"Pitchy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... courtyard, rushed into it and commenced battering the walls, and at times upon the very door of the hiding-place, which would have given way had not those within put their combined weight against it to keep it from yielding. It was a pitchy dark night, and it was pelting with rain, so after a time, discouraged at finding nothing and wet to the skin, the soldiers put off further search until the following morning, and proceeded to dry and refresh themselves by the fire in the ...
— Secret Chambers and Hiding Places • Allan Fea
... asleep that same night than I was aroused by an extraordinary din. I lay there, comatose and semi-conscious in the pitchy darkness, and wondered what had happened. Presently I distinguished the bray of trumps, and I knew. "Golly!" I whispered to myself, "I'm dead. Cheer-o!" Then I recollected something I had read concerning ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CLVIII, January 7, 1920 • Various
... pitchy hall, somewhere in which a Die-Hard was on picket, and down the passage to the smoking-room. Dickson blinked in the light of a very feeble lamp and Heritage saw that his hands were cumbered with packages. He deposited them on a sofa and made ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... half the globe Darkness had spread her pitchy robe: Morpheus, his feet with velvet shod, Treading as if in fear he trod, Gentle as dews at even-tide, Distill'd his poppies far and wide. Ambition, who, when waking, dreams Of mighty, but fantastic schemes, Who, when asleep, ne'er knows that rest With which the humbler soul is blest, 10 Was building ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... gathering the material for your bed your hands will be covered with a sticky sap, and, although they will be a sorry sight, a little lard or baking grease will soften the pitchy substance so that it may be washed off with soap ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... came closer, and now he was aware of her restless glances probing on all sides of the camp-fire. Silence—only the crackling of a pitchy stick. And then he heard a muffled sound, soft, soft as the beating of a heart in the night, and regularly pulsing. It hurt him infinitely, and he called gently: "Jack, ...
— Riders of the Silences • Max Brand
... gazed at me spectrally. The windows in the white houses were like the eye sockets of skulls. About me my imagination found a thousand noiseless enemies moving. Terror seized me, a horror of my temerity. In front of me the road became pitchy black as though it was tarred, and I saw a contorted shape lying across the pathway. I could not bring myself to go on. I turned down St. John's Wood Road, and ran headlong from this unendurable stillness towards Kilburn. I hid from the night and the silence, ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... hope of them. We were sitting at dinner one night, the fire was blazing cheerfully within, but the rain was pouring without, the wind was howling in fitful gusts, and neither moon nor stars relieved the pitchy darkness of the night, when the conversation naturally turned to the lost dogs. What a night for the poor brutes to be exposed to, roaming about the wet jungles ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... road, the column wound on through the hot, midnight wood. More hoof-beats—another party of cavalry to be let by! They passed the infantry in the darkness, pushing the broken line into the ditch and scrub. In the pitchy blackness an impatient command lost at this juncture its temper. The men swore, an officer called out to the horsemen a savage "Halt!" The party pressed on. The officer furious, caught a bridle rein. "Halt, damn you! Stop them, men! Now you cavalry have got to learn a thing or two! One is, ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... not by the noise of the storm, but by a curious movement of my bedstead. I had once felt the slight shock of an earthquake, and it seemed to me that this must be something of the kind. Certainly my bed moved under me. I sat up. The room was pitchy dark. In a moment I felt another movement, but this time it did not seem to me to resemble an earthquake shock. Such motion, I think, is generally in horizontal directions, while that which I felt was more like the movement ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... terrible night. It was pitchy dark: not a star, nor one glimpse of the pale moon could be distinguished. The wind howled among the rocks, and cast the spray up with violence against the cliffs, which, however, in front of the gorge, gave way to a low sandy beach, forming the usual ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... rail at the crojack braces could have told them a different story. Clearly he saw the danger. There ahead, a little to leeward, were the long line of breakers; even in this pitchy darkness he could see their white foam-topped crests against the inky water; he fancied that even above the roaring of the wind through the rigging he could distinguish the crash with which they flung themselves hungrily against the rocks, the long-drawn sob as ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt
... in his surmises. The pitchy darkness of a winter night would scarcely have sufficed to hide the movements attendant on the sudden arrival of a large body of men in the English camp, had not the hoarse artillery of the wind, moaning, sweeping, and then rushing o'er the hills with a crashing ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... The profound impression created by such a scene as this, to my thinking, lies chiefly in the striking contrast we have here before us—a vast eddy of snow-white foam, the very personification of impetuous movement, also of lightness, sparkling whiteness, with a background of pitchy black rock, still, immoveable, ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... built of sun-baked bricks, called adobe. The dwelling was a hundred feet long, and the roof was rendered impenetrable to rain, being covered with a thick coating of asphaltum, mingled with sand. There was a spring of this valuable pitchy substance near the village; and the roofs of all the houses in Los Angelos were ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... and white over that dead, dry country. Hot whiffs rose from the baked stones and hillsides. Shadows lay under the stones like animals crouching. When we came to the edge of a silvery hill we dropped off into pitchy blackness. There we stumbled over boulders for a minute or so, and began to climb the steep shale on the other side. This was fearful work. The top seemed always miles away. By morning we didn't seem to have made much of anywhere. The same old hollow-looking mountains with the sharp edges stuck ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... deluged the valley; the mountains were covered with waves; the skies grew pitchy dark; I saw ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... long past midnight, and so pitchy dark that, all lights having been extinguished, it was impossible to see one end of the poop from the other. The stars had all vanished, and the silence was so profound as to be quite oppressive, not even the sound of the pirate's sweeps now being audible; though whether they had been ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... it was necessary to be cautious. Not a word was spoken. The phosphorescent light sparkled from the blades of our oars, appearing brighter from the darkness which prevailed, but that could not be seen at any distance. The time for our expedition had been well selected. We had pitchy darkness to favour our advance; but we knew that the moon would soon rise, and enable us to make the necessary observations. We pulled slowly in, for the tide was with us, and Mr Ronald told us to reserve our strength till it would be most required. As we got close in with ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... Mangles, "they must have perished, for in the midst of these breakers in a heavy swell on that pitchy night, they ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... in this pitchy gloom, wondering what and where this scuttle might be, I crouched, a very wild and desperate creature, peering into the gloom and starting at every sound; thus presently I heard the scrape of a viol somewhere beyond the bulkheads that shut me in and ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... resumed our journey, expecting to drive all night, as it was good starlight. Fair progress was made, but towards morning a rainstorm struck us, and the cattle again stampeded. In all my outdoor experience I never saw such pitchy darkness as accompanied that storm; although galloping across a prairie in a blustering rainfall, it required no strain of the imagination to see hills and mountains and forests on every hand. Fourteen ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... men, and every now and then, as the party continued its way along what proved to be a carefully constructed tunnel, he stopped short and whispered to Murray to shade the light while he hurried on into the pitchy darkness. ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... during the night down to within a hundred feet of the sea-level. We made a grand fire, and after an early breakfast pushed merrily on all day along beautiful forested shores embroidered with autumn-colored bushes. I noticed some pitchy trees that had been deeply hacked for kindling-wood and torches, precious conveniences to belated voyagers on stormy nights. Before sundown we camped in a beautiful nook of Deer Bay, shut in from every wind ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... laid open, Hercules soon caught sight of the robber, and commenced to assail him with arrows and stones. Then the monster belched forth volumes of smoke and flame, concealing himself in a cloud of pitchy vapor. But Hercules now thoroughly enraged, rushed furiously into the den, and seizing Cacus by the throat, choked him to death. Great was the joy of the people when they heard of the destruction of the monster, and ...
— Story of Aeneas • Michael Clarke
... a small party of ships. In the pitchy darkness we had fallen in with the bigger fleet coming direct from Lemnos, and as we crept along, every ship in total darkness, we could just make out other ships alongside us. One with big hull and unusual length of guns was immediately on our port. At close quarters there was ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... bound of the heart, when he fancied she must strike; but she went clear. All this time, it was crack, crack, crack, from the crater, rumbling sounds and heavy explosions; the last attended by flames, and smoke of a pitchy darkness. A dozen times the Sea Lion had very narrow escapes when nearest to the danger, stones of a weight to pass through her decks and bottom falling even on the ice outside of her; but that hand which had so benevolently stayed various other evils, was stretched forth ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... cottage in his way— Mark Fenton's—him he took with short delay To bear him company—for who could say What need might be? They struck into the track The children should have taken coming back From school that day; and many a call and shout Into the pitchy darkness they sent out, And, by the lantern light, peer'd all about, In every road-side thicket, hole, and nook, Till suddenly—as nearing now the brook— Something brush'd past them. That was Tinker's bark— Unheeded, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... Now that the gloomy shadow of the night, Longing to view Orion's drizzling look, Leaps from th' antartic world unto the sky, And dims the welkin with her [28] pitchy breath, Faustus, begin thine incantations, And try if devils will obey thy hest, Seeing thou hast pray'd and sacrific'd to them. Within this circle is Jehovah's name, Forward and backward anagrammatiz'd, Th' abbreviated ...
— Dr. Faustus • Christopher Marlowe
... words which I could not well understand. Once I caught the name of Charles Le Sorcier, and again I fancied that the words "years" and "curse" issued from the twisted mouth. Still I was at a loss to gather the purport of his disconnected speech. At my evident ignorance of his meaning, the pitchy eyes once more flashed malevolently at me, until, helpless as I saw my opponent to be, I trembled as ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... alone. A King or courtier or a courtesan or a community was going to die or get a new Constitution, or do something that was important on the other side of the world, and the paper was to be held open till the latest possible minute in order to catch the telegram. It was a pitchy black night, as stifling as a June night can be, and the loo, the red-hot wind from the westward, was booming among the tinder-dry trees and pretending that the rain was on its heels. Now and again a spot of almost boiling water would fall on the dust with the flop of a frog, but all ...
— The Man Who Would Be King • Rudyard Kipling
... thy Sphere, May'st follow still thy Calling there. To thee the Bull will lend his hide, By Phoebus newly tann'd and dry'd. For thee they Argo's Hulk will tax, And scrape her pitchy Sides for Wax. Then Ariadne kindly lends Her braided Hair to make thee Ends. The Point of Sagittarius' Dart Turns to an awl, by heav'nly Art; And Vulcan, wheedled by his Wife, Will forge for thee a Paring-Knife. For want ...
— The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers • Jonathan Swift
... track; A devastating flood sweeps o'er the land, Tartarean darkness swathes the sable strand! O'er wolds and hills, o'er ocean's chafing waves The wild tornado's bluster wierdly raves; The white-heat bolt of every thundering roar The pitchy zenith coruscating o'er; The vast expanse of heaven pours forth its ire 'Mid swarthy fogs ...
— The Poetry of Wales • John Jenkins
... innermost, deepermost cells, fashioned out of the solid rock and stretching along a corridor that was almost as dark as the cells themselves. Here, so we were told, countless wretched beings, awaiting the tardy pleasure of the torturer or the headsman, had moldered in damp and filth and pitchy blackness, knowing day from night only by the fact that once in twenty-four hours food would be slipped through a hole in the wall by unseen hands; lying here until oftentimes death or the cruel mercy of madness came upon them before the overworked executioner found time ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... of "sneakers" he had placed beside his bed. He let himself out into the corral, being careful to keep close to the wall of the house until he reached the high board fence. Here, too, he had to feel his way because of the pitchy blackness of the night; and if the rattling wind prevented him from hearing any footsteps that might be behind him, it also covered the slight sound of his own progress down the fence to the shed. But he did not think he would be seen or followed, ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... keep the other craft hidden from us; moreover, certain portions of her cargo were being hoisted out and transferred to the hidden vessel. The inference was obvious: the hidden craft was a pirate which had somehow managed to sneak up alongside and surprise her in the pitchy darkness of the early hours of the morning—Henderson had actually caught a glimpse of the very act of capture—and now she was being plundered by the audacious scoundrels under our ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... and clasped each other's wrists criss-cross, the way you do to make a human chair, and got Greg on to it, with the arm that wasn't hurt around my neck. The darkness was perfectly pitchy, and we had to feel for every step to be sure that it was a solid place and not the slippery edge that went straight down into the sea. Greg cried a little and said, "Please—stop." I could feel his hair against my face. It was all ...
— Us and the Bottleman • Edith Ballinger Price
... exactly in the manner we desired, nor could we tell our whereabouts. We might be at the very southern end of the lake, should the wind have shifted to the northward, or we might be at its western extremity. Wherever we were, there we must remain until daylight; for were we to attempt moving, in the pitchy darkness which hung around, we might fall off into the water, or lose ...
— In the Rocky Mountains - A Tale of Adventure • W. H. G. Kingston
... away at full speed between wooded banks and green islands, to the nail works dam, where the air rang to the clatter of big hammers and pitchy black smoke was vomited skyward from ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... for many were the stories of murder and robbery committed along the route they were traveling. It is true they had two stout men, and all were armed, yet they might easily come upon a party too strong for them; and no one could tell what might happen, thought the princess. There was that pitchy darkness through which she could hardly see her horse's head—a thing of itself that seemed to have infinite powers for mischief, and which no amount of argument ever induced any normally constituted woman to believe was the mere negative absence ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... The pitchy quality of the blackness in the closet aided him in bruising himself; he ran into a thousand things of all kinds of shapes and textures every time he moved. And at each fresh bruise he grew madder and madder, and, holding the cat responsible, applied ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... progress brought us out of the scented air, it was succeeded by a horrible smell as of bitumen, brimstone, and pitch all burning together; mingled with this were the disgusting and intolerable fumes of roasting human flesh; the air was dark and thick, distilling a pitchy dew upon us; we could also hear the crack of whips and ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... and fell. After a while, down through the mists, they made out a small figure, very busy at something. When they approached, they found this to be Charley Morton. The fire had leaped the cleared path and was greedily eating in all directions through the short, pitchy growth of tarweed. It was as yet only a tiny leak, but once let it get started, the whole forest beyond the fire line would be ablaze. The ranger had started to cut around this a half-circle connected at both ends with the main fire line. With short, quick jabs of his hoe, ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... a pitchy-black night, as stifling as a June night can be, and the loo, the red-hot wind from the westward, was booming among the tinder-dry trees and pretending that the ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... In the pitchy darkness, the messenger encounters him, and running full tilt against him, knocks the bunch of keys into the mud. Whilst search is made for them with three lanterns, some sailors break open the doors, and the engine is run out ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... bad, for which reason they account him happy that kills most of them. These men, moreover, tell us a great many romantic things about these gods, whereof these are some: They say that Oromazes, springing from purest light, and Arimanius, on the other hand, from pitchy darkness, these two are therefore at war with one another. And that Oromazes made six gods[114], whereof the first was the author of benevolence, the second of truth, the third of justice, and the rest, one of wisdom, one of wealth, ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... to the skies! Bid the sudden storm arise. Bid the pitchy clouds advance, Bid the forked lightnings glance, Bid the angry thunder growl, Bid the wild wind fiercely howl! Bid the tempest come amain, Thunder, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... fit for our purpose. It was a sharply cold night in February, and when I dismounted I found myself standing upon some wet rank herbage that promised ill for the comfort of our resting-place. I had bad hopes of a fire, for the pitchy darkness of the night was a great obstacle to any successful search for fuel, and besides, the boughs of trees or bushes would be so full of sap in this early spring, that they would not be easily persuaded to burn. However, we were not likely to submit to a dark and cold bivouac ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... lazy girl went home; but she was quite covered with pitch, and the cock by the well-side, as soon as he saw her, cried: "Cock-a-doodle-doo! Your pitchy girl's come back to you." But the pitch stuck fast to her, and could not be got off as long ...
— Grimm's Fairy Stories • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... fall slightly as we walked out the railroad, on our route, and soon it increased to torrents. The night was pitchy dark, and we stumbled along, falling into gutters here, and nearly sticking in the mud there, until midnight, when we resolved to seek shelter ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... each night their camp was pitched and kettles hung. Their fires lighted up the mossy trunks and overhanging branches of the giant hemlock and the towering pine, throwing their summits into a deeper gloom, and building up a wall of pitchy darkness which enclosed ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various
... appreciation of the tremendous irresistibility of the freshet, which must have ended the lives of the hapless party almost on the instant. The bravest swimmer would be absolutely helpless in the grasp of such a terrific current, and in a night of pitchy darkness would be unable to make the first intelligent effort ...
— The Telegraph Messenger Boy - The Straight Road to Success • Edward S. Ellis
... of Sol's judgment became apparent at once. The shriek of the wind rose to a scream and then a roar. The night became pitchy dark. They could see nothing around them but a narrow circle of muddy waters heaving violently. Under the far horizon in the south and west, low, sullen thunder began to mutter. Suddenly the sky parted before a tremendous flash of lightning that blazed for a moment across the heavens and then ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... a racking headache in pitchy darkness; and with the twilight of returning consciousness there grew in him an awful fear that he had been coffined and buried alive. For he lay at full length in a bed which yet was unlike any bed of his acquaintance, ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... father's home, Beware ye of your words, lest one should hear And bear them, for the tongue hath lust to tell, Unto our masters—whom God grant to me In pitchy reek of fun'ral flame ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus
... of rock or beat direct upon the cave-indented cliffs. The spray leapt high into the air, to be caught up by the wind in whirlpools, little ghostly flecks, luminous one moment and gone forever the next. Far away across the pitchy waters they could see at regular intervals a line of white where the breakers came rushing in, here and there the agitated lights of passing steamers; opposite, the twin flares on the Welsh coast, and every sixty seconds the swinging white illumination from the Lynmouth Lighthouse, shining ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... lights relieved the pitchy darkness of the cave enough to show the high ledges that ran still further back into ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo
... the eastern verge a thick darkness was gathering; a pitchy blackness out of which a blood—red aerial river rolled and shot its tides through the arteries of the night. It came nigher. It was dense with living creatures, larvae, horrible shapes with waving tendrils, ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... the Sioux became disheartened by the loss they were suffering and withdrew, confining themselves thereafter to a long range and harmless fusillade. When it was dark the three men crept out to the river bed, and taking advantage of the pitchy night broke through the circle of their foes; they managed to reach the settlements without further molestation, having ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... pitchy darkness he crept slowly along, with a singular nightmare-like sensation growing upon him; he ceased to have any command of the power of thought, and went on and on, inch by inch, ever ready to sink beneath his burden, but always at the last moment making a desperate effort, and regaining enough ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... that the canoe was being forced through hanging bushes or creepers. Another minute, and the breath of sweet open air fanned my face, and I felt that we had emerged from the tunnel and were floating upon clear water. I say felt, for I could see nothing, the darkness being absolutely pitchy, as it often is just before the dawn. But even this could scarcely damp my joy. We were out of that dreadful river, and wherever we might have got to this at least was something to be thankful for. And so I sat down and inhaled the sweet night air and waited for the dawn ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... The night was of pitchy darkness when the flotilla of French boats started on their perilous expedition. Long they watched, every moment expecting to see the flames from the fire-ships bursting forth close to them, or to be engaged in a deadly conflict with ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... having been seen above the Highlands. The crews of the sloops, it is true, generally differed among themselves in their accounts of these apparitions; but that may have arisen from the uncertain situations in which they saw her. Sometimes it was by the flashes of the thunder-storm lighting up a pitchy night, and giving glimpses of her careering across Tappan Zee or the wide waste of Haverstraw Bay. At one moment she would appear close upon them, as if likely to run them down, and would throw them into great bustle and alarm, but the next flash would show her far off, always sailing ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... had no lantern. Looking after the fire was Rebekah, and later there came Mrs. Green, Alfred, Bob Green and the two other wives. The wind was blowing cold, and we were glad to sit near the blaze. You can picture the scene; pitchy darkness all round except where now and again gleams of light fell on the sounding sea below and made dimly visible the white line of surf. After staying some time, as there was no sign of the boat, we and ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... "I had a vision last night and will relate it to you. During my brief slumbers, I thought I was standing on this very spot, and gazing as now upon yon mighty structure. On a sudden the day became overcast, and ere long it grew pitchy dark. Then was heard a noise of rushing wings in the air, and I could just discern many strange figures hovering above the tower, uttering doleful cries and lamentations. All at once these figures disappeared, and gave place to, or, it may be, were chased away by, others of more hideous ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... phenomenon that has occurred in Canada since the country became inhabited by civilized man, was first seen in October, 1785, and again in July, 1814. At noonday a pitchy darkness, of a dismal and sinister character, completely obscured the light of the sun, continuing for about ten minutes at a time, and being frequently repeated during the afternoon. In the interval between each mysterious ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... force equal, or, perhaps, superior to their own. Moreau was compelled to fight two battles, in both of which he was defeated; and nothing but a violent storm saved the wreck of his army. This, and the pitchy darkness of the night, prevented the Austrian cavalry from acting, and enabled him to get his broken columns on the safe side of the Rhine. The archduke Charles ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... and the moon is full: Imps with long tongues are licking at my brow, And snakes with eyes of flame crawl up my breast; Huge monsters glare upon me, some with horns, And some with hoofs that blaze like pitchy brands; Great trunks have some, and some are hung with beads. Here serpents dash their stings into my face, All tipped with fire; and there a wild bird drives His red-hot talons in my burning scalp. Here bees and beetles buzz about my ears Like crackling coals, and ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... them farthest. One might impute instinct or whatever it is to the pine tree too, she works so methodically for the preservation of her species. A year ago last spring the mother pine put forth the beginnings of those pine cones that now dangle brown and pitchy, or drop to the ground, useless except as kindlings for my campfire. Then they were wee golden-green buds of pistillate flowers, set high on the uppermost branch tips that the pollen from the tree's own staminate blooms might miss them in ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... every stroke, striking my head and hands against jagged stones and sharp corners, clutching at last something in my fingers and dragging it up with all my might. I spoke, I cried aloud, but there was no answer. I was alone in the pitchy darkness with my burden, and the house was five hundred yards away. Struggling still, I felt the ground beneath my feet, I saw a ray of moonlight- -the grotto widened, and the deep water became a broad and shallow brook as I stumbled ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... clay floor of my bungalow. The cry of the forest prowler is repeated, nearer than before to my quarters, and presently something hops up on the foot of the charpoy on which my recumbent form is stretched; and still continues the pattering of feet on the floor. It is pitchy dark within the bungalow, and, uncertain of the nature of my strange visitant, I kick and "qu-e-e-k" at him and scare him off; but, evidently terrorized by the appearance of the panther, the next minute he again invades ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... scared, 'cause he couldn't hardly guess where he was. The insides of the whale were all wet, and it was all pitchy dark ...
— The Doers • William John Hopkins
... A species of very small mango from one and one-half to five centimeters in its longer diameter. It has a soft pit, and exhales a strong pitchy odor.—Rizal. ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... is the sacred Fire in this Temple of Humanity, and the Muses are its especial and vestal Priestesses. Though I cannot prevent the vile drugs and counterfeit Frankincense, which render its flame at once pitchy, glowing, and unsteady, I would yet be no voluntary accomplice in the Sacrilege. With the commencement of a PUBLIC, commences the degradation of the GOOD and the BEAUTIFUL—both fade and retire before the accidentally AGREEABLE. "Othello" becomes a hollow lip-worship; ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... ambient-atmosphere of revolutionary fanatic Madness, rushes on, impelled and impelling; and has become a blind brute Force; no rest for him but in the grave! Darkness and the mystery of horrid cruelty cover it for us, in History; as they did in Nature. The chaotic Thunder-cloud, with its pitchy black, and its tumult of dazzling jagged fire, in a world all electric: thou wilt not undertake to shew how that comported itself,—what the secrets of its dark womb were; from what sources, with what specialities, the lightning it held did, in confused ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... brake into the forest track; But pitchy darkness, caused by closing night And foliage dense, impedes the avengers' way; When lo! they trip o'er ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... to strike," he growled. "Wait till the moon is from behind that cloud. Ugh! It is black here, pitchy black." A full, heavy minute elapsed, disturbed by the scuffle of the negro's feet as he ran and cowered in the furthest corner, and the soft creaking of the iron door, and a sudden suck and soughing of the night air. Then ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... but I never seem to get around to it." As, alack-a-day! he did not get around to me before that occasion, I went, packed in the bottom of a trunk, with the young man and his wife on their annual holiday. In my pitchy gaol I had, of course, no means of calculating the flight of time, but when I next saw the light, after what seemed to me an interminable spell, I appeared to be the occasion of some excitement. The young man brought me up after several vigorous dives into the bottom of the trunk, ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... battle, crushed each other. And after the combatants had been fatigued, routed, and crushed, O Bharata, dark night set in and the battle could no longer be seen. Thereupon both the Kurus and the Pandavas withdrew their armies, when that awful night of pitchy darkness came. And having withdrawn their troops, both the Kurus and the Pandavas took rest for the night, retiring ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... It was still pitchy dark and the rain was pouring, but the wind only sighed weakly as though tired by its violence when she helped the Bronco into his saddle. The effort wrenched a groan from him, but he insisted upon her tying his feet beneath the horse's belly, saying ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... sonnet to the princess, who regarded him wide-eyed. The troll came back from a tunnel after he finished, and said curtly: "This way." Cappen took the girl's hand and followed her into a pitchy, ...
— The Valor of Cappen Varra • Poul William Anderson
... making as little sound as possible the three young soldiers crept forward. Jacques led the way, with Leon and Earl close behind him. Every boy held his pistol gripped tightly in his right hand. Night had now fallen and pitchy darkness had taken ...
— Fighting in France • Ross Kay
... night was pitchy dark, and when, just as they stepped out, a sheet of flame belched forth from the vessels, it seemed to be almost against their faces. The roar shook the ground. The troops were too busy saving themselves to notice the fugitives, and they pushed ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various
... refused to take another step. He urged it forward, but it only threw itself back upon its haunches. Just then a vivid flash of lightning revealed a great precipice upon the brink of which he stood. It was but an instant, and then the pitchy blackness hid it again from view. But he turned his horse and anxiously rode away ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle
... be regarded as in some occult manner, which as yet has baffled detection, influencing the perfection of sporidia[P] In Rhytisma, found on the leaves of maple and willow, black pitchy spots at first appear, which contain within them a golden pulp, in which very slender corpuscles are mixed with an abundant mucilage. These corpuscles are the spermatia, which in Rhytisma acerinum are linear and short, in Rhytisma salicinum globose. When the spermatia ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke
... midnight black with clouds is in the sky; I seem to feel, upon my limbs, the weight Of its vast brooding shadow. All in vain Turns the tired eye in search of form; no star Pierces the pitchy veil; no ruddy blaze, From dwellings lighted by the cheerful hearth, Tinges the flowering summits of the grass. No sound of life is heard, no village hum, Nor measured tramp of footstep in the path, Nor rush of wing, while, on the breast of ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant
... cloud the world doth threat, In his dim mist the aspiring mountains hiding, From earth's dark womb some gentle gust doth get, Which blows these pitchy vapours from their biding, Hindering their present fall by this dividing; So his unhallow'd haste her words delays, And moody Pluto winks while ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]
... and the basket-women left Number Nine gallery and went further up Number Sixteen. At one turn of the road they could see the pitchy black water lapping on the coal. It had touched the roof of a gallery that they knew well—a gallery where they used to smoke their huqas and manage their flirtations. Seeing this, they called aloud upon their Gods, and the Meahs, who are thrice bastered ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling
... sank again, for with the daylight all evidence of our security vanished away. We could no longer see the firm rock on which we lay, while we were stunned with the violence of the tempest that raged around us. The night grew pitchy dark as it advanced, so that we could not see our hands when we held them up before our eyes, and were obliged to feel each other occasionally to make sure that we were safe, for the storm at last became ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... record it as the only specimen that reached my ears of the old, rough water-wit for which the Thames used to be so celebrated. Passing directly along the line of the sunken Tunnel, we landed in Wapping, which I should have presupposed to be the most tarry and pitchy spot on earth, swarming with old salts, and full of warm, bustling, coarse, homely, and cheerful life. Nevertheless, it turned out to be a cold and torpid neighborhood, mean, shabby, and unpicturesque, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... Peabody, whose generosity gushed like rivers. He asks each to make the most of courage and self-reliance, emulating Livingstone in self-denying service. He bids each emulate and look up to Jesus Christ, as Dante, midst the pitchy night, looked up toward the star. He bids each move heaven and earth to achieve for himself a worthy manhood. For thus only can earth ever be moved ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... candles stuck by lumps of clay to their felt hats, the travellers have painfully descended by perpendicular ladders and along dripping-wet rock passages, fathoms down into pitchy darkness; the miner who guides ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... cannot tell, for I was as one in a dream, but the cool rain upon my face refreshed me, and the strong, clean wind in my nostrils was wonderfully grateful. Presently, raising my arm stiffly, I brushed the wet hair from my eyes, and stared round me into the pitchy darkness, in quest of ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... miles from Perugia, but there were none to be had, and our poor beast was obliged to perform the whole journey without rest or food. It grew very dark, and a storm, with thunder and lightning, swept among the hills. The clouds were of pitchy darkness, and we could see nothing beyond the road, except the lights of peasant-cottages trembling through the gloom. Now and then a flash of lightning revealed the black masses of the mountains, on which the solid sky seemed to rest. The wind and ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... sat the Pater Caelestis, surrounded with his angels; on the second appeared the holy saints and glorified men; and the last and lowest were occupied by mere men who had not passed through this life to the regions of eternity. On one side of this lowest platform was the resemblance of a dark pitchy cavern, from whence issued appearance of fire and flames; and when it was necessary the audience were treated with hideous yellings and noises, as imitations of the howlings and cries of the wretched souls tormented by the relentless ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... The darkness she knew was their only shield. By their voices and their footsteps she could tell the men without numbered not less than four or five. Once let a light reveal to them that the house was held only by a single girl, they could overpower her in a few seconds. It was only that horrible pitchy darkness, out of which those deadly shots came ringing with such precision and promptness, that filled them with the idea that the cabin was protected by a body of desperate and straight-shooting miners. It was the fears of the besiegers now simply ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross
... in wrath 'tis given To mar the earth, and shake the vasty heaven: Behold the gloomy robes, that spreading hide Thy secret majesty, lo! slow and wide, Thy heavy skirts sail in the middle air, Thy sultry shroud is o'er the noonday glare: Th' advancing clouds sublimely roll'd on high, Deep in their pitchy volumes clothe the sky; Like hosts of gath'ring foes array'd in death, Dread hangs their gloom upon the earth beneath, It is thy hour: the awful deep is still, And laid to rest the wind of ev'ry hill. Wild creatures of the forest homeward scour, And in their dens with fear unwonted cow'r. Pride ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... the hostile ranks Dread panic fell; prone as in death they lay Where else upright they should withstand the foe; Nor more availed their valour, and in vain The cloud of weapons flew, with none to slay. Then blazing torches rolling pitchy flame Are hurled, and shaken nod the lofty towers And threaten ruin, and the bastions groan Struck by the frequent engine, and the troops Of Magnus by triumphant eagles led Stride o'er the rampart, in their front ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... produced naphtha, an article of a pitchy and glutinous character, resembling bitumen: on which if ever so small a bird perches, it finds its flight impeded and speedily dies. It is a species of liquid, and when once it has taken fire, human ingenuity can find no means of ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... little boy and the meiboss; remember the young girl and the young man; remember the lake, the fire, and the brimstone; remember the suicide's skeleton on the pitchy billows of Mount Etna; remember the voice of warning that has this day sounded in your ears; and what I say to you I say to all—watch! May the Lord add ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... were now fastening their long rattan ladders before descending them to collect the nests. We crept along the logs and listened to the everlasting twittering far below; but, although we could see nothing but pitchy darkness, the thought of what was below made me soon crawl back with a very shaky ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... prophet, like that which in an earlier age fell upon Abraham, but without the "horror;" and, as the Divine Spirit moves on the face of the wildly troubled waters, as a visible aurora enveloped by the pitchy cloud, the great doctrine is orally enunciated, that "in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Unreckoned ages, condensed in the vision into a few brief moments, pass away; the creative voice is again heard, ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... Swanhild, Groa's daughter, and he trembled at the thought. He stood by the fire, and Gudruda, watching from the shadow of the high seat, saw the dull light glow upon his golden helm, and a sigh of joy broke from her lips. Eric heard the sigh and looked, and as he looked a stick of pitchy driftwood fell into the fire and flared up fiercely. Then he saw. There, in the carved high seat, robed all in bridal white, sat Gudruda the Fair, his love. Her golden hair flowed about her breast, her white arms were stretched towards him, and on her sweet face ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... pulled on his trousers and tore away like a madman. Such a storm was raging that he could hardly keep his feet; houses and trees quivered and swayed, mountains trembled, and the rocks rolled into the sea. The sky was pitchy black; it thundered and lightened, and the sea ran in black waves, mountains high, crested with white foam. He shrieked out, but ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... they had vainly sought to kindle fires and pour incense, one of the fiercest of those deadly torrents, mingled with immense fragments of scoria, had poured its rage. Over the bended forms of the priests it dashed: that cry had been of death—that silence had been of eternity! The ashes—the pitchy stream—sprinkled the altars, covered the pavement, and half concealed the quivering corpses of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... the actor who played the part used to have his face gilded. On the second platform were the glorified saints, and on the lowest men who had not yet passed from life. On one side of the lowest platform was hell's mouth, a dark pitchy cavern, whence issued the appearance of fire and flames, and sometimes hideous yellings and noises in imitation of the howlings and cries of wretched souls tormented by relentless demons. From this yawning cave the ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... before Palafox reached the southern edge of the bayou at the point opposite his only house and home, and it was pitchy dark, when, having swam across the stagnant channel, he trudged, wet and weary, to the barred door of Cacosotte's Tavern, and knocked. Mex undid the bolts and let her master in, her sagacious eyes swiftly taking note of ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... compact, and, owing to the absence of the internal scattering common in bubbled ice, the light plunges into the mass, where it is extinguished, the perfectly clear ice presenting an appearance of pitchy blackness. [Footnote: I learn from a correspondent that certain Welsh tarns, which are reputed ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... whither may I cast my looks? to heaven? Black pitchy clouds from thence rain down revenge. The earth shall I behold, stain'd with the gore Of his heart-blood, that died most innocent? Which way soe'er I turn mine eyes, methinks His butcher'd corpse stands staring ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... the men lay in the mud without fires. At three in the morning (August 20th) the word was passed to march. Such pitchy darkness covered the face of the plain that Smith ordered every man to touch his front file as he marched. Now and then a flash of lightning lighted the narrow ravine; occasionally a straggling moonbeam pierced the clouds and shed an uncertain glimmer on the heights; but ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... men will be at hand. Here there was not any human society. The fire crouched on its ashes. It was on a little circular eminence of mossed rock; black sticks, and brushwood, and dry fern, and split logs, pitchy to the touch, lay about; in the centre of them the fire coiled sullenly among its ashes, with a ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... and, groping his way in the intense darkness, made for the verandah. Here he paused for a moment, glancing upward to the sky, which he found to be obscured by a dense canopy of heavy black cloud, portending rain, which sufficiently accounted for the pitchy darkness. His eyes at length becoming accustomed to the obscurity, he looked round for the guard; and he eventually discovered the various members faithfully occupying their posts, but, one and all, squatted upon the ground evidently fast asleep. He stalked ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... by the markets of a great city. The appearance of one of these towering river transports as she comes sailing down the turbid stream of the great Father of Waters, laden to the water's edge with brown bales of cotton, and emitting from her lofty, red crowned smoke-stacks dense clouds of pitchy black smoke, is most wonderful. Unlike ocean-steamers, the river-steamer carries her load upon her deck. Built to penetrate far towards the head-waters of rivers and bayous that in summer become mere shallow ditches, these steamers have a very ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... still nights this cry was hers, As on her couch she lay till dreary dawn, Her large eyes dark with horror looking out Upon the pitchy darkness unafraid. And as the breathings of the new spring breeze, Soft sights of sad complaint, to autumn's storms That hold the burdened sorrow of a year, Was this, her sigh of, "oh, the happy world!" To this despairing cry of, "oh, my heart!" And as the year's late winds leave ...
— Poems • Marietta Holley
... volley of musketry flamed, thundered, roared in the cavern, bringing down enormous fragments from the vaults. The cavern was lighted for an instant by this discharge, and then immediately returned to pitchy darkness rendered thicker by the smoke. To this succeeded a profound silence, broken only by the steps of the third brigade, now ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... but Joan knew the ways of Daddy Dan with Satan and Black Bart. She lay quite still, shivering with pleasure as the footsteps approached her. Then a match scratched—she saw by the blue spurt of flame that he was lighting a pine torch, then whirling it until the flame ate down to the pitchy knot. He held it above his head, and now she saw him plainly: the light cascaded over his shoulders, glowed on his eyes, and then puffed out sidewise in ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... the ship was thus divided into cells, and when candles and lanterns were removed the places were in pitchy darkness. I went on board the Success one day, while she was on exhibition here, long after she had given up her old occupation, and as a matter of curiosity, I had myself shut up in one of the ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... she were more comfortable she might be able to sleep, and then, in the morning, she might see light. Of course there was light, somewhere, if she could only find it; but who ever found the light, lying on a hard sofa, in pitchy darkness? Perhaps if she were to get up and move about things would seem less intolerable. And with the mere thought of action the tired frame relaxed, the straining eyes were sealed with sleep, the curtain of unconsciousness had fallen ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... pitchy blackness, then an opening would give us a glimpse of the stars. The track was found and pursued for a long distance, and then my uncle called a halt, and we listened for some minutes for tokens of pursuit, but all was now still save the nocturnal cries of the inhabitants ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... fireplace, to left, a fire of pine roots was crackling. The room was filled with their pitchy, wholesome perfume, with the dancing light of their blaze and with the warmth made ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... from the ground a copper candlestick which she had left there, a candlestick with a tall, slender stem, and snuffers, pin, and extinguisher hanging about it on chains. She lighted it at the silver lamp. The light grew stronger; and as they went on, now illumined by it, and again enveloped in pitchy shadow, they suggested a picture by ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... had been seen from the threshold by Mr. Sturgiss and by Laetitia's Harry. It was pitchy dark, emerging from the brightness of the interior, and he had stepped with her to conduct her to the gate. "It was an extraordinary coincidence, meeting you here," ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... old man suddenly stood still. It was pitchy dark under the overhanging trees, and only a faint gleam from a large bow window showed her the length of the garden-path that ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... stretched up before her into pitchy darkness. She held her breath; tried to listen. Still no sound but one in her ears—the thump-thump of her own overstrained heart. She closed the door as softly as she could, ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... waited orderly. First thick clouds rose from all the liquid plains; Then mists from marishes, and grounds whose veins Were conduit-pipes to many a crystal spring; From standing pools and fens were following Unhealthy fogs; each river, every rill Sent up their vapours to attend her will These pitchy curtains drew 'twixt earth and heaven And as Night's chariot through the air was driven, Clamour grew dumb, unheard was shepherd's song And silence girt the woods; no warbling tongue Talk'd to the Echo; satyrs broke their dance, And all the upper ...
— Pastoral Poems by Nicholas Breton, - Selected Poetry by George Wither, and - Pastoral Poetry by William Browne (of Tavistock) • Nicholas Breton, George Wither, William Browne (of Tavistock)
... a new experience to me,' he said, as they stepped into the wet iron cage, which had ascended to receive them in answer to Archie's signal, and now commenced to drop down silently and swiftly into the pitchy darkness. 'It puts me in mind ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... ever near them, even when it was too dark to see her. I do not think, however, that it kept many of the officers awake at night, although it must be confessed Jack was ill at ease. If it were possible for the enemy to steal near enough in the pitchy dark portion of the night, the first intimation of her presence might be a raking broadside that would sweep the decks fore and aft; then ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables
... during the night she awoke in the pitchy darkness to hear the wind blow and the rain roar. The dawn broke cold and gray, and the storm gradually diminished. Allie lay alone for hours, beginning to suffer by reason of her bonds and cramped limbs. The longer she was left alone the ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... him to drop his lantern, and, in his eagerness to save it, he let go the cask, which suddenly stove in, the spirits communicated with the flame, and the whole place was instantly in a blaze. Hopes of subduing the fire at first were strong, but soon heavy volumes of smoke and a pitchy smell told that it had reached ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... sound, and the garrison, who could see nothing in the pitchy darkness, fired wherever they could hear a sound. Presently a bright light burst up. The redskins, provided with faggots of resinous sticks, had crept up towards some buildings, consisting of several store ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... described as the moment when Captain Truck disposed himself to sleep in the launch of the Dane. The weather had sensibly altered in the brief interval, and there were signs that, to the understanding of our young seaman, denoted a change. The darkness was intense. So, deep and pitchy black, indeed, had the night become, that even the land was no longer to be distinguished, and the only clues the two gentlemen had to its position were the mouldering watch-fires of the Arab camp, and the direction ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... of a pitchy brown, beneath it is yellowish and hairy; the margin of the thorax is yellowish, its disk has many short rust-coloured hairs, the elytra have 9 longitudinal impressed lines, the spaces between ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... that should the ship take fire We, too, must in the pitchy flames expire— That if we wretches did not scrub the decks His staff should break our base, ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... nightcap and nightshirt were discernible in almost pitchy darkness), they saw him strut back from the window to slip downstairs and surprise them. Mr Pinsent paused only to insert his feet into a pair of loose slippers, and again, as he unbolted the back door, to snatch a lantern off its hook. Yet by the time he ran out upon the garden ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... The night was pitchy black and a drizzling rain was falling, but Eli had often travelled on as dark nights, and he was determined. He chose a light skiff rigged with a leg-o'-mutton sail. The wind was against him and with the sail reefed and the mast unstepped and ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... tell which way to spring; a crashing shock, his head striking something hard! Nothingness! And then—an awful, awful struggle with roots and weeds and slime, a desperate agony of groping in that pitchy blackness, among tree-stumps, in dead water that seemed to have no bottom—he and that other, who had leaped at them in the dark with his boat, like a murdering beast; a nightmare search more horrible than words could tell, till in ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... with the pitchy darkness of a village street, where the greater part of the population were gone to bed, when he passed through Engelberg towards the hotel, where Phebe must be awaiting his return anxiously. In carrying out his project it would be well for him to have as ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... a quaver of earnestness in it that needed no daylight to enforce. The pitchy night made a bobbing blur of him as he rode his quick-stepping little ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... king; no Cusack-Smith, without whose accession I could not send a letter to Mataafa. I rode up here, wrote my letter in the sweat of the concordance and with the able-bodied help of Lloyd—and dined. Then down in continual showers and pitchy darkness, and to Cusack-Smith's; not returned. Back to the inn for my horse, and to C.-S.'s, when I find him just returned and he accepts my letter. Thence home, by 12.30, jolly tired and wet. And to-day have been in a crispation of energy and ill-temper, raking my wretched ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... serious case. Cape Norman lies thirty miles to the northward of St. Anthony, and the trail is a rough one. The night was moonless and pitchy black, but Grenfell set out at once to look for dogs. He borrowed four from one man, hired one from another, and arranged with a man, named Walter, to furnish four additional ones and to drive the team. Walter was to report at the hospital at 4:30 in the morning prepared to start, though ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace
... land was pitchy black. There are night people on the plain who love the dark. Amid the black level land they meet to frolic under the stars. Then when their sharp ears hear any strange footfalls nigh they scamper away into the ...
— Old Indian Legends • Zitkala-Sa
... terrific crash over my head. It was echoed from Saleve, the Juras, and the Alps of Savoy; vivid flashes of lightning dazzled my eyes, illuminating the lake, making it appear like a vast sheet of fire; then for an instant every thing seemed of a pitchy darkness, until the eye recovered itself from the preceding flash. The storm, as is often the case in Switzerland, appeared at once in various parts of the heavens. The most violent storm hung exactly north of the town, over the part of the lake which lies between the promontory of Belrive ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... Field slipped out by the way he had come. Once in the road, he glanced back at the house, but the whole place seemed to be in pitchy darkness. There was nothing for it now but to make his way to the nearest police station, and get all the assistance possible. There was no trouble at the station across the Common, the mere mention of Field's name being sufficient. A few minutes later half a dozen constables in silent shoes were ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... the little inn about nine in the evening on a night that was pitchy dark, and in a wind which made it necessary for him to hold his hat on to his head. "What a beastly country to live in," he said to himself, resolving that he would certainly sell Vavasor Hall in spite ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... the light went. Now, in the pitchy darkness of the drenching rain, as he crouched at the foot of the wall he could hear the hoarse murmur of many voices behind it, as ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... for prizes in the sewers; or his crawling into an abandoned doorless house in St. Giles', where his hosts were three dead men, one pendant; into another of an alley nigh Houndsditch, where the crazy hovel, in phosphoric rottenness, fell sparkling on him one pitchy midnight, and he received that injury, which, excluding activity for no small part of the future, was an added cause of his prolongation of exile, besides not leaving his faculties unaffected by the concussion of one of the ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... foreseen the Storm's impending rage, When to the Clouds the Waves ambitious rise, 10 And seem with Heaven a doubtful war to wage, Whilst total darkness overspreads the skies; Save when the lightnings darting wingd Fate Quick bursting from the pitchy clouds between In forkd Terror, and destructive state[2:2] 15 Shall shew with ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... skin round the wound turning yellow and mortifying within an hour or two. This deadly poison is obtained, I believe, by boiling down a particular root, the arrow-heads being dipped in the black, pitchy-looking essence which remains. I am glad to say, however, that owing to the establishment of several Mission Stations amongst them, the Wa Kamba are quickly becoming the most civilised natives in ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson
... what heat there was in him, and the breath was of his own lungs, putting life into hers through their two mouths....She opened her eyes. It was dark. The darkness she had come out of was bright beside this pitchy night, and her struggle back to life less painful than the fierce labor of the wind and waves. Their frail precarious craft was in ceaseless peril. His left arm held her like a vice, but for greater safety he had bound a rope round their two bodies and the small mast of their ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... four by five, Come ye now dead that were alive, Come now I bid ye From grave-clods rid ye, Come! From South and North, I bid ye forth, From East, from West, At my behest— Come! Come great, come small, Come one, come all, Heed ye my call, List to my call, I say, From pitchy gloom Of mouldered tomb Here find ye room For sport and holiday. Come grisly ghosts and goblins pale, Come spirits black and grey, Ye shrouded spectres—Hail, O Hail! Ho! 'tis your holiday. Come wriggling snakes From thorny brakes, Hail! Come grimly things ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... it aft to the stern, we commenced hauling. The nets approached the gunwale. The first three appeared, from the phosphoric light of the water, as if bursting into flames of a pale green colour. Here and there a herring glittered bright in the meshes, or went darting away through the pitchy darkness, visible for a moment by its own light. The fourth net was brighter than any of the others, and glittered through the waves while it was yet several fathoms away: the pale green seemed as if mingled ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... usually are so designated in commerce. Others are insoluble in water, but dissolve readily in alcohol, in naphtha, in turpentine, or in other essential oils; these are designated as "gum-resins." Still others yield oils or pitchy substances on distillation; these are known as "oleo-resins." There are many other dried vegetable juices, however, that in commerce are not classified among the gums and resins, and of these the most important is the substance commonly known ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway |
