"Wether" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... texts ahead o' him like a flock o' sheep; and then, if there was a text that seemed agin him, why, he'd come out with his Greek and Hebrew, and kind o' chase it 'round a spell, jest as ye see a fellar chase a contrary bell-wether, and make him jump the fence arter the rest. I tell you, there wa'n't no text in the Bible that could stand agin the doctor when his blood was up. The year arter the doctor was app'inted to preach the 'lection sermon in Boston, he made ...
— Oldtown Fireside Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... all's serene. And, like Hegelochus, we now may say "Out of the storm there comes a new fine wether." Empusa's gone. ...
— The Frogs • Aristophanes
... Aristotle, // Plato. and Cicero, I haue at last patched it vp, as I could, // Aristotle. and as you see. If the matter be meane, and meanly handled, // Cicero. I pray you beare, both with me, and it: for neuer worke went vp in worse wether, with mo lettes and stoppes, than this poore Scholehouse of mine. Westminster Hall can beare some witnesse, beside moch weakenes of bodie, but more trouble of minde, by some such sores, as greue me to toche them my selfe, and therefore I purpose not to open them to others. And, in middes of outward ...
— The Schoolmaster • Roger Ascham
... numbers' unity, That odd and even are; which are two and three; For one no number is; but thence doth flow The powerful race of number. Next, did go 340 A noble matron, that did spinning bear A huswife's rock and spindle, and did wear A wether's skin, with all the snowy fleece, To intimate that even the daintiest piece And noblest-born dame should industrious be: That which does good disgraceth no degree. And now to Juno's temple they are come, Where her grave priest stood in the marriage-room: On his right arm did hang a ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... have always scrupulously obeyed. The grass, that elsewhere grows as best it may Under the larches, countable long nesh blades, Here in clear sky pads the ground thick and close As wool upon a Southdown wether's back; And as in Southdown wool, your hand must sink Up to the wrist before it find the roots. A bed for summer afternoons, this grass; But in the Spring, not too softly entangling For lively feet to dance on, when the green Flashes with daffodils. ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... return of the latter, answering her excited questions with: "I know him as I know myself." The queen fears he will be too late, and when the stranger insinuates to her that the king will perhaps kill the suitors whom he has discovered in the queen's apartments and cunningly asks, wether she wants their protection, her long pent up rage against her pursuers finds vent in a terrible cry for vengeance {387} and for the annihilation of all her enemies, and falling on her knees before the beggar she beseeches him to hasten Odysseus' return. The latter, being at last sure ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... love's rewarding, Forgets not the faithful, the guileless who fear not. Oh, might there be help yet, and some new life's beginning! —Lo, lighter the mist grows: there come sounds through its dulness, The lowing of kine, or the whoop of a shepherd, The bell-wether's tinkle, or clatter of horse-hoofs. A homestead is nigh us: I will fare down the highway And seek for some helping: folk said simple people Abode in this valley, and these may avail us— If aught it avail us to live for a little. —Yea, give ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris
... confidence. You shall learn everything directly. There is so much to tell! On the way here I had planned how to relate the whole story in regular order, but it can't be done now. No, no! Whoever wants to save a flock of sheep from a burning shed must lead out the bell-wether first—the main thing, I mean—so I will begin with that, though it really comes last. The ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... industrial corporations; and that the Nation so demanded. And it was in October that the chief of such corporations—the United States Steel Trust—had a Government suit for dissolution filed against it. The sturdy bell-wether of the corporation flock was attacked by the great United States Government. What would happen to the humbler members of the flock! Certain court decisions were reassuring to corporations in November and ...
— A Brief History of Panics • Clement Juglar
... Middlemarcher.] And if such word of supplie be placed in the middle of all such clauses as he serues: it is by the Greeks called Mezozeugma, by us the [Middlemarcher] thus: Faire maydes beautie (alack) with yeares it weares away, And with wether and sicknes, ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... in our acquaintance for such manifestations to be allowable," she said, kindly, "but I am a sort of spoiled child of society, and dare to be natural. I consider that the best privilege that attaches to my condition, that of the 'bell-wether' of Savannah ton—the universally-accepted bore! You know—Favraud has told you, of course; he always ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... wont With all my kennel in one day to hunt: Nor had done yet, but that this other year, Some beasts of prey, that haunt the deserts here, Did not alone for many nights together Devour, sometime a lamb, sometime a wether, And so disquiet many a poor man's herd, But that of losing all they were afeard: Yea, I among the rest did fare as bad, Or rather worse, for the best ewes[1] I had (Whose breed should be my means of life and gain) Were in one evening by these monsters slain: Which ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... by the parliament are somewhat remarkable: three pounds twelve shillings of our present money for the best stalled ox; for other oxen, two pounds eight shillings; a fat hog of two years old, ten shillings; a fat wether unshorn, a crown; if shorn, three shillings and sixpence; a fat goose, sevenpence halfpenny; a fat capon, sixpence; a fat hen, threepence; two chickens, threepence; four pigeons, threepence; ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... Spanish vghe so strong, Arrowes a cloth-yard long, That like to serpents stoong, Piercing the wether: None from his death now starts, But playing manly parts, And like true English ...
— The Battaile of Agincourt • Michael Drayton
... l. 799, Mutton. Wether mutton was rightly held the best. See "The operacion" below. " Of the Ramme or weddr. Ca. iij. Ysydorus sayth that the ra{m}me or wedder is the lodysman of other shepe / and he is the male or man of the oye, and is stronger than the other shepe / & he is ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... which was this. At that time there went a great ship from Cambaya, to the king of Assi, with great quantitie of Opium, and there to lade peper: in which voyage there came such a storme, that the ship was forced with wether to goe roomer 800. miles, and by this meanes came to Pegu, whereas they arriued a day before mee; so that Opium which was before very deare, was now at a base price: so that which was sold for fiftie Bizze ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt
... was the name of a man. He was the son of Bjorn the Ungartered. Ketill was a mighty and high-born chieftain (hersir) in Norway. He abode in Raumsdale, within the folkland of the Raumsdale people, which lies between Southmere and Northmere. Ketill Flatnose had for wife Yngvild, daughter of Ketill Wether, who was a man of exceeding great worth. They had five children; one was named Bjorn the Eastman, and another Helgi Bjolan. Thorunn the Horned was the name of one of Ketill's daughters, who was the ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous
... feller with a big black mustache? I knows him. Dunno wether he's in, 'L see fur ye." The negro paused. The interrogatory, "Where's your half dollar?" could be plainly ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... in, and thought how like a sacred picture he looked; this, for her, was superlative praise. Martha's brother was there, ringing the one bell, which gave such a small fugitive sound that it made the white chapel seem like a tinkling bell-wether lost on the hills. ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... said Collins uncomfortably. Some of the resentment toward his companions, which perhaps had forced him into this affair, was beginning to fade. "I dunno wether 'tis." ...
— The Little Regiment - And Other Episodes of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... nerves like flint, The sturdy butcher seized upon the hint,— At least he seized upon the foremost wether,— And hugg'd and lugg'd and tugg'd him neck and crop Just nolens volens thro' the open shop— If tails come off he didn't care a feather,— Then walking to the door and smiling grim, He rubb'd his forehead and his sleeve together— ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... contagious. Boys are apt to follow a leader very much as sheep will a bell-wether. Everybody wanted to assist; and the feeling of panic gave way to one of confidence. Scouts should be equal to any sudden emergency; and in that way prove the value of their education along ...
— The Boy Scouts of Lenox - Or The Hike Over Big Bear Mountain • Frank V. Webster
... the abject magnanimity he always shows when thoroughly beaten, comes forward and declares he can no longer resist the aspirations of a people. The Separatist sheep tumble over each other in their nervous anxiety to keep close on the heels of the bell-wether, and the Empire is threatened with disintegration to suit the convenience of a party of priests. An eminent Roman Catholic lawyer of Dublin, a ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... was, and her body lithe as a weasel. She had a rouguish eye, small eyebrows, was "long as a mast and upright as a bolt," more "pleasant to look on than a flowering pear tree," and her skin "was softer than the wool of a wether."—Chaucer, "The Miller's Tale," Canterbury ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... it been brought back again. One bairn said, that her "mother didna like a sheep's head with horns like these, and wanted it changed for another one." A second one said, that "it had tup's een, and her father liked wether mutton." A third customer found mortal fault with the colours, which, she said, "were not canny, or in the course of nature." What the fourth one said, and the fifth one took leave to observe, I have stupidly forgotten, though, I am sure, I heard both; but I mind one remarked, quite off-hand, ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... of the brethern was preachin', JOE sot on a pine log tryin' to make out wether the preacher was a double-headed man, or whether ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 18, July 30, 1870 • Various
... so prepared, for, strange to say, we hadn't got so werry far from Lundon Bridge, when, by sum mistake of the Clark of the whether, as our jolly Coachman told us, it began for to rain, but he said as how as he knowd as much about the Darby wether as most men, as he'd driven there about twenty times in the larst duzzen years, and what we was a having was ony a parsing shower. How it was I coudnt quite undustand, for whether we druv fast or whether we druv slow, doose a bit coud we get away from that parsing shower. However, tho' we did ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 6, 1891 • Various
... revived by him and, outside his other strange notions, deserving of reprehension and anathema. A Compendious Warning with specimens by the aged and retired-from-active-life Na: Torporley. So that The critic may know The buyer may beware. It is not safe to trust to the bank, The bell-wether himself is ...
— Thomas Hariot • Henry Stevens
... chief or leader of a mob; an idea taken from a flock of sheep, where the wether has a bell about ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... sources of inspiration and the lines of demarcation between the old and the new. Really it amounts to this, that hardly any institution in England thinks for itself. Museum authorities, like sheep, follow the lead of the most ancient bell-wether; and the reason of this is not far to seek. Curators, as a rule, are men with one hobby—"one-horse" men, as the Americans so aptly put it—"sometimes wise, sometimes otherwise," but in many cases totally devoid of that ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... Toop, a prayer of vengeance for that; an' Sandy Scott's twa-yir-auld gimmer, marterdum for that." "An' my braxsied wether," quoth a forester; "the rack for that, and finally the auld spay-wife's bantam cock, eyes and tongue cut out and set adrift again, for that." Now we set to work to clear his hole for "rough Toby" (a long-backed, short-legged, wire-haired terrier of Dandy ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, No. - 537, March 10, 1832 • Various
... earth (see specimen No. ) which the neighbouring Indians use to paint themselves, and which appears to me to resemble the earth of which the French Porcelain is made; I am confident this earth contains Argill, but wether it also contains Silex or magnesia, or either of those earths in a proper proportion I am unable to determine.- Shannon and Gass were found with the Salt makers and ordered to return McNeal was near being assassinated by a Killamuck Indian, but fortunately ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... an' ask our Nancy Wether I'd be sech a goose Ez to jine ye,—guess you'd fancy The etarnal bung wuz loose! 100 She wants me fer home consumption, Let alone the hay's to mow,— Ef you're arter folks o' gumption, You've a darned ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... time; God cursed me in my sore distress; I pray'd, yet every day I thought I loved my children less; And every week, and every day, My flock it seem'd to melt away; They dwindled, sir, sad sight to see From ten to five, from five to three, A lamb, a wether, and a ewe; And then at last from three to two; And, of my fifty, yesterday I had but only one: And here it lies upon my arm, Alas, and I have none; To-day I fetch'd it from the rock— It is the ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... sheep. Two planters, who were parson Nicholas and Mr. Rolls, asked him if he was sound wind and limb? and told him it would be worse for him if he told them an untruth; and at last purchased him from the captain. The poor tailor cried and bellowed like a bell-wether, cursing his wife who had betrayed him. Mr. Carew, like a brave man, to whom every soil is his own country, ashamed of his cowardice, gave the tailor to the devil; and, as he knew he could not do ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... became too crowded to have admitted the safe passage of such a woman as the Duchess of St Bungay; but Lady Glencora, who was less majestic in her size and gait, did not find herself embarrassed. And now there arose, before the general work of fleecing the wether lambs had well commenced, a terrible discord, as of a brass band with broken bassoons, and trumpets all out of order, from the further end of the building,—a terrible noise of most unmusical music, such as Bartholomew Fair in its loudest days could hardly have known. At such a ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... gentleman often sends to my shop for a pattern of stuff, I cut it fairly off, and if he likes it, he comes or sends and compares the pattern with the whole piece, and probably we come to a bargain. But if I were to buy an hundred sheep, and the grazier should bring me one single wether fat and well fleeced by way of pattern, and expect the same price round for the whole hundred, without suffering me to see them before he was paid, or giving me good security to restore my money for those that were lean or shorn or scabby, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift
... the principal man of Tewa, was the first man to respond to the call to come down. He left the mesa several years ago, and went to the plain below to live. Having captured the bell wether it was presumed that the balance of the flock would soon follow, but the contrary proved to be true. At the foot of the bluff near a spring on the road that leads up to the gap Tom built a modern house and tried to imitate the white ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk
... gather her armies and make war upon her brother Ptolemy: for by her father's will she was left joint-sovereign with him. And, meanwhile, mark thou this, my son: the Roman eagle hangs on high, waiting with ready talons till such time as he may fall upon the fat wether Egypt and rend him. And mark again: the people of Egypt are weary of the foreign yoke, they hate the memory of the Persians, and they are sick at heart of being named 'Men of Macedonia' in the markets of Alexandria. The whole land mutters and murmurs ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... rabbit, by the prospect of the long walk; and they taste already the wild charm of the downs, seeing and hearing in imagination its many sights and sounds, the wild heather, the yellow savage gorse, the solitary winding flock, the tinkling of the bell-wether, the cliff-like sides, the crowns of trees, the mighty distance spread out like a sea below them with its faint and constantly dissolving horizon of ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... blythe to see you—ye nar saw him sae cadgy in your life; but we are to christen our bit wean the night, as ye will hae heard, and doubtless ye will stay and see the ordinance. We hae killed a wether, and ane o' our lads has been out wi' his gun at the moss; ye used ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... the white shirt bearing away to the left on a line which led past the fence of our boma into the scrub and high grass behind the camp. After it struggled and scrambled the crowd of slaves like a flock of sheep after the bell-wether. To them Hans's shirt was a kind of "white ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... hands of innocence—go, scare your sheep, together, The blundering, tripping tups that bleat behind the old bell-wether; And if they snuff the taint and break to find another pen, Tell them it's tar that glistens so, and daub ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... as if in answer to a question, "your companions have escaped: so much the better for them. But, deprived of the bell-wether, the flock counts for little. Now, as you value your life, tell me who sent you here. I warn you to speak the truth; there are ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... fat benefyce. Tha || saythe the bysshope kepe well my churche. Tha cryethe ye hye Iustyce shew me thy sone or I passe out of this worlde. Tha saythe ye Cowrtyer send me trwe confession at the howre of my deathe. The husbondman saythe send vs temperate wether. The mylke wyffe cryethe owt blessyd lady saue our catell. Now if I denye anythynge by & by I am crwell. If I comytte it to my sone, I here them say, he wyll what so euer you wyll. Shall I than alone bothe a woman and a mayd helpe maryneres, sawdyeres, marchantmen, ...
— The Pilgrimage of Pure Devotion • Desiderius Erasmus
... these, though trivial, are or ought to be pleasing, as they indicate that something like comfort or leisure exists, and that the farmer's business is partly become an amusement. A needy peasant, pinched by high rents or bad seasons, would have but little inclination to ornament his favourite wether in this absurd manner; and though Forsyth's remark is very true, that a peasant never attempts to become fine but he is hideous, such hideous attempts[45] are grateful to the mind's eye from the cheerfulness and ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... which brynge either payne or destrucci. Not onlye liuing thyngs but plantes also haue thys sence. For we se that trees also in that parte where the sea doth sauour, or the northen winde blow, to shrynke in their braunches and boughes: and where the wether is more gentle, there to spreade ...
— The Education of Children • Desiderius Erasmus
... cold. I wish thed hurry up and issue those gas masks. Theyd come in handy these cold nights. The sargent told me that I was goin to do interior guard tonight. I guess Im lucky to get indoor work this wether. ...
— Dere Mable - Love Letters Of A Rookie • Edward Streeter
... only trouble in Norway, as elsewhere, is that the people will no longer consent to be shepherded. They refuse to be guided and ruled. They rebel against spiritual and secular authority, and follow no longer the bell-wether with the timid gregariousness of servility and irresolution. To bring the new age into the parsonage of the reverend obscurantist in the shape of a young girl—the fiancee of the pastor's son—was an interesting experiment which gives ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... up, entreating leave to tell his last night's dream. Some laughing at him, he observed, that "kingdoms had been saved by dreams!" Allowed to proceed, he said, "he saw two good pastures; a flock of sheep was in the one, and a bell-wether alone in the other; a great ditch was between them, and a narrow bridge ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... denounced the conduct of the ministers and placemen who, while squandering the hardly-earned pounds of the people, claimed respect for their exemplary charity in doling out a few farthings for "the relief of the poor." In the previous year, he showed, Lord Castlereagh, "the bell-wether of the House of Commons," and thirteen other persons, had drawn from the revenues of the country 309,861l., and out of that amount had given back, in ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... lamp, Above all beauty of the body and brain Shone beauty of a soul benign with love. Even as a tawny flock of huddled sheep, Grazing each other's heels, urged by one will, With bleat and baa following the wether's lead, Or the wise shepherd, so o'er the Moldau bridge Trotted the throng of yellow-caftaned Jews, Chattering, hustling, shuffling. At their head Marched Rabbi Jochanan ben-Eleazar, High priest in Prague, oldest and most revered, To greet the star of Israel. As a father Yearns toward his son, ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... June) at afternoone we weyed, and departed from thence, the wether being mostly faire, and the winde at East-southeast, and plied for the place where we left our cable and anker, and our hawser, and as soone as we were at an anker the foresaid Gabriel came aboord of vs, with 3 or foure more of their small boats, and brought with them of their Aquauitae ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... across, that was earnest to know the drift of it, will they slaughter all? I protest I saw them but this day morning going to the Liverpool boats, says he. I can scarce believe 'tis so bad, says he. And he had experience of the like brood beasts and of springers, greasy hoggets and wether wool, having been some years before actuary for Mr Joseph Cuffe, a worthy salesmaster that drove his trade for live stock and meadow auctions hard by Mr Gavin Low's yard in Prussia street. I question ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... tainted wether of the flock, Meetest for death; the weakest kind of fruit Drops earliest to the ground, and so let me. You cannot better be employ'd, Bassanio, Than to live still, ...
— The Merchant of Venice • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... had heavy ranes all ye week last past. Sech wether can but serve to hinderr M.'s recovery. The fysichion at G., wear I tooke her, saies she shou'd hav much fresh aire everry day—if not afoot, to be carrid in a chaire or cotche; but in this wether, and in a plaice wear neeither chaire nor cotche can be had, she must needs stop in doors. I hav begg'd ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... had two days. After seein what he could do in a month we didnt expect much. We got it. Ten of us are roomin in a hay barn. The only good thing about it is that when your in bed the Top sargent cant tell wether your there or not without takin out all ...
— "Same old Bill, eh Mable!" • Edward Streeter
... that Haydn was as much of a "lion" in London society during his second visit as he had been on the previous occasion. The attention bestowed on him in royal circles made that certain, for "society" are sheep, and royalty is their bell-wether. The Prince of Wales had rather a fancy for him, and commanded his attendance at Carlton House no fewer than twenty-six times. At one concert at York House the programme was entirely devoted to his music. George ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... flocks, put together for the first time in the same pen; they walk about and round and round, with all their heads and tails in different directions, and not a baa! escapes them; but in half an hour some crooked-pated bell-wether perhaps, gives a south-down a little dig in the ribs, and this example is followed by a Merino; and before the ending of the fair their heads are all one way, and you'll find them bleating together in full chorus. Now, in the case of man, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... me as to wether there is imployment for col. insurance agents by Company as industrial writers sick and acc. and deth if thair is such co. handling coolored agents in Chicago or suburban towns, please see suptender as to wether he could youse a ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... than flint, these stones have attracted the unwelcome attention of the farmers. Walls, gateposts, and paving-stones have accounted for many, while in the interest of the road-mender many a noble Grey Wether has been led to slaughter to provide macadam for the roads. Hence it is not surprising that the number of Sarsen stones to be found on the Plain where Nature placed them is becoming less and less. Indeed, ...
— Stonehenge - Today and Yesterday • Frank Stevens
... and wily-weak court and dynasty have lately been expelled from precarious sovereignty at Changan in the North to Nankin south of the Yangtse; there to abide a little while un-overturned, looking down in lofty impotent contempt on the uncouth Wether Huns, Tunguses, and Tibetans who are sharing and quarreling over the ancient seats of the Black-haired People in the Hoangho basin, after driving this same precious House of Tsin into the south.—Persia is on the back of the Wave, something lower than the Crest: Sapor II, a dozen or so years ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... near, dont know wether i shall get ennything. father says i dont desirve ennything. you can get goozeberrys down to Si Smiths 1 dozen for 5 cents. He has a funny sine ...
— The Real Diary of a Real Boy • Henry A. Shute
... 'Twas a wether flock that had come to hand, Great struggling brutes, that the shearers shirk, For the fleece was filled with the grass and sand, And seventy sheep was a big day's work. 'At a pound a hundred it's dashed hard lines To shear such sheep,' said ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... yearly; the ox to be fattened in stall with the best hay, the only way then known of fattening oxen. For the flock of wethers they paid L6 yearly. The tenants were bound to keep hedges, ditches, and gates in repair. Also they were bound by a 'writing obligatory' in the sum of L100 to deliver up the wether flock whole and sound, 'not rotten, banyd,[155] nor otherwise diseased.' The consequence of the spread of leases was that the portion of the demesne lands which the lords farmed themselves dwindled greatly, or it was turned from arable into grass. ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... a piece of rye bread without even dripping on it, when they were so hungry? Much talk followed, and spread from cottage to cottage until it reached the constable's ears, and he, already informed of the loss of a wether taken from its fold close by, went straight to Johnnie and charged him with the offence. Johnnie lost his head, and dropping on his knees confessed his guilt and begged his old friend Lampard to have mercy on him and to overlook ...
— Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn • William Henry Hudson
... work to two days in trying to convince rich, and supposed influential people, that they care very much for what they really do not care in the least, so that it may happen according to the proverb: Bell-wether took the leap, and we all went over. Well, such advisers are right if they are content with the thing lasting but a little while; say till you can make a little money—if you don't get pinched by the door shutting too quickly: otherwise they are wrong: the people they ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... think he was half daft to hear him talk sometimes, too. Seems like as if it galled him a bit to rub along with the old auntie, and I shouldn't wonder if the old auntie herself felt about as snug as a bell-wether tied to a frisky colt. However, I s'pose the A'mighty knows what He's about, and it's always the old cow's notion as she never was ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... day she was unable to eat anything through sheer excitement. She passed the hours after breakfast in restless riding over the barley stubble, where the sheep, led by a black bell-wether who sought the fields because they were forbidden ground, were mincing and picking their way. At eleven she happily welcomed a gallop to the farthest end of the farm to carry doughnuts and ginger-beer to the big brothers. ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... and there you'll see The she-ass and the wether; This goat's a he, and that's a she, The ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various
... of words has that horned one who holds a staff in his hand crooked at the top like a wether's horn. But seeing that you, my good fellows, claim that your God works so many miracles, bespeak of Him for to-morrow that He let it be bright sunshine; and meet we then, and do one of the twain, either agree on this matter ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... any porcion of his fathers goodes. And an other law / that who so euer in tyme of tem[-] pest abydeth in the shyp: shall haue y^e shyp and goodes. Than pose that one whiche was of his father so abiecte and denyed for his chylde: was in a shyp of his fathers in tyme of sore wether / & whan all other for feare of lesynge them selfe forsoke the shyp & gate them into the bote: he onely abode / and by chaunce was safe brought into the hauen / wherupon he chalengeth the vessell for his / where as the party defendant wyll lay against hym ...
— The Art or Crafte of Rhetoryke • Leonard Cox
... A "bell'd wether" is a ram with a bell round its neck; and the proverb means that a difficult or dangerous undertaking should be led by ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... folks that pay when they come back, and the folks that never pay at all—and I tell ye, nephy, there's where your work is cut out for ye! I've only had one arm, but there's mighty few that have ever done me out of toll, and I'm goin' to give ye a tip on the old bell-wether of 'em all. I'm goin' to advise ye to stand to one side and ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... cried several voices. Then some of the gentlemen remembered to have heard of cases when dogs addicted to sheep- killing had destroyed whole flocks, as if in sheer wantonness, scarcely deigning to taste a morsel of each slain wether. ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... magique and the maistresse, And eft an other to Juvente, As sche which dede hir hole entente. Tho tok sche fieldwode and verveyne, Of herbes ben noght betre tueine, 4040 Of which anon withoute let These alters ben aboute set: Tuo sondri puttes faste by Sche made, and with that hastely A wether which was blak sche slouh, And out therof the blod sche drouh And dede into the pettes tuo; Warm melk sche putte also therto With hony meynd: and in such wise Sche gan to make hir sacrifice, 4050 And cride and preide forth withal To Pluto the ...
— Confessio Amantis - Tales of the Seven Deadly Sins, 1330-1408 A.D. • John Gower
... identification of this mysterious place with any part of Sussex has been seriously challenged. The estuary of the Adur then extended to Bramber. A glance at the two-inch Ordnance map of the district will make the old course of the river quite clear. In Hove Park is the famous "grey wether," called the "Goldstone." This used to lay in Goldstone Bottom between the railway and the Downs. Inspecting antiquaries proved such a nuisance that the farmer on whose land it lay determined to bury it out of sight; ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes
... to be going more than ever against the shepherd; the wild animals in the thickets along the Jordan had increased, and the robbers, though many had been crucified, were becoming numerous again; these did not hesitate to take a ewe or wether away with them, paying little for it, or not paying at all. But art thou a shepherd? Jesus answered that he had been a shepherd—an erstwhile Essene, he said; one that has returned to the brethren. The Essenes are good to the poor, the shepherd said, and glad to hear he ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... warned out upon works but the stormy wether defeted them in it the Regulars which came down from the Lake with us have orders to march next friday down along in order for their winter quorters at Hallefax[83] this night the sentry which stood at ...
— The Military Journals of Two Private Soldiers, 1758-1775 - With Numerous Illustrative Notes • Abraham Tomlinson
... is a matter of grace no less premeditation. It must be cut from a wether at least four years old, grass fed, grain finished, neither too fat, nor too lean, scientifically butchered in clear, frosty, but not freezing weather, and hung unsalted in clean, cold air for a matter of three days. Saw off shank and hip bones neatly, and ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams
... in the very midst of the Forest. They did well, too, and moved with the times, and kept their heads high for more generations than I can call home; and then they comed to what all families, whether gentle or simple, always come to soon or late. And that's a black sheep for bell-wether. Bad uns there'll be in every generation of a race; but the trouble begins when a bad un chances to be up top; and if the head of the family is a drunkard, or a spendthrift, or built on too free and flowing a pattern for this work-a-day shop, then the next ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... His lungs and his lights came so that they were flying in his mouth and in his throat. He struck a blow of the —— of a lion with his upper palate on the roof of his skull, so that every flake of fire that came into his mouth from his throat was as large as a wether's skin. His heart was heard light-striking (?) against his ribs like the roaring of a bloodhound at its food, or like a lion going through bears. There were seen the palls of the Badb, and the rain-clouds of poison, and the sparks of fire very red in clouds and in vapours ...
— The Cattle-Raid of Cualnge (Tain Bo Cualnge) • Unknown
... lamb, after being weaned, is called a hog, or hoggitt, tag, or pug, throughout the first year, or until it renew two teeth; the ewe, a ewe-lamb, ewe-tag, or pug. In the second year the wether takes the name of shear-hog, and has his first two renewed or broad teeth, or he is called a two-toothed tag or pug; the ewe is called a thaive, or two-toothed ewe tag, or pug. In the third year, a shear hog or four-toothed wether, a four-toothed ewe or thaive. The fourth year, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 269, August 18, 1827 • Various
... speech of thanks,—for everything produced at the Parthenon was a success,—and while the general audience were moving away very reluctantly, some distinguished men and women followed the guidance of a strong Irish brogue as a flock follows a bell-wether, through a door that led to the stage. Here the great actor and the ever-charming lady who divided with him the affections of West as well as East, received their guests' congratulations in such a way as ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... only ill-tempered beasts all my life, and that for the mere pleasure of subduing them," she said. "I have no liking for a horse like a bell-wether; and if this one should break my neck, I need battle with neither men nor horses again, and I shall die at the high tide of life and power; and those who think of me afterwards will only remember that they loved me—that they ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Aberdeen-Angus, 1.99 lb. for a Shorthorn-Aberdeen cross-bred and 1.97 lb. for a Sussex. In the sheep section of the Smithfield show the classes for ewes were finally abolished in 1898, and the classes restricted to wethers and wether lambs, whose function is exclusively the production of meat. At the 1905 show, sheep of each breed, and also cross-breds, competed as (1) wether lambs under twelve months old, and (2) wether sheep above twelve and under twenty-four months old. The only exception was in the case of the slowly-maturing ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... heights bear most suggestive and interesting names, such as Cushat [7] Law, Kelpie [8] Strand, Earl's Seat, Stot [9] Crags, Deer Play, Wether ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry
... me to tend the sheep. All our blankets and clothing were carried across in the same manner. Then I mounted the cart, with my rooster, lashing the oxen till they took to the stream. They had tied the bell-wether to the axle, and, as I started, men and dog drove the sheep after me. The oxen wallowed in the deep water, and our sheep, after some hesitation, began to swim. The big cart floated like a raft part of the way, and we landed ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... too, dear child, who is he, shorter by a head than Agamemnon son of Atreus, but broader of shoulder and of chest to behold? His armour lieth upon the bounteous earth, and himself like a bell-wether rangeth the ranks of warriors. Yea, I liken him to a thick-fleeced ram ordering a ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... throw away your chances now, John, don't you do it, lad. If you marry my Joan now I'll give you not a sheep, not one blind wether! But if you'll stay by me a year for her I'll give you a weddin' at the end of that time they'll put big in the papers at Cheyenne, and I'll hand over to you three thousand sheep, ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... they lay upon it under a clear sky strewn with stars. At midnight George King, the grandfather, was asleep, but Andrew was broad awake. He heard the flock (which he could not see) sweep by him like a storm, the bell-wether leading, and as they went up the hill the wind began to blow, a long, steady, following blast. The collie on his feet, ears set flat on his head, shuddering with excitement, whined for orders. Andrew, after ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... cigarette, and crossed to where his aerial-chair waited him. He stepped into the upholstered seat, and turned his head to watch the mob, then with that evil laugh of his, he muttered: "Men are but sheep after all, and will follow any bell-wether!" ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... and the meanest white man I ever seed. I went to the still house to beat peaches to make brandy. It was four miles over there and I rode. We always made least one barrel of peach brandy and one of cider. That would be vinegar 'nough by spring. 'Simmon beer was good in the cole freezin' wether too. We make much as we have barrels if we could get the persimmons. He had a son ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Arkansas Narratives Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... brother, by him massacred: and therefore it is better for me to fayne madnesse then to use my right sences as nature hath bestowed them upon me. The bright shining clearnes therof I am forced to hide vnder this shadow of dissimulation, as the sun doth hir beams vnder some great cloud, when the wether in summer time ouercasteth: the face of a mad man serueth to couer my gallant countenance, and the gestures of a fool are fit for me, to the end that, guiding my self wisely therin, I may preserue my life for the Danes and the ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... the reaping draws near an end, the harvesters cry, "There is the Wolf; we will catch him." Each takes a swath to reap, and he who finishes first calls out, "I've caught the Wolf." In Guyenne, when the last corn has been reaped, they lead a wether all round the field. It is called "the Wolf of the field." Its horns are decked with a wreath of flowers and corn-ears, and its neck and body are also encircled with garlands and ribbons. All the reapers march, singing, behind it. Then it is killed on the field. In ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... modern newspaper, against its will, has become the great distracting machine of modern times. As I live and look about me, everywhere I find a great running to and fro of editors across the still earth. Every editor has his herd, is a kind of bell-wether, has a great paper herd flocking at his heels. "Is not the world here?" I say, "and am I not here to look at it? Can I really see a world better by joining a Cook's Excursion on it, sweeping round the ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... Sir, sad sight to see! From ten to five, from five to three, A lamb, a wether, and a ewe;-. And then at last from three to two; And, of my fifty, yesterday 95 I had but only one: And here it lies upon my arm, Alas! and I have none;— To-day I fetched it from the rock; It is the last of all ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... use of the produce of his farm. Having a mill, he ground and dressed his wheat, and sold it to a baker at Sydney at fourpence per pound, procuring forty-four pounds of good flour from a bushel of wheat, which was taken at fifty-nine pounds. This person also killed a wether sheep (the produce of what had been given to him by Governor Phillip) at Christmas, and sold it at two shillings per pound, each ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... dog is rarely employed to drive the flock. It is the office of the shepherd, to know every individual under his charge, to, as in olden times, "call them all by their names," and have always some docile and tamed wether who will take the lead, almost as subservient to his voice as is the dog himself, and whom the ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... ridge of the blade-bone, in the direction c, d. The line between these two dotted lines, is that in the direction of which the edge or ridge of the blade-bone lies, and cannot be cut across.——LEG OF MUTTON. A leg of wether mutton, which is the best flavoured, may be known by a round lump of fat at the edge of the broadest part, as at a. The best part is in the midway, at b, between the knuckle and further end. Begin to help there, by cutting thin deep slices to c. If the outside is not fat ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... search, and away went I for foul clothes. But mark the sequel, Master 95 Brook: I suffered the pangs of three several deaths; first, an intolerable fright, to be detected with a jealous rotten bell-wether; next, to be compassed, like a good bilbo, in the circumference of a peck, hilt to point, heel to head; and then, to be stopped in, like a strong distillation, with 100 stinking clothes that fretted in their own grease: think of that,—a man of my kidney,—think of that,—that ...
— The Merry Wives of Windsor - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... private. Not only was his language violent in the extreme, but his acts were equally merciless when his passions were aroused. Appointed chancellor after the fall of Wolsey, he did not scruple to hit the man who was down, describing {295} him, in a scathing speech in Parliament, as the scabby wether separated by the careful shepherd from the sound sheep. In his hatred of the new opinions he not only sent men to death and torture for holding them, but reviled them while doing it. "Heretics as they be," he wrote, "the clergy doth denounce ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... have old ewes and wether lambs to ship sufficient to cover her expenses, while the sale of her wool at present prices would enable her to grade up her herds to a point that would be approximately where she would have them. She had seen too many hard winters and short ranges ever ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... our fearful trip is done, The ship has wether'd every rack, the prize we sought is won, The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; But O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... vnto the shore. There is great nomber that fayne wold be aborde. They get no rowme our Shyp can holde no more. Haws in the Cocke gyue them none other worde. God gyde vs from Rockes, quicsonde tempest and forde If any man of warre, wether, or wynde apere. My selfe shal trye the wynde and ...
— The Ship of Fools, Volume 1 • Sebastian Brandt
... the camels caused the greater sensation as we advanced. A few miles from the monastery we passed the station of Messrs. Clunes Brothers, at whose farthest out-station we had first come upon a settlement. These gentlemen were most kind and hospitable, and would not accept any payment for two fine wether sheep which we had eaten. A short distance from their residence we passed a district country school-house, presided over by Mr. J.M. Butler, and that gentleman, on behalf of Messrs. Clunes, the residents of the locality, his scholars, and himself, presented us with a ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... with the coffee-stall keeper over a pie. The coffee stall had the name of Spilsby inscribed on it, so it is fair to suppose that the man therein was Spilsby himself. He had a long grey beard and a meek face, looking so like an old wether himself it appeared almost the act of a cannibal on his part to eat a mutton pie. A large placard at the back of the stall set forth the fact that 'Spilsby's Specials' were sold there for the sum of one ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... been having a spell of turrible hot wether in Beulah. How is it with you? I never framed it up jest what kind of a job an American Counsul's was; but I guess he aint never het up with overwork! There was a piece in a Portland paper about a Counsul ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... A wanton wether had disdain'd the bounds That kept him close confin'd to Willy's grounds; Broke through the hedge, he wander'd far astray, He knew not whither on the public way. As Willy strives, with all attentive care, The fence to strengthen and the gap ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... him his due. No one can accuse him of being a ferocious animal. No one could ever say that a sheep attacked him without provocation; although there is an old bush story of a man who was discovered in the act of killing a neighbour's wether. ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... begin to think 'at there's summat in it." "A'a!" shoo sed, "aw knew tha'd believe if aw could get thi to come." It wor Sawney's turn next to be entranced, as they call it, an' as sooin as th' sperit had takken possession on him (which seemed to be a varry hard task, an' aw dooant know wether it went in at his maath or whear), this woman 'at set aside o' me jumped up an' axed if shoo mud be allowed ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... the sun was setting, Little Bo-Peep, who had to rise very early in the morning, felt tired, and sat down on a bank covered with daisies. Being very weary she soon fell fast asleep. Now the Bell-wether of Bo-Peep's flock was a most stupid and stubborn fellow. I dare say you know that all the sheep in a flock will follow the Bell-wether, and that he always wears a bell round his neck. It was a great pity, but the Bell-wether of Bo-Peep's flock was very wild, and was much ...
— My First Picture Book - With Thirty-six Pages of Pictures Printed in Colours by Kronheim • Joseph Martin Kronheim
... yeeres agoe there departed foure fisher boats, the which, a mightie tempest arising, were tossed for the space of many dayes very desperately ypon the Sea, when at length, the tempest ceasing, and the wether waxing faire, they discouered an Island called Estotiland, lying to the Westwards aboue 1000 Miles from Frisland, vpon the which one of the boats was cast away, and sixe men that were in it were taken of the inhabitants and brought into ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... was full of a melancholy soughing. The world, it seemed to one of them, was uncreate, gone, and non-existent; only this remained—the shadowy downs stretching on every side to infinity, and three shadowy riders plodding across them; all shadowy, all unreal until a bell-wether got up under the horses' heads, and with a confused rush and scurry of feet a hundred Southdowns ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman |
