"Scudding" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... feet and gazed. Away out to the west and southwest, whence came the strong breeze blowing from the Sweetwater Hills, half a dozen dark, agile forms, bending low, were scudding afoot over the sward, and everywhere they moved there sprang up in their tracks little sheets of lambent flame, little clouds of bluish, blinding smoke, and almost in less time than it takes to tell it, ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... visited an aerodrome on the Somme to know whether Briton and Frenchman or German was master of the air. The answer was there whenever you looked in the heavens in the absence of iron crosses on the hovering or scudding or turning plane wings and the multiplicity of bull's-eyes; in the abandoned way that both British and French pickets flew over the enemy area, as if space were theirs and they dared any interference. If you saw a ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... satisfaction to him. On the contrary, he viewed Canobia with disgust. It entailed duties, and brought no excitement. He was seldom at home and only for a few passing days: continued residence was intolerable to his restless spirit. He passed his life in perpetual movement, scudding about on the fleetest dromedaries, and galloping over the deserts on ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... A.B. in the ship; and he proved to be a born helmsman, standing his "trick" at the wheel from the very first, and leaving a straighter wake behind him than any of the other men, even when the ship was scudding before a heavy following sea. Mr Sutcliffe, the chief mate, was delighted with his young protege, and declared, in unnecessarily picturesque language, that he would qualify the boy to perform the duties of an able seaman before Natal Bluff ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... eyes and tears oozed through them, trickling down her face. When at last she looked again the stars were gone and the sky was blue as a thrush's egg, with a fluff of rose-red clouds knitted together overhead and a few crimson rags scudding across the Qua-Quas. A dove suddenly cried, "Choo-coo, choo-coo," and others took up the refrain, until in the hills and woods hundreds of doves were greeting the morning with their soft, thrilling cries. ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... but he could see no more than the mocking Bandar-log scudding through the trees, and Mor, his tail spread in full splendour, ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... travel; I will drink Life to the lees. All times I have enjoy'd Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades Vext the dim sea. I am become a name; For always roaming with a hungry heart Much have I seen and known,—cities of men And manners, climates, councils, governments, Myself not least, but honor'd of them all,— And drunk delight of battle with ...
— Theodore Roosevelt • Edmund Lester Pearson
... very colourless urchins that fled down the lane from this remarkable experience! But I recall with a more doubtful sentiment, compounded out of fear and exultation, the coil of equinoctial tempests; trumpeting squalls, scouring flaws of rain; the boats with their reefed lugsails scudding for the harbour mouth, where danger lay, for it was hard to make when the wind had any east in it; the wives clustered with blowing shawls at the pier-head, where (if fate was against them) they might see boat and husband and sons - their whole wealth and their whole family - engulfed ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and more familiar than was then the fashion with masters. His translations were remarkably vivid; of [Greek: mogera mogeros] 'toiling and moiling;' and of some ship or other in the Philoctetes, which he pronounced to be 'scudding under main-top sails,' our conceptions became intelligible. Many of his translations were written down with his initials, and I saw some, not a long while ago, in the Sophocles of a late Tutor at Queen's College, Oxford, who had them from tradition. He gave most ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... the roots of the elm-tree into the deep water on the other side of the creek. Ten minutes after that they were sliding down a muddy toboggan which they had revived by splashing water upon the incline made and provided by the town boys for scudding. Ten minutes afterward they were covering themselves with coats of mud, adorned—one with stripes made with the point of a stick, another with polka-dots, another with checks, and Mealy with snake-like, curving stripes. Then the whole crew dashed down the ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... which neither Cuvier nor Blumenbach knew anything about? It lies motionless, as if asleep; the sea seems unable to move it in the least; it is the waves that undulate upon its sides. The column of water thrown up to a height of five hundred feet falls in rain with a deafening uproar. And here are we scudding like lunatics before the wind, to get near to a monster that a hundred whales a day would ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... continued to talk and act, helping the sailor and little William, until not only were the water-casks restored to their proper places, but the sail was hauled up to the mast, and the Catamaran once more scudding before the breeze, as if not the slightest accident had occurred either ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... bright moonlight without, with drift scudding over the moon; at that instant the moon's face cleared, and Glam glared up against her. By that sight only Grettir confessed himself dismayed beyond all that he had ever seen; nor, for weariness and fear together, could ...
— The Book of Romance • Various
... keep the boat head-on to wind and sea, and we shall ride as comfortably that way as any other; while, although our drift will probably amount to as much as three knots every hour, we shall not lose nearly as much ground as we should by scudding before—" ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... hurricane deck. He blandly and sweetly took his tooth-pick out of his mouth between his fingers, as if it were a cigar— we were just in the act of climbing an overhanging big tree, and the passengers were scudding astern like rats—and lifted up these commands to me ever ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... into the mouth of the Bay of Biscay, or at least was fast approaching it, and he bethought him of the means of getting to the westward. The night promised to be anything but dark, for though a good many wild-looking clouds were by this time scudding athwart the heavens, the moon diffused a sort of twilight gleam in the air. Waiting patiently, however, until the middle-watch was again called, he reduced, sail, and hauled the ship off to a south-west course, hoping by this slight change insensibly to gain an offing before the Foam ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... towards the S.E., the farther he will be from the centre—the barometer now begins to rise, the wind veering to W.S.W., and the hurricane finally passes off with the wind at W. It is to be particularly remarked that in this example the ship is in the most dangerous quadrant, as by scudding she would be driven in advance of the track of the storm's centre, which of ...
— The Hurricane Guide - Being An Attempt To Connect The Rotary Gale Or Revolving - Storm With Atmospheric Waves. • William Radcliff Birt
... "pack" was in full cry after "puss," who gave us the run of our lives. Unfortunately the hunt did not end there, as some French farmers, not accustomed to the rare sight of half a couple and two mongrels hot after a hare scudding across their fields, lodged a complaint! When the owner of the beagle was called up by the Colonel for an explanation he explained ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... was barred, and with a final yelp that set her employer's teeth on edge she dashed into the yard and went home via the back-fences. Housewives busy in their kitchens looked up in amazement at the spectacle of a pair of thin black legs descending one fence, scudding across the yard to the accompaniment of a terrified moaning, and scrambling madly over the other. At her own back-door Maudie collapsed on the step, and, to the intense discomfort and annoyance of her father, had her first fit ...
— Deep Waters, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... heart in the world, though, our going had to be slow. It was the middle of the Antarctic winter, when absolute night reigned for weeks and we had nothing to alleviate the darkness but the light of the scudding moon, and sometimes the glory of the aurora as it encircled the ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... passed us while we were at this camp, one coming from out of space, as it seemed, a mere speck, and growing to a full-fledged deep-sea vessel, with all sails set, scudding before the wind. The other two were gracefully beating their way out against the stiff breeze to the open waters beyond. What prettier sight is there than a full-rigged vessel with all sails spread! The enthusiasm that ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... wind, and acted as a sort of floating anchor. At last there was nothing in sight, so I laid down at the bottom of the boat and fell asleep. It was daylight before I awoke, and then I got up and looked round me—it blew harder than ever; and, although there were some vessels at a distance, scudding before the gale, they did not mind, or perhaps see me. I sat very melancholy the whole day, the tears ran down my cheeks, my eyes were full of salt from the spray—I saw at last nothing but the roaring and trembling waves. I prayed every prayer I knew, that is, I said the Lord's Prayer, ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... itself when it could behind plain common sense which whispered at intervals that all that had happened was only bad luck. They walked miles that day; often in silence, sometimes in gusty talk—talk gusty with the swift changes of Priscilla's mood scudding across the leaden background of Fritzing's steadier despair—and they got back tired, hungry, their clothes splashed with mud, their minds no nearer light than when they started. She had, I say, ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... pronounced this halcyon calm a "weather-breeder." And so it proved. A storm burst forth in the night; the sea roared and raged; and when the day broke, I beheld the late gallant convoy scattered in every direction; some dismasted, others scudding under bare poles, and ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... seas rarely came over their bows or sterns, and when they did the bulk of the water did not remain or seem to affect their buoyancy. The heaviest water was taken aboard amidship, when they were running with a beam sea or scudding before a gale; but owing to their great sheer it gravitated in a small space against the bridge bulkhead, the structure of which was strong enough to stand excessive pressure. They were considered to be the finest and safest ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... this, but his wife would not leave him in peace. She came to him continually to inquire about this or that, or to ask him to look at some vessel that was coming in sight, or at some view on the shore. All this time the wind, and the consequent motion of the steamer, increased. Scudding clouds were seen flitting across the sky, from which there descended now and then misty showers of rain. These clouds gradually became more frequent and more dense, until at length the whole eastern sky was involved in one dense mass ...
— Rollo in Holland • Jacob Abbott
... kneeling in the dust of the Riverton Road, with an old geography open on his knee, felt in his thin breast a faint flutter, as of wings. He looked at the sketch; he watched the Red Admiral finish his meal and go scudding down the wind. And he knew he had found the one thing he could do, the one thing he wanted to do, that he must and would do. It was as if the butterfly had been a fairy, to open for Peter a tiny door of hope. He wrote under ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... with Mrs. Brainard. She was as tall as I, and sat in her saddle as if quite unconscious of her animal. The road stretched hard and inviting under our horses' feet. The wind smelled salt. The sky was ragged with gray masses of cloud scudding across the blue. I was beginning to glow with exhilaration, when suddenly my companion drew ...
— A Mountain Woman and Others • (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie
... balloon with such force as to throw it over on its side, thus rendering the position of the car sometimes extremely dangerous. Ferguson did not close his all night, and he was repeatedly on the point of cutting the anchor-rope and scudding away before the gale. At length, however, the storm abated, and the oscillations of the balloon ceased to ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... not proposing elopement. There was a priest in his company who, although he ate below the salt and found his associates among the sailors, could have performed the ceremony of marriage when the Juno, under full sail in the night, was scudding for the Russian north. It is not to be denied that this romantic alternative appealed to Rezanov, and had it not been for the starving wretches so eagerly awaiting his coming he might have been tempted to throw commercial relations to the winds ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... dense woods. It was evidently not the land of fiords and glaciers for which Bjarni was looking. So without stopping to make explorations he turned his prow to the north and kept on. The sky was now fair, and after scudding nine or ten days with a brisk breeze astern, Bjarni saw the icy crags of Greenland looming up before him, and after some further searching found his way to his father's new home.[181] On the route he more than once sighted ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... boat, long since out of range of the battery, and scudding with a speed that mocked the useless exertion of those on board of the second gun boat, who could with difficulty impel her through the powerful eddy, formed by the Island, had been gradually edging from her ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... in a minute's space. In the very instant when Oliver began to run, the old gentleman, putting his hand to his pocket, and missing his handkerchief, turned sharp round. Seeing the boy scudding away at such a rapid pace, he very naturally concluded him to be the depredator; and shouting 'Stop thief!' with all his might, made off after him, book ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... of the tower, and here he found her, with a wrap thrown over her head, gazing out through one of the deep embrasures over the misty country to a line of hills in the far distance. The view was magnificent, lighted here and there by sunshine striking through scudding cloud-drifts. And a splendid rainbow spanned it ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... relapsing into, becoming submerged in, the bank of vapour. And, in contemplating the spectacle, I seemed actually to be able to hear the cruel, hissing din of combat between red and black, and to see pale, frightened rabbits scudding from underneath the roots of trees amid showers of sparks, and panting, half-suffocated birds fluttering wildly amid the branches as further and further afield, and more and more triumphantly, the scarlet dragon ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... tugging at every extra mooring that could be impressed into service. The lighters had broken or been cut away and were scudding, destruction-bent, squarely at the shore almost below us. A moment and they had crashed on the beach, a mass of timbers and spars, while the pounding waves tore open and flung about heavy cases as though they were ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... of lightning and a heavy ball of fire seemed to shoot from the sky, lighting up the whole sea, revealing, and at the same time striking, in its descent, a full-rigged brig, which, like themselves, was scudding before the gale under bare poles, a few cables' length off their port beam. The next instant, a fearful explosion, heard loud above the roaring storm, shook the sea, a volume of flame and fire shot up in the air, and when they looked again for the vessel, ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... about twelve days' time, and were, by our last observation, in 7 degrees 22' northern latitude, when a violent tornado, or hurricane, took us quite out of our knowledge. It blew in such a terrible manner, that for twelve days together we could do nothing but drive; and, scudding away before it, let it carry us wherever fate and the fury of the winds directed; and during these twelve days, I need not say that I expected every day to be swallowed up; nor did any in the ship expect to save ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... For the day that was, was enough, for we was free men—and I'm thinking 'tis only slaves do be giving heed to the day that's gone or the day to come—until they're old like me. [With a sort of religious exaltation.] Oh, to be scudding south again wid the power of the Trade Wind driving her on steady through the nights and the days! Full sail on her! Nights and days! Nights when the foam of the wake would be flaming wid fire, when the sky'd be blazing and winking wid stars. Or the full of the moon maybe. Then ...
— The Hairy Ape • Eugene O'Neill
... gay little brig made merry and rapid way over the sparkling Mediterranean, at a rate that promised our arrival at Palermo by the sunset of the following day. As the evening came on the wind freshened, and by the time the moon soared like a large blight bird into the sky, we were scudding along sideways, the edge of our vessel leaning over to kiss the waves that gleamed like silver and gold, flecked here and there with phosphorescent flame. We skimmed almost under the bows of a magnificent yacht—the English flag floated from ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... fit well with the cold wind that is enjoying a cutting sweep at us. Then we come again to trim gardens and ivy garnished walls. The road follows the curves of the Lough, and we watch the black steamers ploughing along, and the brown-sailed little boats scudding ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... scudding across the moon; A misty light is on the sea; The wind in the shrouds has a wintry tune, And the foam is ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... larkspur in the distant field. At six o'clock with darkness came a spattering of rain, heavy single drops that fell each with its splotch, exuding from the asphalt the warming smell of thaw. Then came wind, right high-tempered, too, slanting the rain and scudding it and blowing pedestrians' skirts forward and their umbrellas inside outward. Mr. Alphonse Michelson fitted his hand like a vizor over his eyes and peered out into the wet dusk. Lights gleamed and were reflected in the dark pool of rain-swept asphalt. Passers-by ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... sprung to his feet and was scudding along in the wake of the rearmost soldier, at the same time edging away to the right of the rock in such a manner as to bring him directly behind the group of Peruvians. Then he put on the pace a little, and found that he could easily outrun any of the soldiers, since he himself was quite fresh while ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... if we could find a dipper's nest, for one of the little cock-tailed blackbirds gave us a glimpse of his white collar as he dropped upon a stone, and then walked into a pool, in whose clear depths we could see him scudding about after the insects at the bottom, and seeming to fly through the water as he beat his little rounded wings using them ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... of our masts being bare of sail we were now scudding along to the southward at a great pace. But every once in a while huge gray-black waves would arise from under the ship's side like nightmare monsters, swell and climb, then crash down upon us, pressing us into the sea; and the poor Curlew would come to a standstill, ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... grindstone and I holding the blades and telling him stories into the bargain. Mr. Stanley and his stout older son overhauled the work-harness and tinkered the corn-planter. The doors at both ends of the barn stood wide open, and through one of them, framed like a picture, we could see the scudding floods descend upon the meadows, and through the other, across a fine stretch of open country, we could see all the roads glistening and the ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... scampers from the roots of the trees to the terminal twigs at the top, inspecting every cone, cranny and knot hole, chirping his fine, high-keyed notes, sometimes in a querulous tone, and again in the most cheerful and good-natured temper imaginable, now gliding up a tree trunk, now scudding down head foremost, anon circling ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... scudding along that ridge between the country and the town, three thin white clouds trailed slowly towards the west-like tired seabirds drifting exhausted far out from land on a sea blue to blackness with ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... slope of the garden the detective had already erected his easel, though a strong breeze blowing toward the sea rattled and flapped his apparatus and blew about his fair (and false) beard in the wind. Little clouds curled like feathers, were scudding seaward across the many-colored landscape, which the American art critic had once surveyed on a happier morning; but it is doubtful if the landscape painter paid much attention to it. Treherne was ...
— The Trees of Pride • G.K. Chesterton
... was a small oval packet, wrapped and sealed with the solicitude of a chemist's counter. It could be nothing else but a cake of soap, and it had evidently fallen out of the youth's overcoat pocket when he flung himself down on the seat. In another moment Gortsby was scudding along the dusk- shrouded path in anxious quest for a youthful figure in a light overcoat. He had nearly given up the search when he caught sight of the object of his pursuit standing irresolutely on the border of the carriage drive, evidently uncertain whether to strike across ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... long wall of rock showed grey with orange-brown patches and a darker line of sea-weed at the base like the under strake of a boat's belly, for the tide was but beginning to make. There was a mist, half-fog, half-spray, scudding before the wind, and through it I could see the white-backed rollers lifting over Peveril Point; while all along the cliff-face the sea-birds thronged the ledges, and sat huddled in snowy lines, knowing the mischief that was brewing in ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... be what his American cousins would call a "humbug," a downright swindle upon the sympathies and good taste of those who wear long streamers of crape, and groan and sob over his funeral rites! He feels in duty bound (out of consideration for those mourners who expect nothing else) to go scudding through the air in a loose white shroud, or to rest cosily housed away in the "bosom of his Maker," like a big, grown-up infant that he is, or else to be howling at the top of his lungs hallelujahs!—he that could never raise a note. And, if not ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... provisions for luncheon,—and all private conversation came to an end. Hastening the rest of their preparations, within twenty minutes they were skimming across the Fjord in a long boat manned by four sailors, who rowed with a will and sent the light craft scudding through the water with the swiftness of an arrow. Landing, they climbed the dewy hills spangled thick with forget-me-nots and late violets, till they reached a shady and secluded part of the river, where, surrounded by the ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... man who had bet against him set up a howl of rapture, but Mr. P. never relaxed a muscle, and on went Creeping Peter, just as fast as ever, his horny bones dashing away the sand and gravel like spray from the cut-water of a scudding yacht, and, amid the wildest clamor, he shot past the judges' stand on his nose and one leg, making his mile in two minutes and ...
— Punchinello Vol. 2, No. 28, October 8, 1870 • Various
... on darker than usual, low scudding clouds and flying wavetops seeming to mingle. Waves sheeted with foam faded ghost-like into the tossing greyness. Drifts of rain blew stingingly in from the sea. Cruel and cold the waters appeared now ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... out, an odd circumstance befell us that, for some hours, seemed likely to lose us our boat. As usual, we set to drifting at dark. The moon, close on its half, was flying, pale and frightened, through scudding clouds. However, the wind blew high and the surface of the water was unruffled. There could be nothing more eerie than a night of drifting on the Missouri, with a ghastly moon dodging in and out among the clouds. The strange glimmer, peculiar to ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... out of the high-ceilinged room which was buried under thirty feet of steel reinforced concrete. He came up out of the building into a drab night. A raw wind stabbed at him, and sent light clouds scudding across the face of the moon. Overhead, a night fighter growled its way through the lonely sky. The country spread around the base was flat with only a few hills to break ...
— A Yankee Flier Over Berlin • Al Avery
... in, a cargo boat was standing out upon the long trail, the white of riven waters showing clearly against her unclean freeboard. Out to east a little covey of fishing-smacks, red sails well reefed, were scudding before the wind like strange affrighted water-fowl, and bearing down past a heavy-laden river barge. The latter, with tarpaulin battened snugly down over the cockpit and the seas dashing over her wash-board until she seemed under water half the time, was forging ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... swoon of nature, with no birds carolling on the boughs; the cloisters were monastic in their silence. A season of most dolorous influences, a land of sombre shadows and ravines, a day of sinister solitude; the sun slid through scudding clouds, high over a world blown upon by salt airs brisk and tonic, but man was wanting in those weary valleys, and the heart of Victor Jean, Comte de Montaiglon, was almost ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... take long to get under way, and the little craft was soon scudding through the water at a good pace, ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... Phillips never knew; the experience was too terrific to be long lived. It was a nightmare, a hideous phantasmagoria of frightful sensations, a dissolving stereopticon of bleak, scudding walls, of hydrophobic boulders frothing madly as the flood crashed over them, of treacherous whirlpools, and of pursuing breakers that reached forth licking tongues of destruction. Then the river opened, the cliffs fell away, and the torrent spewed itself out into an expanse of whirlpools—a ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... Captain increased when, looking back, he spied two swift scouting planes scudding along a mile or two behind him. That they might be considered a guard of honor rather than spies sent out to see that he did not play false never occurred ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... long straight road flew Jupiter Ann and the little gray mare. At door and window of the scudding houses appeared men and women with startled faces and upraised hands. Miss Prue knew that they were there, and shuddered. The shame of it—she, in a horse-race, and with Rupert Joyce! Hurriedly she threw a look at the young man's face to catch its expression; ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... hearing his own voice. He was trying to open the locket but his hands were numb and trembling. When at last he did open it he could not see the child face within, for now even the star-light was shut off by a scudding black cloud. ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... NAUTILUS scudding before a strong south-east breeze, Jim, true to his name, sulky as a toad-fish. The good wind harped on the rigging as Mammerroo tirelessly lagged after the ever evasive tune. Jim heard him not. Billy, in a rage, was inclined to ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... were grey and ghostly now, and the storm, which had spent itself on the other coast, seemed to hang over the island. There were breakers where the long dead sea had been, and the petrel outside was scudding close to the white curves, and uttering ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... same his thought at that moment was to let go a broadside that sent the stranger scudding. Judging it unwise to keep a half-mutinous crew too near pirate ships, M. Radisson ordered anchor up. With a deck-mop fastened in defiance to our prow, the St. Pierre slipped out of the harbour through the half-dark of those northern summer ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... risks the expression of a hope that old age, or the Quiet, will some day make an end of his Creator, whom he loves none the better for being so like himself. And in another moment he is crouching in abject fear: for an awful thunderstorm has broken out. "That raven scudding away ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... eyes could not have pierced the gloom many fathoms ahead. Mr Scoones paced the deck, every now and then, shouting to the men forward. Some care seemed to oppress him. He might not have had the full confidence in his own reckoning which he professed to have. Still, as the proud ship went scudding on across the broad ocean, no one would have supposed that danger ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston
... and the three women entered with a rush. Lois, standing near the door front, saw them coming through the greenish-yellow gloom, their three black figures scudding before the wind like ...
— Jane Field - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... sound of hoofs clattering down the road, and of voices lifted in laughing converse. Eli's fiddle ceased its droning, and on going to the window I saw lanterns scudding along to the gate from the slaves' cabins, like fireflies in a gale. I opened the window softly, enough to hear. Not much was to be seen, for the night had set in dark; but there were evidently a number of horsemen outside the gate, and, ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... was just striking eight as Arthur mounted and rode away from his brother's door. It was not a dark night, or yet very light; for though the moon had risen, dark clouds were scudding across the sky, allowing but an occasional glimpse of her face, and casting deep ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... respective smacks lay-to close by, or sailed slowly round the carrier, so that recognitions, salutations, and friendly chaff were going on all round—the confusion of masts, and sails, and voices ever increasing as the outlying portions of the fleet came scudding in to ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... the lighted brand; And the fire was burning slow As the vessel from the land, Like a stag-hound from the slips, Darted forth from out the ships. There was music in her sail As it swelled before the gale, And a dashing at her prow As it cleft the waves below, And the good ship sped along, Scudding free; As on many a battle morn In her time she had been borne, To struggle and to conquer ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... repulsion energy once more and the Nomad shot skyward like a rocket. Through the floor port he saw Nazu's tiny ovoid scudding over the treetops. Then ...
— Creatures of Vibration • Harl Vincent
... stronger blew the brave west wind; dirtier, gloomier, and colder grew the weather, until, reduced to two topsails and a reefed foresail, we were scudding dead before the gale for all we were worth. This was a novel experience for us in the CACHALOT, and I was curious to see how she would behave. To my mind, the supreme test of a ship's sea-kindliness ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... all of these the shipping is thoroughly principal, and studied from existing ships. A large number of inferior works were, however, also produced by him in imitation of Vandevelde, representing old Dutch shipping; in these the shipping is scattered, scudding and distant, the sea gray and lightly broken. Such pictures are, generally speaking, among those of least value which he has produced. Two very important ones, however, belong to the imitative school: ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin
... when the train thundered into the terminal at Thirty-third Street, New York was wrapped in a scudding whirl of white dotted dizzily with lights. Already to Kenny, buoyant, excited and inclined to stride around in purposeless circles, the lonely farm was very far away. He was back again in his own ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... any of the rest of the party, had only looked at the sky! But if they had, I dare say they would have made nothing of it. There were clouds scudding about up there like shadowy sail-boats, and the sun had to fight his way through them, till by and by he gave it up entirely, and never so much as peeped out. By that time it was decidedly bad weather; the light had to be sifted through heavy ...
— Dotty Dimple At Home • Sophie May
... discover, nothing to hope. The whole of it could be seen at a glance. It was the visible presentment in the outward world of the chill sense of desolation which was gnawing restlessly at her heart. The misty mornings, the pale, bright sky, the low clouds scudding under the gray dome of heaven, fitted with the moods of her soul-sickness. Her heart did not contract, was neither more nor less seared, rather it seemed as if her youth, in its full blossom, was slowly turned to stone ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... manned by negro prisoners, with "the Admiral" in a cushioned arm-chair at the wheel, was soon scudding away across the sunlit harbor, the breakwater building of the spoil of Culebra "cut" on our left, ahead the cluster of small islands being torn to pieces for Uncle Sam's fortifications. The steamer being not yet sighted, we put ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... round, snatching at his assailant; but Louie was off, scudding among the bilberry hillocks with peals of laughter, while the slimy moss she had just gathered from the edges of the brook sent cold creeping streams into the recesses of David's neck and shoulders. He shook himself free of the mess as best he could, and rushed after her. For a long ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... yards, he leaped to his feet with a startled shout of alarm. Loraine sat up, blinking her eyes in half-conscious wonder. It was broad daylight, of course; the train was rattling through the long cut just below the city walls. With frantic energy he pulled open the door. For a minute he stared at the scudding walls of stone so close at hand, uncomprehendingly. Then the truth burst upon him with the force of a mighty blow. He staggered back, his jaw dropping, ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... between his lips and gave a peculiar whistle, composed of three distinct notes. Rex, who was just passing under the trestle, turned around in his saddle, and when he saw some one beside his brother on the tree trunk, he made a half circle in the road and came scudding ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... whirled hither and thither by the wind, and sheets of level rain driven before it. The edges of the wings tossed to and fro, and the wind shrieked and moaned as it swept over the prairie. It was a storm of unusual intensity; the prairie fowl rose in flocks from before it, scudding with spread wings toward the thickest cover, and the herds of antelope ran across the plain like race-horses to gather in the hollows and behind ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... had been destroyed; and what had 'improved' it out of existence was hideous, a sort of ulcer, without a single element of artificial grace to make up for the loss of Nature's beauty. Ugly, indeed, seemed the life of the squatter, scudding, as the sailors say, under bare poles, beginning again away back where our first ancestors started, and by hardly a single item the better off for all the ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James
... said he. "I don't know if it's the millions of dry leaves sweeping about, or the moon scudding so quick through the clouds, or the smell of the Atlantic, or the bark coming off the plane-trees, or the wind blowing the roads into smooth dust-drifts and hard clear-ups you could eat your dinner off—I don't know what it is, but something or another on a night of this sort ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... above which the rebus-like sign of the Sucking Calf creaked and grated in each gust of the chill wind that was blowing from the Alps. The rain had ceased, but the sky was dark and heavy with great banks of scudding clouds. In the street the men of his escort sat their horses, having mounted at his bidding in readiness for the journey. A word or two he exchanged with the sergeant, and then with a great rumble the clumsy carriage from the Auberge de France heralded its approach. ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... to come; He sees before him one eternal now. Time moveth not!—our being 't is that moves; And we, swift gliding down life's rapid stream, Dream of swift ages and revolving years, Ordain'd to chronicle our passing days: So the young sailor in the gallant bark, Scudding before the wind, beholds the coast Receding from his eyes, and thinks the while, Struck with amaze, that he is motionless, And that ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... got into the garden Philip and Conrad might have been seen scudding away as fast as their little feet could carry them. Iris, however, had watched ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... companions whom he could trust, and submitted his project, at the instant proper for its execution—the first successfully attempted by prisoners. Thus, before suspicion was awakened, he had seized a boat, hurried on board, mastered the crew, and was scudding before the breeze. But at sea his good fortune forsook him: the Harrington was recaptured by the Greyhound, and both vessels were lost on ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... them fixed upon the child in her arms. The seething, hissing sound in the air around her kept increasing, and made her giddy; a confusion of wild sounds, that grew louder and ever louder, seemed to fill her brain; and before her eyes there was nothing but a whirl of scudding flakes of white. A mass of sand-laden foaming water appeared then suddenly to rise before her with a towering crest; she heard one loud cry of terror from different voices; the brig seemed lifted high in the air; the mainmast tottered; and a suffocating deluge of water ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... must have had uncommonly good ears. He had. And soon showed his real feelings. Rain fell once more. Instead of diminishing it grew more violent, accompanied by warm blasts of wind. There was sunshine overhead, but the peaks were shrouded in scudding vapours, trees bent under the force of the wind; the sea, a welter of light and shade, was dappled with silvery patches under the swiftly careering clouds. Soon there came a blinding downpour. Gullies were blocked up with mud; rills carried ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... ill-favored glances into the retired corner where Mr. Hardy, supposedly of the W. P. S. Q. T., was studiously perusing a straw-colored Eastern magazine. Then, as if to lighten the gloom, the sun flashed out suddenly, and before the shadow of the scudding clouds had dimmed its glory a shrill whistle from down the track announced the belated approach of the west-bound train. Immediately the chairs began to scrape; the stud-poker players cut for the stakes and ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... the poop, beneath a crimson awning, watching the foam scudding out from under the swift-moving keel, and feeling the soft, balmy Notos, the kind wind of the south, now and then puff against her face, when the west wind veered away, and so brought up a whiff of the spices and tropic bloom of the great southern ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... muttered Russ, grinning cheerily at the familiar, sunlit city. His eyes darted to the chronometer beside him. The view seemed to be taken from a ship that was suddenly scudding across the heavens like a frightened thing, as it ran across from Manhattan Island, followed the Hudson for a short way, then cut across into New Jersey, swinging over the great woodland area of Kittatiny Park, resting finally on the New Jersey suburb of New York nestled ...
— Invaders from the Infinite • John Wood Campbell
... how ravishing a sight she is and fair! In her swift course she doth outstrip the breezes of the air. She seems as 'twere a scudding bird that, lighting from the sky, Doth on the surface of the stream ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... gale. The screw kept racing round and shaking the vessel terribly. Of course I was very ill; but the maids did not mind, and the children rather enjoyed the tumbling about and the water on deck. We continued scudding along through the water, but not making much ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... storm. My attention was turned to reefing sails, and no time was to be lost over it, either, for the sea in a moment was confusion itself, and I was glad to head the sloop three points or more away from her true course that she might ride safely over the waves. I was now scudding her for the channel between Africa and the island of Fuerteventura, the easternmost of the Canary Islands, for which I was on the lookout. At 2 P.M., the weather becoming suddenly fine, the island stood in view, already abeam to starboard, and not more than seven ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... inky sky. The wind was whistling with shrill glee in the tree-tops and the tree-tops tried to flee before it. A mile and a half lay between her and the big cottage on the hillside—the most arduous part of the journey by far. She walked and ran as though pursued, scudding over the road with a swiftness that would have amazed another, but which seemed the essence of slowness to her. Thoughts of robbers, tramps, wild beasts, assailed her with intermittent terrors, but all ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... the street are two or three spots of uncovered earth where the gust has whirled away the snow, heaping it elsewhere to the fence-tops or piling huge banks against the doors of houses. A solitary passenger is seen, now striding mid-leg deep across a drift, now scudding over the bare ground, while his cloak is swollen with the wind. And now the jingling of bells—a sluggish sound responsive to the horse's toilsome progress through the unbroken drifts—announces the passage of a sleigh with a boy clinging behind and ducking his head to escape detection ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... into the glaring moonlight. And I—I stopped short, went down on my hands and knees, and crouched back into the shadow. For the man running was Miller; Miller, wild, sobbing, disheveled, his shoulders drawn up to his ears in terrible weariness, his whole body taut with fear, and scudding, scudding away, low along the ground, his chin forward, mournful as a stork. Soon he was across the luminous space, and then he disappeared into the darkness on the other side, flopped head first into it as if hiding ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... the lady. She was not succeeding, and she felt it. The boy was too ridiculous. She assumed a new pose, gazing dreamily over the side into the scudding sea. ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... perpetual hostility, and you keep your armor on and your sentinels posted; but with friends you are inveigled into a false security, and, before you know it, your honor, your modesty, your delicacy are scudding before the gales. Moreover, with your friend you can never make reprisals. If your enemy attacks you, you can always strike back and hit hard. You are expected to defend yourself against him to the top of your bent. He is ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... the land when Uncle Ned's gong wakened them. The moon was disappearing behind a scudding cloud, but stars could be seen by thousands. Across the open ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... about under the unsavory Rows, sometimes scudding from side to side of the street, through the shower; took lunch in a confectioner's shop, and drove to the railway station in time for the three-o'clock train. It looked picturesque to see two little girls, hand in hand, racing ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... sudden, through a break in the traffic, a scudding figure had sprung into sight. It was the figure of a man in a gray frock-coat and a shining "topper," a well-groomed, well-set-up man, with a small, turned-up moustache and hair of a peculiar reddish shade. As he swung into sight, the distant whistle shrilled again; far off in the distance ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... was scudding away to carry out my instructions, Robbins, whose sharp eyes had seen the freak in the kettle, said to Ovide in an undertone, "Thou hast not forgotten, lad, to take the frost ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... morning the sisters were up. The weather had changed with the usual abruptness of our capricious climate. The day before had been like June. This day was like January. A dark-gray sky overhead, with black clouds driven by an easterly wind scudding across it, and threatening a ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... the crew were reunited, storm-clouds, thick and black, were fast rising in the west. Scudding down shore for a mile, with oars and paddle aiding the swift current, we failed to find a proper camping-place on the muddy bank of the far-stretching bottom. Rain-drops were now pattering on our rubber spreads, and it was evident that a blow was ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... made for the voyage to the islands which had been postponed on account of this misadventure. One evening the "Foam" stood away to the east. Three o'clock the next morning a furious gale set in and increased hourly until the vessel was under bare poles and scudding for the coast. It was impossible to attempt to beat against the storm, so they stood away helplessly before it, running on to a very dangerous coast. At six o'clock that evening, she stuck in the breakers on the beach opposite Pueblo Viego. Enormous seas poured over her and swept everything from ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... dawn came and grew white over a world of tumbling green billows and scudding wrack. Some three miles distant, seen only when the boat topped a higher wave, the same procession of bleached hills moved gradually to the south under the fog, their feet covered by the white line ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... until, when fairly before the wind, she was upon a level keel. Then there was a dull explosion heard even above the gale, and the fore-topsail split into ribbons. But the ship was now before the gale, and was scudding, from the effect of the wind on the bare pole and hull alone, at great speed through the water. As soon as she had righted the lads threw off their lashings, but still clung tight to the rail, and struggled aft till they stood under ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... and yet, to all appearance, very little nearer. The wind was freshening from the south, the sea was rising, thin mists, a species of scout from the main body of the fog lying off in the east, were scudding across our track. James Goss, our captain, threw out a hint of a little difficulty in getting back. But Yankee energy was indomitable. C. quietly arranged his painting—apparatus, and I, wrapped in my cloak more snugly, crept out forward on the little deck, a sort of look-out. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... to his wife Nevil's chattering of hundreds to the minute. He had not realized the description, which had been only his manner of painting delirium: there had been no warrant for it. He heard the wild scudding voice imperfectly: it reminded him of a string of winter geese changeing waters. Shower gusts, and the wail and hiss of the rows of fir-trees bordering the garden, came between, and allowed him a moment's incredulity as to its being a human voice. Such a cry ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... lightsomely I glowr'd abroad, [stared] To see a scene sae gay, Three hizzies, early at the road, [girls] Cam skelpin' up the way. [scudding] Twa had manteeles o' dolefu' black, But ane wi' lyart lining; [gray] The third, that gaed a wee a-back, [went a little] Was in the fashion shining Fu' gay ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... the height of the houses. A chimney-pot clashed at Diamond's feet. He turned in terror, but it was to look for the little girl, and when he turned again the lady had vanished, and the wind was roaring along the street as if it had been the bed of an invisible torrent. The little girl was scudding before the blast, her hair flying too, and behind her she dragged her broom. Her little legs were going as fast as ever they could to keep her from falling. Diamond crept into the shelter of a doorway, thinking to stop ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... Rey," Miss Mallory called. "I can hold her. We're scudding along beautifully, and ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... eyes it would go, traverse the dim stairless space, and sport with the wind-blown monster. Sometimes, to aid his aspiration, he would take a bit of paper, make a hole in it, pass the end of the string through the hole, and send the messenger scudding along the line athwart the depth of the wind. If it stuck by the way, he would get a telescope of Mr. Lammie's, and therewith watch its struggles till it broke loose, then follow it careering up to the kite. Away with each successive ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... final interval of moderate wholesomeness and peace. He felt his old healthy joy in the green earth. One of the letters commemorates his delight in the great scudding south-west winds of February, soft forerunners of the spring, so sweet to all who live with nature.[17] At the end of his garden was a summer-house, and here even on wintry days he sat composing or copying. It was not music only that he copied. He took a ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... on them; while Dandelion stood clapping his chubby hands, and saying, as he always did, 'Daddy tummin' soon.' But Daddy did not come soon that time; for a great storm arose, and when some of the boats came scudding home at nightfall, Ben's was not among them. All night the gale raged, and in the morning, Ben's boat lay empty and broken on the shore. His mates shook their heads when they saw the wreck, and drew their rough ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... namely, to keep the boat away dead before it; and away went the lugger, still heading to the southward and westward, but with the wind now dead aft instead of over the starboard bow. But they had scarcely been scudding five minutes when there occurred a sudden rending crack of timber, and the mainmast, weakened by an unsuspected flaw in the heart of it, snapped, about midway between the heel of it and the sheave, and went over the bows, broaching-to the lugger with the drag of the mainsail ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... Dan went to see who it was, and found standing on the threshold a tall, lean old man in a long, ragged coat, with a thick, knotted blackthorn in his hand. A few hard-frozen granules pattered in at the opened door, which admitted a glimpse of the moon, tarnished by a thin drift of scudding cloud. ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... would bring fair weather, and with fair weather would come the green valleys and gleaming tops of the Alps, and, the day after, the sunny plains of Italy. This fair vision beckoned me on through the deep road and the scudding shower. ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... clatter of the pumps could only faintly be heard for the alternate whistling and roaring of the storm. The combined music had a weird, saddening effect, as if doom were approaching. A wild and leprous moon sometimes shone through the troubled clouds of scudding sleet. The sea was white with angry commotion, and there were no evidences of the turmoil abating. Immediately the pumps sucked the captain ordered his men to go below and get something to eat; meanwhile he would remain at the helm and keep a look out. In half an hour ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... away a score of strokes or so and then the men rested on their oars. The sunset colors had faded utterly but a dim after-glow remained, and overhead a young moon shone wanly through black wisps of scudding cloud. The Gull sank slowly by ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... large masses of clouds scudding across the starry heavens, driven by the wind which bid fair to continue all night and all the next day. Off on the lagoon loomed the dark hulk and slender mast of the sloop, rising and falling on the choppy waves, her bow light gleaming across the water ...
— The Boy Scouts on Picket Duty • Robert Shaler
... high nerves came scudding and shuddering down into the meadows of content. Eternal luck.... She crept under ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold |
