"Scud" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... operation which would have been much more difficult in the hazy weather that had prevailed some few hours previous, with the zenith every now and then overcast by the fleecy storm wrack and flying scud that came drifting across the sky as the wind veered; but the ship was making good running, and everything bade fair for her soon crossing the boisterous Bay of Biscay, on whose troubled waters she had ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... moving ship. Occasionally we saw a sea snake navigating the ocean all by himself. I did not understand how these fellows went to sea and lived so far from land. The flying fish seemed to be more plentiful as we went along, and would leave the water and scud along before us. ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... carried far to leeward. The heavens above were of a pitchy darkness, and the only light was from the creaming foam of the sea on every side. The shift of wind, which had been to the west-north-west, compelled them to alter the course of the vessel, for they had no chance but to scud, as they now did, under bare poles; but in consequence of the sea having taken its run from the former wind, which had been north-east, it was, as sailors call it, cross, and every minute the waves poured over the ship, ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... give the necessary orders. He knew his business, too, this Northern sailor, and when, after a long struggle, the boat containing Captain Cable and two men came within reach, a rope—cleverly thrown—coiled out into the flying scud and fell across the ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... Whose chargers chew the cud, Whose wheels have braved a dozen years The gravel and the mud; Your glorious hawbucks yoke again To take another jag, And scud through the mud Where the heavy wheels do drag, Where the wagon creak is long and low And ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... I'd scud beneath the sky-land, Sight the hills of Treasure Island, Prowl and peer and prod and prise, Till there burst upon my eyes Just the proper pirate's freight: Gold ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... water was glassy and of a yellow green. Although the scud swept in toward the land at a fair speed, there was not enough wind to fill the sails. Moreover, the bounty of Holland seemed inexhaustible. There was more to come. This fog-bank lay on the water halfway across the North Sea, and the brief winter sun having failed ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... from the mists of sleep to my conscious mind, and I was asking myself how it happened that I was feeling so glad, while I had so many causes for grief, then suddenly—suddenly as the sun streams through the cloud-scud over the sea—I knew that what had long been predestined had happened, that the wondrous new birth, the great revelation, the joyous mystery which comes to every happy woman in the world had come ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... the left. My father argued, and correctly, that the winds which filled our sails came from the warm climate "within." The time of the year was certainly most auspicious for us to make our dash for the "outside" world and attempt to scud our fishing sloop through open channels of the frozen zone which surrounds the ...
— The Smoky God • Willis George Emerson
... curious at the torches and the shouting, looked out the cabin door in time to see a tiny boat scud past, back toward Tahiti. And only in his befuddled dreams did he puzzle over how the small craft could sail against the wind, or wonder how it could sail so well, when it seemed to be made ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... miles long and nearly eight miles wide, a bad place to cross in a small boat in windy weather. We set our sail and sped merrily on, but the tempest pressed us sorely, compelling us to take in our sail and scud under bare poles until one o'clock, when we double-reefed and set the sail. We now flew over the short and swashy seas as blast after blast struck our little craft. At three o'clock the wind slackened, permitting us to shake out our ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... of the tempest, too, the assassin's hand tore the steersman from the helm, and with William of Orange the career of the infant republic was seemingly at an end, and all her guardian angels fled. But the ship continued to scud along before the storm, and the swelling canvas carried her safe ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... wind roar, And the rain through the slit sails tear and pour! "Steady! we'll scud by the Cape Ann shore,— Then hark to the Beverly bells once more!" And each man worked with the will of ten; While up in the rigging, now and then, The lightning glared in the face of Ben, Turned to the black horizon's rim, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... boat and good sea-room give me, And it ain't to a little I'll strike. Though the tempest topgallant-mast smack smooth should smite And shiver each splinter of wood, Clear the deck, stow the yards, and house everything tight, And under reef foresail we'll scud: Avast! nor don't think me a milksop so soft, To be taken for trifles aback; For they say there's a Providence sits up aloft, To keep watch for the life of ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... about on its keel, instinct to the changing plane of the rudder. But the waves were running tremendously high, and the wind blowing with great force, the water rolling in great mountains of sickly greenish gray, topped with foam that blew in a level scud. ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... and we loved to watch the passing ships and, judging by their rigging, make guesses as to the ports they had sailed from, those to which they were bound, what they were loaded with, their tonnage, etc. In stormy weather they were all smothered in clouds and spray, and showers of salt scud torn from the tops of the waves came flying over the playground wall. In those tremendous storms many a brave ship foundered or was tossed and smashed on the rocky shore. When a wreck occurred within a mile or two of the town, ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... shape chased shape as swift as, when to land Bluster the winds and tides the self-same way, Crisp foam-flakes scud along the level sand, Torn from the ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... Major Hawke, gazing out of the grimy window at the rolling green surges breaking, white-capped, far out beyond the new pier, where the black cannon were drenched and crusted with the salty flying scud. Far away, a little side-wheel steamer was laboring along over the strait from the blue island of Jersey, rising and dipping half out of sight, with a trail of intermittent puffs of dense ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... further fall, and a great mass of murky cloud began to bank up in the south-western quarter. This rapidly overspread the sky, until the whole of the visible heavens became obscured by a thick curtain of flying scud. The sea, inky black, suddenly became agitated, and formed itself into a confusion of irregular waves without any "run," but which reared themselves tremblingly aloft, and then subsided again, only to be instantly ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... the sea-scud and the snow-flakes flying about their ears, while the waxing rollers rose big ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... would attack him in the face. The serenity with which the impertinent assault was borne was complete. It was but a puff of silvery dust, powdering his mane with fresher brightness. Nothing would be left of bull but a little froth of all the foam displayed in the fierce onset. He too would turn and scud into his hiding place. ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... forecastle ladder and sat fast. Then as we dipped I saw all that they were seeing from the masts and rigging—the yet restless sea with fast-running waves, alternately inky black, and of a strange bright metallic lead-colour, on which the scud as it drove across the moon made queer racing shadows. And it was on this stormy sea that every eye from the captain's to ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... lightning, and deep rumbling peals of thunder came to our ears all the time louder and nearer. The wind blew sharper, and whistled shrilly through the rigging of my prairie schooner, there came a few drops of rain, then a scud of finer spray: and then the whole plain to the northwest turned white with a driving sheet of water which came on, swept over us, and blotted everything from sight in a great commingling of ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... moaning overhead as we went through the woods along the ridge above the valley, and hot breaths of air began to play in our faces. The clouds raced above us more swiftly, and black masses of scud drifted yet faster below them from across the hard black backs of the downs to the westward. There was something strange in the feeling of the weather that seemed to betoken more than a storm of wind and rain, and we were silent and oppressed ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler
... full blast. A terrific wind whipped the rain in level sheets over cove and beach and against the low cabin squat on the sea-wall. Great, white-maned surges came rolling in from the ocean to boom thunderously on the ledges round Brimstone. The flying scud made it impossible to see far to windward. It was the worst storm the boys had experienced since they came ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... this island, when such a hurricane broke over the St. Peter for seventeen days that the ship could only scud under bare poles before a tornado wind that seemed to be driving north-northwest. The ship was a chip in a maelstrom. There were only fifteen casks of water fit to drink. All food was exhausted but mouldy sea-biscuits. One sailor a day was now dying of scurvy, and those ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... die and leave me all alone with this tedious youngster. I could not hold out. I should run away. Go, Capet, get into your room, and do not get in my way again to-day, else I will strangle you before you can make a sound. Come, scud, clear, and do not let me see you again, if your life is worth any ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... stoutest of you all that's here Would run from death and nimbly scud for fear. Now, by my troth, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... A scud of rain lashed the carriage windows as their train shot out of the Underground at Walham Green. When they stepped out onto the platform at Southfields, the big drops leaped ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... Mexico, where, and off the Havannah, we cruised for some weeks without taking anything. One night, having the middle watch and looking over the lee gangway, I observed some black spots on the water. The moon, which was in her third quarter, was sometimes hidden by the dark scud, for it was blowing fresh, and when she shone in full splendour the spots appeared stationary. I lost no time in pointing this out to the lieutenant of the watch, who agreed with me that they must be the negro heads of some coral reef. We were with the squadron running directly on them. ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... Fresh breezes and hazy weather. At half-past 3 saw a single rock bearing south-south-west distance 9 or 10 miles, and an island on our beam south-east...haze very thick and scud flying thick. At 4 P.M. saw a rock lying to north of Kent's Group about 3 miles...At half-past 4 saw easternmost island of Kent's Group bearing west by south distance 8 miles, by half-past 5 P.M. having come nearly ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... butchery. The sky had closed darkly around the becalmed ships, in sodden clouds which were suddenly obscured by mist and rain while the wind sighed in fitful gusts. It steadied into the southward and swiftly increased in force until the sea was whipped into foam and scud. ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... to cat-land, and was never seen again, And the dog sneaked out beneath the bed to scud with might and main; While Polly sits upon her roost, and rolls her eyes in fear, And when she sees a bit of cake, she ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... suddenly one will shoot up almost perpendicularly, immediately followed by the other. Then they will resume the regular ascent. Up, like the woodpecker round a tree, till now the level of the rainy scud which hurries over in wet weather has long been past; up till to the eye it looks as if they must soon attain to the flecks of white cloud in the sunny sky to-day. They are in reality far from ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... o'er the bulwark leant forth, While Rupert to rescue was crying; And the voice of farewell on his face is flung back With the scud on ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... right. The bats were flying through the air, and the roar of wild beasts began to be heard. A gusty wind swept in from the ocean and passed over the island of Metowac, casting the light sand to and fro. A wavy scud was skimming along the horizon, while higher up in the sky was a dark thick cloud, upon the verge of which the moon hung for a moment and was ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends: North American Indian • Anonymous
... indeed! and how to be accomplished? Heaven alone, with perseverance on my part, can solve the mystery. And Philip's thoughts reverted to his Amine. He folded his arms, and entranced in meditation, with his eyes raised to the firmament, he appeared to watch the flying scud. ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... sat when she saw him gae, And a' that she could do or say, Was—"O! and alack! and a well-a-day! I've lost the best guidman!" But if she was wae, it's he was wud; He garr'd them a' frae his road to scud; But Glowerin' Sam gied thud for thud, And then to the big ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... I'm your man. Here I am, frisking round you, leaping, barking, pirouetting, ready for any amount of fun and mischief. Look at my eyes if you doubt me. What shall it be? A romp in the drawing-room and never mind the furniture, or a scamper in the fresh, cool air, a scud across the fields and down the hill, and won't we let old Gaffer Goggles' geese know what time o' day it is, ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... a million winds Gone mad immeasurably, A torrid and tortuous tempest stung By rape of the fair South Sea. And it swept like a scud escaped From craters of sun or moon, And struck as no power of Heaven could, Or ...
— Many Gods • Cale Young Rice
... the flood, How often have I cast for you— How often sadly seen you scud Where weeds and pussy willows grew! How often have you filched my bait! How often have you snapped my treacherous line!— Yet here I have you on this plate. You shall swim twice, and now ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... among the straining cordage of the storm-threatened ship? Then, uninteresting accidents happen during squally weather: hats are blown off; coat-tails, and eke the flowing garments of the gentler sex, flap, as if waging war with their distressed wearers; grave dignified persons are compelled to scud along before the gale, shorn of all the impressiveness of their wonted solemn gait, holding, perchance, their shovel-hat firmly on with both hands; and finally, there is neither pathos nor glory in having your head broken by a chimney-pot, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... with angry thud Shake the ship from stem to stern; We can brave the flying scud, It may go, it may return: In the wind are cheerful voices, In the waves a pleasant song, And the sailor's heart rejoices As the good ship bounds ...
— The Nursery, November 1877, Vol. XXII. No. 5 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... time they were pumping, and sometimes they were knocked down by the seas that came aboard. They could stand it no longer, so a conference was held. The captain said: "Well, my lads, there are two courses open to us: sink or run for it. She has two bold ends and will scud for ever. The only thing is we will be running out of the track of ships into the northern regions where the cold will be intense, and there will be but little daylight. Besides, our provisions may run short. Now I have put the position ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... thunder and lightning. At seven o'clock the appearance was more threatening and, as a squall was evidently approaching, the sails were taken in and preparation made to meet it: soon after eight o'clock it passed rapidly over and brought a strong gust of wind, before which we were obliged to scud. After blowing most tempestuously for an hour the wind moderated, and the night passed without any repetition of it; we had however run five miles to leeward: had we been obliged to do this last night when underway in Cygnet Bay, or been drifted back this evening by the ebb-tide, ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... small gray scud, floating lower, ran past the far-away cirrus, Abel would add with a quaint seriousness, "'Tis the sheep- dog. How ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... sunset flood the earth with streams of rosy light, And every foot of sea-line specked with twinklin' sails of white; I've woke ter find the sky a mess of scud and smoky wreath, A blind wind-devil overhead and hell let loose beneath. And then ter watch the rollers pound on ledges, bars and rips, And pray fer them that go, O Lord, down ter the sea in ships! Ter see the lamp, when darkness ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln
... in his stateroom and went back. For the moment I was alone with his wife by the rail, watching the stars beginning to prick through the darkening sky. The Sylph was running smoothly, with the wind almost aft; the scud of water past her bows and the occasional creak of a block aloft were the only sounds audible in the silence that lay like a benediction ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... vessel, and see her cargo safely delivered; for he had a respect for the young woman, and his needle pointed towards matrimony; and as, in all probability, she could not be much the worse for the wear, he would make shift to scud through life with her ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... French watch-fires close by him in Bondy; nearer still he sees the three stones and the few spadefuls of earth behind which, as he knows, is the French outpost sentry confronting him. The straggling rays of the watery moon now obscured by snow-scud, now falling on him faintly, could not aid him in reading even if he dared avert his eyes from his front. But Hans had come to know the value of the little gray volume; and while he lay in the Feldwache waiting for ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... the present day. But what of Man, who weathered safely the storm of storms in that same Ark? Compare that venerated bark, as imagined by us from traditionary description, with the least eligible of the ferry-boats which scud across our crowded rivers, and we have answer enough for the present, so far ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... storm-scud, raced the morning sky, As light along the road I fared; Stern was the way, yet glad was I, Though feet and breast and brow were bared; For fancy, like a happy child, Ran on before and turned ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... risen as he pursued his lonely road and it shone clear through a gathering scud that threatened soon to overwhelm the silver light. Clouds flew fast and, above Brendon's head, telegraph wires hummed the song of a gathering storm. The man's thoughts proceeded as irregularly as the fitful and shouting wind. He weighed each word that Jenny had said and strove to understand ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... We must make our forces capable of dampening the capacity of the enemy to use force by controlling the conflict rapidly even when surprised. We failed to do that tactically in Desert Storm in the case of the SCUD missile attacks, but were fortunate that the Iraqis were equally inept at taking political advantage of this card they held and skillfully employed on the battlefield. We must also look for efficiency before we even join ...
— Shock and Awe - Achieving Rapid Dominance • Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade
... hard, the sea ran high, The dingy scud drove 'cross the sky, Down topsails, boys, the gale comes on, ...
— The Wreck on the Andamans • Joseph Darvall
... of one mate or the other, pacing up and down, and, as I well know, the man himself is for ever peering for'ard from the break of the poop, or glancing into the binnacle, or feeling and gauging the weight and direction of wind on his cheek, or watching the cloud-stuff in the sky adrift and a-scud across the stars and the moon. Always, always, there are ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... the rapidity of the change. Chill and eddying gusts rustled over the dreary heath; the voice of nature only responding to the chords of sadness and of sorrow. The hollow roar of the wind was like the moaning of a troubled ocean; a few big drops from the hurrying scud seeming to presage an ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... across the pond singing antiphonally. Black as it was under the trees, there was a moon behind the night. No suggestion of it showed through the clouds, yet from the pond surface itself came a weird twilight, filtered no doubt through a mile of flying scud a mile above, reflected from the wind-swept surface and showing these distant pines lifting heads of murk against the murky sky. But their antiphonal shout was no pine-voiced song of the sea, it was the sea itself. Again and again I listened in successive lulls. I ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... from one moment to another was in danger of being swamped. However, I was certain that, being provided with two large beams of bamboos, it could keep its position in the current between two waters and not capsize, if we had the precaution and strength to scud before the wind, and not turn the side to a wave, for in such case we should all have been drowned. What I foresaw, happened. A wave burst upon us; for a few minutes we were plunged in the deep, but when the wave passed over we came above water. Our canoe was swamped between the ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... clouds began to scud across the sky overhead, and the low mutterings of thunder came from the distance. It may have been the thunderings of nature, or of war—she did not heed them; her heart was filled with bitter, rebellious thoughts, and her flying feet seemed to skim over the road; nor did she check ...
— Sister Carmen • M. Corvus
... mammoth's heart? Who shagged him like Pilatus' ribb-ed flanks? Who raised the columned ranks Of that old pre-diluvian forestry, Which like a continent torn oppressed the sea, When the ancient heavens did in rains depart, While the high-danc-ed whirls Of the tossed scud made hiss thy drench-ed curls? Thou rear'dst the enormous brood; Who hast with life imbued The lion maned in tawny majesty, The tiger velvet-barred, The stealthy-stepping pard, And ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson
... She sat down, and he beside her. He was very wet, and she made him put some of the shawl over himself. The quick summer storm had passed now, with only a few big drops of rain; and the moon was breaking out fitfully through veils of driving clouds and their storm-scud. By its light he looked at her, and their eyes met. Pinckney groaned aloud, and stood up. "Would that they would never come; would God ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... night in March, with scud and a fitful moon, and there was a sloop in the offing, and under the shore a loaded boat that had just pulled in with muffled rowlocks. Out of this Dark Dignum was the first to sling hisself a brace of rundlets; and my grandfather followed with two more. They made softly for the ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... distance, it would rapidly increase in size, taking a funnel shape, and then a tornado would burst, like a tempest in miniature, lasting only three or four hours, but of extraordinary violence. During one of these the Belle-Poule had to scud along under bare poles at the rate of twelve knots an hour. The weather was excessively unhealthy, but in the whole course of this long cruise I never lost but one man, who was carried off by a violent inflammation of the liver. I attribute this good fortune in the ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... his back and he will be in the dark area, and can pick his noiseless way to the shadows beyond. It is an easy thing to gain the foot-path beyond the old retaining wall back of the guard-house, scud away under the trees along the winding ascent towards Fort Putnam, until he meets the back-road half-way up the heights; then turn southward through the rocky cuts and forest aisles until he reaches the main highway; then follow on ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... move; a poor wee thing, lean and bony, with ragged ears and sharp nose, scant tail and slender paws. It looked as if Nature no longer contained the breed of nobler bloods, but stood on her last toes. Its large eyes appeared young and unhealthy, almost dropsical. I took a step, and lo, away it scud with an elastic spring over the snow-crust, straightening its body and its limbs into graceful length, and soon put the forest between me and itself—the wild free venison, asserting its vigor and the dignity of Nature. Not without reason was its slenderness. Such then ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... we are lying under a long hill, and the narrow bay is scarcely rippled by the blast that rushes over us, thick with flying-scud. Captain resolves to await better weather; some of the boys go on shore, and wander out to a kind of reef at the mouth of the bay, where in a short time they succeed in gathering a fine mess of mussels; the rest of us, the stay-on-boards, rig up a net and catch fifteen large fat crabs; with these ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... not Thurston come? The storm would soon burst forth upon the earth; where was Thurston? Were he by her side there would be nothing formidable in the storm, for he would shelter her with his cloak and umbrella, as they should scud along over the fields to the cottage, and reach the fireside before the rain could overtake them. Where was he? What could detain him at such a time? She peered through the darkness up and down the ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... of the ship prevailed, and she began to right. Then, Roger and Harry, rushing to Leigh's assistance, helped him to put the helm up, and the ship paid off and began to scud before the wind, while Cavendish, encouraging his little body of men up in the eyes of the ship, managed to get the foresail set, after having had it nearly blown out ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... awoke in Utah, rode all the forenoon over arid plains; gaunt, hungry wolves scud away, cayotes ran yelping, and jack rabbits hopped out of sight for dear life; then we arrive at Salt Lake City, which the Mormons have transformed from a howling wilderness into a fine city, with a surrounding country budding and blossoming with bounteous harvests. ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... Snark comes back on her course. The breath increases to a tiny puff. The Snark feels the weight of it and actually heels over a trifle. There is flying scud overhead, and I notice the stars being blotted out. Walls of darkness close in upon me, so that, when the last star is gone, the darkness is so near that it seems I can reach out and touch it on every side. When I lean toward it, I can feel it loom against my face. Puff follows puff, and I am ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... rides Where my obscure condition hides. Waves scud to shore against the wind That flings the sprinkling surf behind; In port the bickering pennons show Which way the ships would gladly go; Through Edgecumb Park the rooted trees Are tossing, reckless, in the breeze; ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore
... away from the wonderful, dying garden, oblivious to the pleadings floating, now weakly, in the torpid water. He scuffed up little motes of golden sand, leaving a low-lying scud along the bottom, back to the little black box in the garden. The plants, the box, all were forgotten by now. Cully crawled on, not knowing why. A rise appeared; surprise caught Cully unaware. A ...
— Cully • Jack Egan
... three hours or so after he went down, and the weather got dirtier and dirtier, and the scud drove by, and the wind sang and hummed through the rigging—it made me melancholy to listen to it. I could think of nothing but the youngster down below, and what I should say to his poor old uncle if anything happened. Well, soon after midnight I went down and turned ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... distance. "Here! get out of the way, madmazelly. Business before pleasure. And, besides, you're like to get bowled over in the rush. Here, chauffeur!"—this to the driver of a big, black motor-car which swept round the angle of the bridge at that moment, and made as though to scud down the Embankment into the thick of the chase—"pull that thing up sharp! Stop where you are! Dead still! At once, at once, do you hear? We don't want you getting in the way. Now, then"—nodding his head in the direction of the running man—"come ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... shuttle, run, airlift. V. sail; put to sea &c (depart) 293; take ship, get under way; set sail, spread sail, spread canvas; gather way, have way on; make sail, carry sail; plow the waves, plow the deep, plow the main, plow the ocean; walk the waters. navigate, warp, luff^, scud, boom, kedge; drift, course, cruise, coast; hug the shore, hug the land; circumnavigate. ply the oar, row, paddle, pull, scull, punt, steam. swim, float; buffet the waves, ride the storm, skim, effleurer [Fr.], dive, wade. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... thus they pass, the sun his glory shrouds, The changing skies hang out their sable clouds; A sound in air presaged approaching rain, And beasts to cover scud across the plain. Warn'd by the signs, the wandering pair retreat, To seek for shelter at a neighbouring seat. 'Twas built with turrets, on a rising ground, And strong, and large, and unimproved around; Its ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... would suddenly tack up the aisle and clutch the unhappy Mr. Chubb by the collar, and scud down the aisle again to the accompaniment of "Home Sweet Home," and then incarcerate Henry in the upper portion of the steeple until after church. But the end came at last, and the miserable boy found peace. One day, while he was sitting in school, endeavoring to learn ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... floor. The garden, with its muddy walks, and the chill, dripping foliage of its summer-house, was an image to be shuddered at. Nothing flourished in the cold, moist, pitiless atmosphere, drifting with the brackish scud of sea-breezes, except the moss along the joints of the shingle-roof, and the great bunch of weeds, that had lately been suffering from drought, in the angle between the ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... chance very narrowly for the hot mush; and after breakfast she caught a minute, when Phineas had gone to work, and Mrs. Polly was in the pantry, and Nabby down cellar. She had barely time to fill a bowl with mush, and scud. ...
— The Adventures of Ann - Stories of Colonial Times • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... moments, that she was always effulgent with thought and affection,—with conscience, courage, resource, decision, a penetrating and forecasting wisdom. Hence, to associates, her presence seemed to touch even common scenes and drudging cares with splendor, as when, through the scud of a rain-storm, sunbeams break from serene blue openings, crowning familiar things with sudden glory. By manifold sympathies, yet central unity, she seemed in herself to be a goodly company, and her words and deeds imparted the virtue of a collective life. So tender was her affection, that, like ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... Donkey flinch'd, And begg'd the Dog to give him aid. The Dog budged not, but answer made, "I counsel thee, my friend, to run, Till master's nap is fairly done; There can, indeed, be no mistake That he will very soon awake; Till then, scud off with all your might; And should he snap you in your flight, This ugly Wolf—why, let him feel The greeting of your well-shod heel. I do not doubt, at all, but that Will be enough to lay him flat." But ere he ceased it was too late; ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... and rain; Our sails and tackle sway and strain; Wet to the skin We're sound within. Our sea-steed through the foam goes prancing, While shields and spears and helms are glancing. From fiord to sea, Our ships ride free, And down the wind with swelling sail We scud before the ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... to keep down my laughter, as I saw him scud off, glad at heart though, all the same, for, poor fellow, he had escaped. Then all at once my admiration for Pomp increased to a wonderful degree, for I heard a howl from the other side of the house, the sound of blows, heavy ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... rose bright and joyous over this scene of anxiety and pain. On came the vessel flying before the gale, while the seas chased her as if they would fain overwhelm her. It was fearful to see her scud—agonising to know that she ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... thought of forestalling any action of the conspirators, by warning or calling in the aid of the authorities, for an instant crossed his mind, but was as instantly dismissed. He had but an instinct—to see with his own eyes what his reason told him was true. Day was breaking through drifting scud and pewter-colored clouds as he reached Woodville ferry, checkered with splashes of the soil and the spume of his horse, from whose neck and flanks the sweat rolled like lather. Yet he was not conscious how intent had been ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... five to the mile, charging shoreward, occasionally breaking, again lifting their heads too high in the effort, truncated as by a knife, and the liquid apex shattered to spray; an expanse of leaden sky showing between the rain-squalls, across which heavy background rushed the darker scud and storm-clouds; a passenger-steamer rolling helplessly in the trough, and a square-rigged vessel, hove to on the port tack, two miles to windward of the steamer, and drifting south toward the storm-center. This is the picture that the ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... with the west wind. The hills were drawn back behind thick sheets of glassy rain. Shining spears of rain dashed themselves against the west windows. Jets of rain rose up, whirling and spraying, from the terrace. Rain ran before the wind in a silver scud along the flagged path ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... a sail out of this walrus-hide, and watch our chance with a favorable breeze to scud us along from islet to islet on the south side here. We could run down into Ungava Bay, clean to the foot of it; and then, leaving the boat, go across to Nain. It couldn't be more than a hundred and fifty miles from the foot of the bay. We could start off, and, with a strong spurt, ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... stretches wide, A sea that's running strong, A boat that dips its laving side, The forefoot's rippling song. A flaming sky, a crimson flood, Here's joy for body and mind, As in our canting crafts we scud With ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... two bell-strokes of a clock, he strove to answer the oppressing shape threatening him. And his fingers lingeringly revolved the lamp-screw with its brass and bevelled-edge. If only some gust of resolution would arise like the sudden scud of the squall that whitens far-away level summer seas, and drive forth pampered procrastinations! Then might his fingers become flexile, his mind untied. Poor, drab seconds that fooled with eternity and supped ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... Chickens, the Bishop and Clerks. The strange atmospheric phenomena, especially of the tropics, have been christened by the Spaniard and Portuguese, the Corposant, the Pampero, the Tornado, the Hurricane. Then follows a host of words of which the derivation is doubtful,—such as sea, mist, foam, scud, rack. Their monosyllabic character may only be the result of that clipping and trimming which words get on shipboard. Your seaman's tongue is a true bed of Procrustes for the unhappy words that roll over it. They are docked ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... a lonely little graveyard in the Debatable Land, close to the Water of Sark, and near the March dyke between the two countries, his body is said to rest. Does there never come a night, when the moon is hidden behind a dark scud of clouds, and the old reiver, growing restless in his grave, finds somewhere the shade of a horse that, in its day, could gallop with the best, and rides again across the Border, to meet once more his "auld enemies" of England, ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... see, how we veer and whirl, yet must ever whirl round again, and scud before the wind. If, on the one hand, we re-admit the Protesting Seventy-Three, we, on the other hand, agree to consummate the Apotheosis of Marat; lift his body from the Cordeliers Church, and transport it to the Pantheon of Great Men,—flinging out Mirabeau to make room for him. To no purpose: ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... sadly, and the three men looked up for a moment, as a scud of rain splashed on the window, drowning a sentence ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... season in California,—a season of falling rain and springing grasses. There were intervals when, through driving clouds and flying scud, the sun visited the haggard hills with a miracle, and death and resurrection were as one, and out of the very throes of decay a joyous life struggled outward and upward. Even the storms that swept down the dead leaves nurtured the tender buds that took their places. ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... burst upon them with frightful violence. Their small and crazy vessels were little fitted for the wild storms of the Atlantic; all night they were obliged to scud under bare poles, at the mercy of the elements; as the morning dawned there was a transient pause and they made a little sail, but the wind rose with redoubled fury from the south and increased in the ...
— Peter Parley's Tales About America and Australia • Samuel Griswold Goodrich
... your castigated pulse Gies now and then a wallop, What ragings must his veins convulse, That still eternal gallop: Wi' wind and tide fair i' your tail, Right on ye scud your sea-way; But in the teeth o' baith to sail, It ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... about a mile and a half astern of me, when the hurricane began, and tried to pull in shore; but just as they thought to have reached it, one of their oars broke, and being now helpless, they were obliged to scud before the wind. By good fortune they were carried up the Canning, ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... evince the fidelity and devotion of his nature by knocking at street-doors, rescuing a prisoned master, defending oppressed innocence, or dying in the centre of the stage to slow music. Something of a part seemed promised him when the popular drama of "Flying Scud" was first represented; at least, he supplied that work with its title. But it was speedily to be perceived that animal interests had been subordinated to human. More prominent occupation by far was assigned to the rider than to the horse. A different plan of ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... his head, and shot up like a rocket towards the lofty dome, which split asunder to let him pass. Horace, as he gazed after him, had a momentary glimpse of deep blue sky, with a star or two that seemed to be hurrying through the transparent opal scud, before the ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... rack; cirrus, cat's-tail, mare's-tail; cumulus, stratus, nimbus; cirro-cumulus, cirro-stratus, cumulo-stratus; storm scud, wane cloud; tarnish, blemish; eclipse, obscurity. Associated Words: nephology, meteorology, nubiferous, nephelodometer, nephelometer, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... his face, he was quite tidy. He ran an eye down the port tunnel, where the shaft revolved so swiftly that it seemed to be standing still, to where at the after end came the racing of the screw as it lifted, bearded with scud, out ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... 230 Our conquerors to mourn as we do now. Have ye beheld the young God of the Seas, My dispossessor? Have ye seen his face? Have ye beheld his chariot, foam'd along By noble winged creatures he hath made? I saw him on the calmed waters scud, With such a glow of beauty in his eyes, That it enforc'd me to bid sad farewell To all my empire: farewell sad I took, And hither came, to see how dolorous fate 240 Had wrought upon ye; and how I might best Give consolation in this woe extreme. Receive ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... whose depths the ship plunged down from each watery height as it came under her, seeming as if she could never rise again. Still once more she was lifted upwards among showers of spray, which flew off from the white-crested seas, deluging us fore and aft. Overhead the wild scud flew fast, the stern Cape looked more solitary and grand, and the sea-fowl with discordant shrieks flew round and round, closing in the circles they were forming till they almost touched our masts. The ship struggled bravely ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... the entrance of the nest, seemed to give her instructions before they departed: she awaited their return with anxiety, and when that was delayed, took a flight high, very high in the air, and there flew to and fro till she saw them. Then, full of a mother's joy, she would utter cries of emotion, scud before them, bring them back to the nest, happy and palpitating, and seemed to demand an account of the causes ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... pastures, a craggy bowlder lifted its face and frowned, and along the woods the stunted pines and hemlocks blackened against a background of leafless oaks and birches. A northwest wind cut shrill across the white wastes, and from the crests of the billowed drifts drove a scud of stinging particles in their faces, while the sun, as high as that of Italy, coldly blazed from a cloudless blue sky. Ezra Perkins, perched on the seat before them, stiff and silent as if he were frozen there, drove ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... run when I felt like it I'd die. I tell you, when I strike heavy weather I want my rigging ship-shape. I'd hate to scud under ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... "Cassandra" were celebrated heroic romances of the seventeenth century, the former (in ten volumes) written by Mdlle Scud'eri, the latter by the Sieur de la Calprende. One of the most constant and tiresome characteristics of the heroes and heroines of the romances of this school, is the readiness with which they seize every opportunity of recounting, or causing ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... tomb. A dark form loomed downward through the mist. It was Hozier, alone, coming back to them. A frenzied cheer broke from the lips of those overwrought men. They knew what that meant. Somewhere, high above the black rocks and the flying scud, was hope throned in the blessed sunshine. They drew him in cautiously until Coke was able to grasp his hand. They were quick to see that he brought a second ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... slipped out, and there was Jim waiting for me at the smithy corner. We crossed John's Common together, and so past Ridden's Farm, meeting only one or two riding officers upon the way. There was a brisk wind blowing, and the moon kept peeping through the rifts of the scud, so that our road was sometimes silver-clear, and sometimes so black that we found ourselves among the brambles and gorse-bushes which lined it. We came at last to the wooden gate with the high stone pillars by the roadside, and, looking through between the rails, we saw the long avenue ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... speed, the sailors ran along with them for fifty or sixty yards—belaboring them with exemplary vigor. The consequence of this sudden movement was—that five lost their balance and fell overboard: all the rest continued to scud along the road in the two heavy vessels on board which they had embarked themselves—repeatedly crossing and nearly running foul of each other—until at length, just as they approached a turn of the road which would have carried ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... clouds Scud black and swift across the sky; Like silent ghosts in misty shrouds Stand out the white lighthouses high. Almost as far as eye can reach I see the close-reefed vessels fly, As fast we flit along the beach,— ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... clean canvas, and all smart, we were rather proud of that boat. But we'd only just got beyond the Lizard when it came on to blow, just as it can blow off there in February, with rain, and snow, and hail; and we were at last glad to scud before the gale under ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... passing an orchard on their way from school, in which there were some plum trees, full of nice fruit. "Come, Thomas," said Henry, "let us jump over and get some plums. Nobody will see us. We can scud along through the tall corn, and come out on the other side." Thomas replied, "It is wrong. I don't like to try it. I would rather not have the plums than steal them, and I will run along home." "You are a coward," ...
— Anecdotes for Boys • Harvey Newcomb
... Magola's village. Although we are now rid of the sepoys, we cannot yet congratulate ourselves on being rid of the lazy habits of lying down in the path which they introduced. A strong scud comes up from the south bringing much moisture with it: it blows so hard above, this may be a storm on the coast. Temperature in ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... witch's hand unhasps Thy keen claw-cornered wings From under the barn roof, and flings Thee forth, with chattering gasps, To scud the air, And nip the lady-bug, and tear Her children's ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... islets, mazed amid outer keys, I waked the palms to laughter—I tossed the scud in the breeze— Never was isle so little, never was sea so lone, But over the scud and the palm-trees an English flag ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... dawns, the storms and the lightnings, and the glad blue skies. Even the music of the bagpipes inspired lamentations only less sweet than notes of joy. Mr. Black still has lovely girls; his yachts still pitch and roll and scud over the tossed and misty Hebridean seas; there are the same magical splendors of air and sky and water and shores; the wail of the pibroch is heard as ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... the sou'west let go just as dusk shut down. A yellowish scud dimmed the stars. Mayo heard one of the mates say that the glass had dropped. He smelled nasty weather himself, having the sailor's keen instinct. The topsails were ordered in, and he climbed aloft and had a long, lone struggle before he got the heavy canvas folded ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... rate, I shall tell the abbot that, if he will consent quietly to the monk's unfrocking himself, until he can obtain for him release from his vows; I will scud him away to one of the other castles, whence I can fetch him, if you need him to accompany you on any errand, and where he can form part of the regular garrison. But the knave must be informed that it were best that he say nought about his former profession, and that he comport himself ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... reply. Probably she did not even hear what he said. She turned and went to the window, stood looking out at the rising turmoil of the sea, at the lowering scud of the clouds, dabbing surreptitiously at her eyes with a handkerchief. After a little she walked out of the room. Her feet sounded lightly ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... weather the gale? Henderson and the boatswain were rather opposed to this plan, the gunner suggesting, as an alternative, that we should cut adrift from the wreckage that was holding us head to wind, and endeavour to get before the wind and scud; and to this view they still adhered, even after I had pointed out to them that the island of Hayti constituted a lee-shore only some twenty-five miles distant, upon which we must inevitably be dashed before morning if we adopted their plan. The carpenter, however, took my view that we ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... graves, Than live in slavery to slaves; Worse than the anarchy at sea, Where fishes on each other prey; Where every trout can make as high rants O'er his inferiors, as our tyrants; And swagger while the coast is clear: But should a lordly pike appear, Away you see the varlet scud, Or hide his coward snout in mud. Thus, if a gudgeon meet a roach, He dares not venture to approach; Yet still has impudence to rise, And, like Domitian,[2] leap ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... all parts of the equator, forming the extremities of the imaginary line called the earth's axis. The term applies also to those points in the heavens towards which the terrestrial axis is always directed.—Under bare poles. The situation of a ship at sea when all her sails are furled. (See SCUD and TRY.) ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... reefs from the north along the line of the Aleutian Islands with the swiftness of a mill-race, the men had literally to be held to the rudder at pistol point and beaten up the masts with the flat of the officers' swords. But while they skulked, a hurricane rolled up the fog; and the ship could but scud under bare poles before the wind. Rations were now down to mouldy sea-biscuits, and only fifteen casks of ...
— Pioneers of the Pacific Coast - A Chronicle of Sea Rovers and Fur Hunters • Agnes C. Laut
... understand that we tried to face the storm, and remain stationary. But the gale was so fierce that this was impossible. The last rag of sail was blown away, and then there was nothing left for us but to show our stern to the gale, and "scud ...
— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne
... cried, 'Luloo!' and lo, a fair slave-girl that came to her and stood by with bent head, like a white lily by a milk-white antelope; so Noorna clouded her brow a moment, as when the moon darkeneth behind a scud, and cried, 'Speak! art thou in league with ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... hideous battle-ground, Where pots and weapons bang and scud, Where every dead man through some wound Doth vomit victuals ...
— Enamels and Cameos and other Poems • Theophile Gautier
... Inspector, pointing as he spoke to a big vessel showing dimly through the scud to starboard of us. "Pull ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... March, whose foot on earth Rings as the blast of martial mirth When trumpets fire men's hearts for fray. No race of wild things winged or finned May match the might that wings thy wind Through air and sea, through scud and spray. Strong joy and thou were powers twin-born Of ...
— Astrophel and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne, Vol. VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... to converse, and would gladly have been alone. A midday meal, with liberal supply of wine, helped them somewhat, and they sat down to smoke in their bedroom. It rained harder than ever; from the window they could see the old tower on the crag smitten with white scud. ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... bright moon gleaming through the interstices as they rapidly passed along. My attention was divided between the Quaker poet, the blazing fire, the mysterious environment into which I peered from time to time, and the flying scud playing hide-and-seek with the moon. At three I called Andy, who had breakfast ready before five, and all hands were up prepared to start on a search. By the time we had eaten there was light enough for operations to begin, and the Major, accompanied by Jack, carrying between ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... above; fish leaping after flies broke the still surface of the water with a musical splash below; and beyond a doubt there must be the largest and the sweetest of earth-nuts on the island, easy to get out of the deep beds of untouched leaf-mould. And when Mr. Rowe cried "Look!" and we saw a water-fowl scud across the lake, leaving a sharp trail like a line of light behind her, we felt that we might spend all our savings in getting to the Pacific Ocean, and not find when we got there a place which offered more natural resources to the ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... baseless sky, Sullen vapours crawl Climbing to masses, tumbled heavily Grim in giant sprawl, That smother up domed heaven's scud-fleckered height And form like ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... held the reins. Denry, in a coachman's furs, sat behind. They whirled past the Hotel Metropole. And shortly afterwards, on the wild road towards Attalens, Denry saw a pair of skis scudding as quickly as skis can scud in their rear. It was astonishing how the sleigh, with all the merry jingle of its bells, kept that pair of skis at a distance of about a hundred yards. It seemed to invite the skis to overtake it, and then to regret the invitation and flee further. Up the hills it would crawl, for the ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... contrast. This was the mouth of a great pit; and he sat on the brink of it, with his face to seaward, and his ear in his hollowed hand, listening. Nothing was to be heard, however, but the occasional scud of the rain, and the ceaseless roar of the now distant waves. Far out to sea there was a round red light, which fell upon him at regular intervals, its absence making the place which it had filled more dark than elsewhere. It had a weird effect, as though some evil spirit was keeping ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... been heard proceeding from the ash trees planted in or near the site of murders or suicides, and as I sit here writing, a scene opens before me, and I can see a plain with one solitary tree—an ash—standing by a pool of water, on the margin of which are three clusters of reeds. Dark clouds scud across the sky, and the moon only shows itself at intervals. It is an intensely wild and lonely spot, and the cold, dank air blowing across the barren wastes renders it all the more inhospitable. No one, no living thing, no object is visible save ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... habitation." (Ib., p. 117.) "After sailing southward half a day, they found themselves suddenly among shoals and breakers" (a ledge of rocks and shoals which are a terror to navigators to this day); and the wind shifting against them, they scud back to Cape Cod, and, as Bradford says, "thought themselves happy to get out of those dangers before night overtook them, and the next day they got into the Cape harbour, where they rode in safety. Being thus arrived in a good harbour, and brought safe to land, ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... stars their kindly beams afford To light our pathway through the deep." He prayed, And from the scabbard snatched his flaming sword, And, swift as lightning, cleft the twisted cord. Fired by their chief, like ardour fills the crew, They scour, they scud and, hurrying, crowd on board. Bare lies the beach; ships hide the sea from view, And strong arms lash the foam ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... atmosphere in which the person is singing. More than anything else, it is this that gives his music its individual character. Such music is bound to remain for ever fresh. So long as trees and grass, rain and sunshine, running waters and flying cloud-scud are things sweet to man's thought, so long will the music of Wagner's operas remain green, always new and refreshing, full and satisfying. He often achieved the task, or helped himself to achieve it, by showing us Nature in sympathy ...
— Wagner • John F. Runciman
... gorge that gives the stars at noon-day clear— Up the pass that packs the scud beneath our wheel— Round the bluff that sinks her thousand fathom sheer— Down the valley with our guttering brakes asqueal: Where the trestle groans and quivers in the snow, Where the many-shedded levels loop and twine, So I lead my reckless ...
— The Seven Seas • Rudyard Kipling
... the murk astern, and we were driving on. The shift of wind came suddenly. Nearly at noon there was a heavier fall of rain, a shrieking squall that blew as it had never blown. The Old Man marked the signs—the scud of the upper clouds, a brightening ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... further examination satisfied him it was a mistake. So long had he been gazing at the same object, that it was easy for the illusion to pass before his mind's eye, of imagining a dim outline of the little lugger flying away, like the scud of the heavens, wing-and-wing, ever seeming to elude his observation. That night he dreamed of her, and there were haply five minutes during which his wandering thoughts actually portrayed the process of taking possession, and of manning ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... from the sand and pulled sharply across the water to the Gar. A reddish, misshapen moon hung in the east, and when he had mounted to his deck it was suddenly obscured by a high, racing scud of cloud; the air had a damper, thicker feel. He instinctively moved to the barometer, which he found depressed. The wind, that had continued steadily since the night before, increased, and there was a corresponding stir ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer
... young beech; And every time she thought to corner him He scrambled round on little scratchy hands To peek at her about the other side. She lost him, bolting branch to branch, at last— The impudent brat! But still high overhead Flight on exuberant flight of opal scud, Or of dissolving mist, ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... it tugged and tugged away it seemed as if it would fly from the bolt-ropes. The first lieutenant anxiously watched it. Should it be carried away it was scarcely possible that another could be set, and though the ship might still scud under bare poles, there was a great risk of her broaching to, and if so, the seas breaking over her sides might disable her completely. Suddenly there was a loud clap like that of thunder, and what looked for the moment ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... the line, the outfit is complete. The jugs, some twenty or thirty, are put out at the head of the channel, and are followed by the fishermen in a skiff or john-boat. When a channel-cat takes the bait, the jug stands on end and begins to scud through the water. The fisherman pursues in his boat, and coming up, pushes his dip-net under the fish as he draws him to the surface. It is the most exciting and fascinating ...
— Shawn of Skarrow • James Tandy Ellis
... flow on the clearer for our blood Now shed, and the less brackish for our tears; When time and truth have put out hopes and fears With certitude, and love has burst the bud, If these whose powers then down the wind shall scud Still live to feel thee smite their eyes and ears, When thy foot's tread hath crushed their crowns and creeds, Care thou not then to crush the beast that bleeds, The snake whose belly cleaveth to the sod, Nor set thine heel on men as on their deeds; But let the worm Napoleon crawl untrod, Nor ...
— Two Nations • Algernon Charles Swinburne |
