Shroff

“ I’ve woven your shroud! Wait for me, lass. I’m coming! I’ve your beautiful, downy shroud here—”
And he would stumble along, so weak the sweat broke out on him and he scarce could lift a leg. But with the shroud over his arm, he went on and on and on as best he could; his long, ragged gray hair a-flying and a wild glare in his eyes and those eyes fast fixed on the Summer as she slipped away.
’Twas in this fashion he came to the summit of a foothill and could go no further. The cold had smitten to his bones, though the sweat still stood on his skin. ”

“ The blue-blooded shrew is by no means uncommon. Watch one of this kind yelling on a racecourse in tearful and foul-mouthed rage and you will have a few queer thoughts about human nature. Then there is the ladylike shrew. Ah, that being! What has she to answer for? She is neat, low-spoken, precise; she can purr like a cat, and she has the feline scratch always ready too. Pity the governess, the servant, the poor flunkey whom she has at her mercy, for their bread is earned in bitterness. ”

“ The tail of a shrew, when burned and powdered, was considered as a certain remedy for the bite of a dog; only the tail must be cut from a living shrew.
I have already made casual mention of the shrews of the land.
Two species of land-shrews are recognised as inhabitants of England. One is the common SHREW, or SHREW-MOUSE (Sorex vulgáris) , which for a long time was thought to be identical with the water-shrew. The fringed feet and tail, however, afford sufficient indications that it is a distinct species. ”

“ The Water Shrew is our largest species, the length of head and body combined varying from three to three and three-quarter inches, the body of bulkier build than that of the Common Shrew, and the tail longer than the body. Its upper parts are dark-coloured—from slaty black to dark brown—and the light ashy grey or dirty white of the under parts appear pure white by contrast. The snout is shorter and broader than that of the Common Shrew; the small eyes are blue, and the ears, which are entirely concealed, bear a tuft of white hairs. ”

“ A shroud whose dead-eye is turned in end up will bear a fairer strain, but is more dependent on the seizings; the under turns of the throat are the first to break and the others the first to slip. With the cutter-stay fashion the standing part of the shroud gives way under the nip of the eye. A rope will afford the greatest resistance to strain when secured round large thimbles with a straight end and a sufficient number of flat or racking seizings. To splice shrouds round dead-eyes is objectionable on account of opening the strands and admitting water, thus hastening decay. ”

“ On that day, among the mouse-tracks on the snow there showed another faint trail, which looked like a string of tiny exclamation marks with a tail-mark between them. It was the track of the masked shrew, the smallest mammal of the Eastern states. This tiny fierce fragment of flesh and blood is only about the length of a man’s little finger. So swift are the functions of its wee body that, deprived of food for six hours, the shrew starves and dies. ”

“ I must distinctly own that the genuine shrew endeavours to make life more or less unhappy for both sexes. Usually we are apt to think of the shrew as resembling the village scolds who used to be promptly ducked in horse-ponds in the unregenerate days; but the scold was an individual who was usually chastised for making a dead-set at her husband alone. The real shrew is like the puff-adder or the whip-snake—she tries to bite impartially all round ”

“ She ignored his presence, but sat watching the flames dancing inside the stove behind the iron door, her hands gripped together in her lap.
Shimilin walked to the window and smoothed away the frost to look into the courtyard and the street. Soon he turned from the window and looked at Katerin.
“You may as well tell me where the money may be found,” he said. “There is nothing to be gained by keeping it—and much to lose. I gave you your chance, but you preferred to trust Zorogoff. You would not give it to me—Zorogoff will take it. Where is the money to be found?” ”

“ You must not be annoyed if he is slow and cautious with you, who are a stranger. He has said that he doubts if one American officer can fight the army of Zorogoff.”
“But he must remember also that I am a Russian. Does he think I will hide behind my American coat, and allow Kirsakoff and Zorogoff to destroy you? I may be only one, but behind me is the American army, and Zorogoff must give heed to that.”
“But if Zorogoff’s men should kill you? We have seen terrible things here—men are shot down crossing the street if they are opposed to Zorogoff. ”

“ Round and round the storehouse the battle surged for a long half hour, with the shrew always between the doorway and his struggling, leaping opponents. [Pg 143] The grain-fed mice lacked the blood-bought endurance of their opponent. The young mouse who had led the shrew to the storehouse was the first to go. In the very middle of a leap, he staggered and fell at the feet of his enemy. Instantly the long curved jaws closed on his head, and the fierce teeth of the shrew crunched into his brain. ”

“ Then they, too, stooped, looked, touched, until, as he had lain when they found him behind the rose and jasmine thicket, Shureef lay before them looking more as if he was asleep than dead.
"Wah!" said a voice in the crowd; "he cannot have been so bad as folk thought him, if the Lord has taken all that care of him."
Shurruf gave a sort of sob, stepped back, lost his footing on the edge of the open grave and fell heavily. When they picked him up he was dead.
The Doctor, summoned hastily, shook his head. Death must have been instantaneous, he said ”

“ So in Ben Jonson's "Epicæne," act i. sc. 1, it is said of Morose, "he would have hanged a pewterer's 'prentice on a Shrove Tuesday's riot, for being o' that trade, when the rest were quit."
On Shrove Tuesday in the County of Sussex (and I suppose in many others) apprentices are always permitted to visit their families or friends, to eat pancakes, &c. This practice is called shroving. "Apollo Shroving" is the name of an old comedy, written by a schoolmaster in Suffolk [William Hawkins] , to be performed by his scholars on Shrove Tuesday, Feb. ”

“ If food is not obtainable for a few hours, the Shrew dies. This excessive demand of the stomach causes the Shrew to be active both night and day. It is fond of carrion, and has frequently fallen a victim to traps baited with bread, cheese, nuts or apple; and, as Mr. Pocock reports, with plum-pudding. He sleeps with the long flexible snout tucked between the forelegs under the chest.
The Shrew's dental formula is i 4/2, c 1/0, p 2/1, m 3/3 = 32. The [Pg 25] summits of the teeth are red-brown, and the almost horizontal lower incisors are encircled by those of the upper jaw. ”

“ Why do you fear Zorogoff?”
“Because he has already threatened me with death—and worse,” she replied, calmly. “He is half Mongol. I do not fear death itself, because if he should take me from this place, I have poison——” She slipped back the cuff of her sleeve, and showed Peter two white capsules held in the hem of the cloth by thread sewn in loosely. ”

“ Goose-Skin—"Miscreant! You snatched from my mouth dishes that cost me nothing, because, if Shrove-Tide was toothsomely armed, Shrove-Tuesday was no less so. His casque consisted of a veal patty with a roasted peacock for its top. Shrove-Tuesday, all cased in in hams, was astride of a roe whose many-branched antlers were loaded with partridges. For lance he had a long spit, run through a number of roast capons. (Addressing the trouvere with a redoubled affectation of grotesque anger) Vagabond! Man without faith or law! ”

“ The body of Zorogoff was not buried in Chita. The second day after his death, there appeared in the city, 295from down Urga way, a lama from Outer Mongolia with frosty whiskers, a pinnacle cap and a greatcoat of fine fur with sleeves which reached to the ground. He came with a retinue mounted on camels, and the leading man held aloft a small purple banner which caused many men to submit their necks when they saw it pass. ”

“ The blow knocked the harp from his hand. He scrambled after it, where it lay on the cobblestones. His fingers missed as he snatched at it and swept across the strings. At the harsh, discordant sound that rose into the air the sfarran officer who had been reaching for him fell awkwardly to the stones, sprawling lifelessly.
Other sfarri were falling too, as if the breath of life had been blown from them. They lay here and there beside the fountain, like dead men.
Kael stared dumbly, hearing the shouts of the people of Clonn Fell falling back from the lifeless sfarri. ”

“ Zorogoff marched toward Peter, his boots pounding the floor belligerently, his small black eyes burning with a glittering menace. But he stopped when he could have put out his hand and touched Peter—stopped with an abrupt and final thump of the heel of his left boot as he planted it close beside the right boot.
“There is the American officer,” said Shimilin, still standing by the door. “That is the man, sir, who sent the message.”
Some of the soldiers edged into the room and grounded their rifles with jarring thuds, and the others outside in the hall pressed forward, thrusting their heads in. ”

“ Crowfoot led the way into a side alcove and ordered a drink.
"Always is, this time," he said, yawning. "But it's companionable. What is it, Spargo?"
Spargo took a pull at the glass which he had carried with him. "I should say," he said, "that you know as much about sporting matters as any man writing about 'em?"
"Well, I think you might say it with truth," answered Crowfoot.
"And old sporting matters?" said Spargo.
"Yes, and old sporting matters," replied the other with a sudden flash of the eye. "Not that they greatly interest the modern generation, you know." ”

“ The Overseer, however, felt that three months was all too long for him, when, another week of solitary confinement coming round, he slipped over in the dead of night to Shureef's cell, and found him once more fingering the corn idly; but as it was a moonlight night now, he could see the grains of wheat, shining like gold, slip through the lean fingers.
"It is not much I ask, brother," persisted Shureef, almost gently; "only that the home folk may claim my body when I die. That is why I came to thy gaol; for they will not, if the truth be not told, and only thou canst tell it without flaw. ”

“ Weasels, owls, and cats are also great shrew-killers; though, strange to say, the shrew, when killed, is by no means always eaten. I put this down in the main to the powerful scent-glands, which run along the side of the body, or occur at the root of the tail, in most species of shrew, and which secrete a very strong and odorous liquid. ”

“ But such a mistake on the part of any creature not larger than a ground-sparrow or wood-mouse or lizard would have resulted in instant doom; for this tiny beast, indomitable as a terrier and greedy for meat as a mink, was the mole-shrew.
Having devoured the fat grub, and finding his appetite still unappeased, the shrew at once resumed his vehement digging. His marvellously developed nostrils had assured him that a little farther on beneath the turf were more grubs, or well-conditioned earthworms, or the stupid, big red-brown beetles called "May-bugs." ”

“ Rest brought him new confidence and almost a feeling of security. Even so zealous a hunter as General Zaroff could not trace him there, he told himself; only the devil himself could follow that complicated trail through the jungle after dark. But perhaps the general was a devil——
An apprehensive night crawled slowly by like a wounded snake and sleep did not visit Rainsford, although the silence of a dead world was on the jungle. Toward morning when a dingy gray was varnishing the sky, the cry of some startled bird focused Rainsford’s attention in that direction. ”

“ As he trailed along the winding of the tunnel, his motion made a faint, dry, whispering sound. This delicate sound, together with his peculiar, sickly, elusive scent, travelled just before him, and reached the doorway of the little chamber where the shrew was sleeping. The sleeper awoke,—wide awake all at once, as it behoves the wild kindreds to be. ”

“ Not even the long-eared rabbit can detect the faintest shade of a sound quicker than the shrew, and only the bat equals his sense of touch. [Pg 140] Like that flyer, the shrew can detect an obstacle in time to avoid it, even when running at full speed, by becoming conscious of some subtle change in the air-pressure.
Among the great throng of little wild folk playing at hide-and-seek with death among the fallen logs, and in the labyrinth of passageways in the beds of sand and moss and fern, no one was swifter than this one, the smallest of them all. ”

“ The body is relatively stout but is less cylindrical than that of Scapanus. The eyes are nearly buried in the fur. The nose is long and pointed. The legs are short and the forefeet wide and powerful. The tail is thick, constricted at the base and clothed with short, stiff bristles. The fur is short and posteriorly directed. In color the shrew-mole is dark slate, almost black.
Fig. 21. Gibbs shrew-mole (Neurotrichus gibbsii minor) , female in captivity; Seattle, Washington, September 12, 1939. (Fish and Wildlife Service photo by Victor B. Scheffer, No. 719.) ”