"Eel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 10 While, lightly poised, the scaly brood In myriads cleave thy crystal flood; The springing trout, in speckled pride, The salmon, monarch of the tide, The ruthless pike, intent on war, The silver eel, and mottled par. Devolving from thy parent lake, A charming maze thy waters make, By bowers of birch, and groves of pine, And ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... the spawn and fry of the better sorts.” Mr. E. Daubney, writing from the banks of the Dart, says: “They eat frogs, rats, birds, fish, et id genus omne, but of nothing are they more fond than the eel; for this they will give up the finest and most fresh-run salmon.” {54b} In our own neighbourhood, in 1901, two young otters were shot on a farm at Sturton; they were at a pond which abounded in eels, ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... as apt to borrow trouble from the might-have-beens of our past life as from any thing else. We mourn over the chances we've missed—the happiness that eel-like has slipped through our fingers. This is folly; for generally there are so many ifs in the way, that nearly all the might-have-beens turn into couldn't-have-beens. Even if they do not, it is well for ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... dear Ned, who say thy brain is barren, When deep conceits, like maggots, breed in carrion; Thy stumbling, foundered jade can trot as high As any other Pegasus can fly. So the dull eel moves nimbler in the mud Than all the swift-finned racers of the flood. As skilful divers to the bottom fall Sooner than those who cannot swim at all, So in this way of writing without thinking, Thou hast a ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... heavy hours I dragged along, for so many months, among the Mohawks who inhabit your kraals!—However, one thing I do not regret, which is having pared off a sufficient quantity of flesh to enable me to slip into 'an eel skin,' and vie with the slim beaux of modern times; though I am sorry to say, it seems to be the mode amongst gentlemen to grow fat, and I am told I am at least fourteen pound below the fashion. ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... through which they would blow the creature up till his flesh looked fat and plump, and then they would apply a strong sticking plaster to prevent the air escaping. Wolfgang Franz says they make use of another device with an eel. Grellmann says of the Spanish Gipsies in his day that dancing was another means of getting something; they generally practised dancing when they were begging, particularly if men were about the streets. Their dances were of the most disgusting kind that could be conceived; the most ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... was in the back room yonder, which she got in somehow. The man followed her in, sneaking and sneaking like an eel or a cop, and she ...
— The Gray Madam - 1899 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... on the bottom, but like an eel he squirmed to the top before the other had time to get set. The champion's patrician head was thumped down into the mud and a knobby little fist played a painful tattoo on his mouth ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... heard him mutter to himself. "He's more like an eel than a man." And indeed the way Sweetwater wound himself out and in through that room, seeing everything that came under his eye, was a sight well worth any professional's attention. Pausing before the dead man on ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... indeed, in some respects its counterpart. As the latter learned to write on the tops of stools, so the former learned to read on bits of birch-bark. At an early period of his existence he broke a capful of eggs. He owned a calf. He caught an eel. He put salt on a bird's tail and learned his first lesson of the deceitfulness of the human heart. He walked to Niagara Falls from Buffalo. He got lost in the woods. He went to live with his uncle in Ohio, where he displayed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... beyond this, the precipice becomes perpendicular, and, blending with the water, forms the extremity of the cave. After a stay of nearly ten minutes in this most horrible purgatory, we gladly left it to its loathsome inhabitants the eel and the water-snake, who crawl about its recesses in considerable numbers,—and returned to the inn—De Roos's Travels ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 262, July 7, 1827 • Various
... salt, or where it dashed and fretted against the rocks made iridescent spray. There were so many beautiful places. And though she had seen the falls more than once, she went again to please him, after making several excuses. Pani was her bodyguard. He was still small, and lithe as an eel, and the mixture of races showed in him. Wanamee was sometimes peremptorily ordered ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... little baby eel, He is so squidglety to feel; He'll be an eel when he is big— But now he's ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... out the "brace" well lined with bacon; to the right hung a well-scoured salt-box, and to the left was the jamb, with its little paneless window to admit the light. Within it hung several ash rungs, seasoning for flail-sooples, or boulteens, a dozen of eel-skins, and several stripes of horse-skin, as hangings for them. The dresser was a "parfit white," and well furnished with the usual appurtenances. Over the door and on the "threshel" were nailed, "for luck," ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... and squirmed like an eel. Once he slipped free of Ivan's clutch and started to run. Ivan reached out quickly and grasped him by the left shoulder ...
— The Boy Allies in the Balkan Campaign - The Struggle to Save a Nation • Clair W. Hayes
... strongest contracts with his crew, and thereby binds them so firmly, that none but the greatest or least of men can break through them with impunity; but for one of these two reasons, which I will not determine, the sailor, like his brother fish the eel, is too slippery to be held, and plunges into his element with perfect impunity. To speak a plain truth, there is no trusting to any contract with one whom the wise citizens of London call a bad man; for, with such a one, though your bond be ever so strong, it ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding
... immediately. He should always leave room for one more fish or bug. One year I started with a lone newt and before the summer was over I had thirteen sunfish, pickerel, bass, minnows, catfish, carp, trout, more newts, pollywogs or tadpoles, five kinds of frogs, an eel and all sorts of bugs, waterbeetles and insects. I soon found that one kind of insect would kill another and that sometimes my specimens would grow wings over night and fly away. But to learn these things, even at our own disappointment is "nature study." ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... lion's whelp as touched your father; for didn't Aunt Stanshy pitch into him! I heard it all. It was when he was a-splittin' fish, and Aunt Stanshy came out, and didn't she walk into Tim! I never see an eel skinned more purtily than she dressed Tim for temptin' a poor, motherless boy, as she called your father. 'Don't!' your father would go, tryin' to pacify her; 'don't!' It had no more effect than tryin' to fan out of the way a tornader. Indeed, jest because she and Tim ...
— The Knights of the White Shield - Up-the-Ladder Club Series, Round One Play • Edward A. Rand
... determined not to be caught again, and, taking to the water, swam away at a great rate. The odour produced by the birds was anything but pleasant. We saw a number of cormorants diving in search of prey, and they came up with eels in their mouths. One had caught a big eel, which it battered against the rock until it had killed it; but others gobbled down small eels without the slightest hesitation. The young birds were the oddest-looking creatures imaginable. Their covering was a hard black skin, ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... oyster slamming its shell behind it. But these are sluggish things. Oysters sulk, which is after all a smouldering sort of rage. And take any more active invertebrate. Take a spider. Not a smashing and swearing sort of rage perhaps, but a disciplined, cold-blooded malignity. Crabs fight. A conger eel in ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... whether one of the few statements he did make had an iota of truth in it. By the way, Mr. Scott, it's a very fortunate thing that you've got the proofs you have. It would be a risky piece of work to depend on that man's word for proof; he is as slippery as an eel. With those proofs, however, there is no doubt but that ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... sure, my dear, you'll twig! As dear Lady JUNE informs hus, the too-little or too-big, The scraggy and the crummy ones, the lanky 'uns and the lumps, Will be grateful for a fashion as is kind to bones and 'umps. Eel-skin skirts may suit the swells, dear, and the straight, and slim, and tall, And—well, them whose wardrobe's plentiful; they don't suit me at all; Wich I'm four-foot-ten and stoutish, as to you is well beknown; ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 18, 1893 • Various
... slipping eel-like through the big doors, and went into the study to find Worth sitting before the blazing hearth. He looked up as I entered to ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... here last season and the biggest and best farmers this season are holding looking forward to Biger prices I have gathered 80 bales and 15 or 16 more in the field yet to pick so you see when I make my estimate in this county they are a power of cotton on the fields yet to pick and a grate eel in houses not gined up yet, gust act as if those deals were your own shood you close them out gust credit my account with the profitts but dont close them out until you think it has tuch bottom then I want you to by me the same amount but don't ...
— English as She is Wrote - Showing Curious Ways in which the English Language may be - made to Convey Ideas or obscure them. • Anonymous
... did find his love alone, immediately as he came into the house. "My own Susan, you do love me? do say so to me once." And he contrived to slip his arm round her waist. "Yes," she whispered; but she slipped like an eel from his hands, and left him only preparing himself for a kiss. And then when she got to her room, half frightened, she clasped her hands together, and bethought herself that she did really love him with a strength and depth of love which filled ...
— The Courtship of Susan Bell • Anthony Trollope
... of Eel River. This valley gathers all the clouds, and they often get rain here when the sun ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... which held the bird, and at this point a hitch occurred. He did his part of the business—the letting go. It was in my department—the taking hold—that the thing was bungled. The hen slipped from my grasp like an eel, stood for a moment overcome by the surprise of being at liberty once more, then fled and intrenched itself in some bushes at the ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... into the Eel River country in '46," he answered. "They give us a lot of trouble in them days. They would steal cattle, and our boys would shoot. But we've never had much difficulty with them since the big fight we had with them in 1849. A good deal of devilment had been goin' on all ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... the demarcation of Indian boundaries, I am now able to communicate, to you a treaty with the Delawares, Shawanese, Potawatamies, Miamis, Eel-rivers, Weeas, Kickapoos, Piankeshaws, and Kaskaskias, establishing the boundaries of the territory around ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 1: Thomas Jefferson • Edited by James D. Richardson
... four months later when Ida was carried swiftly westward through the London streets toward twelve o'clock one night. The motor purred and clicked smoothly, slinging bright beams of light in front of it as it twisted eel-like through the traffic. The glass that would have sheltered Ida from the cool night breeze was down, but she scarcely noticed the roar of the city or the presence of Arabella and ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... in company with a Swallow and an Eel." At this there was marked attention and every ear strained now to catch the words of the orator. "The party came to a river," continued he; "the Eel swam across, and the Swallow flew over." He then resumed ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... bundle, she wiggled like an eel through the willow thicket until she was completely hidden from view, and Botts followed as well as he was able, with one hand fending off the supple young shoots from whipping back upon his ...
— Anything Once • Douglas Grant
... monstrous eel in the duck pond on Monday," Mr. Crow said. Being a newspaper, he thought he ought to say nothing except what was news—not ...
— The Tale of Brownie Beaver • Arthur Scott Bailey
... a nightmare. You know when you have a dream that you are trying to kill something which won't die; some beast of the eel persuasion. We went through them, cutting all we knew; re-formed; came back, doing ditto; through them a third time; and then there was no satisfaction worth calling such. The fellows were broken up indeed, and a good lot were sabred, but not so many as there ought to have been after undergoing ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... cap-full of wind, and Dan shook loose the linen, and a straight shining streak with specks of foam shot after us. The mast bent like eel-grass, and our keel was half out of the water. Faith belied her name, and clung to the sides with her ten finger-nails; but as for me, I ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... observed a man on one of the piers, spearing aiguilles de mer, a beautiful silvery fish, of which he had taken several. They were about two feet long, and of the shape of an eel, excepting in the form of their long picked heads and jaws, which correspond exactly with their name. The tunny is also caught in abundance near this part of the coast; and Vernet has introduced the fishery, from a lack of picturesque circumstances, into one of his ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... door, and turning up one ear, very much as if it were a dipper, in which she expected to catch the words which dropped from the lips of her mistress. "Betsey, have you attended to your sister—to my little child, I mean? Then go out and make some sassafras cakes, and some eel-pie, and some squirrel-soup; and set the table in five ...
— Little Prudy's Sister Susy • Sophie May
... he writes in 821 to his sister, "that anyone who was not cock-ide drunk would have known better than to of tried to walk bear-foot through that eel-grass from the beech up to the bath-house without sneekers on, which is what that ninn Aethelbald tryed to do this AM. Well say laffter is no name for what you would of done if you had seen him. He looked like he was trying to walk a tide-rope. Hey I yelled at him all the way, ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... from a snake no longer than your little finger—in fact, I'm just as scared of a little grass snake as I am of a python. It's the thing, and not its size, that horrifies me. Once I jumped out of a boat into ten feet of water because my companion caught an eel on his line, and persisted in the argument that it was a fish. Thank Heaven we don't have snakes up here. I've seen only three or four in all my ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... girls as well as boys, and not boys only, received a free education. In later visits he heard of Captain Kidd and his fellow pirates, who wore striped shirts and red caps, and had pigtails of hair, tied in eel skins, and hanging down their backs. These fellows wore earrings and stuck pistols in their belts and daggers at their sides. Instead of getting their gold honestly, and giving it to the poor, or making presents to the children, the pirates ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... the children were always abroad in the forest or by the lake-side watching Flossy catching fish. She dived and swam far more quickly than an eel. ...
— Crusoes of the Frozen North • Gordon Stables
... would eat their dogs (their only domestic animal) and even the leather of the skins with which they clothed themselves. In the autumn they were much given to fishing for eels, and they dried a good deal of eel flesh, to last them through the winter. During the height of the winter they hunted the beaver, and later on the elk. Though they ate wild roots and fruits whenever they could obtain them, they do not seem to have cultivated any grain or vegetables. ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... that came pouring out of chapel afterward, Bea, who had an eel-like rapidity in gliding through crowds, found herself at the doors some yards in advance of Lila. Halting to wait in the vestibule, she overheard a junior instructing a new freshman officer ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... hugged an electrical eel, I could not have been more shocked! I don't know how I replied, or what became of the child. I was conscious only of a kind of bitter horror, and almost affright. But when Kate, a quarter of an hour afterwards, brought her book ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... beginning of next year following the men drew near the pond to have their fish, and there was nothing but a great eel. "Ah," said they all, "a mischief on this eel, for he has eaten ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... hand, and with a quick movement of the other hand draws it through the nose, and throws the snake, still living, away. [42] This completes the nose-piercing; but there still rests upon the patient the duty of going to the river, and there catching an eel, which he gives to the people who have been feeding him ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... "she is an eel that wriggles through your hands; but the prettiest eel, as white and sweet as sugar, as amusing as ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... was the sinking Clampherdown Heaved up her battered side— And carried a million pounds in steel, To the cod and the corpse-fed conger-eel, And the ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... wren, a mouse, a weasel, a fox, a badger, a raven—-all the birds and beasts that the King's Son had ever known. He went on, but he saw no living creature before him. And then, at the end of the waste he came upon two living creatures struggling. One was an eagle and the other was an eel. And the eel had twisted itself round the eagle, and the eagle had covered her eyes with the black films of death. The King's Son jumped off his horse and cut the eel in two with a sharp ...
— The King of Ireland's Son • Padraic Colum
... rhyme, a rhyme in o?— You wriggle, starch-white, my eel? A rhyme! a rhyme! The white feather you SHOW! Tac! I parry the point of your steel; —The point you hoped to make me feel; I open the line, now clutch Your spit, Sir Scullion—slow your zeal! At the envoi's end, I touch. (He declaims solemnly): Envoi. Prince, pray Heaven for ...
— Cyrano de Bergerac • Edmond Rostand
... side in a warm room for a week. The seeds will not germinate in the boiled water. It is not always easy to get rice that will germinate, but when it has been procured, the experiment is easy and very interesting. Any other seeds, such as those of pond lily and eel-grass, that germinate readily under water, will do ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study • Ontario Ministry of Education
... the principal of them: in Africa we find lion, leopard, hyena, hippopotamus, crocodile, bull, ram, dog, cat, ape, grasshopper; in Oceania, kangaroo, emu, pig, heron, owl, rail, eel, cuttlefish; in Asia, lion, elephant, bear, horse, bull, dog, pig, eagle, tiger, water wagtail, whale; in Europe, bear, wolf, horse, bull, goat, swan; in America, whale, bear, wolf, fox, coyote, hare, opossum, deer, monkey, tiger, beaver, turtle, eagle, raven, various fishes. ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... were far out, swimming steadily against each other, and Nan was tumbling and turning like an eel close behind them. ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... very pleasant with the birds singing in the trees, and the wind blowing through the leaves, and making music, and Lulu liked it very much. She found some fine eel grass in a little brook, and she was eating the green stems, and thinking how nice it was, when all at once she heard a funny noise. It was just like when a great, big ...
— Lulu, Alice and Jimmie Wibblewobble • Howard R. Garis
... our garments poor For 'tis the mind that makes the body rich; And as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds, So honour peereth in the meanest habit. What, is the jay more precious than the lark Because his feathers are more beautiful? Or is the adder better than the eel Because his painted skin contents the eye? O no, good Kate; neither art thou the worse For this poor furniture and mean array. If thou account'st it shame, lay it on me; And therefore frolic; we will ...
— The Taming of the Shrew • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... may set down Harry M'Murt, of Drinnska. Harry's an unsettled kind of fellow, or as they call him a Rake. It would be an active charity to convert him—and that could convert him for he has as many twists in him as an eel—if it was only for the sake of gettin' ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... the river Greese, which flows past the castle walls, at a sign from the Earl overflowed its banks and flooded the banqueting hall in which the Earl and Countess were sitting. She showed no sign of fear, and at the Earl's command the river receded to its normal course. At the second trial a huge eel-like monster appeared, which entered by one of the windows, crawled about among the furniture of the banqueting hall, and finally coiled itself round the body of the Countess. Still she showed no fear, ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour
... (one of the Chain Islands). They were very young, very scantily dressed, and without doubt very beautiful. They were always chaperoned, day and night, by two old women. One of these ancient dames named Tuna (the Eel) told our captain that, by and by, the "big captain" would come and take them. Tuna had quite a fund of anecdotes about Bully, whom she regarded as immeasurably superior to any white man she had ever seen. When she was a young and giddy girl ...
— Concerning "Bully" Hayes - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... further. They had caught a considerable quantity of fish, but most of them were small. I noticed three different kinds; a small one that they call Cupi, from five to six inches long, and not broader than an eel; the common one, with large coarse scales, termed Peru; and a delicious fish, some of which run from a pound to two pounds weight; the natives call them Cawilchi. On our arrival at the camp they led us to a spot to camp on, and soon afterwards brought a lot of fish, ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... knows!" said Titus; "he's as slippery as an eel—and, like a cat, turn him which way you will, he is always sure to alight upon his legs. I wouldn't wonder but we lose him now, after all, though he has such a small start. That ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... I can't tell where: Voices I call 'em: 'twas a kind o' sough Like pine-trees thet the wind's ageth'rin' through; An', fact, I thought it was the wind a spell, Then some misdoubted, couldn't fairly tell, Fust sure, then not, jest as you hold an eel, I knowed, an' didn't,—fin'lly seemed to feel 60 'Twas Concord Bridge a talkin' off to kill With the Stone Spike thet's druv thru Bunker's Hill; Whether 'twas so, or ef I on'y dreamed, I couldn't say; I ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... gone straight from the gates of Portland to some woman who was waiting for him! He was an old offender, but had proved slippery as an eel—hence a stiff sentence when caught; but penal servitude ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... tower of metal was a gladiator of the sort known as a retiarius, equipped solely with a long-handled, slender- shafted trident, like a fisherman's eel-spear, and a voluminous, wide- meshed net of thin cord. His only clothing was a scanty body-piece of bright blue. His feet were small with high-arched insteps. Brinnaria particularly noticed his perfectly shaped toes. His bare legs, body and arms were in every proportion the ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... turn, having from her earliest youth devoted herself with uncommon ardour to the study of law; not wasting her speculations upon its eagle flights, which are rare, but tracing it attentively through all the slippery and eel-like crawlings in which it commonly pursues its way. Nor had she, like many persons of great intellect, confined herself to theory, or stopped short where practical usefulness begins; inasmuch as she could ingross, fair-copy, fill up ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... well have held an eel. She slipped from my hands, and ran back to her lodge. "So!" she cried, as she lifted the mat before her door. "So it is not the dog alone that smells at its food before it will eat. Why stay here? I have given you what you ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... the test of oaths? The oaths keep him out of Parliament; why, then, he respects them. Turn which way you will, either your laws are nugatory, or the Catholic is bound by religious obligations as you are; but no eel in the well-sanded fist of a cook-maid, upon the eve of being skinned, ever twisted and writhed as an orthodox parson does when he is compelled by the gripe of reason to admit anything in favour ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... stepped down to another branch directly over the bear, and tried again to rope him. It was of no use. He slipped out of the noose with the sinuous movements of an eel. Once it caught over his ears and in his open jaws. He gave a jerk that nearly pulled me from my perch. I could tell he was growing angrier every instant, and also braver. Suddenly the noose, quite by ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey
... eel, signifies that you will overcome your most maliciously inclined enemies. To lovers, the dream denotes an end to long and ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... mind, may be gathered from an incident related by Trelawny. They were bathing in the Arno, when Shelley, who could not swim, plunged into deep water, and "lay stretched out at the bottom like a conger eel, not making the least effort or struggle to save himself." Trelawny fished him out, and when he had taken breath he said: "I always find the bottom of the well, and they say Truth lies there. In another minute I should have found it, and you would have found an empty shell. Death is the ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... anxieties like this that the eight o'clock mass slipped by, like an eel in his slime. Madame's toilet operations were resumed, for she was engaged in dressing. The chambermaid's nose had already been the recipient of a superb muslin chemise, with a simple hem, which Caroline had thrown at her from the ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... sinister—haunter of those muddied depths of pollution, who took a more than passing interest in the smell of blood, and must, to judge by the swirl, have been too big to be safe. And that was probably a giant female eel, as dangerous a foe as any swimmer of his size—though he ate eels—might care to face. Then there was the marsh-harrier—and the same might have been a kind of owl if it wasn't a sort of hawk—who flapped up like some gigantic moth, ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... the duck-yard. There was a terrible row going on in there, for two families were fighting about an eel's head, and so ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... very old, as we have already observed; it was there long before grandmother's grandmother was born; and yet it is but a child in comparison with the Au-mann, who is quite an old quiet personage, an oddity, with his hose of eel-skin, and his scaly Jacket with the yellow lilies for buttons, and a wreath of reed in his hair and seaweed in his beard; but he looks ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... Sir Richard answered. "The law has no terrors for him. He is as slippery as an eel. He has his story pat. He even has his witnesses ready. I can assure you that Mr. Teddy Jones isn't by any means an ordinary ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... are as slippery as eels," said Molly, who had never touched an eel. "I'll lend my 'son' to anybody wants him, for awhile. I'd—I'd as lief as not!" she finished, quoting an ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond
... most grotesque dress, a cap of sheepskin with a high crown, bearing a plume of pigeons' feathers, and a coat of unusual pattern, with broad hems, and covered with talismanic characters. In his hand he had a whip, the thong of which was made of the skin of an eel, and the handle of bone. With this he drew a circle around him, outside of which, at a proper distance, he kept those persons who came to him, whilst he went through his mystic sentences and performances."—Montgomeryshire Collections, vol. vi, ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... it that time, did you?" said Sam, with a satisfied chuckle. "You generally play the wriggling eel, but I was too ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... Bill," remarked one of the couple who held Jem Hogg's lines, "Jem seems to be doin' somethin' uncommon queer—he's either got hold of a conger-eel by the tail, or he's amoosin himself by ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... drought then prevailing would be broken. All the animals of the world gathered together and danced and capered before the frog in order to make him laugh, but all to no purpose. Then they called up the fishes to see if they could accomplish anything, but the frog preserved a solemn face until the eel began ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... Dr. Taylor, the learned editor of Demosthenes, he selects from "his fellows," that is, other dunces: a delicacy of expression which offended scholars. He threatens Dr. Stebbing, who had preserved an anonymous character, "to catch this Eel of Controversy, since he hides his head by the tail, the only part that sticks out of the mud, more dirty indeed than slippery, and still more weak than dirty, as passing through a trap where he was forced at every step to leave part of his skin—that ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... he taught 'em all, as he said, to know the law of landlord and tenant. As for law, I believe no man, dead or alive, ever loved it so well as Sir Murtagh. He had once sixteen suits pending at a time, and I never saw him so much himself; roads, lanes, bogs, wells, ponds, eel-wires, orchards, trees, tithes, vagrants, gravelpits, sandpits, dunghills, and nuisances, every thing upon the face of the earth furnished him good matter for a suit. He used to boast that he had a lawsuit ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... the Protei. Now I have them in my fishing-net, and now they are safe in the pitcher of water. At first view you might suppose this animal to be a lizard, but it has the motions of a fish. Its head and the lower part of its body and its tail bear a strong resemblance to those of the eel; but it has no fins, and its curious bronchial organs are not like the gills of fishes: they form a singular vascular structure, as you see, almost like a crest, round the throat, which may be removed without occasioning the ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy
... hours before in this very chamber where she frisked about like an eel, is now a junk of lead. Were you the Tropical Zone in person, astride of the Equator, you could not melt the ice of this little personified Switzerland that pretends to be asleep, and who could freeze you from head to foot, if she liked. Ask her one hundred times what ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... of Mr. Bullet-head at these scandalous insinuations, I shall not attempt to describe. On the eel-skinning principle, however, he did not seem to be so much incensed at the attack upon his integrity as one might have imagined. It was the sneer at his style that drove him to desperation. What!—he Touch-and-go Bullet-head!—not able to write ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... (nowadays) invisible," is "believed to live in a large stone house in the sky with a wife whom he created for himself; she is green in appearance, and has two names, chan.a.au.lola (Mother Freshwater Shrimp) and chan.a.pa.lak-—(Mother Eel); by her he has a large family, all except the eldest being girls; these last, known as mo.ro-win— (sky-spirits or angels), are said to be black in appearance, and, with their mother, amuse themselves from time to time by throwing fish and prawns ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... for saying, Dr. Munro, sir, that you are a —— lucky fellow," said he. "You've put your hand in the bag, sir, and taken out the eel first time, as any one with half an eye can see. Now, I've had three dips, and landed a snake every dip. If I'd had a good woman at my side, Dr. Munro, sir, I might not be the broken half-pay skipper of ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... knife from his fingers, and we closed with bare hands; our muscles cracking to the strain, his voice uttering one croaking cry for help as I bore in on his windpipe. He was a snake, a cat, slipping out of my grip as by some magic, turning and twisting like an eel, yet unable to wholly escape, or overcome, my strength and skill. At last I had him prone against the rail, the weight of us both so hard upon it, the stout wood cracked, and we both went over, grappling together until we splashed into the water below. The shock, the frantic effort ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... the Rittmeister; "an eel, and a Frenchman, and nine long lives! Here, you hussar, what's ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... as in hat. e as in there. e as in bet. e as in French meme. i as in eel. i as in bit. o as in hole. o as in not. u as in cool. u as in cut. ai as in eye. ei not represented ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... as I told you, until the day of his death—and that was soon after; for the poor goose thought he was catching a trout one Friday; but, my jewel, it was a mistake he made—and instead of a trout, it was a thieving horse-eel; and instead of the goose killing a trout for the King's supper—by dad, the eel killed the King's goose—and small blame to him; but he didn't ate her, because he darn't ate what Saint Kavin had laid his blessed ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... much luck at first. He caught one muskallonge, after a period of patient waiting which he feels he also must call long, and once, when he thought he was hauling in a fine bass, he turned very red when the boatmen laughed at seeing him "cotch an eel." But after a while he got a royal bite. He hauled in manfully, and although, owing to the intricacies of the channel, he could not see what he had caught, he knew it was a fine fellow from its weight. At last, after tremendous tugging, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 24, September 10, 1870 • Various
... doctrines. One of them was the founder of the Jains who, as a sect that has lasted to the present day with a considerable record in art and literature, merit a separate chapter. Of the remaining five, one, Sanjaya of the Belattha clan, was an agnostic, similar to the people described elsewhere[231] as eel-wrigglers, who in answer to such questions as, is there a result of good and bad actions, decline to say either (a) there is, (b) there is not, (c) there both is and is not, (d) there neither is nor is not. This form of argument has been adopted ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... good diplomatist; you turn quickly about, are as smooth as an eel, cannot be taken hold of, but slip through one's fingers. I am accustomed to go at once to the point—I cannot diplomatize. See here, why I wished to see you—I wished ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... individual effort. I knew, of course, that each fine fellow, down in the machinery room or at the torpedo tubes, had done his very best, and that all his thoughts were centered like mine in keen expectancy on the firing of our first torpedo—the eel as we call it, guarded with so much love and care—which would speed along accompanied by our warmest wishes. We give nicknames to our torpedoes, mostly feminine names: side by side below lie "the fat Bertha," "the yellow Mary," and "the shining Emma," and these ...
— The Journal of Submarine Commander von Forstner • Georg-Guenther von Forstner
... cannonades, in the battle between the Guerriere and Constitution; and another incomprehensible story about a sort of fairy sea-queen, who used to be dunning a sea-captain all the time for his autograph to boil in some eel soup, for a spell against ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... for us to be thinking about getting back, especially as I should have to do all of the rowing. So we got into the boat again, and I rowed back as far as Twickenham, where we stopped at Eel-pie Island to have some tea. While we were waiting for it to be prepared, we began a game of tennis, but were obliged to leave off, as an unfortunate volley of the Doctor-in-Law's caught the Wallypug on the nose, and so his Majesty declined ...
— The Wallypug in London • G. E. Farrow
... and proceeded to tell him how the next day he and the young monks had drawn the fish-ponds and secreted much pike, carp, tench, and eel for their own use: and how, in the dead of night, he had been taken shoeless by crooked ways into the chapel, a ghost-like place, being dark, and then down some steps into a crypt below the chapel floor, where suddenly paradise ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... spirit of conquest, the controlling influence of his after life, grew upon him. Something accomplished, something done, was the daily rule. To scale an impossible cliff with the wings of circling sea-fowl beating in his face, to land a big conger eel without receiving a shock, to rescue a partridge from a falcon, to shoot a rabbit at fifty paces, to break a wild pony, or even to scan a complicated line in his syntax—these were achievements, small perhaps, but typical of his desire. His young soul was stirred; ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... how to plant alewives or herring as fertilizer for the Indian corn. He taught the boys and girls how to gather clams and mussels on the shore and to "tread eels" in the water that is still called Eel River. He gathered wild strawberries and sassafras for the women and they prepared a "brew" which almost equalled their ale of old England. The friendly Indians assisted the men, as the seasons opened, in hunting wild turkeys, ducks and an occasional deer, welcome ...
— The Women Who Came in the Mayflower • Annie Russell Marble
... the course of my travels I often have seen Th' effects of the dreadful electric machine; Of the gymnotus eel, with one stroke of his tail He would make the stout African elephant quail, Or the heart of the horny rhinoceros quake, Oh! may he ne'er visit this land or this lake. The small swimming spider, with silky ...
— The Quadrupeds' Pic-Nic • F. B. C.
... ladies less of the Miss Browns. Now, then, for a polka!—the rattling "Post knock Polka!"—Off! away they go, after a great deal of reluctance and playful diffidence as to who should lead off—Miss Charmer with Arthur Beau, twirling round and round, in and out (like an eel among skittles); followed by Mr. Latimer and Miss Jemima, who evidently intended to do great things, but only cause confusions and contusions, until they get knocked into the open space, in the centre of the human vortex—the Charmer spinning, as a top that could not stop, while the music continued, ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... Willie Winkie! the wean's in a creel! Waumblin' aff a body's knee like a vera eel, Ruggin' at the cat's lug, and ravellin' a' her thrums,— Hey, ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... that fair-weather spark that was here just now? Will he thrash my jacket? Let'n,—let'n. But an he comes near me, mayhap I may giv'n a salt eel for's supper, for all that. What does father mean to leave me alone as soon as I come home with such a dirty dowdy? Sea-calf? I an't calf enough to lick your chalked face, you cheese-curd you: —marry thee? Oons, I'll marry a Lapland witch as soon, and live upon selling contrary ...
— Love for Love • William Congreve
... that the gymnotus is a kind of eel, with a blackish, slimy skin, furnished along the back and tail with an apparatus composed of plates joined by vertical lamellae, and acted on by nerves of considerable power. This apparatus is endowed with singular electrical properties, and is apt to produce very formidable results. Some of ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... then "Yes!" for there was a quick movement in the channel between the two pools, and the next instant a large eel was splashing and writhing in the water and sea-weed of the pool which ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... be something like an eel trap—it was easy enough to get into it, but very difficult to get out. Near the melon patch there was a piece of corn, by the side of which lay their path out of the enclosure. They had gone but a short distance when they heard a rustling in the corn behind ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... by all the Dutch Boers. The creature is reported to have been seen in crossing the interior deserts, but this is believed to be a fiction invented in the Caravans. In Congo there is a small species a few sizes larger than the Conger eel, while in the section of country visited by CUMMING the Boa is ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 12 , June 18,1870 • Various
... a bed When you've got 'em fairly fed; Feed the cows that's in the stable, and the sheep that's in the shed; Give the spotted cow some meal, Where the brindle can not steal; For she's greedy as a porker, and as slipp'ry as an eel. ...
— Farm Ballads • Will Carleton
... slipper-limpet, formerly the terror of the oyster-beds had now by the ingenuity of his Department been transformed into a valuable source of poultry-food, and that the roundabout process by which the Germans in bygone days imported eel-fry from the Severn for their own rivers, and then exported the full-grown fish for the delectation of East-end dinner-tables, had been done away with. In the matter of eels ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 28, 1920 • Various
... her eye, which wandered, with a turn of the head giving him the tender curve of her cheek, over the levels of the bay, roughened everywhere by the breeze, but yellowish green in the channels and dark with the thick growth of eel-grass in the shallows; then she lifted her face to the pale blue heavens in an effort that slanted towards him the soft round of her chin, and ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... say that: I have hold of his mind. And I can slack it off or fetch it taut. And make him dance a score of miles away An answer to the least twangling thrum I play on it. He thought he lurkt at last Safely; and all the while, what has he been? An eel on the end of a night line; and it's time I haul'd him in. You'll see, to-night I'll ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... remonstrated Mrs Gilmour, as Nell reached over to hug Rover in a sudden caress of affection, and caused by the sudden movement a breakage of the thread, thus interrupting her aunt's handiwork. "Sure, if you go wriggling about like an eel with that dog, I shall never get your ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... distrust, and it would hardly be a safe accomplishment to possess. One very curious group represents a man, long and lean, standing between two horses' heads, and by the side of a long serpent or fish, having the appearance of an eel. On the reverse side of this piece of horn were represented the heads of two aurochs or bisons. Mr. Dawkins thinks this also represents a hunting sketch, and that the man is in the act of striking one of ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... myself if I like," she replied, as she struck off for the raft again. They swam to it in silence, and she pulled her slim satin body, like a shining eel, up ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke
... the "Zephir" had reached the open sea, La Queue cast his nets. After that he went to visit his "jambins." The jambins are a kind of elongated eel-pot in which they catch more, especially lobsters and red garnet. But in spite of the calm sea, he did well to visit his jambins one by one. All were empty; at the bottom of the last one, as if in mockery, he ...
— The Fete At Coqueville - 1907 • Emile Zola
... are old," said the youth; "one would hardly suppose That your eye was as steady as ever: Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose— What ...
— Alice's Adventures Under Ground • Lewis Carroll
... a line, EEl, across what is to be the inside of the leg. The template is applied to the end side of the leg and moved up till its sloping edge occupies a position in which a perpendicular dropped on to it from C is 1/2 inch long. Mark the line ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams
... Opinion of like Times. The Seeds of the plot may rise though the leaves fall. A Perspective, from the Blair of Athol. The Pretender's Popery. Murder! Fire! Where! Where!——178. Taking Carlise, catching an eel by the tail. Address of a Bishop, Dean, and Clergy. Swearing to the P——r, &c. Anathema denounced against those parents, Masters, and Magistrates, that do not punish the Sin at Stokesley. A Speech, &c. A Parallel between the Rebels to K. Charles I. and those to his successor. Jane Cameron ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... tero. "-quake", tertremo. earthenware : fajenco. east : oriento. easter : Pasko. ebony : ebono. ecclesiastical : eklezia. echo : ehxo, resonadi. edge : rando, trancxrando, bordo edify : edifi. edit : redakti. edition : eldono. editor : redaktoro. educate : eduki. eel : angilo. effect : efiko, efekto. effective : efektiva. efficacious : efika. effort : peno, klopodo. eiderduck : molanaso. elastic : elast'a, -ajxo. elbow : kubuto. elder : (tree), sambuko. elect : elekti, baloti. electricity : elektro. elegant : eleganta. elf ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... the help of Mr. Raeburn was the youngest Britling boy, a beautiful contrast. It was like a puff ball supporting and assisting a conger eel. In front of Mr. Direck the little stout man was being alert. Teddy was supporting the attack near the middle of the field, crying "Centre!" while Mr. Britling, very round and resolute, was bouncing straight towards the threatened goal. But Mrs. Teddy, running ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... wild fig, Gundli a kind of grain, Kerketa a bird, Mahukal a bird (long-tail), Tirki, Tunduar and Turu are also Munda septs; and the three septs given of the Mahli-Munda subcaste, Bhuktuar, Lang Chenre, and Sanga are all found among the Mundas; while four septs, Hansda a wild goose, Induar a kind of eel, as well as Kerketa and Tirki, already mentioned, are common to the Mahlis and Turis who are also recognised by Sir H. Risley as an offshoot of the Munda tribe with the same occupation as the Mahlis, of making baskets. [141] ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... neighborhood may be kept in the aquarium,—such things as myriophyllums, charas, eel-grass, duckmeats or lemnas, cabomba or fish grass, arrow-leafs or sagittaria, and the like; also the parrot's feather, to be bought of florists (a species of myriophyllum). Of animals, there are fishes (particularly minnows), water insects, tadpoles, clams, snails. If the proper balance ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey
... minutes after breaking his tackle, and found it in the pike, a part of the gimp hanging out of his mouth. He also caught another, in high condition, with a piece of strong twisted wire projecting from its side. On opening it a double eel-hook was found at the end of the wire, much corroded. This may account for so few pike being found dead after they have broken away with a gorge-hook in them. An account will be found, in 'Salmonia,' of a pike taking a bait, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 544, April 28, 1832 • Various
... represented. Cod and haddock were, of course, numerous, but hake and pollock struggled on many a hook. Besides these, there was the brim, a small, red fish, which is excellent fried; the cat fish, also a good pan fish; the cusk, which is best baked; the whiting, the eel, the repulsive-looking skate, the monk, of which it can almost be said that his mouth is bigger than himself, and last, but not least, that ubiquitous fish, the curse of amateur harbor fishers, the much-abused sculpin. Nor were fish alone caught on the hooks, for stones were frequently ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... not playing to win money so much as to study the characters of those present. Bill he knew already fairly well as a tough nut to crack, game to the core, and staunch to his friends. Blackwell was a bad lot, treacherous, vindictive, slippery as an eel. Even his confederates did not trust him greatly. But it was Soapy Stone and young Cullison that interested Flandrau most. The former played like a master. He chatted carelessly, but he overlooked no points. Sam had the qualities that go to make a brilliant erratic player, but he lacked the steadiness ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... run, de patteroller git you, Slip over de fence slick as a eel, White man ketch you by de ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... for you who've let me in for cocking the house," said Tempest, with a laugh. "Anyhow, you've a right to talk to me like a father. All the same, I fancy you've a little downer on old Wales. He's a good sort of chap, and there's nothing of the eel about him." ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... with beads. Trousers and waistcoats were of the same material as the coats, but their feet were inclosed in Indian moccasins, also adorned profusely with beads. They wore long hair in a queue, incased in an eel-skin, and with their swarthy complexions and high cheek bones they looked like wild sons of the forest to Robert. Tayoga, the Onondaga, was to him a more civilized being. All the Canadians were smoking short pipes, and, while they did not ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... said, "Red Bow is trying her best. Ah! my dear, do you think that you'll get a supper out of a holy Leyden ranter, or a skin off an eel ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... expression now, sir—her knee—this, sir"—slapping of knee with horny hand of toil—"The ship's knees, miss," addressing Damaris, whose straight brows had almost met in puzzlement, "is a chock on the forepart of the lowermast on which the 'eel—heel, miss, of the topmast rests. Yuss, sir. Her knee may 'ave water in it; but no one couldn't say ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... to the beach, thinking to wade the narrow run at Eel Pond, and so save a mile or two of road. It was light as day, and I went along well enough, though I felt sad-like, an' as if somethin' were about to ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... slipped through my hands like an eel every time I thought I had him. His specialty is piety. That makes me tired. I'm a church member myself, but I don't trade ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... came out of the ravine upon the open steppe I saw the rest of our party a mile away, moving rapidly toward the Korak village of Kuil (Koo-eel'). We passed Kuil late in the afternoon, and camped for the night in a forest of birch, poplar, and aspen trees, on the ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... title; so that a correcting republisher makes use of his author's name to teach his own variation. The tortuous logic of "the trade," which is content when "the world" is satisfied, is not easily answered, any more than an eel is easily caught; but the Religious Tract Society may be convinced [in the old sense] in a sentence. On which course would they feel most safe in giving their account to the God of truth? "In your own ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... ever become established, a stimulus must be called an eductor of vital ether; which stimulus may consist of sensation or volition, as in the electric eel, as well as in the appulses of external bodies; and by drawing off the charges of vital fluid may occasion the contraction or motions of the muscular ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... various beasts of prey, strips of skin from all kinds of animals, inflated gall bladders, bones, and pieces of wood. In his hand he carried a bag made by cutting the skin of a wild cat around the neck, and then tearing it off the body as one skins an eel. Out of this he drew a long, living, green snake (inusbwa, the boom-slang), which he hung over his shoulder, where it began to coil about, darting out ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully
... among them one of treading out eels from the brook with his feet and catching them with his hands. And every ship brought in either cod-hooks and lines, mackerel-hooks and lines, herring-nets, seines, shark-hooks, bass-nets, squid-lines, eel-pots, coils of rope and cable, "drails, barbels, ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... deck the schooner sailed even better than she had in ballast. She slipped out of the cove through the rather tortuous channel like an eel through the meshes of a broken trap. In the dawn, and with a fresh outside breeze just ruffling the sea into whitecaps, they broke out her upper sails and caught the very last breath of the gale the canvas ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... paralysed, and he let it fall, calling out that someone had struck him. The man near him laid hold of the fish again as it was making for the shore, and the shock he received threw him on his knees. I ran up to him, for he appeared in great pain. However, he soon recovered, and before the ill-fated eel could reach its element, he caught up a large stone and made it dearly atone for the pain it had inflicted. We made another haul, but were not so successful, as we only caught some ray, crabs, and an alligator three feet long, which had torn the net. We stunned him by a blow with one of ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... the bows. Looks to me as if 'twas liable to be a short v'yage and a lively one. But the for'ard lookout says all's well and he ought to know; he's had more experience aboard gift-shop ships, I presume likely, than I have. What's those bristly things stickin' up along shore there—eel grass or tea grounds?" ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... to this day. It was a battle worthy of the gods. He was a heaver of coals, quick and ready beyond his kind. During many years sojourn East and South, in the course of many wanderings from Billingsgate to Limehouse Hole, from Petticoat Lane to Whitechapel Road; out of eel-pie shop and penny gaff; out of tavern and street, and court and doss-house, he had gathered together slang words and terms and phrases, and they came back to him now, and he stood up against ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome |
