordering Norah to the piano—it is small wonder if it suffered beside the superior attractions of riding Bobs, rat trapping, "shinning up" trees, fishing in the lagoon and generally disporting herself as a maiden may whom ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... had responded to Ralston's signal like the loyal, honest little brute she was. The gravel flew behind them, and the rat-a-tat-tat of the horses' hoofs on the hard road was like the roll of a drum. They were running neck and neck, but Ralston had little fear of the result, unless the ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... merchant, entering with an open letter in his hand. "Here are advices received, by way of Curacoa, and the coast of Africa, that the good ship Musk-Rat met with foul winds off the Azores, which lengthened her passage home to seventeen weeks—this is too much precious time wasted between markets, Captain Cornelius Ludlow, and 'twill do discredit to the good character of the ship, which has hitherto ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... followed the trail over a mile. Now and then we saw that a wolf, a fox, and other animals had practised their trailing instincts on the elk's tracks. Here and there, he would show me where a snake, a rat, and a prairie dog had crossed the track. Nothing had followed or crossed the track that the quick eye of Daloria did not detect. He gave an account of the habits of all the animals that had left their footprints on the track, also of the state ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis
... and cares of maternity are too irksome, and so the women who might be the mothers of John Wesleys and Fenelons and Metchers and Inskips and Cookmans are petting poodle-dogs and rat-terriers. ...
— The Heart-Cry of Jesus • Byron J. Rees
... has brought Lady Ailesbury from Minorca, but originally from Africa, a Jeribo. To be sure you know what that is; if you don't, I will tell you, and then I believe you will scarce know any better. It is a composition of a squirrel, a hare, a rat, and a monkey, which altogether looks very like a bird. In short, it is about the size of the first, with much Such a head, except that the tip of the nose seems shaved off, and the remains are like a human hare-lip; the ears and its timidity are like a real hare. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... 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 estimated ...
— A Study of Recent Earthquakes • Charles Davison
... together as they had been, should end by falling in love with each other was not a result to justify much surprise. Indeed, there was a special propriety in their doing so. The Shackfords had always been reputable people in the village,—down to Lemuel Shackford, who of course as an old musk-rat. The family attributes of amiability and honesty had skipped him, but they had reappeared in Richard. It was through his foresight and personal energy that the most lucrative branch of the trade had been established. His services ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Finn were placed in his old office at the Colonies instead of Lord Fawn, whose name had been suggested, and for whom,—as Barrington Erle declared,—no one cared a brass farthing. Mr. Gresham, when he heard this, thought that he began to smell a rat, and was determined to be on his guard. Why should the appointment of Mr. Phineas Finn make things go easier in regard to Mr. Bonteen? There must be some woman's fingers in the pie. Now Mr. Gresham was firmly ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... day there existed in Oregon in vast numbers a species of wood-rat, and our inspection of the graveyard showed that the canoes were thickly infested with them. They were a light gray animal, larger than the common gray squirrel, with beautiful bushy tails, which made them ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... that she dressed ill, and particularly that she covered her neck like a tradeswoman. "O, for that matter," replied the person she was speaking to (who was fond of a joke), "she has good reason, for I know she is marked with a great ugly rat on her bosom, so naturally, that it even appears to be running." Hatred, as well as love, renders its votaries credulous. Madam de Menthon resolved to make use of this discovery, and one day, while Madam de Warrens was at cards with this lady's ungrateful ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... I'll send for you in a day or two; then it will be all right." They shook hands. He was glad Farron showed him out through the corridor and not through the study, where, he knew, Mrs. Farron was still waiting like a fine, sleek cat at a rat-hole. ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... I started in delivering a Frances Murphy to him; I told him how he was ruining his health, fortune and reputation; I was really making quite a hit—with myself. Suddenly a rat scampered along the corridor by the door. The Fallen Star saw it, started, glanced sharply at me, then regained his composure. I was going ahead with my temperance lecture, when he glanced up at me a second time and ...
— Continuous Vaudeville • Will M. Cressy
... as you say; yet none so close as you might think nowadays. Time hath gnawed here like a rat on a cheese. But the foolishness appeared in setting the brave mansion between the winds and its own graveyard. Let the dead lie seawards, one had thought, and the church inland where we stand. So had the bell ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... "When a rat is in the corner it fights," said the detective significantly. "Basil may have been between the devil, represented by Miss Loach, and the deep sea, which we may call Hale. He ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume
... fop! that over-dressed minion! I know the fellow; with his smooth face and the silver quiver on his shoulder he believes he is Eros in person. Be off with you, you house-rat. The women and girls in here know how to protect themselves against the sort who parade the streets in rose-colored draperies. Take yourself off, or you will make acquaintance with the noble Paulina's slaves and clogs. Hi! gate-keeper, here! keep ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... air jes the man I'm always wantin' ter hear a word about. Jes perceed with yer rat-killin'. I'm with ye." And Luke Todd placed his elbows on his knees and leaned forward with an ...
— 'way Down In Lonesome Cove - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... belly with a spotted, ash-gray back and was carried along by the currents like a huge, wide-open shawl. Other rays passed by so quickly I couldn't tell if they deserved that name "eagle ray" coined by the ancient Greeks, or those designations of "rat ray," "bat ray," and "toad ray" that modern fishermen have inflicted on them. Dogfish known as topes, twelve feet long and especially feared by divers, were racing with each other. Looking like big bluish shadows, thresher sharks went by, eight feet long and gifted with an ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... if I can get him to stay will you stay too, Jombateeste? I don't like to see a rat leaving a ship; the ship's sure to sink, if he does. How do you suppose I'm going to run Lion's Head without you to throw down hay to the horses? It will be ruin to me, sure, Jombateeste. All the guests know how you ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Lady Clifford who spoke. There was a brittle, intensely Gallic intonation about the query with its upward inflection, reminding one somehow of a postman's knock, a sort of rat-tat-tat. ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... may be two species of water-rats. Ray says, and Linnaeus after him, that the water-rat is web-footed behind. Now I have discovered a rat on the banks of our little stream that is not web-footed, and yet is an excellent swimmer and diver: it answers exactly to the mus amphibius of Linnaeus (see Syst. Nat.), which he says 'natat in fossis et urinator.' I should ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... obliged to tell Bessie; but she did not oppose the young man whose manner was so masterful, and whom she led to the great, cheerless room with its smoky chimney down which the winter wind was roaring with a dismal sound, while across the hearth a huge rat ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... trouble today. it seems as if there wasent any use in living. nothing but trouble all the time. mother said i coodent sleep in that room until the rat was taken out. well father he came into my room and sniffed once and said, whew, what a almity smell. then he held his nose and went out and came back with mister Staples the father of the feller that called me Polelegs. ...
— The Real Diary of a Real Boy • Henry A. Shute
... rat tails for the end of the feast, the worst clothes to be found in any book must come last by way of climax. Mr. Dixon, in The Leopard's Spots, has easily outdone every other knight of the pen who has entered the lists to portray women's clothes. Listen to the inspired ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... young lady without a chaperon visit us. I feared it would become known, and we would receive a reprimand. She was decidedly giddy, and she sat on the arm of the easy-chair there and giggled and said it must be so nice to be a boy and go to Yale. After a while I began to smell a rat. I got up and took a closer look at her. Say, she was gotten up in great shape! It was that ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... corner of my eye saw him go down again. I could waste no more time upon this single antagonist. The man had his hands at my throat now. I seized him about the waist and carried him to the gunwale. He clung to me as a rat might cling to a terrier, but I shook him off and ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings
... artificial gravity of the lifeboat it seemed perfectly stationary to its occupants. Only the weird gyrations of the pictures upon the lookout screens showed that the craft was being shaken and thrown about like a rat in the jaws of a terrier; only the gauges revealed that they were almost a mile below the surface of the ocean already, and were still going downward at an appalling rate. Finally Clio could ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... drawn by the draught past the hiding-place, from which there would doubtless be a secret passage to the chamber above, which extended from one side of the inn to the other. In a glass case there was at the time of our visit a cat and a rat—the rat standing on its hind legs and facing the cat—but both animals dried up and withered like leather, until they were almost flat, the ribs of the cat showing plainly on its skin. The landlord gave us their history, from which it appeared that it had become necessary to place a stove ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... scarce finished my breakfast the next morning when I heard a loud rat-tat-tat upon the street door-surely the footman of some person of consequence. And Scipio was in the act of announcing the names when, greatly to his disgust, the visitors themselves rushed into my bedroom and curtailed the ceremony. They were none other than Dr. Courtenay ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... moreover, informed," said the Cat, "but I know not how to believe it, that you have also the power to take on you the shape of the smallest animals; for example, to change yourself into a rat or a mouse; but I must own to you I ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... procure a little of the old world he might manage it. He selected the beaver from among the animals, and sent it to dive after some earth. When it came up it was dead. He sent the otter, but it died also. At length he tried the musk rat. The musk rat dived. When it came up it was dead. But in its claws was clenched a little earth. Nanaboozhoo carefully took this earth, rubbed it in his fingers till it was dry, then placed it in the palm of his ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... monarchy, the Turkish occupation, and the new principality. We entered the bazaars, which were rotting and ruinous, the air infected with the loathsome vapours of dung-hills, and their putrescent carcases, tanpits with green hides, horns, and offal: here and there a hideous old rat showed its head at some crevice in the boards, to complete the ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... Indian corn is regarded as the "king of grains." It constitutes the chief food of every animal, from man down to the marauding rat, while its dried blade furnishes seven-tenths of the long food for working animals. The large white is the variety most esteemed, and most generally cultivated, for the reasons that it yields more grain and fodder, ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... mayst deck the pate Of that famed Doctor Ad-mth-te, (The reverend rat, whom we saw stand On his hind-legs in Westmoreland,) Who changed so quick from blue to yellow, And would from yellow back to blue, And back again, convenient fellow, If 'twere his interest so ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... the forward control and observation turret of the Star-Streak, Molo and his sister Meka, Venza, Anita and myself. Unobtrusively squatting on the floor was a small, gray, rat-faced fellow, put there, weapon in hand, to watch us. He was a ruffian from the underworld of Grebhar, a member of ...
— Wandl the Invader • Raymond King Cummings
... which, although they contain no furniture, are at least weatherproof and within reach of shops, the Practical Joke Department scores one point. Barracks condemned as unsafe and insanitary before the war, but now reckoned highly eligible, count three points; rat-ridden billets count five. But if you can manoeuvre your helpless pawns into Mudsplosh Camp, you receive ten whole points, with a bonus of two points thrown in if you can effect the move without ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... body, the bones lay bare and exposed; in others, corruption in its most loathsome form prevailed. Here the meaner reptiles—active and prolific—might be seen busily at work, battening on human decay. Sir Henry stepped over a dead body, and started, as a rat, scared from its prey, rustled through a wreath of withered flowers, and hid itself amid a mouldering heap of bones. But there were some forms lovely still! In them the pulse of life had that day ceased to beat. The rigidity of Death—his ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman |
