1765, Anonymous, The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes, Houlston and Son (c. 1825-1838?), page 34:
Soon after, the tempest drove in four thieves, who not seeing such a little creep-mouse girl as Two-Shoes, lay down on the hay next to her, and began to talk over their exploits, and to settle plans for future robberies.
"Indeed but you must, for we cannot excuse you. It need not frighten you; it is a nothing of a part, a mere nothing, not above half a dozen speeches altogether, and it will not much signify if nobody hears a word you say, so you may be as creepmouse as you like, but we must have you to look at."
1860, Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Conduct of Life, Ticknor and Fields (1860), page 160:
Here is Elise, who caught cold in coming into the world, and has always increased it since. Here are creep-mouse manners; and thievish manners.
1985, Jean Ure, After Thursday, Delacorte Press (1985), →ISBN, page 161:
Abe had been enjoying himself, without so much as a thought in his head as to how she was getting on; why shouldn't she have her turn? She was sick of being boring and creepmouse. While the cat was away the mice deserved to play — at least they did if that was how the cat was going to behave.
A box of manuscripts, buried with Ash by Ellen, his creepmouse widow, is opened; the lovers' final secrets are revealed. Ellen, we find, had never let Ash consummate their marriage.
Noun: "(mildly pejorative) an extremely timid and unassuming person"[edit]
1831, Catherine Gore, Mothers and Daughters, Volume II, E. L. Carey & A. Hart/Allen & Ticknor (1834), page 62:
"Pho! pho ! — I do not believe a word of it. Lord Basingstoke is one of those shy young men who are very much attached to any one who will take the trouble of making love to them ; — one of those creepmice who run away with their mother's waiting-maid, or marry an actress for want of courage and patience to encounter the formalities of an honourable courtship. […]
1907, Florence Hayllar, Nepenthes, William Blackwood and Sons (1907), page 5:
The knocking was repeated, — a very gentle knocking, which seemed to argue that the devil was in a polite and patient mood. I felt a little creepmouse myself as I heard it, but I got up, and leaving the quaking woman in the parlour, I went and opened the door.
1995, Mary C. Sullivan, Catherin McAuley and the Tradition of Mercy, University of Notre Dame Press (1995), →ISBN, page 39:
Catherine McAuley once mildly complained that the new foundation in Birr should have been made from nearby Tullamore, noting that "it is quite a shame to be such creepmouses in such a cause" (272). However, Catherine did not live long enough to see Tullamore catch fire in this respect.
2004, William Deresiewicz, Jane Austen and the Romantic Poets, Columbia University Press (2004), →ISBN, pages 44-45:
Fanny and Anne experience no sudden recognition-cum-transformation— not, like Elinor, because they have nothing to reform, but because, like Wordsworth and Coleridge in their first-person lyrics, they practice a continual reappraisal of feeling and experience and are thus continually changing. Emma is not quite so heroic as these two creepmice, but her transformation is every bit as profound.
2009, Laurie Viera Rigler, Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict, Dutton (2009), →ISBN, page 6:
Don't be such a frightened little creepmouse. I take a deep breath, look at the feet again, and giggle.
2011, Barbara Hardy, "Twilight in Mansfield Parsonage", in Dorothea's Daughter and Other Nineteenth-Century Postscripts, Victorian Secrets Limited (2011), →ISBN, page 29:
I was always too timid, too shy, a creepmouse as dear Tom once called me.