"Weasel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... by Johnson, from the French pronunciation of fossane. It should be observed, that the person who shewed this Menagerie was mistaken in supposing the fossane and the Brasilian weasel to be the same, the fossane being a different animal, and a native of Madagascar. I find them, however, upon one plate in Pennant's Synopsis of ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... being grown to be so cunning in this behalf as the tailors. And therefore if a man have a lean and straight face, a Marquess Otton's cut will make it broad and large; if it be platter-like, a long, slender beard will make it seem the narrower; if he be weasel-becked, then much hair left on the cheeks will make the owner look big like a bowdled hen, and as grim as a goose, if Cornells of Chelmersford say true. Many old men do wear no beards at all. Some ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... Mouse had, with much pushing application, made his way through a small hole in a corn-basket, where he stuffed and crammed so plentifully, that, when he would have retired the way he came, he found himself too plump, with all his endeavours, to accomplish it. A Weasel, who stood at some distance, and had been diverting himself with beholding the vain efforts of the little fat thing, called to him, and said, "Harkee, honest friend; if you have a mind to make your escape, there is but one way for it: contrive ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... a pronounced attraction. Her vivacious charm drew the eyes away from Shirley, who studied the expressions of the weasel faces about him. The girl's heart sickened under the brutal frankness of a dozen calculating eyes, yet she valiantly maintained her part, while Shirley marveled at her clever simulation of silly, giggly, semi-intoxication. One youth deserted them to disappear through the distant ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... the road behind them, and suddenly round it came a dogcart driven rapidly. Dougal slipped like a weasel into a bush, and presently Dickson stood revealed in the glare of a lamp. The horse was pulled up sharply and the driver called out to him. He saw that it was Dobson the innkeeper ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... it, Jimmy Skunk, that your cousin, Shadow the Weasel, never tries to make any friends?" cried Chatterer, as soon as Jimmy ...
— Mother West Wind "How" Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... of loss in the same breath with Otto of Grunewald. I have no party, no policy; no pride, nor anything to be proud of. For what benefit or principle under Heaven do you expect me to contend? Or would you have me bite and scratch like a trapped weasel? No, madam; signify to those who sent you my readiness to go. I would at ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... whistled through its joints and crannies;—the walls were studded with bright patches of moss and lichen;—darkness and desolation brooded over it, unbroken by aught but the cry of the moor-fowl and the stealthy prowl of the weasel and ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... weasel, Monsieur le Ministre was on top of me: "It is impossible to love Frenchmen ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... "Pretty Weasel-woman, the daughter of Brave Bear, will kindle her first maidens' fire to-morrow! All ye who have never yielded to the pleading of man, who have not destroyed your innocency, you alone are invited, to proclaim anew before the Sun and the Earth, before ...
— The Soul of the Indian - An Interpretation • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... worry about our officers," replied Frank with a conviction that had been deepened by the skilful leadership the American troops had had so far in the drive. "It'll be as hard to find them napping as it is to catch a weasel asleep." ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall
... Wessel to enter Joe's room that night in question, but his denial can be taken for what it was worth. As to Weasel's object, it could only be guessed at. It may have been robbery, ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... Drabs and vixens in a flash made whole! Gone was the weasel-head, the snout, the jowl! Sages and sibyls now, and athletes clean, Rulers of empires, and ...
— General William Booth enters into Heaven and other Poems • Vachel Lindsay
... continued Uncle Remus, "en dey 'buzed 'im, en dey tried ter 'stroy 'im, but dey wuz times w'en de t'er creeturs bleedz ter call on 'im fer ter he'p 'em out dey trouble. I aint nev' tell you 'bout little Wattle Weasel, is I?" asked the old man, suddenly ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... compare in comfort with the quiet house and the freedom from anxiety of the well-tended hen. The vicissitudes of life are terrible for the uncooped chicken. The occupants of air, earth, and water lie in wait for it. It is fair game for the hawk and the owl; the fox, the weasel, the rat, the wood pussy, the cat, and the dog are its sworn enemies. The horse steps on it, the wheel crushes it; it falls into the cistern or the swill barrel; it is drenched by showers or stiffened by frosts, and, as the English say, it has a "rather indifferent ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... the ear of the mare, and whatever thou findest there, throw it behind thee.' And in the mare's ear there was a twig of sloe tree, and as he threw it behind him there sprung up twenty miles of thornwood so thick that scarce a weasel could go through it. And the giant, who was striding headlong forwards, got caught in it, and it pulled his ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... tracker," he muttered. "I'm as good as Walter Butler or Tim Murphy, and my friend, the Weasel, now with Morgan's riflemen, is no keener forest-runner than am I. Oh, I do not mean to brag, or say I can match my cunning against such a ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... when I was your age," Peter continued; "when the ice goes out of the lake and the poplar-trees hang out their little earrings, that's when a man catches it—when Molly Cottontail puts on her brown jacket and Skinny Weasel a yellow one. The south wind brings the microbe along with it, and it multiplies in the warm earth. Gee! It makes even an old feller like me poetical. After six months of ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... kept on; and though at Bob's piteous suggestion they wound in and out among the many crafts in the hope of shaking off their pursuer, it was all in vain, for he kept doggedly on after them, with the matter-of-fact determination of a weasel after a rabbit, sure of its scent, and certain that before long the object of the pursuit would resign ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... by, the impatience waxed and the contentment waned. With the premonition of genuine love he had seen the budding woman of today in the child of three years ago. He had worked and waited. His reward was now near, and anticipation was sweet. In imagination he saw the little brown babies with the weasel-tooth necklets, tumbling about the hut and toddling up the path to meet him when he drove home his nock in the evening, whilst Nalai stood at the door looking with ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully
... the officer exchanged glances at the poor fellow aloft having fallen into the trap laid for him, and the temptation must have been great to have inquired whether it were not "like a weasel"; but this might have been stretching the jest too far; so the lieutenant merely called to the signal midshipman, and desired him to skull up to the mast-head with his glass, to see what he made of ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... though the whole vault blazed with electric light, I could see the twinkle of the glow-worm. But among the multitude of noises which haunted me, the most persistent were the footfalls of men. There were pauses in the lives of all other beings. The weasel and the hyena rested sometimes, and I could avoid their haunts, but men were forever alert and ubiquitous. I heard them in abysses, upon peaks, and in wildernesses. They trod upon my nerves; they crushed sleep from my soul. I closed ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... through 'the rocke-rough Ocean' with the assistance of his colleague Diodati, whom he compares to 'a guide-fish.' Hamlet calls Polonius a fish-monger. The latter fools Hamlet by pretending that yonder cloud is in the shape of a whale, which just before appeared to him like the back of a weasel. Every word almost in this wonderful drama is a ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... giovane mio: Bernardo Dovizi is a keen youngster, who will never carry a net out to catch the wind; but he has something of the same sharp-muzzled look as his brother Ser Piero, the weasel that Piero de' Medici keeps at his beck to slip through small holes for him. No! you distance all rivals, and may soon touch the sky with your forefinger. They tell me you have even carried enough ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... explanation is given: "The cross signifies, 'I will barter or trade.' Three animals are drawn on the right hand of the cross; one is a buffalo; the two others, a weasel (Mustela Canadensis) and an otter. The writer offers in exchange for the skins of these animals (probably meaning that of a white buffalo) the articles which he has drawn on the left side of the cross. He has, in the first ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... abides in his mouth." "Then," said the Moabites, "we shall oppose to him a man whose strength lies in his mouth as well," and the determined to call upon Balaam's support. The union of Moab and Midian establishes the truth of the proverb: "Weasel and Cat had a feast of rejoicing over the flesh of the unfortunate Dog." For there had always been irreconcilable enmity between Moab and Midian, but they united to bring ruin upon Israel, just as Weasel and Cat had united to put an end to ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... this marriage. He could not tell her that he would not marry her... yet he must go. He felt as if he were being hunted; the thought that he must tell Margaret that he could not marry her hunted him day after day as a weasel hunts a rabbit. Again and again he went to meet her with the intention of telling her that he did not love her, that their lives were not for one another, that it had all been a mistake, and that happily ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore
... a suit of livery with buttons, the dog-collar gradually assumes the form of a footman's tie, until the process is ended and the species complete. In like manner, a cat develops into a spinster aunt; a monkey into a mischievous urchin; a pig into a gourmand; a sheep into a country bumpkin; a weasel into a lawyer; a dancing bear into a garrotter; a shark into a money-lender; a snail into the schoolboy to which Shakespeare likens him; a fish into a toper, and so on. These "developments" (twenty in ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... said the cock, "that the seat you happen by the merest chance to occupy is a contested one, and has been fruitful of hens to this vexatious weasel. I don't know how often I have been partially widowed by ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... must do," laughed Merton. "The mosquitoes illustrate the proverb: only the females bite. Good, that, isn't it? But what next? I interrupted you. You are out of it, but where do I come in? What about Porthos and that little red weasel Aramis?" ...
— A Diplomatic Adventure • S. Weir Mitchell
... small delicate furred creature with a white mark round its neck and with a little tail trailing on the ground ran swiftly across the road. It was a weasel or something of that genus; on observing it I was glad that the lad and the dog were gone, as between them they would probably have killed it. I hate to see poor wild animals persecuted and murdered, lose my appetite for dinner at hearing the screams of ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... bush or a rock. One day when a party of us were silently traversing a slope above Muerren a tiny brown ball came rolling down, which, when picked up, proved to be the warm dead body of a mouse. Looking up we saw a weasel peering out of his hole anxious as to the fate of his dinner. A mouse's track also usually starts from a tiny hole and the two feet go abreast, while the tail leaves a line all ...
— Ski-running • Katharine Symonds Furse
... now thoroughly provoked. "Do you take me for a weasel? How stupid and ignorant you are, in the Land of Oz, and what dreadful things you feed upon! Is there nothing that is decent to ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... asleep!" grinned Ben. "Me'n my uncle's sharp enough to whittle skewers with him. When he ketches Cap'n Chinks, he'll ketch a weasel asleep, you bet! It was the cap'n's notion to land the stuff on that island, and take it over, a little at a time, when we went out fishing. We run the boat aground on a beach. You see, I found a hole in the rocks—a kind of cave—that would hold the hull lot on't. We could ...
— Little Bobtail - or The Wreck of the Penobscot. • Oliver Optic
... power. There are good and bad foxes. The Inari-fox is good, and the bad foxes are afraid of the Inari-fox. The worst fox is the Ninko or Hito-kitsune (Man-fox): this is especially the fox of demoniacal possession. It is no larger than a weasel, and somewhat similar in shape, except for its tail, which is like the tail of any other fox. It is rarely seen, keeping itself invisible, except to those to whom it attaches itself. It likes to live in the houses of men, and to be nourished by them, and to the homes ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... would have thought a frightened cat would scarcely have squeezed herself into it from the hot pursuing dogs. But what will not fear enable a man to do? Captain Snipes, big as he was, slipped into it with the facility of a weasel through the chinks of a chicken-coop; but lost every thread and thrumb of his shirt; and moreover, got his hide so scratched and torn by the briers, that the blood trickled from him fast as gravy from a fat ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... overhauled and captured the snow "Nancy," from England, bound for the West Indies. Her captain reported that he had sailed from the West Indies with a fleet of sixty merchantmen, under the convoy of four small men-of-war, the "Camel," the "Druid," the "Weasel," and the "Grasshopper." The poor sailing qualities of the "Nancy" had forced her to drop behind, and the fleet was then about a day ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... brace of trappers they were, but as different from each other in personal appearance as two men could well be. Redwood was a man of large dimensions, and apparently as strong as a buffalo, while his confrere was a thin, wiry, sinewy mortal, with a tough, weasel-like look and gait. The expression of Redwood's countenance was open and manly, his eyes were grey, his hair light-coloured, and huge brown whiskers covered his cheeks. Bradley, on the other hand, was dark—his eyes small, black, and piercing—his face as hairless as an Indian's, and bronzed ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... strength was till I got hold of Case. He was knocked out of time by the rattle he came down with, and threw up his hands together, more like a frightened woman, so that I caught both of them with my left. This wakened him up, and he fastened his teeth in my forearm like a weasel. Much I cared. My leg gave me all the pain I had any use for, and I drew my knife and got ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a weasel; he even tried to bite, and the dog was sniffing at the calves of his legs, when, quite exhausted, he said, not ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... a train of musing. "Methinks," he said aloud after a long pause, "that we had better kill two birds with one stone to-morrow. If the master take the mistress, I do not see why the man should not have the maid." And as the fellow reached this conclusion his little weasel eyes brightened as if each were the point of a glow worm; and he smote the flank of his horse with his heavy heel. "You one day turned up your sweet, haughty nose, Julie, when I told you how beautiful you were, ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... began to follow it, forgetful of his hunger and of the hunt on which he had set out. He moved now more warily than ever, crouching flat, gliding smoothly as a snake, and hoping to score the first point against his rival by catching him unawares. So noiselessly did he go, indeed, that a weasel, running hard upon the trail of a rabbit, actually brushed against him, to bound away in a paroxysm of fear and rush off in another direction, wondering how he had escaped those lightning claws. In fact the lynx, intent only upon the hunting ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... this time the day was wearing late, and the mist was deepening into the darker shades of night. It is an eery business to be out on the hills at such a season, for they are deathly quiet except for the lashing of the storm. You will never hear a bird cry or a sheep bleat or a weasel scream. The only sound is the drum of the rain on the peat or its plash on a boulder, and the low surge of the swelling streams. It is the place and time for dark deeds, for the heart grows savage; and if two enemies met in the ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... cry. He had heard it when some bird of prey had seized a smaller one. It was the call of the sparrow now, and it came from his clump of bushes. His family was in danger. A hawk, perhaps, but he would have seen such a foe in its descent. It might be a cat-bird or a weasel? ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... flint; make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, make bricks without straw; have nothing to go upon; weave a rope of sand, build castles in the air, prendre la lune avec les dents [Fr.], extract sunbeams from cucumbers, set the Thames on fire, milk a he-goat into a sieve, catch a weasel asleep, rompre l'anguille au genou [Fr.], be in two places at once. Adj. impossible; not possible &c 470; absurd, contrary to reason; unlikely; unreasonable &c 477; incredible &c 485; beyond the bounds of reason, beyond the bounds of possibility, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... protect yourself from all evils, gird yourself with the rope with which a criminal has been hung." Blood of different kinds also plays an important part: "Fox's blood and wolf's blood are good for stone in the bladder, ram's blood for colic, weasel blood for scrofula," etc.—these ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... too!" went on the old hunter. "Well, this is a surprise. No, I didn't have any luck—that is, what you could call luck. There's been a weasel carrying off our chickens and killing them, and I went ...
— Through Space to Mars • Roy Rockwood
... where, on each side The yellow cornfields lay, although as yet Unto the stalks no sickle had been set; The lark sung over them, the butterfly Flickered from ear to ear distractedly, The kestrel hung above, the weasel peered From out the wheat-stalks on her unafeard, Along the road the trembling poppies shed On the burnt grass their crumpled leaves and red; Most lonely was it, nothing Psyche knew Unto what land of all the world she drew; Aweary was she, faint and sick ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... ostrich and the little creeper among the birds. Among the beasts we have the elephant, weighing 4,000 lbs., and the black specked mouse, weighing a quarter of an ounce. We have the giraffe, seventeen feet high, and the little viverra, a sort of weasel, of three inches. I believe there are thirty varieties of antelopes known and described; eighteen of them are found in this country, and there are the largest and smallest of the species; for we have the eland, and we have the pigmy antelope, ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... the house detective appeared at the doorway. He stopped and looked questioningly at the broken lock. He was alert as a weasel despite his ponderous physique: he fingered it, and studied the evidence of fresh splinters. The ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... that you can do anything that they can. But, Mr. Peterson, I'll be frank with you. They don't like the man who crowded you out. That's putting it mild. I won't say they hate him for an uncivil, hard-tongued, sneaking weasel of a spy—" ...
— Calumet "K" • Samuel Merwin and Henry Kitchell Webster
... in his eyes. Then he turned and began to swim on the surface until our laughter caused him to dive. Tracks of the civet-cat or the ring-tailed cat—that large-eyed and large-eared animal, somewhat like a raccoon and much resembling a weasel—were often seen along the shores. The gray fox, the wild-cat, and the coyote, all natives of this land, kept to the higher pinon-covered hills. The beaver seldom penetrates into the deep canyons because of the lack of vegetation, but is found in all sections in the ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... upon Andrew Constable, as he stood in his shop-door, the easy labour of his day all but over. And he said to his little weasel-faced, douce, old-fashioned child who stood leaning against ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... took one, without a soul to see, and here was no wailing of "Sayn," no folding of remnants, no voice to shout, "Hoopdriver, forward!" And once he almost ran over something wonderful, a little, low, red beast with a yellowish tail, that went rushing across the road before him. It was the first weasel he had ever seen in his cockney life. There were miles of this, scores of miles of this before him, pinewood and oak forest, purple, heathery moorland and grassy down, lush meadows, where shining rivers wound their lazy way, villages with square-towered, ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... then the mongoose, useful as a destroyer of snakes and rats, may be caught sight of, with his long coarse fur, running across the road, or hunting along a fence, much in the same way as a weasel shows himself in England, although the mongoose is a good deal larger. Sometimes they will even venture into a bungalow to prospect, and young ones are easily tamed ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... outstretched hands quivering with emotion, was pouring forth a torrent of passionate pleading words. He made a step forward to her as I entered, but she writhed still further away, and uttered a sharp cry like that of a rabbit when the weasel has him by ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... from a little weasel-face, pallid and semi-transparent as the half-boiled white of an egg; two slits of eyes looked out of it, mild blue in tint, but appallingly malignant in expression; and the owner, an insignificant young man, was completely hidden ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... that of a squirrel hunter, but he "moonshined" occasionally by way of diversion. Once the "revenues" had dragged him from his lair, fighting silently and desperately like a terrier, and he had been sent to state's prison for two years. Released, he popped back into his hole like an angry weasel. ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... were sacred in Old Egypt, and were not to be eaten on this account. So, too, in some parts of Greece, the mouse was the sacred animal of Apollo, and mice were fed in his temples. The chosen people were forbidden to eat 'the weasel, and the mouse, and the tortoise after his kind.' These came under the designation of unclean animals, which were ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... finality] Mr Vane, I judge I'm not the average man. Before "Louisa Loses" the Public'll want a stimulant. "Pop goes the Weasel" will suit us fine. So—get right along with it. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... prey have this opening before, that they may more easily discover their prey; as the lion and tiger. Those that feed on birds have the opening directed upwards, as the fox; and it is inclined downwards in animals, such as the weasel, which seek their prey on ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett
... said Denis, laughing silently, "for I went off as sound as you; and no wonder after such a night. What with that and the dinner, and this hot room, a weasel couldn't have kept awake. Here, let's go outside into the open air. I want to see if the horses have ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn
... now before me, with his jolly red face, twinkling black eyes, and rubicund nose. No thin, weasel-faced Yankee was he, looking as if he had lived upon 'cute ideas and speculations all his life; yet Yankee he was by birth, ay, and in mind, too; for a more knowing fellow at a bargain never crossed the lakes to abuse British institutions and locate himself comfortably among despised Britishers. ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... to IMOGEN: You must forget to be a woman; change Command into obedience: fear and niceness— The handmaids of all women, or, more truly, Woman its pretty self, into a waggish courage: Ready in gibes, quick answered, saucy, and As quarrelsome as the weasel; nay, you must Forget that rarest treasure of your cheek Exposing it—but, Oh! the harder heart! Alack! no remedy! to the greedy touch Of common-kissing Titan, and forget Your laboursome and dainty trims. "Cymbeline," ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... am accused of this; and it is afflicting, my good M. Narcisse," replied Bras-Rouge, giving to his weasel face an expression of hypocritical sorrow. "But I hope that to-day they will render me justice, and that my good faith ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... "Catch a weasel asleep, and draw his teeth," answered Buttar. "No, no, Dickey! You may take a copy of it in pencil, and show it to anybody you like. You may say also, that all the school, with the exception of a few miserable sneaks, like some who shall be nameless, will sign ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... overjoyed to draw rations from Government. But all cannot become pensioners at once; a proportion of rate-payers must be kept; and the leper must go alone or with a single relative; and the native instinctively resists the separation as a weasel bites. A similar reluctance can be shown in Molokai itself. By a recent law, clean children born within the precinct are taken from their leper parents, sent to an intermediate hospital, and given a chance of life ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... weasel asleep," said Lieutenant Johnson, grimly; "that signal will run right up to the prahus. We've got to deal with some one who has ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... and mindin' their peeziness. But this man is sayin' somethin' more. He is tellin' us how safe we are, an' that the great Republic south o' us will be guar-r-rdin' us frae our enemies. I doubt it will be the fox guar-r-rdin' the chicken frae the weasel. Now I'll ask this gentleman what it is that has guar-r-rded these shores for the past two hundred and fifty year-r-rs? I will tell him—the Br-r-ritish Navy. What has kept the peace of Europe once ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... Lewthwaite, that was sat right over against me, and did scarce taste aught, but spent the time in gazing lack-a-daisically on our Helen, and fetching great sighs with his hand laid of his heart. Supper o'er, we first had snap-dragon, then hot cockles, then blindman's buff, then hunt the weasel. We pausing to take breath at after, Father called us to sing; so we gathered all in the great chamber, and first Mynheer sang a Dutch song, and then Sir Robert and Mistress Martin a rare part-song, touching the beauties of spring-time. ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt
... little of Clayton. He had known even at the time of the shooting that the man was as hard a character as his close-set, little eyes and weasel face bespoke him; he had come to know him as an insatiate gambler, the pitiful sort of gambler who is too much of a drunkard to be more than his opponent's dupe at cards. He had found him to be a brawler and very much of a ruffian. ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... little people in the Green Forest who has so many enemies to watch out for as has Whitefoot. There are ever so many who would like nothing better than to dine on plump little Whitefoot. There are Buster Bear and Billy Mink and Shadow the Weasel and Unc' Billy Possum and Hooty the Owl and all the members of the Hawk family, not to mention Blacky the Crow in times when other food is scarce. Reddy and Granny Fox and Old Man Coyote are always looking ...
— Whitefoot the Wood Mouse • Thornton W. Burgess
... "The weasel, on seeing the snake, had suddenly stopped a few feet from it; and now ran around, doubling its long worm-like body, and occasionally standing erect,—all the while spitting and snarling like an angry cat. It was evidently furious at ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... prefers this gov'ment to last my time; an' it's my idee that if them statesmen back at Washington ever takes a hour off from their tax-eatin' an' tells the people the trooth, the whole trooth an' nothin' but the trooth of their affairs, said people'll be down on the sityooation instanter, like a weasel on a nest of field mice, an' wipe the face of nacher free an' cl'ar ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... also make a stick look like a serpent, a mat like a centipede, a piece of stone like a scorpion, and similar deceptions. Others of these nanahualtin will transform themselves to all appearances (segun la aparencia), into a tiger, a dog or a weasel. Others again will take the form of an owl, a cock, or a weasel; and when one is preparing to seize them, they will appear now as a cock, now as an owl, and again as a weasel. These ...
— Nagualism - A Study in Native American Folk-lore and History • Daniel G. Brinton
... swaggering, boisterous little body too, is he, and his legs are short and bandy, as you have seen a creeper cockerel's: he has one eye black and one eye blue, and both are glazed and dull as the knobs on earthen tea-pot covers. His ears are round, and stick forward like a weasel's; his form is square and supple, and he stands more than perpendicular. Ready and sharp is he for a joke, cold and unfeeling in manner, and troublesome as the varlet blackbirds that sit on a tree and gabble and moot, while other ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... the eyes of those who see beautiful colours and delights in the aroma of stagnant pools and beauty in the sparkling hues of the gutter, and revel in adding tints and pictures to the life and death of a weasel, lending enchantment to the life of a vagabond, and admire the non-intellectual development of beings many of whom are only one step from that of animals, if I may judge from the amount of good the 20,000 Gipsies have accomplished in the world during the last three or four centuries. ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... chickens would not prosper. Each egg is always marked with a little black cross, ostensibly for the purpose of distinguishing them from the others, but also supposed to be instrumental in producing good chickens, and preventing any attack from the weasel or other farm-yard marauders. The last egg the hen lays is carefully preserved, its possession being supposed to operate as a charm upon the well-doing of the poultry. In some cases, though less commonly, the one laid on Good Friday is preserved, from the same reason. ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 41, Saturday, August 10, 1850 • Various
... whole human race? or was it a condition of permanent strife that the human race could never escape from? Was man a being capable of high spiritual attainment, as he had heard in the church that morning? or was he no better than the ruthless creatures of the woodland, where the weasel preyed on the chipmunk, and the owl on the mouse, and the fox on the rabbit, and the shrike on the ph[oe]be, and the ph[oe]be on the insect, in an endless round of ferocity? Had man emerged above this estate? or was it as foolish to expect him to spare his brother-man as to ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... women. There were two proud women, and their names were contemptible; the name of the one, Deborah, meaning wasp, and of the other, Huldah, weasel. Respecting the wasp it is written (Judges iv. 6), "And she sent and called Barak," whereas she ought to have gone to him. Concerning the weasel it is written (2 Kings xxii. 15), "Tell the man that sent you," whereas she should have ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... place, we subsequently learnt, used bows and arrows and matchlocks, in addition to the best modern weapons, the better to discomfit their foes; "those vile red devils of barbarians," as they called us, who had so rashly ventured to tackle them at close quarters, thinking to "catch a weasel asleep." ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... are limited to the rabbit, weasel, ferret, rat (brown and black), mouse and bat, in addition to domestic animals. The game includes the woodcock, red partridge (introduced in the 16th century), quail and snipe. Owing to the damage inflicted on the crops by the multitude of blackbirds, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... :weasel: /n./ [Cambridge] A naive user, one who deliberately or accidentally does things that are stupid or ill-advised. ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... interrupted the Judge, and he went on with "Pop goes the weasel." This news caused a buzz of excitement. Everyone was astounded that the Kangaroo, who had the heaviest grievances of all, wouldn't ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... the "Magazine of Natural History") says that the Stoat is more timid than the weasel, and that it does not change its colour as in the more northern parts of the world. I know not why he calls it timid, even relatively, as I think it is the most fearless wild animal we have in the kingdom, in proof of which I will mention an incident ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett
... spelling, would suit at the present time the north eastern portion of the county: as blauther, bladder: crwest, crust; smill, smell; skir, to rise in the air [see skeer]; vier, fire; vier, a weasel; zar, to serve; zatch, such, &c. From such words as ch'am, and ch'uh, the southern part of the county is clearly indicated. I think the disposition to elision and contraction is as evident here as it is at present in Somersetshire. In the song, there are marks of its having undergone ...
— The Dialect of the West of England Particularly Somersetshire • James Jennings
... a mongoose, rather like a little cat in his fur and his tail, but quite like a weasel in his head and his habits. His eyes and the end of his restless nose were pink; he could scratch himself anywhere he pleased, with any leg, front or back, that he chose to use; he could fluff up his tail till it looked like a bottle ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... sacred O-zu-ha—or Medicine-sack must be made of the skin of the otter, the coon, the weasel, the squirrel, the loon, a certain kind of fish or the skins of serpents. It must contain four kinds of medicine (or magic) representing birds, beasts, herbs and trees, viz: The down of the female swan colored red, the roots of certain grasses, bark from the roots of cedar trees, ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... had not yet received punishment enough. He is one of the largest of the weasel family, and has a double measure of the weasel's savageness and tenacity. He darted about the heron in a quick, nervous, jumping circle, looking for an opening behind; while Quoskh lifted her great torn wings as a shield and turned slowly on ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... tent, a loud "wa-awk" from the wary bird (sounding very much like an alarm) at once proclaims the fact; and on approaching, the stranger finds the entire party in all probability asleep. Sometimes a dog acts as sentinel, but it comes to the same thing. It is said you cannot catch a weasel asleep: I am tempted to add that you can never find a Gipsy awake—but it means precisely ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... 65, 135.).—A short time ago I was informed by a gamekeeper, that this little animal is found in the Holt Forest. He told me that there are three kinds of the weasel tribe in the woods: the weasel, the stoat or stump, and the mousehunt or mousehunter, which is also called the thumb, from its diminutive size. It feeds on mice and small birds; but my informant does not ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 234, April 22, 1854 • Various
... depended on his smoothbore to carry a heavy ball forty yards with fair accuracy. The fawns were knocked over with a wire cartridge unless Mr. Martin was in the way—he liked to try a rifle. Even in summer the old squire generally had his double-barrel with him—perhaps he might come across a weasel, or a stoat, or a crow. That was his excuse; but, in fact, without a gun the woods lost half their meaning to him. With it he could stand and watch the buck grazing in the glade, or a troop of fawns—sweet little creatures—so demurely feeding down the grassy slope from the beeches. Already ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... profess to be members of the Hindu community, still retain the totemistic organisation, with names derived from birds, beasts and plants. Even the Jagannathi Kumhars of Orissa, taking rank immediately below the writer-caste, have the totems tiger, snake, weasel, cow, frog, sparrow and tortoise. The sub-castes of the Khatlya Kumhars explain away their totem-names "as names of certain saints, who, being present at Daksha's Horse-sacrifice, transformed themselves into animals to escape the wrath of Siva," like the gods of Egypt when ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... The weasel, sandy-haired and freckled, came up the path with long steps. "Hi, Lewis! Father's gone toward the market looking for your father. That's a brig from the Indies down there, and the captain's our cousin—ain't he, Vinie? I know who ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... antlers together in combat. Under Jerry's leadership, always running second and after on the narrow trails as a subdued dog should, he learned the ways and habits of the foxes, the coons, the weasels, and the ring-tail cats that seemed compounded of cat and coon and weasel. He came to know the ground-nesting birds and the difference between the customs of the valley quail, the mountain quail, and the pheasants. The traits and lairs of the domestic cats gone wild he also learned, as did he learn ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... much finer tail than the proudest fox you ever saw; and the other small and white with some dark spots, and as quick as a squirrel. This one has a short tail that sticks up like a Wren's and a nose like a weasel; one ear stands up and the other hangs down; and he has a terrible wink in one eye. Even a poor little Bank Swallow knows that where one of these dogs lives the Bird People need not fear either ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... years as it lives, so many foramina it has. Moreover, 'Thou shalt not eat the hyaena.'... Wherefore? Because that animal annually changes its sex, and is at one time male, and at another female. Moreover, he has rightly detested the weasel ... For this animal conceives by the mouth.... Behold how well Moses legislated" (Epistle of Barnabas, chapter x.). "'And Abraham circumcised ten and eight and three hundred men of his household.' What, then, was the knowledge given to him in this? Learn the eighteen first, and then the three hundred. ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... after a good feast. Sid was snoring away, apparently in the profound depths of sleep, hiding away from any Caudle lectures. He was about as sound asleep as a weasel. Breakfast passed off most charmingly without a word said by any one; and he walked round to the khan ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... "Pop goes the Weasel" was sent to him, and Mr. Bilkins ingeniously slipped into the same envelope "The Drunkard's Death" and "Beware of the Bowl," two spirited compositions well calculated to exert a salutary influence over a ...
— A Rivermouth Romance • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... and down the City Road, In and out the Eagle, That's the way the money goes, Pop goes the weasel. ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... weasel asleep, old fellow," said Paddy, who stood by, making a significant gesture, which the Chinaman seemed to understand fully, for his eyes twinkled more than ever, and he laughed heartily, as if he thought his ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... weasel!" she exclaimed. And since he didn't reply, and she had learned to be mortally afraid of weasels, she ran off squawking, to hide high up in the ...
— The Tale of Old Dog Spot • Arthur Scott Bailey
... white men were our foes; But to the red it gives a clear advantage. Sleep like the weasel here, ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair
... has dragged himself heavily on hand and knee. And I see, too, the man in the snow, and it seems I am very close to him when I look. He is unlike real men, for he has hair on his face, much hair, and the hair of his face and head is yellow like the summer coat of the weasel. His eyes are closed, but they open and search about. They are blue like the sky, and look into mine and search no more. And his hand moves, slow, as from weakness, and I ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... dogged. He thought again of the chapter of St. John. There was a great biting pang. "But thou hast kept the good wine until now." "The best wine!" The young man's heart responded in a craving, in a triumph, although the knowledge that it was not true in fact bit at him like a weasel in his heart. Which was stronger, the pain of the denial, or the desire for affirmation? He was stubborn in spirit, and abode by his desire. But he would not any more affirm the miracles ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... Urson's progress was almost a royal one, for all the small wood things moved away at his approach. He walked deliberately, as if the woods belonged to him, and made no effort to subdue the rustling of his quills through the long grass. A hungry-looking Weasel with malicious eyes glared at him furtively, but came no nearer; he had "tried conclusions" with an Urson once, and would not venture again. A sharp-nosed Fox licked his longing lips and turned his head aside, while further on a greyish-brown ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... a very good friend to us all, but doesn't often have time to look after such matters, because Mr. Man seems to delight in finding work for him to do. He once actually killed a Mr. Weasel who was sneaking up to murder some of the chickens, and that proves him to be a very able fellow, for even Mr. Man himself believes it's a big thing to get the best ...
— The Gray Goose's Story • Amy Prentice
... the birch and quicken trees mingled above, and hid the cloudy moonlight, leaving the pathway in almost complete darkness. They rode at a rapid trot, now chatting together, now watching some stray weasel or rabbit scuttling away in the darkness. Gradually, as the gloom and silence of the woods oppressed them, they drew closer together, and began to talk rapidly; they were old comrades and knew each other's ...
— The Secret Rose • W. B. Yeats
... muskwash, squirrel, suslik, and marmot skins, and the soft white fur of the polar hare; the white skins of the Arctic fox, the skins of the blue fox, black fox, and red fox;[11] wolf skins, and the furs of the wolverene or glutton, and of the skunk—a handsome black-and-white creature of the weasel family, which emits a most disgusting smell from a gland in its body. (The skunk only comes from the south-central parts of the Canadian Dominion). At one time a good many swans' skins were exported for the sake of the down between the ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... DICAEOPOLIS Come, my child, carry the basket gracefully and with a grave, demure face. Happy he, who shall be your possessor and embrace you so firmly at dawn,(1) that you belch wind like a weasel. Go forward, and have a care they don't snatch your jewels ...
— The Acharnians • Aristophanes
... attack this terrible and unapproachable monster? There is an old saying that "everything has its enemy," and the cockatrice quailed before the weasel. The basilisk might look daggers, the weasel cared not, but advanced boldly to the conflict. When bitten, the weasel retired for a moment to eat some rue, which was the only plant the basilisks ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... has. I see your point. You want to approach him on his weak side. But, have you Latin enough to sustain the part? He's shrewd as a weasel in all matters of scholarship, though a child whom any one ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... you mad-headed ape! A weasel hath not such a deal of spleen As you are toss'd with. In faith, I'll know your business, Harry, that I will. I fear my brother Mortimer doth stir About his title, and hath sent for you To line his enterprise: but ...
— King Henry IV, The First Part • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... last espied me as I lay on the ground. He considered awhile, with the caution of one who endeavours to lay hold on a small dangerous animal in such a manner that it shall not be able either to scratch or bite him, as I myself have sometimes done with a weasel in England. At length he ventured to take me behind, by the middle, between his fore-finger and thumb, and brought me within three yards of his eyes, that he might behold my shape more perfectly. I guessed his meaning, and my good fortune ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... of 'weasel.' Some say it was a purse made of weasel skin; others that it was a tailor's flat-iron which used to be pawned (or 'popped') to procure the needful for admission to the tavern. A third (and more intelligible) suggestion is that the line is simply a ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... many mammals furnish food; e. g., Rabbits, Elk, and Deer. This was more important in pioneer times than at present. Many furnish furs used as articles of clothing; e. g., Raccoon, Fox, Muskrat, Mink, Otter, Marten, Mole, New York Weasel and other northern ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... mother-in-law, his wife Olga Dmitrievna when she was twenty, and himself in the role of a happy young husband. His father-in-law, a clean-shaven, dropsical privy councillor, crafty and avaricious; his mother-in-law, a stout lady with small predatory features like a weasel, who loved her daughter to distraction and helped her in everything; if her daughter were strangling some one, the mother would not have protested, but would only have screened her with her skirts. Olga Dmitrievna, too, had small predatory-looking features, but more ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... his horse and vanished. Kim tore back down the ditch till he reached a point opposite his second resting-place, slipped across the road like a weasel, and re-coiled ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... their summer plumage and pelage and in the other clad in the garb of winter. The surroundings in the case have, of course, been carefully prepared to represent the true environments of the creatures at the appropriate seasons. The particular birds and animals exhibited are the willow-grouse, the weasel, and a large species of hare. All of these, in their summer garb, have a brown color, which harmonizes marvellously with their surroundings, while in winter they are pure white, to match the snow that for some months covers the ground in ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... a pound of twopenny rice, Half a pound of treacle, Stir it up and make it nice, Pop goes the weasel." ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green
... the snow lay deep over all, unbroken save at long intervals when queer footprints gave token of the stirring abroad of the sylvan denizens, and he felt an idle interest in distinguishing the steps of wolf and fox, of opossum and weasel. In the intricacies of the forest aisles, amid laden boughs of pine and fir, there was a suggestion of darkness, but all the sky held not enough light to cast the shadow of a bole on the white blank spaces of the snow-covered ground. A vague blue haze clothed the air; yet as he drew near the ...
— The Christmas Miracle - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... falling upon the ground, was caught by a Weasel, of whom he earnestly besought his life. The Weasel refused, saying that he was by nature the enemy of all birds. The Bat assured him that he was not a bird, but a mouse, and thus saved his life. Shortly afterward the Bat again fell on the ground, ...
— Aesop's Fables - A New Revised Version From Original Sources • Aesop
... you going?" "We are going to Rome, and wish to be Pope and Popess." "Will you take me with you?" "Wait until I look in my letter," said the cock, and glanced at it. "Very well; come along; you can be our lady's-maid." After a while they met a weasel, who asked: "Where are you going, Mr. Cock, Mrs. Hen, and Mrs. Cat?" "We are going to Rome, where I intend to become Pope," answered the cock. "Will you take me with you?" "Wait until I look in my letter," said he. When the cock looked ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane |
