"Downpour" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... this dance is staged at the time of year the rains are due in Arizona, it is seldom that twenty-four hours elapse after the dance before a downpour arrives. Hopi Snake Priests are ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith
... that seemed to crackle in the air near by, a stunning thunder-clap shaking the very firmament, and thereafter an aching blackness, upon whose startled silence burst the rain—a sudden, hissing downpour. ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... pitchy blackness of the night sufficiently warranted Colonel Dick's assertion that it was an evening for a sensible man to stay where he was, and that a bowl of punch and wedding-talk and Unity at the harpsichord were to be preferred to a progress to Greenwood through such a downpour and a foot of mud. Ludwell!—Ludwell wouldn't be there anyway. He was a man of sense and would be sleeping at Red Fields, if indeed he had ever left Malplaquet. Fairfax Cary was persuaded, and after a very happy evening in ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... unpleasant nights then; each night meant a nail in his coffin. Even the constant rain the burghers bore cheerfully, and many a joke was passed along during an interval in the downpour. But in the morning, as we dragged our weary limbs out of our mud-baths, shivering from cold, we did not venture to put the conventional question, 'Did you sleep well?' ...
— On Commando • Dietlof Van Warmelo
... under a steady downpour, evidently on the edge of Mechlin, though the features could not easily be recognised through the grey screen of the rain. I do not generally agree with those who find rain depressing. A shower-bath is not depressing; it is rather startling. And if it is exciting when a man ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... made way by degrees for a drizzling rain, which resolved itself into a steady downpour as the afternoon wore on. It was so heavy that Mr Sharnall could hear the indistinct murmur of millions of raindrops on the long lead roofs, and their more noisy splash and spatter as they struck the windows in the lantern and north transept. He was in a bad humour ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... to rain on the picnic day; no uncertain showers, to keep up a chill and fever of fear and hope among the young people, but a good, honest downpour, which everybody past twenty must recognize as being just the thing the country needed. Jenny Miller came in, smiling all over, though she professed herself "real sorry for them as was disappointed." "Tudie Peaslee sat down and cried, when she saw 'twas rainin'," she said, as she prepared ...
— "Some Say" - Neighbours in Cyrus • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... heavily-plunging prows drave on, With keels upturned some drifted. Here were masts Snapped from the hull by rushing gusts, and there Were tempest-rifted wrecks of scattered beams; And some had sunk, whelmed in the mighty deep, Swamped by the torrent downpour from the clouds: For these endured not madness of wind-tossed sea Leagued with heaven's waterspout; for streamed the sky Ceaselessly like a river, while the deep Raved round them. And one cried: "Such floods on men Fell only when Deucalion's deluge came, When earth was drowned, ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... I close my eyes now and fancy I hear it pattering on the leaves. Oh, the music of it! One is never long without it at home. We've had six weeks without rain here. Can't you imagine the soft, delicious downpour of it? The music of the rain—my ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... 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, wailing ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... place and banished gloom and neglect and decay; then, with a pattering scamper, as of the bare, rosy feet of a beloved and mischievous child making a rush for his crib, it went as suddenly as it had come. There was nothing to break the silence but the swishing downpour of the ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... debris, whilst the coco-palms and other trees on the islets seemed likely to be torn up by the roots. This lasted about ten minutes. Then came a sudden lull, followed by a terrific and deafening downpour of rain; then more wind, another downpour, and the sun ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... exclaimed Betty, above the noise. She shifted the wheel to bring the boat head-on to the waves, and this made her ride on a more even keel. Then, with a downpour, accompanied by terrific thunder and vivid lightning, the storm broke. Betty bravely stood to her post, the others offering to relieve her, but she would not give up the wheel, and remained there until the little dock was reached. Then, making snug their craft, they raced for the tent. It had ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Rainbow Lake • Laura Lee Hope
... the welfare of the devoted company, Saturday morning dawned gray and threatening. Before breakfast was over the ominous prediction of storm was fulfilled. Amid reverberating peals of thunder, heavy raindrops began to fall. They were merely the prelude to a furious downpour which descended in silvery sheets, and fairly overflowed the discouraged landscape. A strong wind rose, lashing the leaden expanse of sea into a white-capped fury quite foreign to ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... in the entrance to a bazaar. The rain began to assume the proportions of a downpour. An old friar, with a big beard, a white habit, and a hood, armed with an untamable umbrella, attempted to cross the square. The umbrella turned inside out in the gusts of wind, and his beard seemed to be trying to ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... of Bathurst, New Brunswick, did not look particularly merry at two o'clock of a late September morning. There was an easterly haze driving in from the Baie des Chaleurs and the darkness was so saturated with chilly moisture that an honest downpour of rain would have been a relief. Two or three depressed and somnolent travelers yawned in the waiting room, which smelled horribly of smoky lamps. The telegraph instrument in the ticket office clicked spasmodically for a minute, and then relapsed ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... 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 ...
— The Mate of the Lily - Notes from Harry Musgrave's Log Book • W. H. G. Kingston
... 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 numb, his back was broken. He drowned his ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... its southern wall. The Arabs discerned 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 might rest well, and Chamis, son ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... continues to rain much of the time. Today it developed into a drenching, pelting, soaking downpour, which continued all ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... the bottom was flecked with shadows of many 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
... spread from the hills of Westmorland, and there were some hours of downpour. This did not look hopeful for the morrow, but, on the other hand, it promised a finer sight at the falls, if by chance the weather grew tolerable. The sun rose amid dropping vapours, and at breakfast-time had not yet conquered the day, but a steady brightening ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... occupation of all hands for several days, notwithstanding the discomfort of the continual downpour. Many of the men were ill from the effects of sleeping and living so constantly in water. Under date of December 12, ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... typhoon, but a belated burst of the periodic rains, deluged the island before midnight. Hours earlier Iris retired, utterly worn by the events of the day. Needless to say, there was no singing that evening. The gale chanted a wild melody in mournful chords, and the noise of the watery downpour on the tarpaulin roof of Belle Vue Castle was such as to render conversation impossible, ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... week has put lots of water in all the cricks," offered old man Adams from his place by the fire. "Then with this cloud-bust an' downpour today, it ain't real nice travellin'. That would be about all that's holdin' Hap up. An' I'm tellin' you why: Did you ever hear a man tell of a stick-up party on a night like this? No, sir! These here stick-up gents got more ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... day I like to walk in a wood. They opened the gate noisily, and the carriage drove into the courtyard. This is no longer simple rain, but a downpour. A huge dog put its forepaw on me, and from terror I did not know what to do. Before our army stood a great series of cannon. (In) that night a terrible gale blew. With delight. He ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... stress of weather at an inn or an excursion, and snapped up by some gossip drone of the district, who hearing whither you are bound, recounts the history and nature of the place, to your ultimate advantage, though you groan for the outer downpour to abate.—Of Bull, then: our image, before the world: our lord and tyrant, ourself in short—the lower part of us. Coldly worshipped on the whole, he can create an enthusiasm when his roast-beef influence mounts up to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the reputation of what he had done in his quaestorship and his other fame, and attached the legions of Bassus and of the rest without additional labor. While he was encamped in one spot with all of them a great downpour from the sky suddenly occurred, during which wild swine rushed into the camp through all the gates at once, overturning and mixing up everything there. Some, accordingly, inferred from this that his power was only temporary and that ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio
... sunset in crystal and silver had gone out, and around the yacht the expanse of coast and Shallows seemed to await, unmoved, the coming of utter darkness. The dinner was over a long time ago and the patient stewards had been waiting, stoical in the downpour of words like ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... was descending sullenly, and in this downpour the captives waited for a mortal hour. Then three men came along, bearing trays heaped up with thick hunks of brown bread. A hunk was doled out to each of the gang, and Tristram ate his portion greedily, slaking his thirst afterwards by sucking at the sleeve of his cloak. He had hardly ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... 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 spread themselves ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... I woke up very early. The sun had only just risen; there was not a single cloud in the sky; everything around shone with a double brilliance—the brightness of the fresh morning rays and of yesterday's downpour. While they were harnessing me a cart, I went for a stroll about a small orchard, now neglected and run wild, which enclosed the little lodge on all sides with its fragrant, sappy growth. Ah, how sweet ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... tremendous downpour sent us scampering homeward. O'mie and I had started up the hill together, but the underside of the clouds fell out just as we reached Judson's gate, and by the time we had come to Mrs. Whately's we were ready to dive inside for shelter. When the ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... were nearing Trouville, the big drops fell. The grain-fields were soon bent double beneath the spasmodic shower. The poppies were drenched, so were the cobble paved courtyards; only the geese and the regiment of the ducks came abroad to revel in the downpour. The villas were hermetically sealed now—their summer finery was not made for a wetting. The landscape had no such reserves; it gave itself up to the light summer shower as if it knew that its raiment, like Rachel's, when dampened the better to take her plastic outlines, ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... of the corridor, abruptly below the plateau on which stood the long white Mission, was, so far as the eye was responsible, an illimitable valley, cutting the horizon on the south and west, cut by the mountains of Santa Barbara on the east. The sun was brazen in a dark-blue sky, and under its downpour the vast olive orchard which covered the valley looked like a silver sea. The glittering ripples met the blue of the horizon sharply, crinkled against the lower spurs of the mountain. As a bird that had skimmed ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... Hilbrough tried the plan of shunting the antiquary to his main lines of American hieroglyphs, aboriginal architecture, and Pueblo domestic economy. But this only shifted the difficulty, for under the steady downpour of Pohlsen's erudition, Hilbrough had continually to change position, now putting the right knee over the left and now placing the left atop, to keep from nodding, and he was even reduced to pinching himself, sometimes, in order to keep awake, just as the learned and ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... they had been waiting in a neighbouring shed. They wanted me to go with them—but I was anxious about my bicycle, a nearly new machine. I had stowed it away as securely as I could under some thick undergrowth on the edge of the woods, but the downpour of rain had been so heavy that I knew it must have soaked through the foliage, and that I should have a nice lot of rust to face, let alone a saturated saddle. So I went away across the park to where I had left it, and the others drove off to Berwick—and ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... and set his thoughts whirling on from the particular to the universal. "It has achieved its reason for existence," he went on, patting the dry grass affectionately. "It quickened with ambition under the dreary downpour of last winter, fought the violent early spring, flowered, and lured the insects and the bees, scattered its seeds, squared itself with its duty and the ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... through The sea, the lands, 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 with ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... was raining again, and the downpour on the top of the hill was so great that little could be seen of the condition of affairs at a distance. Sending word that the hill was taken and one old-fashioned Spanish field-piece captured, Major Morris rallied his battalion around him and stood on the defensive. But the rebels had had enough ...
— The Campaign of the Jungle - or, Under Lawton through Luzon • Edward Stratemeyer
... way I know of," said Gervase. "Love must be wild and uncontrolled to save it from banalite. It must be a summer thunderstorm; the heavy brooding of the clouds of thought, the lightning of desire, then the crash, the downpour,—and the end, in which the bland sun smiles upon a bland world of dull but wholesome routine and tame conventionality, making believe that there never was such a thing known as the past storm! Be consoled, Denzil, and trust me,—you shall have time to make your ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... annoy—in which they failed. They were reported in the morning, as usual, searching for bodies with white flags; but I think that is their way of reconnoitring. Exhausted with this effort, the Boers—heigho!—did nothing all day. Level downpour all the afternoon, and Ladysmith a ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens
... 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
... had risen in the east, and everything indicated the approach of a thunderstorm. It was not long coming. Before Peter had completed six miles of his journey, the clouds rolled over, obscuring the moon, and an Australian thunderstorm came on with its mighty downpour, its blinding lightning, and its earth-shaking thunder. Peter rode steadily on, only pausing now and then until a flash revealed the track ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson
... invaded the whole width of the heaven. Already the rain fell in crystal rods; already the whole face of the country sounded with the discharge of drains and ditches; and I looked forward to a day of downpour and the hell of wet clothes, in which particular I am as dainty as a cat. At a corner of the road, and by the last glint of the drowning sun, I spied a covered cart, of a kind that I thought I had never seen before, preceding me at the foot's pace ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and we were soon wetted to the skin, but hardly conscious of the discomfort because of the safety which this downpour brought ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... the privileges of rank, Carew," the Captain observed as dryly as if he had not risen from his warm bed to swim the river and walk a mile in the darkness and the downpour, in order to see how the new boys were ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... the smoke served to locate the sharpshooters in spite of the downpour of rain, but instead of answering the shots at once, Life took his command around to the shelter of some other brush. Then he commenced to work up on the Confederates' rear, picking off three men in less ...
— An Undivided Union • Oliver Optic
... of fire is drawing closer in, the roll of the thunder is continuous, a dismal pulverization of 90,000 men! Never before has anything equal to this been seen; never before has an army been overwhelmed beneath such a downpour of lead and iron! At one o'clock all is lost. The regiments fly helter-skelter into Sedan. But Sedan begins to burn; Dijonval burns, the ambulances burn, there is nothing now possible but to cut their way out. Wimpfen, brave and resolute, proposes this to the ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... hours 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 ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... he had made up his mind that it was worse than useless to try to interfere with the General, he was jogging along in comparative comfort, regardless of the rain which had grown from a fine drizzle to a steady downpour. He thought the chances were in favor of his reaching Truesdale and a telephone by midnight. He smiled at the thought, for he had evolved a scheme that would disconcert both of the contestants for the M. & T. alike, and would show them that he, State Senator Sporty Jones, ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster
... and Pitou what had happened, and they raised themselves, blanched, from their pillows, to receive his curses. It was impossible to reason with him, and he launched the most frightful denunciation at his nephew for an hour, when the abatement of the downpour permitted him to depart. More, at noon, who should arrive but Leonie in tears! She had been dismissed from her employment, and came to beg the poet to ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... the downpour, the scenery completely hidden by the clouds; but towards midday, as we climbed ever higher and higher, we plunged into pine forests where the rain began to thin to mist, veiling the trees with layers of drifting fog. Out of the forests we came—the rain ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... 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 against ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... waited to watch the almost continuous blaze of lightning playing on the glacier. Distant summits were now looming through the diminishing downpour of sleet. He was wondering if by any chance Stampa might be mistaken. Bower stood somewhat apart, seemingly engaged in the same engrossing task. The wind was not quite so fierce as during its first onset. It blew in ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... the 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 now upon ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... transformation. High-piled masses of cloud may then be seen accumulating over the Sila heights and gathering auxiliaries from every quarter; lightning is soon playing about the livid and murky vapours—you can hear the thunders muttering, up yonder, to some drenching downpour. But on the plain the sun continues to shine in vacuously benevolent fashion; nothing is felt of the tempest save unquiet breaths of wind that raise dust-eddies from the country roads and lash the sea into a mock frenzy of crisp ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... exclamation from Tillard 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
... to the inn I passed the Fontaine de Burlats, where St. Enimie was cured of her leprosy in the Merovingian age. It was a change to see something that really seemed to enjoy the incessant downpour and to enter into the spirit of it. The fountain would be remarkable in another region by the volume of water that gushes in all seasons like a little river out of the earth; but there are so many such between the Dordogne and the Tarn, wherever the calcareous formation ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... grey water, quite drowned by the muddy torrent that rushed along the pavement. There was no longer any of that glorious greenery so apparent on bright mornings. The market gardeners, cowering in their heavy cloaks beneath the downpour, swore at the municipality which, after due inquiry, had declared that rain was in no way injurious to vegetables, and that there was accordingly no necessity to ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... 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 quickly to ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... day long, and rained hard, apparently trying its best to wash that soot-blackened town white, but of course not succeeding. Toward midnight Tom Driscoll arrived at his lodgings from the theater in the heavy downpour, and closed his umbrella and let himself in; but when he would have shut the door, he found that there was another person entering—doubtless another lodger; this person closed the door and tramped upstairs behind Tom. Tom found his door in the dark, and entered ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... a faint cry; at the same instant Mellen heard a violent rustle in the shrubbery, with a sudden downpour of raindrops, scarcely noticed, as he hurried towards the lady, but well remembered afterwards. She was standing upright and still, as if that unexpected voice had changed her to stone; her hair had broken loose and was streaming wildly over ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... commonest species. Its clear whistle is always to be heard the first thing in the morning before the other birds get up, and daring the violent rains of the S.W. monsoon it seems almost the only bird which does not lose heart at the incessant downpour. April and May appear to be ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... preachers, German ditto, French ditto, and so on and so on, all the world represented: Spaniards to admire and praise, foreigners to enjoy and go home and find fault—there they were, one solid, sloping, circling sweep of rippling and flashing color under the downpour of the summer sun—just a garden, a gaudy, gorgeous flower-garden! Children munching oranges, six thousand fans fluttering and glimmering, everybody happy, everybody chatting gayly with their intimates, lovely girl-faces smiling recognition and salutation to other lovely girl-faces, ...
— A Horse's Tale • Mark Twain
... his hot face and hands. He knew, too, that the rain would quench the fire for a time, at least, and make it possible for him to escape. He must reach the island to find out about his mother and Jess, and how they had fared. The rain by now had developed into a regular downpour, and the raging fire had been quenched as if by magic. The dense volumes of smoke no longer rolled over the land, and as John looked out upon the blackened plains a scene of desolation met his eyes. The forest on every side was in ruins, ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... was resumed. At times so swift was the pace that the Wondership seemed to be half flying. Thanks to her shock absorbers, but little motion was felt, although in places the roadway had been washed out by the torrential downpour and was very rough. ...
— The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone • Richard Bonner
... otherwise, rain, either a sprinkle or a downpour, has come during or just at the close of the dance, and the people are thankful and hopeful, for this is often the first rain of the season. The writer has herself stood soaked to the skin by a thunder ...
— The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi • Hattie Greene Lockett
... Duke had his revenge, for in the midst of our breezy repast there came a downpour of rain, accompanied by lightning and peals of thunder, which necessitated ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... 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
... rain, however, seldom comes amiss to me, and I trudged the three miles to the court-house in very cheerful mood, now smoking, now pocketing my pipe to inhale those first delicious scents of autumn, stored up by summer for a long day of downpour. ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... his scrutiny letters which we had succeeded in writing. After that I insisted on getting something to eat. I had breakfasted at an unholy hour. I had crossed the sea. I had endured great mental strain. I had tramped the streets of an exceedingly muddy town in a downpour of rain. I felt that I must have food and if possible, wine. M. is indifferent to food and hardly ever tastes wine. But he is a kind-hearted man. He agreed to eat with me, though I am sure he would much rather have looked up another official or two, ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... brutes in charge. A warm rain began falling, first in a drizzle, increasing after the first hour, and by midnight we could hear the water slushing under our horses' feet. By the almost constant flashes of lightning we could see the cattle standing as if asleep, in grateful enjoyment of the sheeting downpour. As the night wore on, our fears of a stampede abated, for the buffalo wallows on the mesa filled, and water was on every hand. The rain ceased before dawn, but owing to the saturated condition underfoot, not a hoof lay down during ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... anew. In vast transparent tissues it swept with the gusty wind over the nearest mountains of the Great Smoky Range, whose farther reaches were lost in fog. The slanting lines, vaguely discerned in the downpour, almost obliterated the presence of the encompassing forests about the stockade. He noted how wildly the great trees were yet swaying, and he realized, for he could not have heard the blast, that a sudden severe wind-storm had passed over the settlement while he was ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... until a pelting shower had merged gradually into a faint mist, the two took a quick-step run about the parade ground. They came back splashed with mud and dripping wet, but their cheeks glowed and their hearts beat quickly. After that, no matter how violent the downpour, they managed to take a turn in the open. Sometimes they circled the grounds repeatedly. Again, if the rain proved too drenching, one short run was all they ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... should perish, and then being asked what manner of death he, the prophet, should meet, he answered that he would be despatched by dogs. Thereupon command was given that the fellow should be burned alive, and the fire was applied to him. But just then there was a great downpour of rain, the pyre was extinguished, and later dogs found him lying upon it with his hands bound behind him ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... the last Lady Leghorn, held tenderly in my arms. The mash had been concocted and heated in the cleansed whitewash bucket over a fire improvised by Matthew between two stones beside the barn, because I did not dare disturb Rufus again, and the model nests were all in place and ready for the downpour of pearls that we expected at any time, and there was nothing left to do that we could think of or ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... 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 ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... the sullen mutterings of the wind broke into a shriek, with a terrible downpour of rain; but the rushing crowd was stayed by a cry of joy that rose above the tumult—a cry of love from the heart ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... months Sylvia had been craving praise with a starved appetite, and although she found this downpour of it rather drenching, she could not sufficiently collect herself to make the conventional decent pretense that it was unwelcome. She flushed deeply and looked at her hostess with dazzled eyes. Mrs. Draper affected to see in her silence a blankness as to the subject ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... street ere setting foot upon the pavement; but no one was in sight at the moment, and he emerged quickly, closing the door behind him, and taking shelter under the newsagent's awning. The rain continued its steady downpour, but M. Max stood there softly humming a little French melody until a taxi-cab crawled into view around the ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... all 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 force was terrific. Several ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... are these. Baleful night bursts and spreads o'er them. Evil accumulated dissolves in misfortune upon them, they are swept with blasts of despair by the tempest of fatalities, there a downpour of trials and sorrows streams upon dishevelled heads in the darkness; squalls, hail, a hurricane of distress, swirl and whirl back and forth athwart them; it rains, rains without cease: it rains horror, it rains vice, it rains crime, it rains the blackness of night; yet we must explore ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... Steps have not the sunset on them. But most of the time they have the sunset on them, warm, tender; a sunset that begins with the banks of daffodils and lilies and anemones and carnations and roses and almond blossoms, keeping the downpour of the marble cascades from flooding the piazza, and mounts, mellowing and yellowing, up their gray stone, until it reaches the Church of Trinita de' Monti at ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... 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 Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... spray, splash, rush, gush, jet d'eau [Fr.]; sluice. water spout, water fall; cascade, force, foss^; lin^, linn^; ghyll^, Niagara; cataract, rapids, white water, catadupe^, cataclysm; debacle, inundation, deluge; chute, washout. rain, rainfall; serein^; shower, scud; downpour; driving rain, drenching rain, cloudburst; hyetology^, hyetography^; predominance of Aquarius^, reign of St. Swithin; mizzle^, drizzle, stillicidum^, plash; dropping &c v.; falling weather; northeaster, hurricane, typhoon. stream, course, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... physical, 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 the two? Both must endure the trials, ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... steamer backed away and swung into midstream; he was really going at last. He crept from beneath the boat and sat looking out over the water and enjoying the scenery. Then it began to rain—a regular downpour. He crept back under the boat, but his legs were outside, and one of the crew saw him. He was dragged out and at the next stop set ashore. It was the town of Louisiana, where there were Lampton relatives, who ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... heavy downpour on the outskirts of the group that waited outside the post-office; he was sick with suspense and fatigue, and hardly troubled to move as a motor came slowly nosing its way through the crowd. It passed within a ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... the clergyman. "There had been a three-day downpour, up to the evening of Bailey's disappearance. About nine o'clock the wind shift to the northeast, and everything froze hard. There has ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... 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 brief, hushed calm. Through the still air fell scattering ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... a downpour of rain had drawn Mr. Fletcher and his son Phineas to shelter in the covered alley that led to Sally's house. Mr. Fletcher pushed the little hand-carriage in which his weak and ailing son was seated into the ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... had turned to a deluge, a veritable heavy summer downpour, with occasional distant claps of thunder and incessant sheet-lightning, which ever and anon illumined with its weird, fantastic flash this heaving throng, these begrimed faces, crowned with red caps of Liberty, these witchlike female creatures with wet, straggly ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... violence of the rain lasted about twenty minutes, and then it settled to a quiet, steady downpour for about an hour, during which the thunder and lightning gradually subsided until the thunder became a mere muttering in the extreme distance, and finally died away altogether. But the sheet lightning continued ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... 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 of things ...
— Philippine Folk-Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, W. H. Millington,
... rattled out of Morsbronn the rain once more fell in floods, pouring a perpendicular torrent from the transparent, gray heavens, and the roar of the downpour on slate roofs and ancient gables drowned the pounding of the ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... strayed pensively from the violets she was embroidering to Ruth's pale face. Every time the latter stirred, her mother started expectantly; but the anxiously awaited disclosure was not forthcoming. Outside the rain kept up a sullen downpour, deepening the feeling of comfort indoors; but Mrs. Levice was not what one might call comfortably-minded. Her frequent inventories of Ruth's face had at last led her to believe that the pallor there depicted and ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... fellow-being, in the teeth of death, the old man crept with the sleeping babe. Another threatening of the deluge of rain, which would surely accompany the tornado, added to the misery of the painful journey; the sudden downpour of heavy drops drenched the grandfather to the skin, but the grandchild was protected under ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall
... interior of the Belgian hares' quarters was a sight to behold, after all that downpour; but anticipating this, the careful Hugh had placed his pets where they could not ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... path was filled to the brim, and the chain of sloughs to the south, now resounding with the joyous quacks of bluewings and mallards, were swelling their waters with the feeding of countless streams. And the drenched ground, where the flowers bent their clean faces as if worn with the heavy downpour, sent up that grateful essence that follows in the wake ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... cloudburst—a downpour such as Hiram had seldom experienced before. Exhausted, he lay on the bank and let the pelting rain soak ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... would surely 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 moss and mold. ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... on the sand under the ledge of rock, a terrific but welcome downpour of rain fell, and we were able to satisfy our thirst by pressing our mouths to crevices in the rock overhead. But we were not long allowed to remain undisturbed in our shelter, for, although the tide was on the ebb, the enormous influx of water, driven over the reef by the violence of ...
— Yorke The Adventurer - 1901 • Louis Becke
... shower came on during the afternoon, and the decorations were soaked with the downpour. The wickerwork horse Bayard was left to itself out in the square, and the wind whisked the water soaked draperies over its head, disclosing piteously all of its poor framework. The leaden skies showing no promise of clearing, we called the driver of the ancient "fiacre," ...
— Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders • George Wharton Edwards
... 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
... the great city which was called the healthiest in the world. In his opinion the physical change had resulted from the destruction of forests, which brought with it a diminution of the rainfall. "At Cotrone," he said, "we have practically no rain. A shower now and then, but never a wholesome downpour." He had no doubt that, in ancient times, all the hills of the coast were wooded, as Sila still is, and all the rivers abundantly supplied with water. To-day there was scarce a healthy man in Cotrone: no ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing
... up at the Titela Daramsalla, one mile above Shosha village. The weather had been threatening for several days, and a steady downpour came upon us during the evening. Work had been accumulating daily. I decided to develop the large number of plates I had taken on my journey, a job hateful beyond measure when you are on the move. Having duly unpacked all the developing dishes and prepared the different solutions, I set to ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... ought to be shut and securely fastened. I made about three leaps and grabbed it, and a second later had it hooked and was back, the lightning at my heels. Then the clouds must have upset, for there came a downpour that ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... the very next day and they were glad enough to crowd into the completed part, while the rain came down in torrents. When the worst of the downpour was over the wind arose and it kept blowing fiercely all of ...
— The Rover Boys on Land and Sea - The Crusoes of Seven Islands • Arthur M. Winfield
... dilapidated house. In the most desperate combination, such as only occurs during storms in the north, a clatter of hail stones now followed, which in less than a minute demolished all the window-panes on the windy side, and immediately after this, indeed in the midst of it, came a downpour of rain which seemed to be the prelude of a new deluge. We children, starting up terrified, ran about screaming and clamoring. Susanna herself lost her head, and her maid succeeded in closing the shutters only when there was nothing more to be saved; and there needed only the Egyptian darkness ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... gale and tempest, when the shriveled stalks of giant oats were stricken like trees, and lay across each other in rigid angles, and a roar as of the sea came up from the writhing treetops in the sunken valley. There were long weary nights of steady downpour, hammering on the red tiles of the casa, and drumming on the shingles of the new veranda, which was more terrible to be borne. Alone, but for the servants, and an occasional storm-stayed tenant from Fair Plains, Clarence might have, at such ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... by this time been augmented by the addition of almost the entire population of the settlement; one or two rosy-cheeked women, having babies in their arms, standing in the rain utterly regardless of the steady downpour. ...
— Elsket - 1891 • Thomas Nelson Page
... year the rains begin to fall heavily in November; there will be three or four days of steady downpour and then a clear and green week. December is also likely to be rainy; and in this month people enjoy the sensation of gathering for Christmas the mistletoe which grows profusely on the live oaks, while the poppies are beginning to blossom at their feet. By the end of January the rains come ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... Croesus, and learned from him what Solon had said. Cyrus heard this story not without alarm. His own life was yet to end; might not a like fate come to him? He ordered that the fire should be extinguished, but would have been too late had not a timely downpour of rain just then come to the aid of the captive king,—sent by Apollo, in gratitude for the gifts to his temple, suggests Herodotus. Croesus was afterwards made the confidential friend and adviser of the Persian king, whose dominions, through this victory, had been ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... thunder-clap that echoed and re-echoed from rugged cliff to mountain summit near and far until this was whelmed and lost in the rush of a booming, mighty wind and this howling riot full of whirling leaves and twigs and riven branches. And now came the rain, a hissing downpour that seemed it would drown the world, while ever the lightning flared and crackled and thunder roared ever more loud until I shrank, blinded and half-stunned. After some while, these awful sounds hushing a little, in their stead was the lash ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... and shook the rain curtain and blew it into the shelter. Rain scudded across the floor, wetting them where they stood. Jerrold slid the door to. They were safe now from the downpour. ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... this defence being protected from the slings and javelins of the garrison,—that reached those at a greater distance, however. On a rainy night they pushed this wall against the gates, found the entrance to the tunnel, and at dawn were ready for the final assault. It began with a downpour of spears and stones, before which it was impossible to stand. Then the heavy slab that masked the inner door to the tunnel was lifted, and in another minute five thousand men were pouring over the walls and through ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... 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
... of kindness and pity. They were heathens, but they were men. They had not come down to the wreck for plunder, as might have been feared, but to help the unfortunates who were shivering on the beach in the downpour of rain, and chilled ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... top-buggy for the first third of the journey. For two or three hours we jogged along the level road which skirts the beautiful lake of Thun, with a dim and dreamlike picture of watery expanses and spectral Alpine forms always before us, veiled in a mellowing mist. Then a steady downpour set in, and hid everything but the nearest objects. We kept the rain out of our faces with umbrellas, and away from our bodies with the leather apron of the buggy; but the driver sat unsheltered and placidly soaked the weather in and seemed to like it. We had the road ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... like an infuriated steer at bay, 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
... this state of affairs is probable or not, however, and determine to pay no heed to any of these rumors, but to push ahead. So I pull out on Monday morning and take to the railway-track again, which is the only passable road since the tremendous downpour of the ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... of warmth. Thick mists hid the mountain tops, and filled up the valleys, and a few hours later the professor and his companions had to make a rush for the shelter of the great hall that was their prison, for a terrific downpour commenced, and for the ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... poured down all night, and next morning it was evident that the projected journey by road to St. Flour must be given up. A long day's drive across country in the teeth of biting wind and downpour was not to be thought of, though both my young friend and myself had set our minds upon seeing the wonderful Pont de Garabit, a tour de force of engineering, worthy to be set beside the Eiffel Tower, and an achievement of the same genius. But we were now within reach of the railway. ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... 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, ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... Mater. Connoisseur that he was in the joys of living, he confessed to a new sensation when, for the first time, he found himself plodding over the seared, round-shouldered hills, spongy with the supererogatory wetness of a three days' downpour. The rain had ceased temporarily, but the sky wore a look of ineffable gloom, and the feathery mist trailed along the earth like ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... downpour of rain startled her, and she sat upright; then, at a noise behind, turned and saw Mary Cary coming in ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... hour's downpour the exhausted storm calmed down, and now the roar of the Bialka could be distinctly heard. It had broken down the banks, flooded the highroad and fields with dirty water and formed a lake beyond the ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... white-painted factories and their great store-houses for oil; each factory likely enough with its flag at half-mast, which does not enliven the scenery either, for you know it is because somebody is "dead again." Throughout and over all is the torrential downpour of the wet-season rain, coming down night and day with its dull roar. I have known it rain six mortal weeks in Bonny River, just for all the world as if it were done by machinery, and the interval that came then was only a few wet days, ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... a vivid flash of lightning cut from one black hill in the clouds and buried itself behind another. As if piercing the fathomless blanket and renting holes in its inky cover, a downpour of rain broke through, and even before reaching the earth it could now be seen descending in a heavy mist at the ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis
... 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 ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... 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 ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... it should rain the first day of the holidays,' said George, somewhat gloomily, as he looked out at the heavy downpour, which was fast changing the tennis-lawn ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... o'clock, in a drizzling rain. There had been no rain for a month. The farmers, the fruit-raisers, the growers of grapes and all the birds and beasts of the field had been begging for rain for weeks. No doubt they rejoiced in the steady downpour that came at half-past nine, but what must have been their joy at ten when the very floodgates of heaven opened wide and let loose all the dammed waters of July and August (and perhaps some that was being saved up for the approaching September!) ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... at the ranch, found as described, without another home in sight, was a welcome sight to us for several reasons. One reason was that it afforded shelter from a heavy downpour of rain that greeted us as we neared it, and a better reason still was, that it gave us a chance to write and mail some letters to those who would be most ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... Metellus's own vessels were filled from the river, and the rapid march to Thala was begun. The resting place was reached and the camp was entrenched; water was there in greater abundance than had been asked or hoped, for a sharp downpour of rain made the plethoric skins presented by the punctual Numidians almost a superfluous luxury and, as a happy omen, cheered the souls of the soldiers as much as it refreshed their bodies.[1098] The devoted villagers had also brought an ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... a rainy November night. A soft continuous downpour was soaking the London streets, without, however, affecting their animation or the nocturnal brightness of the capital, for the brilliance of the gas-lamps was flashed back from innumerable patches of water, and every ray of light seemed to be broken by the rain into a hundred ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... broke 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 ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... They had an incurable preference for tumbling down of themselves. Constructed on a subsoil of sandy nature, their foundations yielded at every spell of rain. In vain, architect after architect was applied to, and one mode or another was recommended of relaying and buttressing. At the next downpour, the servant would disturb his master with the news: "The walls have toppled over again, sir, into the neighbours' gardens." And the neighbours' gardens were planted with all kinds of edible vegetables, which were crushed ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... the mounds, and easily slew the guards, not many in number, who had been left behind upon it. In this way he filled up a part of the moat—the barbarians had broken down the bridges in advance—and got across, since in the downpour neither archery nor fire could harm him. Immediately he captured nearly everything, for the inner circle was not very strong by reason of the confidence felt in the outer works beyond it. Among those that fled to the acropolis, ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... masses of matter. There are many causes producing explosions in nature, every volcanic eruption manifests the activity of some of them. Think of the giant power of confined steam; if enough steam could be suddenly generated in the center of the earth by a downpour of all the waters of the oceans, what might not the consequences be for our globe? In a smaller globe, and it has never been estimated that the original asteroid was even as large as the moon, such a catastrophe would, perhaps, be more ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss
... reason of the expectancy he had given way to, and he was easily awakened by a knocking which began at the door about an hour after. Clym arose and looked out of the window. Rain was still falling heavily, the whole expanse of heath before him emitting a subdued hiss under the downpour. It was too dark ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... touched his cheek. It might have been snow or hail. He turned his thin cunning face to the clouds, and they threatened a downpour. They raced along, like scarves of vapour, so low that you might have thought of touching them if ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... placed a mug of beer on the table in front of Stoner and then hobbled away down a long passage. The drizzle of rain had changed to a furious lashing downpour, which beat violently against door and windows. The wanderer thought with a shudder of what the sea-shore must look like under this drenching rainfall, with night beating down on all sides. He finished the food and beer and sat numbly waiting for the return of his strange host. ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... and in the morning it seemed as if it had settled into a week's downpour. However, we were quite comfortable with plenty of fresh salmon, and were not troubled except with the thought of the mud which would result from this rainstorm. We were falling steadily behind our schedule each day, but the horses were feeding and gaining strength—"And when we hit the trail, ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... and we, have reason to expect, and even to enjoy, but a downpour of several hours, a storm that lays the deep grass flat, beats down branches, and turns every hollow into a lake, was more than they had provided for, I fear. My heart went out to the dozens of bobolink and song-sparrow babies buried under the matted grass, the little tawny thrushes ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... that the days slipped by almost unnoticed. Refusing the tempting offer of a free trip to see the beauties of Glengarriff, through the medium of a heavy rain we started for Derry by train. Ah! it does know how to rain in Ireland. Such a downpour, driven aslant by a fierce wind, so that, disregarding the thought of an umbrella, we held on to the rail of the jaunting car and were driven in the teeth of the tempest, smiling as if we enjoyed ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... makes us weep; it is when we see what 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 soul at ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... occupied a thick wood, and thrown up a small work. Though the opposing forces were within fifty paces of each other, not an inch of ground was won on either side. Firing commenced at seven in the morning, and was kept up till nightfall. All this time the British were exposed to a violent tropical downpour of rain, which rendered the abrupt declivity so slippery that it was almost impossible to maintain a foothold on it; and, finding he could make no impression on the enemy, the general, about 7 p.m., gave orders ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis
... the radiance of the carriage-lanterns, which followed each other slowly, in couples, in a close, long rank, into the fine sonorous court, where the high stepping of valuable horses was sharp on the stones, and up to the ruddy portico. The night was wet, not with a downpour, but with showers interspaced by starry patches, which only added to the glitter of the handsome, clean Parisian surfaces. The sergents de ville were about the place, and seemed to make the occasion important ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... out of Julius's hotel upon his way to Staff Bombproof South, is made aware that the hundred-foot-high dust-storm that has raged and swirled throughout the morning is in process of being beaten down into a porridge of red mud by a downpour of February rain. ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... setting. A sudden downpour of rain, without thunder or lightning, had just passed rapidly over ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... laid her head on her pillow again, there was a flash of lightning, followed instantly by a .crash of thunder and a heavy downpour of rain. ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley
... narrow limits. The blazing sun causes them to drop their burdens and flee for home; a heavy wind frustrates them, for they cannot reef. When a gale arises and sweeps an exposed portion of the trail, their only resource is to cut away all sail and heave it overboard. A sudden downpour reduces a thousand banners and waving, bright-colored petals to debris, to be trodden under foot. Sometimes, after a ten-minute storm, the trails will be carpeted with thousands of bits of green mosaic, which the outgoing hordes will trample in their search for more leaves. On a dark night ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... means of a hose and head-pump either. Nothing but a good downpour of rain will do them any good now, and the rain seems to be holding off. Scissors! that ought to fetch it down"— as another terrific flash of lightning illuminated the whole scene from horizon ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... 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 his breast ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... there having been little 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 they had ...
— The Young Alaskans in the Rockies • Emerson Hough
... reach home.—The wind shrieked and darted about like a mad thing; low-hanging rusty-hued clouds swirled onward, as though rent in bits; everything whirled, got mixed up, lashed and rocked with the slanting columns of the furious downpour; the lightning flashes blinded with their fiery green hue; abrupt claps of thunder were discharged like cannon; there was a ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... planted a small orchard and attempts were made at vegetable-growing. But water was too scarce to do the plants justice. Everything must be sacrificed to the cattle. One lesson it taught me, however, and that is that no matter how much water you irrigate with, one good downpour from Nature's fertilizing watering-can is worth more than weeks of irrigation. Rain water has a quality of its own which well or tank water cannot supply. Plants respond to it at once by adopting a cheery, healthy aspect. It had another equally valuable character in that it destroyed the ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... 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 ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... of Dalhousie it began to rain—not a mere hill-shower, but a good, tepid monsoonish downpour. Golightly bustled on, wishing that he had brought an umbrella. The dust on the roads turned into mud, and the pony mired a good deal. So did Golightly's khaki gaiters. But he kept on steadily and tried to think how pleasant the ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... this Prairie Trail. Not all of them were of that rare beauty of the first. Fierce thunderstorms several times assailed us when it was not always possible to protect ourselves from the terrible downpour of rain. One night a genuine cyclone wrecked our camp; tents and wagons with their varied contents went careering in erratic courses ...
— On the Indian Trail - Stories of Missionary Work among Cree and Salteaux Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... later it began to rain, a light drizzle at first that increased until it reached the steady pounding of a tropical downpour. Tom awoke first, opening the flap of his sleeping bag only to get his face full of slimy water that spilled in. Spluttering and coughing he sat up and saw that the campfire was out and the campsite was already six inches deep ...
— The Revolt on Venus • Carey Rockwell |
