"Downpour" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sick. Queer little red sparks squirmed and danced before her eyes. She crumpled down quietly behind the jumper bush and did not know when the rain came, though it drenched her in the first two or three minutes of downpour. ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... The downpour was greeted by a treble chorus of delight from the tourists. "Oh, Grandpa!" cried Johnnie, jumping up and down. "Ain't it fine! Ain't it fine!" And "Fine!" chimed in the old man, swaying himself against ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... forward, but now everything was to change. A light rain began on the morning of the 15th (I did not permit it to interrupt the shredding, which was finished by noon), and by night it had developed into a steady downpour that continued, with interruptions, for six weeks. November and December of 1895 gave us rain and snow fall equal to twelve and a half inches of water. Plans at Four Oaks had to be modified. There was no more ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... was moonlight, cold, starry, with a silver sheen on the spectral spruces. During the night there came a change; it rained—first a drizzle, then a heavy downpour, and at five-thirty a roar of hail on the tent. This music did not last long. At seven o'clock the thermometer registered thirty-four degrees, but there was no frost. The morning was somewhat cloudy or foggy, ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... led off towards the rendezvous at 2 p.m. By 3 p.m. all were in their places, Royal Irish Fusiliers, Royal Dublin Fusiliers, Leicestershire regiment and King's Royal Rifles, in the order named from right to left. It was cold and dull, and the slight rain turned to a heavy downpour, which filled the shallow trenches as soon as they were made. At 3.30 p.m. Yule, receiving reports from his patrols that the enemy was mounting guns upon Impati, and realising more fully his peril, despatched a telegram to Ladysmith reporting his arrangements, ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... wood, and for the rest of the blizzard they kept to the hut. It was slumberously stuffy, but comfortingly full of flavors of tobacco and food. There were two days of intermission and a day of gusts and icy sleet again, turning with one extraordinary clap of thunder to a wild downpour of dancing lumps of ice, and then a night when it seemed all Labrador, earth and sky together, was in hysterical protest ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... 1, and raining, a soft, drizzly downpour, that had evidently begun early in the night and kept up —or rather down—steadily. It was a good morning to remain indoors and read; but there was that tantalizing machine challenging combat; then, too, Worcester was but eighteen or twenty miles away, and at Worcester ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... drought was broken by a great rain-storm, accompanied by wind and lightning and thunder,—thunder so tremendous that the whole city shook to the rolling of it, as if shaken by an earthquake. For three days and three nights the downpour and the lightnings and the thunder continued; and the Kamogawa rose as it had never risen before, carrying away many bridges. During the third night of the storm, at the Hour of the Ox, there was heard a knocking at the door of the priest's dwelling, and the voice ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... alarmingly rapid fall of the mercury, combined with a low weird moaning in the atmosphere, seemed to forebode the approach of some dire disaster. This was followed by a sudden blast of wind from the eastward—which came and was gone again in an instant—and which preceded a brief but terrific downpour of rain. This lasted for perhaps three minutes, when it ceased as suddenly as it ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... Mrs. Tate. As another peal of thunder drowned the downpour of rain she ran to the sofa and piled around her the cushions upon it. Putting one under her feet, another on her head, and clasping one close to her breast with her crossed arms, she closed her eyes tight and sat in huddled terror waiting for the ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... late, and when Mrs. Arbuthnot and Mrs. Wilkins scrambled down the ladder-like high steps of their carriage into the black downpour, their skirts sweeping off great pools of sooty wet because their hands were full of suit-cases, if it had not been for the vigilance of Domenico, the gardener at San Salvatore, they would have found nothing for them to drive in. All ordinary flys had long since ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... muddy channels down the slopes. Then the sun came out, and drew forth the good incense of the deodars and the rhododendrons, and that far-off, clean smell which the Hill people call "the smell of the snows." The hot sunshine lasted for a week, and then the rains gathered together for their last downpour, and the water fell in sheets that flayed off the skin of the ground and leaped back in mud. Purun Bhagat heaped his fire high that night, for he was sure his brothers would need warmth; but never a beast came to the shrine, though he called and called till he dropped asleep, wondering what ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... towards the doorway by which passengers left the station, and to facilitate the egress of all these people it at last became necessary to open the luggage gates. The employes, at a loss how to take the tickets, held out their caps, which a downpour of the little cards speedily filled. And in the courtyard, a large square courtyard, skirted on three sides by the low buildings of the station, the most extraordinary uproar prevailed amongst all the vehicles of divers kinds which were there jumbled together. The hotel omnibuses, backed ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... talk about to-night? Hark!" They could feel, rather than hear, the first warnings of the coming downpour, so hand in hand they walked up the gravelly beach and into the fringe of the forest where glowed the dull illumination from lamplit canvas walls. When they paused before the Countess' tent Pierce once more enfolded ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... one of which has the reputation of being inhabited by cannibals; and as a matter of course some of the passengers became witty over the second-hand jokes about roasted missionary. The rains which we encountered in this equatorial region were so profuse, and yielded such a marvelous downpour of water as to almost deluge us, and set the inside of the good steamship Brindisi afloat. But the air was soft and balmy, the nights gloriously serene and bright, so that it was even more refreshing, more restful than slumber, to lie awake upon the quarter-deck, and gazing ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... doubt have passed the night at the cafe if they had not been requested to leave. They had not gone ten steps, which had taken them a quarter of an hour to accomplish, before they were surprised by a violent downpour. Colline and Rodolphe lived at opposite ends of Paris, one on the Ile Saint Louis, and the ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... Zealand houses, stood, bareheaded, a tall, gaunt figure, whose rain-sodden garments clung closely to its tottering limbs. A more dismal morning could not well be imagined: the early dawn struggling to make itself apparent through a downpour of sleet and rain, the howling wind (which one could almost see as it drove the vapour wall before it), and the profound solitude and silence of all except ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... the lords of the saloon; and by six o'clock Jones and I issued into West Street, sitting on some straw in the bottom of an open baggage-waggon. It rained miraculously; and from that moment till on the following night I left New York, there was scarcely a lull, and no cessation of the downpour. The roadways were flooded; a loud strident noise of falling water filled the air; the restaurants smelt heavily of wet people and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... this, yet she hung irresolute a while, blenching before the manual act, listening to the persistent rush and downpour of the rain. Then a second time she drew courage from the storm. How timely had it broken. How signally had it aided her! How slight had been her chance without it! And so at last, resolutely but with a deft touch, she slid her fingers between the pillow and ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... in a blinding storm of rain that had materially increased to a torrential downpour materially helped to damp spirits already none too high. Bumping wildly into this figure or that, slipping full-length into inches of water and thereby saturating what little dry clothing that had remained so, they ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... disappeared in his turn in the mist. An ambulance carried away the injured man, the crowd dispersed; the remains of the machine were towed away to a near-by garage. Night fell; the throng grew less, the rain gathered courage and became a downpour. There would be little doing in the way of ...
— The Little Red Chimney - Being the Love Story of a Candy Man • Mary Finley Leonard
... noon to visit the wood. Overhead the sky was clear again; but there was no motion in the heavy sultry atmosphere, while dark blue masses of banked-up clouds on the western horizon threatened a fresh downpour later in the day. My mind was, however, now too greatly excited at the prospect of a possible encounter with the forest nymph to allow me to pay any heed to ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... to the rough weather of midwinter, which is apt not only to render a public assembly in the open air disagreeable, but also at any moment to defeat the object of the assembly by extinguishing the all-important fire under a downpour of rain or a fall of snow. Apart from these local or seasonal differences, the general resemblance between the fire-festivals at all times of the year and in all places is tolerably close. And as the ceremonies themselves resemble each other, ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... submarines, no bad weather, nothing disagreeable. On the eighth day I looked out through a welter of fog and rain to the place where the Statue of Liberty should have been waving a greeting across New York harbor. The lady wasn't visible, but I knew she was there. And even in a downpour equal to anything furnished by the choicest of Flanders rainstorms, little old New York looked better than anything I could imagine, except ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... a thousand years would I be likely to forget the night when it came. It had rained all day, a cold October storm, and night found me, with the chill downpour unabated, down by the North River, soaked through and through, with no chance for a supper, forlorn and discouraged. I sat on the bulwark, listening to the falling rain and the swish of the dark tide, and thinking of home. How far it seemed, and how impassable the gulf now ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... relating under what circumstances it had been found. Then all present took a solemn oath not to rest until they had avenged the lady's death. Riding together these three knights, overtaken by a storm, sought shelter in a neighboring castle, only to be refused admittance. To escape from the downpour, they therefore took refuge with their steeds in a neighboring shed, and were scarcely ensconced there when another stranger rode up seeking shelter too. As there was no room left, the first-comers forbade the stranger to enter, whereupon ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... to understand. The downpour of cold rain in which he had lain, wounded, for so many hours had drawn the life heat out of him, and some organic malady had combined with his bodily injuries to strike out his life. Her predicament was one of absolute helplessness. ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... anyhow. We can't go out in that downpour," and Betty glanced toward the window against which the rain was dashing furiously. "We must close down the sashes here, too!" she exclaimed, for one or two were open, and the ...
— The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale • Laura Lee Hope
... enough to explain the isolation of mountaineers. For long years, even until yesterday, the only roads were the beds of tortuous and rockstrewn watercourses that were dry when you started at sunup and were suddenly transformed by a downpour to swollen, turbulent streams, ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... time he sat on, listening to the still soft downpour on the fading leaves. 'They don't come to me,' he said softly again; with a tiny smile on his old face. 'It's that old medieval Craik: with a face like a last year's rookery!' And again he sat, with head a little sidelong, listening ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... from the bombardment that followed. The next morning, April 18, 1915, the German infantry in close formation advanced on the hill. This infantry was composed of Saxons, who continued on for a bayonet charge in spite of the downpour of lead that the British rained upon them. But the Bedfords had been reenforced by the West Kents and about thirty motor machine guns. The machine guns raked the charging Saxons in front, and shrapnel tore their flank. Only their dead and dying remained ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... rain to disturb them either on the trail or in camp. Now, however, they were on the western slope of the Rockies and in the moister climate of the Pacific region. When they left camp on Yellowhead Lake it was in a steady downpour which left them drenched thoroughly before ...
— The Young Alaskans in the Rockies • Emerson Hough
... be no shelter at hand, not infrequently, when alone or only with his companions, takes off his clothing and places it in some sheltered rock-crevice, where it keeps dry, until the storm has passed, he himself remaining nude and unconcerned amid the downpour. A mouthful of mezcal, or fiery native spirit, ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... steady downpour. I don't feel in the least like writing a letter. This is only to tell you that I have got enough anthracite coal to go to the end of February, and that the house is warm and cosy, and I am duly thankful to face this third ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... caught in the narrow branding "pinch." He waited for a revealing flash of lightning in the hope that it would show him a way out. He should have realized the futility of his hope, but, if he were soaked by the downpour, his spirit of optimism was as yet by no ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... fool I was to get wet. I stood up and looked round me. A colossal figure, carved apparently in some white stone, loomed indistinctly beyond the rhododendrons through the hazy downpour. But all else ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... the rise and fall of rhyme, But we know that western seasons do not run on schedule time; For the drought will go on drying while there's anything to dry, Then it rains until you'd fancy it would bleach the sunny sky — Then it pelters out of reason, for the downpour day and night Nearly sweeps the population to the Great Australian Bight. It is up in Northern Queensland that the seasons do their best, But it's doubtful if you ever saw a season in the West; There are years without an autumn or ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... do, Miss Elinory, and I never seed nothing like 'em in my travels," called back the bride from the door, as she reefed in her skirts and sailed out in the downpour. ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... patterns,—circular, heart-shaped, spear-shaped, netted, and barred. There were other shadows that were no more than ghosts of shadows, cast by faint, diaphanous films of scum which scarcely achieved to blur the clear downpour of radiance, but were nevertheless perceived and appreciated by many of the delicate larval creatures which made a large part of ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... full four weeks, but the winter had thrust sign and season aside and made his regal entry after his own ancient fashion. There came a crash of reverberating thunder, a scurry in the thickening mass of black clouds, a drenching downpour of rain. For twenty minutes they crouched in what scant shelter was afforded them by a squat, wide-limbed cedar. Then the wind went ripping off through the tree-tops, exacting its toll of flying twigs and leaving in its wake a ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... dale, and the rich red clay soil made a splendid contrast on road and track with the brilliant green on either hand. Still, people looked anxiously for more rain, declaring that not half enough had fallen to fill tanks or "shuits" (as the ditches are called), and it took four days of continuous downpour to satisfy these thirsty souls even for the moment. Toward the middle of the month the atmosphere became more oppressive and clouds began to come up in thick masses all round the horizon, and gradually ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... there, the Federal camp-makers had tardily repaired their blunder by posting guards; but these were not looking for their enemies from the side of their own camp, and as we cleared the fence in the full blaze of a lightning flash, only two or three wild shots sang after us. In the black downpour Ferry reached me an invisible hand. I leapt astride his horse's croup, and trusting the good beast to pick his way among the trees himself, we sped away. Soon we came upon our three men waiting with the horses, and no great while afterward the five of us rejoined our command. The storm lulled ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... darkness through the thick forest on their unknown errand. That they were going northward they knew, and knew also, after a short time, that they must be entering the lines of the enemy. They saw no signs of watch-fires, for these would long since have been quenched by the downpour. After half an hour's brisk riding all knew, by the sharp sound of the beat of the horses' hoofs, that they had left the soft track through the forest and were ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... casting off their scant garments, made shift to swim to her, and climb up her slippery dipping side. The storm passed over them, a line of tropic rain, beating a lashing tattoo upon the white-tipped troubled waters; then a blinding downpour stinging on the bare brown backs of the shivering fishermen; and lastly a black shadow, lowering above a foam-flecked sea, driving quickly shorewards. Then came the sun, anxious to show its power after its temporary defeat. It beat pitilessly on the bare bodies of the men ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... her thick boots, burberry, and tam o'shanter, trudging along the roads or across the fields accompanied by the faithful collie. The winter had been a comparatively mild one, with excessive rain. But no downpour troubled her. She liked the rain to beat into her face, for the dismal, monotonous cheerlessness of the brown fields, bare trees, and muddy roads was in keeping with the tragedy of her ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... outside and the rush of many feet, the hurried clanging of a bell, the beating of a drum, and then everything was drowned in a furious downpour of rain which beat on the roof like ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... follow; he must keep them on the move. There was a murmur of protest as the order was given to move; they had rested a scant two hours. By nine o'clock they were under way again, struggling with the jungle as they had fought the mesa. The downpour was straight and steady. It burrowed through the thick foliage and ran down the tree trunks in torrents. The footing became uncertain, and Piang warned Kali to look out for broken limbs. For many yards the path lay along fallen tree trunks, slippery with ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... A steady downpour of rain all through the night made our early start next day an affair of doubt and discouragement and dismal prophecy; but we persevered, and accomplished another long stage through a cold persistent drizzle before reaching ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... formidable even in the full bloom of fruitful and luxuriant summer, was forbidding and menacing now as some imagined gorge of the nether regions. The towering granite heights across the turgid stream were shrouded in mist and sweeping rain, and from the leaden heavens overhead the downpour was of a sullen and merciless steadiness, starting at every step a miniature torrent to go swell the roaring waters in the gorge, and drenching the troop alike in body and in spirit. Ahead, swathed to the chin in his blue cavalry cloak, the water streaming from his leather helmet, rode Lieutenant ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... the clouds along the sky, Vexing and whirling and seizing all amain; And forth they flow and pile destruction round, Even as the water's soft and supple bulk Becoming a river of abounding floods, Which a wide downpour from the lofty hills Swells with big showers, dashes headlong down Fragments of woodland and whole branching trees; Nor can the solid bridges bide the shock As on the waters whelm: the turbulent stream, Strong with a hundred rains, beats round the piers, Crashes ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... have been upset by the Fohn wind, which gave us four days' continuous downpour here—upset the roads, and flooded the Chiavenna to Colico Railway. We hear that the latter is not ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... being Bank Holiday and the first fine day after a week's downpour, Members for the most part stayed away from Westminster. Some, it is charitably supposed, have gone to look after their allotments. Others, it is believed, have been kept away by a different reason. The taxicab-drivers, men constitutionally averse from extortion, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 15, 1917 • Various
... A sudden downpour of rain startled her, and she sat upright; then, at a noise behind, turned and saw Mary Cary coming ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... found comfort in the fact that when the skies cleared after the sudden downpour brilliant rainbows were seen. Their hearts ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... kind of Saviour we have sinned against. He wept bitterly; not to wash out his sin, but because even already he knew it had been washed out. The former weeping is a pelting shower; this is the close, prolonged downpour, which penetrates deep and fertilises the plants of the ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... a doctor, however, was a problem. Buddy tried first one camp, then another, but without success. Meanwhile, the downpour continued and the creeks rose steadily, obliging him to make numerous detours and to follow the ridge roads wherever possible. He was aching in every bone and muscle from the pounding he had received, his arms were ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... a distance of a few yards it seemed to be an opaque wall. Coming to the conclusion that he had better take shelter until he could at least see his way, he planed downwards, calling to Rodier to keep a sharp look-out for a landing place. Suddenly, in the midst of the downpour, a huge dark shape loomed up ahead, appearing to rise almost perpendicularly above the plain. For a few seconds it seemed to Smith that he was dashing into a solid wall of rock. Luckily he had checked the speed of the engine. He now stopped ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... father and the eldest boy were walking beside the oxen. Their apparent misery was depressing, added to which the day, which all along had been cold and dismal, now began to close in, and, what was worse, rain began to fall, which soon grew to be a regular downpour. At last we could hardly see our grey horses, and every moment I expected we should drive into one of the many pitfalls in the shape of big black holes with which the roads in this part of the Transvaal abounded, ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... the rain has poured in torrents. The rainy season out here isn't any of your nice polite little shower-a-day affairs, it is just one interminable downpour, until the old earth is spanked into submission. I can't even remember how sunshine looks, and my spirits are mildewed ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... a flood during her husband's absence. She stood for hours in the drenching downpour, and dug an overflow gutter to save the dam across the creek. But she could not save it. There are things that a bushwoman can not do. Next morning the dam was broken, and her heart was nearly broken ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... to stop, we waited till nine A.M., when a break in the clouds flattered us into starting for Danilograd, to be caught in another downpour an hour later. The way was down a long slope, part mud and part broken rock, over which in either case we found the traveling easier on foot than on horseback, so that we did most of the way on foot ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... upon the fact of man's superiority to Nature; his ability to dominate and outwit her. My situation was an amusing satire on this theory. I fancied that I could feel a sneer in the woods at my detected conceit. There was something personal in it. The downpour of the rain and the slipperiness of the ground were elements of discomfort; but there was, besides these, a kind of terror in the very character of the forest itself. I think this arose not more from its immensity than from the kind of ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the downpour, and in calmer waters, the young people were themselves once more. The jib gave way enough to the craft for Allen to head it toward a little dock which seemed to be the landing place of ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Ocean View - Or, The Box That Was Found in the Sand • Laura Lee Hope
... all that night as they rode. At daybreak they crossed the Broad at Cherokee Ford and dashed on in the drenching rain all the forenoon. They kept their firearms and powder dry by wrapping them in their knapsacks, blankets, and hunting shirts. The downpour had so churned up the soil that many of the horses mired, but they were pulled out and whipped forward again. The wild horsemen made no halt for food or rest. Within two miles of King's Mountain they captured ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner
... west and gathered above the massive and looming mountains. The woods bent and tossed and clashed their boughs in the riot, of gusts, the sere leaves were flying in clouds, and presently rain began to fall. The steady downpour increased in volume to torrents; then the broad, pervasive flashes of lightning showed, in lieu of myriad lines, an unbroken veil of steely gray swinging from the zenith, the white foam rebounding as the masses of water struck the earth. The camp equipage, tents ...
— Wolf's Head - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... not mental associations, and is unfitted by heredity to receive impressions of the beautiful in its less material aspects. Whilst he grumbles at the crimson flames of Aurora, thinking only of the afternoon rain thus predicted, the man of finer mould, though equally cognizant that a downpour may follow, rejoices impulsively at the pure beauty of the scene itself, a scene whose intellectual exaltation will help him the better to bear the dull afternoon. Is not the beauty-lover the happier of ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... it. Sometimes this was near the bottom of the straw, and sometimes among the corn. Unfortunately at 11:25 the rain began, and experiments were stopped till the afternoon. It was no light shower which could give a check to the ardor of the judges and other officers of the society, but a heavy downpour of some hours' duration, which soaked the crop through and through. Indeed, we think it a pity that the experiments should have been continued at all under circumstances in which practical harvesting would have been out of ...
— Scientific American Suppl. No. 299 • Various
... keys in the lock announced the approach of visitors. The door swung open and through the grate he saw Dangloss and Quinnox. The latter wore a long military rain coat and had just come in from a drenching downpour. Lorry's reverie had been so deep that he had not heard the thunder nor the howling of the winds. Springing to his feet he advanced ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... juncture there appeared in the sky the Princess Lung Chi, daughter of Wang-mu Niang-niang; forthwith she spread over the city her shroud of mist and dew, and the fire was extinguished by a heavy downpour of rain. All the mysterious mechanisms of Lo Hsuean lost their efficacy, and the magician took to his heels down the side of the mountain. There he was met by Li, the Pagoda-bearer, [28] who threw his golden pagoda into the air. The ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... Sunday afternoon long and tedious, especially as now a heavy downpour of sleet and rain had set in, and it was in the hope of being amused that Miss ...
— Bulbs and Blossoms • Amy Le Feuvre
... horrified wonder, that such things could be. All this was intensified by the anarchy of sea and air and sky, by the incessant explosion of the waves, by the wind which seemed to sweep from end to end of a liquefying universe, by a downpour which threatened to beat their sodden bodies to pulp, by all the connotation of terror that lay in the darkness and in their unguarded condition on a ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... loose, a great, torrential downpour. It came in sheets, with an impetuous, though genial, clatter. It seemed as though the valley was swiftly filling with water and in less than an hour's time it would reach the tops of the trees. I thought of Noah's flood. I could almost see his dove winging her way over the waters. ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... all this by the light of quiet but more and more frequent lightning flashes. Soon they also discovered in the rocky wall a kind of shallow cave or, rather, a broad niche, in which people could easily be harbored and, in case of a great downpour, could find shelter. The camels also could be comfortably lodged upon a slight elevation close by the niche. The Bedouins and two Sudanese removed from them their burdens and saddles, so that they ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... a hard, continuous downpour, accompanied by a warm south wind, worked a mighty difference in the aspect of things at Roaring Water Portage. By night on the day following the arrival of the mail from Maxokama, the water was coming down ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... obscured, while the murmuring sound in the trees had increased in loudness; though sheltered as we were by the forest we did not feel the wind, which was blowing off shore. The clouds continued gathering until the whole sky was obscured. I fully expected before long that there would be a downpour of rain, but as we were on a weather shore I did not think it necessary to call my companions. I continued my walk, occasionally approaching the forest and then returning to ...
— The Mate of the Lily - Notes from Harry Musgrave's Log Book • W. H. G. Kingston
... gathered, blotting out the vision of the sky, the thunder and lightning wove a garment round the world; all over the earth was such a downpour of rain as men had never before seen, and where the volcanoes flared red against the cloud canopy there descended torrents of mud. Everywhere the waters were pouring off the land, leaving mud-silted ruins, and the earth littered like a storm-worn beach with all ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... had blue-patched the racetrack after the downpour; but these had drained off to a great extent, leaving the track a little greasy perhaps, but quite usable; and Jim recalled with interest the shoeing of the Buckskin. "This was what it was for; how did the heathens ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... the fall abated somewhat in violence, but became a steady downpour out of sodden skies, and the air turned raw and chill. Those who were not sheltered shivered, as if it were winter. The night came on as dark as a well, and Henry Ware went out again. When he came back he said tersely ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... been wiped from the memory by an over-night thunderstorm that burst the pent-up dams of heaven and loosed cool floods upon the staring streets. No misty drizzle nor gusty shower it had been, but a strong, straight, continuous downpour, seemingly impelled by tremendous pressure. Dusty roofs, dusty streets, dusty windows it had scoured and scrubbed and polished; torrents had poured down the gutters—whenever temporarily the pressure seemed to relax, the ears of wakeful Londoners were sung to by the gurgle and rush of frantic ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... not been taken by surprise. Through a downpour of rather badly placed shells, they held their position on the firing step and worked both their rifles and machine guns against the raiding party, which they could not see, but knew would be advancing behind the curtain of fire. Hundreds of empty ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... the month the snowstorms of its earlier days passed into a chilly and continuous rain; there was still snow on the heights. The steady downpour presently flooded the rivers, and sent the streams racing in torrents ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... confidential agent for the intercourse of races. Perhaps this very evening, if all went well, I should be introduced to the bride destined for me by mysterious fate. This thought kept my mind on the alert during the panting journey we made, the djin and I, one dragging the other, under the merciless downpour. ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... lowering glance, stammered out a confirmation of this fact, saying that the waters of the Mulde, swollen by the rain, had prevented his arriving until a few moments ago, Kohlhaas came to his senses. A sudden, terrible downpour of rain, sweeping across the pavement of the courtyard and extinguishing the torches, relaxed the tension of the unhappy man's grief; doffing his hat curtly to the abbess, he wheeled his horse, dug in his spurs, calling "Follow me, my brothers; the Squire is in Wittenberg," ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... kinds of weather, but a downpour such as this he had never seen before. The rain fell steadily and relentlessly, with never a pause between. The night was too dark to see clearly, as the sheets of water were swept before the wind, but their ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... the other remarked, also smiling, "I heard that many inmates of his family feel ill-will against him. In real truth he is a fool! For there he drips in the heavy downpour like a water fowl, and instead of running to shelter himself, he reminds other people of the rain, and urges them to get quick out of the wet. Now, tell me, isn't this ridiculous, eh? Time and again, when no one is present, he cries to himself, then laughs to himself. ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... if the very sky sympathised with the boy's distress, for soon afterwards the rain increased, then it poured, and finally, Watty Wilkins was more than satisfied, he was drenched. Fortunately the downpour was short-lived. It ceased suddenly; the clouds broke up, and the evening sun came out in full splendour, enabling him to partially dry ...
— Philosopher Jack • R.M. Ballantyne
... weep quietly, while Spillane dropped a troubled exclamation and strode to the window. Jerry joined him in gazing out to where the cables lost themselves in the thick downpour. ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... begged the agent to take it down. The patriotic agent tried to reason with them but to no avail, so one afternoon he took the flag down for a time. In a little while, a black cloud appeared and then a heavy downpour of rain followed. The Indians, as you know were very superstitious, and they were firmly convinced that the flag was a true barometer, so the agent had to be cautious in his display ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... heard. Suddenly a stiff gale blew up from the southwest, and with it came clouds which quickly hid the entire sky. The day turned to night. The birds ceased to sing and went to their nests. The wild beasts ran to their caves. The family sought shelter in the house from a heavy downpour of rain which continued for many days and nights. So long did it last that they became very anxious about the condition ...
— Philippine Folk-Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, W. H. Millington,
... breaking-up of old parties. The great political crisis which had been threatening the country for many years was about to burst, and, like the first big raindrops that precede a downpour, the changes in 1854 announced its presence. It had been so long in coming that John W. Taylor of Saratoga, the champion opponent of the Missouri Compromise, was dying when Horace Greeley, at the anti-Nebraska convention held in Taylor's home in August, 1854, was writing into the platform ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... me, I've clean forgotten them!" And then, oblivious of the probable storm that was at that moment gathering for a downpour over his luckless head, he told us the reason of ...
— The Princess Elopes • Harold MacGrath
... house instead, and wondered how it would be negotiated when the time came for an onward move. So they sat on chairs, baggage and benches under the verandah, and tried to keep awake, while observing the steady downpour. One member of the party at last gave up the struggle against the inevitable, and sank gracefully into the arms of Morpheus, represented by the bags of biscuits and other impedimenta. A photo was secured of him as he lay half concealed amongst the portmanteaux, packages and "pan." We refrain ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... and even as she asks the question it is answered. The storm is upon them in all its fury. All at once, without an instant's warning, a violent downpour of rain comes from the bursting clouds, threatening to ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... with cloud-banks and squall wreaths, through which headlands and interior peaks thrust darkly. On one promontory a slant of sunshine blazed torridly, on another, scarcely a mile away, a squall was bursting in furious downpour of ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... impossible in our Terra's dust-filled air. As that mighty sun dropped below the horizon the sky would fill suddenly with clouds and rain would fall violently and steadily until midnight. Then the clouds would vanish as suddenly as they had come into being, the torrential downpour would cease, and, through that huge world's wonderfully transparent, gaseous envelope, the full glory of the firmament would be revealed. Not the firmament as we know it—for that hot blue sun and Nevia, her one planet-child, were many light-years distant from Old Sol and his numerous brood—but ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... been collecting in the sky began a splattering downpour. The storm grew in fury and lightning tore the heavens, while thunder boomed and crackled. The rain ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... swept down in a torrent, as if the skies had opened. Great hail-stones beat upon the laurels around them with tropical violence. The noise of the downpour seemed vaster, more overwhelming, even ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... not know how long all this lasted. It grew worse and worse. Sometimes a flood of rain fell, and then would come a storm of lightning, and a downpour of gigantic hailstones that rattled upon the steel shell of the car like a rain of bullets from a battery of machine guns. Half the time one window or the other was submerged by the waves, and when we got an opportunity to glance out, we saw nothing but torn streamers of cloud whipping the ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... traveller reached there, for the apartments preparing for him were far from ready, and he had to wait throughout the winter in the vicinity, in a castle of the Count of Oropesa, and in the midst of an almost continual downpour of rain, which turned the roads to mire, the country almost to a swamp, and the mountains to vapor-heaps. The threshold of his new home was far ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... felt the clouds sinking about him, was aware of many a threatening portent, the meaning whereof he too well understood. There had been a week or two of prevailing bad weather, a state of things which always wrought harmfully upon him; his thoughts darkened under the dark sky, and the daily downpour of rain sapped his energies. It was within a few days of Easter, but the prospect of a holiday had no effect upon him. Night after night he lay in fever and unrest. He felt as though some voice were calling upon him to undertake a ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... soft and fair. Those robes that make a silken sheath For each lithe attitude that flows beneath, Shrouding in scented folds sweet warmths and tumid flowers, Call them far clouds that half emerge Beyond a sunset ocean's utmost verge, Hiding in purple shade and downpour of soft showers Enchanted isles by mortal foot untrod, And there in humid dells resplendent orchids nod; There always from serene horizons blow Soul-easing gales and there all spice-trees grow That Phoenix robbed to line his fragrant nest Each hundred ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... arose, thinking they heard unusual noises, but it was only some disturbance caused by the storm, and morning arrived without anything unusual having taken place. The rain still continued, and Tom, looking from his window and seeing the downpour, remarked: ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-cycle • Victor Appleton
... was ended a rain began to fall, and it rapidly thickened from a desultory shower to a roaring downpour that effectually quenched not only the fires around which the savages were dancing, but the enthusiasm of the dancers as well. During the rest of the afternoon and all night long the fall was incessant, accompanied by a cold, panting, ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... The downpour rapidly grew heavier, accompanied by lightning and thunder. The flashes were blinding, dazzling Jane's eyes so that she had difficulty in keeping her car in the road. It was now nearly evening, and an early darkness had already settled over the landscape. There was little hope ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... shown, with plaster alongside the marble, and the stone used was too soft and already in places was crumbling. In Egypt, where it rarely rains, the climate is kind to the jerry-builder, and it's only when Jupiter Pluvius wants a laugh and sends a regular tropical downpour that the buildings that were a thing of beauty and a joy forever come to earth and are no more. We ourselves were on one occasion victims of this god's fun. We were told that it never rained, and our huts were ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... to the library to hold himself at the magistrate's disposal; through the torrential downpour of rain Bouzille and the gendarme wended their way to the village; and left alone in her kitchen, Louise put out her lamp, for despite the shocking weather it was getting lighter now, ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... meet him. This order had fallen into the hands of the enemy. They no doubt informed themselves of its contents, and were so utterly glad to get rid of us, without further loss, that they gladly sent it in to us. That night there was a heavy thunderstorm, with a tremendous downpour of rain, and under cover of it we withdrew quietly, and before long were met by ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... ahead it was impossible to go by sea, and the Prince and his two Irish followers were forced to go the thirty miles to Stornoway on foot. No footpath led through the wastes of heavy, boggy moorlands, the rain fell with an even downpour, and the guide stupidly mistook the way and added eight long Highland miles to the distance. They were thoroughly drenched, exhausted, and famished when Donald met them at a place a mile or two out of Stornoway. Having cheered their bodies with bread and cheese and brandy, and their ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... risen, and she hurried before the shower. It was a real April shower, wind with a rush and a silver downpour. Mary, coming into the dark living-room, threw herself on the couch in a far corner and drew a rug over her. The couch was backed up against a table which held a lamp and a row of books. Mary had a certain feeling of content in the way the furniture seemed to shut her in. There was no sound ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... Phin Striker," broke in his wife, a new note of alarm in her voice, "I do hope them chickens an' turkeys have got sense enough to get under something in this downpour. If they ain't, the whole kit an' boodle of 'em will be ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... been indemnified for their pains. To pay them more would be to spoil them. You disperse money too liberally. There was no fever in the place. Who could have anticipated such a downpour! I want to consult Miss Dale on the important theme of a dress I think of wearing at Mrs ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... perfect downpour of books eulogizing monarchs and monarchy; royal governments spend millions of the people's money to uphold and aggrandize exalted kingship and seedy princeship alike; three-fourths of the press of Europe is swayed ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... Whom, when I saw, I vainly yearned to know." Such was the burden of his moan, whereto, Not once but oft, he struck with his hand uplift His eyes, and at each stroke the ensanguined orbs Bedewed his beard, not oozing drop by drop, But one black gory downpour, thick as hail. Such evils, issuing from the double source, Have whelmed them both, confounding man and wife. Till now the storied fortune of this house Was fortunate indeed; but from this day Woe, lamentation, ruin, death, disgrace, All ills that can be named, ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... made me look towards the land, over which hung a dense black cloud. Directly afterwards, a loud rushing noise reached our ears, resembling the continuous roar of thunder, mingled with the sound of a downpour of rain. It was the voice of the hurricane. Tillard sprang to the halyards, and, without waiting for Mudge's orders, lowered the sail ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... a stiffish climb up out of the valley of the Jonte. By the time he had managed it, the sun had already robbed all vegetation of its ephemeral jewellery, the Causse itself showed few signs of a downpour which had drenched it for seventy-two hours on end. To that porous limestone formation water in whatever quantity is as beer to a boche. Only, if one paused to listen on the brink of an aven, there were odd and disturbing noises to be heard underfoot, liquid whisperings, ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... old newspaper out of my pocket, and—in a wind which blew almost hard enough to put the street-lamps out, in a downpour of snow which almost blinded me—I managed to wrap up and address that paper to ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... soldiers on their way to the manoeuvres. They were troops of all arms, but mainly infantry, and as they stumped heavily through the groups of apathetic citizens in their mud-splashed boots, they took the steady downpour on their dripping helmets. Some of them were smoking, but none smiling, except one gay fellow who made a joke to a serving-maid on the sidewalk. An old officer halted his staff to scold a citizen who had given him a mistaken direction. The shame of the erring man ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... shortly to take an active part in the fighting in the South, and therefore no surprise when we received orders to entrain. This was carried out in the early hours of Sept. 12th, at Calonne-Ricouart Station, and was rendered extremely uncomfortable by a torrential downpour, which made it specially difficult to get the transport vehicles up the steep ramps on to the trucks. C Company had to do the loading for the whole Brigade, and were at the station for nearly twenty-four hours, working in shifts. They left by the last train ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... had fallen steadily all through the night, changed to a steady downpour that chilled them ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... about it; it was rain and plenty of it. It came in a swooping downpour that beat upon the trees and bushes and roared upon the roof of the chapel. The minister ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln |
