"Scud" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... been called to protect. In the midst of the tempest, too, the assassin's hand tore the steersman from the helm, and with William of Orange the career of the infant republic was seemingly at an end, and all her guardian angels fled. But the ship continued to scud along before the storm, and the swelling canvas carried her safe without ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... face to the sharp wind and slanting rain, looked up at the heavy scud that was flying fast over the wilderness of house-tops, and looked for something cheery there in vain. The prospect near at hand was no better. In sundry tea-chests and other rough boxes at his feet, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... a body can now scarcely meet on the road wi' ony think waur than themsell. Mony a witch, de'il, and bogle, however, did my grannie see and hear tell of, that used to scud and scamper ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... as in a tomb. A dark form loomed downward through the mist. It was Hozier, alone, coming back to them. A frenzied cheer broke from the lips of those overwrought men. They knew what that meant. Somewhere, high above the black rocks and the flying scud, was hope throned in the blessed sunshine. They drew him in cautiously until Coke was able to grasp his hand. They were quick to see that he brought a second rope and ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... at the window about noon, next day, watching the rise of a storm. A murky wing of cloud, shaped like a hawk's, hung over the low western hills across the bay. Then the hawk became an eagle, and the eagle a gigantic phantom, that hovered over half the visible sky. Beneath it, a little scud of vapor, moved by some cross-current of air, raced rapidly against the wind, just above the horizon, like smoke ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... water was glassy and of a yellow green. Although the scud swept in toward the land at a fair speed, there was not enough wind to fill the sails. Moreover, the bounty of Holland seemed inexhaustible. There was more to come. This fog-bank lay on the water halfway across the North Sea, and the brief winter ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... street-doors, rescuing a prisoned master, defending oppressed innocence, or dying in the centre of the stage to slow music. Something of a part seemed promised him when the popular drama of "Flying Scud" was first represented; at least, he supplied that work with its title. But it was speedily to be perceived that animal interests had been subordinated to human. More prominent occupation by far was assigned to the rider than to the horse. A different plan of distributing parts ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... day the storm, raging unabatedly, never gave us even the shadow of a chance of returning and searching the wreck. The one hope for the yacht was to scud. Toward evening the gale, after having carried us to the southward of Madeira, began at last to break—the wind shifted again—and allowed us to bear up for the island. Early the next morning we got back into port. Mr. Blanchard and his daughter were taken ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... cold, the wind blowing hard, and across the face of the moon the scud kept rapidly driving. The horses wandered a good deal, and kept separating in the scrub, giving the lonely man much trouble to keep them together, and when his watch was nearly up he headed them for the camp, intending to call the ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... of wind arises, and the great waves swell, We will scud along the billows like a blown foam-bell, When 'tis glassy calm beneath a sky without one fleck, I'll play a game of skittles on ...
— Golden Moments - Bright Stories for Young Folks • Anonymous
... himself of some cigars in his stateroom and went back. For the moment I was alone with his wife by the rail, watching the stars beginning to prick through the darkening sky. The Sylph was running smoothly, with the wind almost aft; the scud of water past her bows and the occasional creak of a block aloft were the only sounds audible in the silence that lay like a ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... instantly all eyes were bent on her with suspicion; for in this latitude the hurricanes generally come at the full moon. She was tolerably clear, however; but a light scud sailing across her disc showed there was wind in the ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... (she was thrown upon her beam ends, and her spanker boom carried away), he commanded to furl the fore-top sail, strike top-gallant yards, furl the main course, and take a reef in the maintopsail, leaving her to scud under single-reefed maintopsail and fore-sail. This caused the vessel to leak to that degree that I despaired of reaching land in her, and prayed to the Almighty to send us speedy assistance. For nine ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... flying scud that whipped stingingly over the side had driven most of the passengers on the Atlantic to the shelter of their staterooms or to the warm stuffiness of the library. It was the fifth evening of the voyage. For five days and four nights the ship had been racing through a placid ocean ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... Swift, storm-scud, raced the morning sky, As light along the road I fared; Stern was the way, yet glad was I, Though feet and breast and brow were bared; For fancy, like a happy child, Ran on before and turned ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... advertised, as children in the Old World surround and escort the Punch-and-Judy man; the word went round the bar like wildfire that these were Captain Trent and the survivors of the British brig Flying Scud, picked up by a British war-ship on Midway Island, arrived that morning in San Francisco Bay, and now fresh from making the necessary declarations. Presently I had a good sight of them: four brown, seamanlike fellows, standing ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... line, the outfit is complete. The jugs, some twenty or thirty, are put out at the head of the channel, and are followed by the fishermen in a skiff or john-boat. When a channel-cat takes the bait, the jug stands on end and begins to scud through the water. The fisherman pursues in his boat, and coming up, pushes his dip-net under the fish as he draws him to the surface. It is the most exciting and fascinating method known in ...
— Shawn of Skarrow • James Tandy Ellis
... burst upon them with frightful violence. Their small and crazy vessels were little fitted for the wild storms of the Atlantic; all night they were obliged to scud under bare poles, at the mercy of the elements; as the morning dawned there was a transient pause and they made a little sail, but the wind rose with redoubled fury from the south and increased in the night, threatening each moment ...
— Peter Parley's Tales About America and Australia • Samuel Griswold Goodrich
... pedal, Upward, downward, hither, thither, How the weaver makes them go: As the weaver wills they go. Up and down the web is plying, And across the woof is flying; What a rattling! What a battling! What a shuffling! What a scuffling! As the weaver makes his shuttle Hither, thither, scud and scuttle. Threads in single, threads in double; How they mingle, what a trouble! Every color, what profusion! Every motion, what confusion! While the web and woof are mingling, Signal bells above are jingling,— Telling how ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... Finmark. He, trusting in the great skill of his archers, harassed with impunity the army of Ragnar, which was wintering in Permland. For the Finns, who are wont to glide on slippery timbers (snowskates), scud along at whatever pace they will, and are considered to be able to approach or depart very quickly; for as soon as they have damaged the enemy they fly away as speedily as they approach, nor is the retreat ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... a perfect gale; we are lying under a long hill, and the narrow bay is scarcely rippled by the blast that rushes over us, thick with flying-scud. Captain resolves to await better weather; some of the boys go on shore, and wander out to a kind of reef at the mouth of the bay, where in a short time they succeed in gathering a fine mess of mussels; the rest of us, the stay-on-boards, ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... had come with the west wind. The hills were drawn back behind thick sheets of glassy rain. Shining spears of rain dashed themselves against the west windows. Jets of rain rose up, whirling and spraying, from the terrace. Rain ran before the wind in a silver scud along the flagged path under ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... Precipice upon precipice dizzily scaled the basaltic heights, giving here and there, on little shelves and crannies, a foothold for a vivid vegetation. The peak itself, a landmark at sea for ninety miles around, was half-hidden in the gloom of squalls and scud, and sometimes, for a moment, it would be altogether lost to view in the fierce murkiness of driving rain. Below the mountain, on the flat shore of the lagoon, an uninterrupted belt of palms concealed the little villages of the islanders. Here, in idyllic peace, ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... which the impertinent assault was borne was complete. It was but a puff of silvery dust, powdering his mane with fresher brightness. Nothing would be left of bull but a little froth of all the foam displayed in the fierce onset. He too would turn and scud into ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... a considerable surf was running, the spray was flying over the boat, the steamer had her steam up, and was ringing and whistling impatiently, there was a scud of rain, and I was standing trying to keep my paper waterproof from being blown off, when three inopportune policemen jumped into the boat and demanded my passport. For a moment I wished them and the passport under the waves! The steamer is a little old ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... Black, low-hanging clouds were closing in upon him. Away to the right, where the line of marshes was unbroken, the boom of the wind grew louder. A gust very nearly blew him down the bank. He was compelled to shelter for a moment on its lee side, whilst a scud of snow and sleet passed like an icy whirlwind. The roar of the sea was full in his ears now, and though he must still have been fully two hundred yards away from it, little ghostly specks of white spray were dashed, every now and then, into his face. From here he made ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... hard, the sea ran high, The dingy scud drove 'cross the sky, Down topsails, boys, the gale comes on, ...
— The Wreck on the Andamans • Joseph Darvall
... was perfectly calm. But up in the sky there were signs of gathering trouble. The clouds had formed into woollier masses,—their grey had changed to black, their white to grey, and the moon, half hidden, appeared to be hurrying downward to the west in a flying scud of etheric foam. Some disturbance was brewing in the higher altitudes of air, and a low snarling murmur from the sea responded to what was, perchance, the outward gust of a fire-tempest in the sun. The small Charlie was, no doubt, quite ignorant of meteorological portents, nevertheless he kept himself ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... of what happened when I was aboard the Flying Scud off Madagascar. If so be you don't mind, I'll spin ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... Notwithstanding the embroidered silk and velvet hangings decorating the fronts of the rich people's houses, he caught glimpses of filthy side streets, squalid alleys, and tumble-down tenements. He saw forlorn little children scud away like rats into their holes as he drew near, and wretched, vicious-looking men and women fighting with each other for places in the crowd. Sharp, miserable faces peered round corners at him, and nobody smiled because every one hated or distrusted his neighbor, and they dreaded and disliked ...
— The Land of the Blue Flower • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... sway and strain; Wet to the skin We're sound within. Our sea-steed through the foam goes prancing, While shields and spears and helms are glancing. From fiord to sea, Our ships ride free, And down the wind with swelling sail We scud ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... rise, but a gray sky showed the flying scud tearing at the trees and riggings, and the boom of the surf on the reef was like the roaring of a great steelmill at full blast. The roadway was littered with branches and the crimson leaves of the flamboyants. The people were hurrying to and from market in vehicles and on foot, soaked ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... indeed, he fancied he saw her, but further examination satisfied him it was a mistake. So long had he been gazing at the same object, that it was easy for the illusion to pass before his mind's eye, of imagining a dim outline of the little lugger flying away, like the scud of the heavens, wing-and-wing, ever seeming to elude his observation. That night he dreamed of her, and there were haply five minutes during which his wandering thoughts actually portrayed the process of taking possession, and of manning ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... bright moon gleaming through the interstices as they rapidly passed along. My attention was divided between the Quaker poet, the blazing fire, the mysterious environment into which I peered from time to time, and the flying scud playing hide-and-seek with the moon. At three I called Andy, who had breakfast ready before five, and all hands were up prepared to start on a search. By the time we had eaten there was light enough for operations to begin, and the Major, accompanied ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... funnel again, and Blackfriars Bridge jumps over us. On we go, now at the top of our speed, past the dingy brick warehouses that lie under the shadow of St Paul's, whose black dome looks down upon us as we scud along. Then Southwark Bridge, with its Cyclopean masses of gloomy metal, disdains to return the slightest response to the fussy splashing we make, as we shoot impudently through. Then come more wharfs and warehouses, as we glide ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 438 - Volume 17, New Series, May 22, 1852 • Various
... wind—a tempest. The sand is lifted upwards, and floats through the air in dun clouds, here settling down, and there rising up again. I dare not face it, any more than I would the blast of the simoom. I should be blinded if I did, or blistered by the "scud" of the angular atoms. The "norther" continues for hours, sometimes for days. It departs as suddenly as it came, carrying its baneful ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... blowing, driving scud and sea-foam before it, while ever new armies of rain-clouds advanced threateningly across the shadowy waters—mighty, moving mists, whose grey-winged squadrons, swift and irresistible, enveloped and almost blotted from sight the little rock-bound island, against which the forces of ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall
... hove in our Sheet Cable, and got up our Sheet Anchor, and cut away our best Bower, (for to have heav'd her up then would have gone near to have foundred us) and so put to Sea. We had very violent Weather the night ensuing, with very hard Rain, and we were forced to scud with our bare Poles till 3 a Clock in the morning. Then the Wind slacken'd, and we brought our Ship to, under a mizen, and lay with our Head to the Westward. The 27th day the Wind abated much, but it rained very hard all day, and the Night ensuing. The 28th day ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... chopped round to the north-west, and blew more fiercely than ever, attended by squalls of hailstones as big as marbles, the knocks of which made my countenance look as if I had come off second-best in a middle-weight "scrap." We lowered the main-sail again, and set four reefs of fore-sail to scud under. At three o'clock the vessel took a tremendous lurch, and washed away our lee-quarter boat. It was dark, and the sea barely discernible at a distance of thirty yards, being blown into a thick mist. At six the hurricane continued with unabated ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan
... out the lobscouse. We sha'n't weigh anchor again until to-morrow morning; the wind's right in our teeth, and it will blow fresh, I'm sartain. Look how the scud's flying; so now we'll have a jolly time of it, and you shall have your allowance of grog on board before ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... descendants can do at the present day. But what of Man, who weathered safely the storm of storms in that same Ark? Compare that venerated bark, as imagined by us from traditionary description, with the least eligible of the ferry-boats which scud across our crowded rivers, and we have answer enough for the present, so far as progress ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... to tell," he said, with an involuntary shudder. "It was too much for the old girl with that load in her. She began to wallow and drive toward the Wolves that I had caught a glimpse of through the scud. She hadn't got halfway there when the mainmast came down (bringing nearly everything with it) and hung over the starboard quarter, dragging the vessel down like a stoat hanging to a ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... off the Havannah, we cruised for some weeks without taking anything. One night, having the middle watch and looking over the lee gangway, I observed some black spots on the water. The moon, which was in her third quarter, was sometimes hidden by the dark scud, for it was blowing fresh, and when she shone in full splendour the spots appeared stationary. I lost no time in pointing this out to the lieutenant of the watch, who agreed with me that they must be the negro heads of some ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... had thunder and lightning. At seven o'clock the appearance was more threatening and, as a squall was evidently approaching, the sails were taken in and preparation made to meet it: soon after eight o'clock it passed rapidly over and brought a strong gust of wind, before which we were obliged to scud. After blowing most tempestuously for an hour the wind moderated, and the night passed without any repetition of it; we had however run five miles to leeward: had we been obliged to do this last night when underway in Cygnet Bay, or been ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... out," continues Manhug. "I got to the College of Surgeons, and had a good mind to scud some oyster shells through the windows, only there were several people about—fellows coming home to chambers, and the like; so I pattered on until I found myself in Drury-lane, close to a coffee-shop that was open. There I saw ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... household-stuff? What did he want with comforts there? "Walls, ceiling, floor, stay blank and rough, So goods on sale show rich and rare! 'Sell and scud home' be shop's affair!" ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... what divers shapes and fashions do the creatures great and small Over wide earth's teeming surface skim, or scud, or walk, or crawl! Some with elongated body sweep the ground, and, as they move, Trail perforce with writhing belly in the dust a sinuous groove; Some, on light wing upward soaring, swiftly do the winds divide, And through heaven's ample spaces in free motion smoothly ...
— The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius
... which formed its back was adorned with a large painting representing a gallant ship beating against a terrible storm off a lee coast of black rocks and snowy breakers. But high above the flying scud and dark-rolling clouds, there floated a little isle of sunlight, from which beamed forth an angel's face; and this bright face shed a distinct spot of radiance upon the ship's tossed deck, something like that silver plate now inserted into the Victory's plank where Nelson fell. ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... drive 230 Our conquerors to mourn as we do now. Have ye beheld the young God of the Seas, My dispossessor? Have ye seen his face? Have ye beheld his chariot, foam'd along By noble winged creatures he hath made? I saw him on the calmed waters scud, With such a glow of beauty in his eyes, That it enforc'd me to bid sad farewell To all my empire: farewell sad I took, And hither came, to see how dolorous fate 240 Had wrought upon ye; and how I might best Give consolation in this woe extreme. ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... the scud of clouds thinned and broke, and in the dim glimmer of starlight loomed the jungle-clad coast. Ahead, and well on the lee-bow, appeared a jagged rock-point. ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... that it was blowing quite a strong breeze, and that it had kicked up such a high, steep sea that it was no longer possible for us to round-to and ride to a sea anchor as we had done on the night but one before. We were therefore obliged to scud before the wind all night under whole canvas, to avoid being pooped and swamped by the breaking seas ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... begin to shout, beating the sides of the boat with the wooden boat pins, and the birds, in affright, fly one by one into space until they reach the level of the waves. Then, moving their wings rapidly, they scud, scud along until they reach the open sea; if a shower of lead does not knock them ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... That shall flow on the clearer for our blood Now shed, and the less brackish for our tears; When time and truth have put out hopes and fears With certitude, and love has burst the bud, If these whose powers then down the wind shall scud Still live to feel thee smite their eyes and ears, When thy foot's tread hath crushed their crowns and creeds, Care thou not then to crush the beast that bleeds, The snake whose belly cleaveth to the sod, Nor set thine heel on men as on their deeds; But let the worm Napoleon ...
— Two Nations • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... height as it came under her, seeming as if she could never rise again. Still once more she was lifted upwards among showers of spray, which flew off from the white-crested seas, deluging us fore and aft. Overhead the wild scud flew fast, the stern Cape looked more solitary and grand, and the sea-fowl with discordant shrieks flew round and round, closing in the circles they were forming till they almost touched our masts. The ship struggled bravely onward on the starboard-tack, ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... pleasure. And, besides, you're like to get bowled over in the rush. Here, chauffeur!"—this to the driver of a big, black motor-car which swept round the angle of the bridge at that moment, and made as though to scud down the Embankment into the thick of the chase—"pull that thing up sharp! Stop where you are! Dead still! At once, at once, do you hear? We don't want you getting in the way. Now, then"—nodding his head in the direction of the running man—"come ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... of two furnaces destroyed, and the engines clogged, if not irretrievably damaged, by fallen debris. None realized better than the young commander what a disastrous fate awaited his ship in the gloom of the flying scud ahead. There was a faint chance of encountering another steamship which would respond to his signals. Then he would risk all by laying the Kansas broadside on in the effort to take a tow-rope aboard. Meanwhile, it was best ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... cried as soon as she could speak; 'go home just as fast as you can scud; an' tell your folks,' she added with a gust of gratitude, 'that there's worse folks in the world than ...
— Twilight Stories • Various
... jolly night they will have! When we go the rounds at night, Mr. Prince and I will take care to make a noise before we come to Briggs's room, so that the boys may have time to put the light out, to push the things away, and to scud into bed. Doctor Spry may be put in requisition ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... so signalling is on the scud before a stiff breeze, with all sail set, stays taut, not ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... try;" and, with that, I reached my arm up in the direction of the solitary planet, which lay in the vast obscure like a small silver candlestick, with a greenish tinge in its icy sparkling, mirrored far below in the indigo flood of the abysmal sea, while a grey scud came sweeping up, no one quite knew whence, and hung about the glossy face of the silent luminary like the shreds of a wedding veil, scattered by a honey-moon quarrel across the deep spaces far beyond the hairy coamings of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. • Various
... one end of the log away from its pier. Then the edge of the main current caught at it, viciously—and so suddenly that Miki almost lost his precarious footing, the log gave a twist, righted itself, and began, to scud down stream at a speed that would have made Challoner hug his breath had he been in their ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... Biscaina; being held fast by a rope so that it could not break loose, it drew the boat after it with the swiftness of an arrow in various directions, so that those who were in the ship, seeing the boat scud about at a strange rate without knowing the cause, could not imagine how it could do so without the help of oars. At length it sunk, and being drawn to the ships side was hoisted on deck by the tackle. The other fish is called Manati by the Indians, and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... vouchsafe reply. Probably she did not even hear what he said. She turned and went to the window, stood looking out at the rising turmoil of the sea, at the lowering scud of the clouds, dabbing surreptitiously at her eyes with a handkerchief. After a little she walked out of the room. Her feet sounded lightly ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... of the flood, How often have I cast for you— How often sadly seen you scud Where weeds and pussy willows grew! How often have you filched my bait! How often have you snapped my treacherous line!— Yet here I have you on this plate. You shall swim ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... day on their way from school, and as they were passing a cornfield, in which there were some plum trees, full of nice, ripe fruit, Henry said to Thomas, "Let us jump over and get some plums. Nobody will see us, and we can scud along through the corn and come out ...
— The Pearl Box - Containing One Hundred Beautiful Stories for Young People • "A Pastor"
... Only a fleeting glimpse—for she was soon swallowed up by the murk astern, and we were driving on. The shift of wind came suddenly. Nearly at noon there was a heavier fall of rain, a shrieking squall that blew as it had never blown. The Old Man marked the signs—the scud of the upper clouds, a brightening low ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... pistol shots, over the hill where even the short, prairie grass crouched and flattened itself against the sod; where stray pebbles, loosened by the ungentle tread of pitching hoofs, skidded twice as far as in calm weather. The gray sky bent threateningly above them, wind-torn into flying scud but never showing a hint of blue. Later there might be rain, sleet, snow—or sunshine, as nature might whimsically direct; but for the present she seemed content with only the chill wind that blew the very heart out of ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... blockading service of our great naval war, the war of 1812, the method in vogue was to keep a few vessels cruising up and down the coast; and, when it came on to blow, these ships would put out into the open sea and scud for some other point. But in '61 we had hundreds of vessels stationed along the enemy's coast; and where a ship was stationed, there she stayed, to meet the fury of the wind and waves by putting out more anchors, and riding out at her cables storms ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... they found themselves not half a league from a reef, towards which the scud of the sea rapidly sent them, the wind having completely fallen. The depth was too great to anchor, and the boats failed to tow the ships off. A number of natives came off with provisions, but seemed totally unconscious of the dangerous position of ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... real. The air was thick with memories, as suggestive as the grey dust in a vault. Even in the summer, in the full burst of nature revelling in her strength, the place was sad. But in the winter, when the wind came howling through the groaning trees, and drove the grey scud across an ashy sky, when the birds were dumb, and there were no cattle on the sodden lawn, its isolated melancholy ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... can be ugly enough, and may be so perhaps before we are clear of it," he concluded, and leant back against the spar behind him to look up at the clouds. Some scud was driving at the ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... be more than a week's sailing, some one said, for the fair wind that had taken them hither and yon so long, and had waited on their fancies, was apparently on the point of deserting them at last, and the yacht was merely drifting before a fitful breeze that lightly moved a scud of low clouds which the sunset had kindled into a blaze of glory hanging just above them, and whose ragged shreds only now and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... breaking into fragments, blew off in masses of snowy whiteness to leeward. I scarcely thought that a fabric formed by human hands could have sustained the rude shocks we encountered till the ship was got on her course, and we were able to scud before the gale. Often the sea rose up like a dead wall, and seemed as if it must fall over our deck and send us to the bottom. The scene was trying in the daytime, but still more so when darkness ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... newly-fallen snow had not hidden all the grass. Lonely and lofty, it was a world waiting chastely to be peopled! And now it was peopled, for there came from a cleft of the hills an army of buffaloes lounging slowly down the waste, with tossing manes and hoofs stirring the snow into a feathery scud. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... wide circles, scarcely ascending at all. Again, suddenly one will shoot up almost perpendicularly, immediately followed by the other. Then they will resume the regular ascent. Up, like the woodpecker round a tree, till now the level of the rainy scud which hurries over in wet weather has long been past; up till to the eye it looks as if they must soon attain to the flecks of white cloud in the sunny sky to-day. They are in reality far from that elevation; but their true height ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... graves, Than live in slavery to slaves; Worse than the anarchy at sea, Where fishes on each other prey; Where every trout can make as high rants O'er his inferiors, as our tyrants; And swagger while the coast is clear: But should a lordly pike appear, Away you see the varlet scud, Or hide his coward snout in mud. Thus, if a gudgeon meet a roach, He dares not venture to approach; Yet still has impudence to rise, And, like Domitian,[2] leap ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... your castigated pulse Gies now and then a wallop, What ragings must his veins convulse That still eternal gallop: Wi' wind and tide fair i' your tail, Right on ye scud your sea-way; But in the teeth o' baith to sail, It ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... was a moaning overhead as we went through the woods along the ridge above the valley, and hot breaths of air began to play in our faces. The clouds raced above us more swiftly, and black masses of scud drifted yet faster below them from across the hard black backs of the downs to the westward. There was something strange in the feeling of the weather that seemed to betoken more than a storm of wind and rain, and we were silent and ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler
... scud (500 feet high) driving south, still calm below, (N. light); 10 A.M., clearing a little; a bank north with cirrus spreading south; same all day; 9 P.M., wind freshening (N. stormy); heavy cumuli visible in S.; 10.30 P.M., quite clear, but a dense watery haze obscuring the stars; 12 ...
— Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms - Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence • T. Bassnett
... the sullen clouds Scud black and swift across the sky; Like silent ghosts in misty shrouds Stand out the white lighthouses high. Almost as far as eye can reach I see the close-reefed vessels fly, As fast we flit along the beach,— One ...
— Stories of Birds • Lenore Elizabeth Mulets
... in the most crazy state of disrepair. For a moment I paused, thinking that even the salt-marsh might perhaps be a safer resting-place for the night than the headquarters of some desperate smuggler, for such I conjectured that this lonely dwelling must be. The scud, however, had covered the moon once more, and the darkness was so pitchy black that I felt that I might reconnoitre a little more closely without fear of discovery. Walking on tiptoe I approached the little window ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... The strange atmospheric phenomena, especially of the tropics, have been christened by the Spaniard and Portuguese, the Corposant, the Pampero, the Tornado, the Hurricane. Then follows a host of words of which the derivation is doubtful,—such as sea, mist, foam, scud, rack. Their monosyllabic character may only be the result of that clipping and trimming which words get on shipboard. Your seaman's tongue is a true bed of Procrustes for the unhappy words that roll over it. They are docked without mercy, or, now and then, when not properly mouth-filling, they are ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... were celebrated heroic romances of the seventeenth century, the former (in ten volumes) written by Mdlle Scud'eri, the latter by the Sieur de la Calprende. One of the most constant and tiresome characteristics of the heroes and heroines of the romances of this school, is the readiness with which they seize every ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... beech; And every time she thought to corner him He scrambled round on little scratchy hands To peek at her about the other side. She lost him, bolting branch to branch, at last— The impudent brat! But still high overhead Flight on exuberant flight of opal scud, Or of ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... into its mysterious heart, distorting afresh the distorted shadows, and curving the gallery lines into the curves of a ship. The day was shutting down in half a gale as the fog turned to stringy scud. Through the uncurtained mullions of the broad window I could see valiant horsemen of the lawn rear and recover against the wind that taunted them with legions of dead leaves. "Yes, it must be beautiful," ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... air. The rain-clouds had broken, though when they had scrambled up out of the narrow little valley where the cottage stood, they found that the wind was still high and fierce, and that the sun was rising dimly through a yellow haze of driving scud. ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... twenty, whereof two are dead. But three and twenty scud about the fields, That glads my hart ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... wind, with great piles of storm-scud overhead, raved all the day before Christmas. It was one of those afternoons when the sombre atmosphere seems weighted with gloom and weariness. On Christmas eve Hamilton's brooding brought on acute delirium. ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... battle-ground, Where pots and weapons bang and scud, Where every dead man through some wound Doth vomit victuals up ...
— Enamels and Cameos and other Poems • Theophile Gautier
... darkness, and the only light was from the creaming foam of the sea on every side. The shift of wind, which had been to the west-north-west, compelled them to alter the course of the vessel, for they had no chance but to scud, as they now did, under bare poles; but in consequence of the sea having taken its run from the former wind, which had been north-east, it was, as sailors call it, cross, and every minute the waves poured over the ship, sweeping all before their weight ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... his pipe, and we said good morning, and asked him if he did not think there was a fog coming in by and by. We had thought a little of going out to the lighthouse. The cap'n rose slowly, and came out so that he could see farther round to the east. "There's some scud coming in a'ready," said he. "None to speak of yet, I don't know's you can see it,—yes, you're right; there's a heavy bank of fog lyin' off, but it won't be in under two or three hours yet, unless the wind backs ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... turned inland; a huge breaker, foaming along our gunwales, drove us forwards like the downwards motion of a "swing-swong," and, before we knew where we were, an ugly little bar had been crossed on the top of the curling scud. We could see the forest on both sides, but there was not light enough to trace the river line; I told Hotaloya to tumble out; "Plenty shark here, mas'r," was the only answer. We lost nearly half an hour ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... I well know, the man himself is for ever peering for'ard from the break of the poop, or glancing into the binnacle, or feeling and gauging the weight and direction of wind on his cheek, or watching the cloud-stuff in the sky adrift and a-scud across the stars and the moon. Always, always, there are wakeful ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... said Miss Wren, "I have to scud about town at all hours. If it was only sitting at my bench, cutting out and sewing, it would be comparatively easy work; but it's the trying-on by the great ladies that takes ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... constant gales from the south-east had disturbed that portion of the Atlantic. In fact, it was to one of these tempests that the catastrophe must be attributed. Probably the "Viking," being unable to carry sail in the teeth of the tempest, had been obliged to scud before the windy and it being at this season of the year that the ice from the polar seas begins to make its way down into the Atlantic, it was more than likely that a collision had taken place, and ...
— Ticket No. "9672" • Jules Verne
... nearer still he sees the three stones and the few spadefuls of earth behind which, as he knows, is the French outpost sentry confronting him. The straggling rays of the watery moon now obscured by snow-scud, now falling on him faintly, could not aid him in reading even if he dared avert his eyes from his front. But Hans had come to know the value of the little gray volume; and while he lay in the Feldwache waiting for his spell of sentry go, he had ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... scud passed from the east; in the morning we had some heavy showers without wind; it cleared up at ten o'clock, and we took advantage of four hours fair weather to travel on. We again passed the huts of the natives, and encamped about seven miles farther down the creek. We were, ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... southward, to find some place about Hudson river for their habitation." (Ib., p. 117.) "After sailing southward half a day, they found themselves suddenly among shoals and breakers" (a ledge of rocks and shoals which are a terror to navigators to this day); and the wind shifting against them, they scud back to Cape Cod, and, as Bradford says, "thought themselves happy to get out of those dangers before night overtook them, and the next day they got into the Cape harbour, where they rode in safety. Being ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... goods, and quays overgrown with grass. Beyond Newport the country grows wilder. There is less cultivation, and behind every little shanty rises the great brown shoulder of the neighbouring mountain covered with rough, bent grass—or sedge, as it is called here. Grey plover and curlew scud across the road, a sign of hard weather, and near the rarer homesteads towers the hawk, looking for his prey. Now and again come glimpses of the bay, of the great island of Innisturk, of Clare Island, and of Innisboffin. ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... of the morning would I dress myself, lest the sun should be up before me, and I fail to catch his first lance-like rays dazzling through the forest of grass on the edge of my hollow world. Bare-footed I would scud like a hare through the dew, heedless of the sweet air of the morning, heedless of the few bird-songs about me, heedless even of the east, whose saffron might just be burning into gold, as I ran to gain the green hollow whence alone ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... antiphonally. Black as it was under the trees, there was a moon behind the night. No suggestion of it showed through the clouds, yet from the pond surface itself came a weird twilight, filtered no doubt through a mile of flying scud a mile above, reflected from the wind-swept surface and showing these distant pines lifting heads of murk against the murky sky. But their antiphonal shout was no pine-voiced song of the sea, it was the sea itself. Again and again I listened in successive lulls. I could not ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... in sharp snappings like castanets. You could hear the hiss and seething of the sea alongside, and see it flash by in sudden white patches of phosphorescent foam, while all overhead was black with the flying scud. The English second-mate was stamping with vexation, and, with all his ills misplaced, storming at the men:—"'An'somely the weather main- brace,—'an'somely, I tell you!—'Alf a dozen of you clap on to the main sheet here,—down with 'im!—D'y'see 'ere's hall like a midshipman's ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... minutes he and Nellie were driving forth, and Nellie in the red cloak held the reins. Denry, in a coachman's furs, sat behind. They whirled past the Hotel Metropole. And shortly afterwards, on the wild road towards Attalens, Denry saw a pair of skis scudding as quickly as skis can scud in their rear. It was astonishing how the sleigh, with all the merry jingle of its bells, kept that pair of skis at a distance of about a hundred yards. It seemed to invite the skis to overtake it, ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... uninteresting accidents happen during squally weather: hats are blown off; coat-tails, and eke the flowing garments of the gentler sex, flap, as if waging war with their distressed wearers; grave dignified persons are compelled to scud along before the gale, shorn of all the impressiveness of their wonted solemn gait, holding, perchance, their shovel-hat firmly on with both hands; and finally, there is neither pathos nor glory in having your head broken by a chimney-pot, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... necessary, for at one moment there would obtain a calm, death-like in its stillness; the next, down through a canyon cleaving the mountain to the water's edge would come rushing with a shrill howl, a blast fierce enough to almost lift us out of the water. Away we would scud with flying sheets dead before it, in a smother of spray, but would hardly get full way on her before it was gone, leaving us in the same hush as before, only a dark patch on the water far to leeward marking its swift rush. These little ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... being swamped. However, I was certain that, being provided with two large beams of bamboos, it could keep its position in the current between two waters and not capsize, if we had the precaution and strength to scud before the wind, and not turn the side to a wave, for in such case we should all have been drowned. What I foresaw, happened. A wave burst upon us; for a few minutes we were plunged in the deep, but when the wave passed over we came ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... At length we got a slant and fetched out into the Atlantic, heading well to the southward, however. Our passage was long, even after we got clear, the winds carrying us down as low as Corvo, which island we made, and then taking us well north again. We had one very heavy blow that forced us to scud, the Sterling being one of the wettest ships that ever floated, when heading up ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... me at the smithy corner. We crossed John's Common together, and so past Ridden's Farm, meeting only one or two riding officers upon the way. There was a brisk wind blowing, and the moon kept peeping through the rifts of the scud, so that our road was sometimes silver-clear, and sometimes so black that we found ourselves among the brambles and gorse-bushes which lined it. We came at last to the wooden gate with the high stone pillars by the roadside, and, looking through between the rails, we ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of the top, however, before we had a hint that it would be well to imitate the stranger's prudence. Though our vessel steered so much better than another, no ship can keep on a direct line, while running before the wind, in a heavy sea. The waves occasionally fly past a vessel, like the scud glancing through the air; then, they seem to pause, altogether, as if to permit the ship to overtake them. When a vessel is lifted aft by one of these torrents of rushing waters, the helm loses a portion ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... weather the gale? Henderson and the boatswain were rather opposed to this plan, the gunner suggesting, as an alternative, that we should cut adrift from the wreckage that was holding us head to wind, and endeavour to get before the wind and scud; and to this view they still adhered, even after I had pointed out to them that the island of Hayti constituted a lee-shore only some twenty-five miles distant, upon which we must inevitably be dashed before morning if we adopted their plan. The carpenter, however, took my view that we must lose ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... and hazy weather. At half-past 3 saw a single rock bearing south-south-west distance 9 or 10 miles, and an island on our beam south-east...haze very thick and scud flying thick. At 4 P.M. saw a rock lying to north of Kent's Group about 3 miles...At half-past 4 saw easternmost island of Kent's Group bearing west by south distance 8 miles, by half-past 5 P.M. having come nearly up with ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... gleaming thro' the busy scud With arching Wings, the sea-mew o'er my head Posts on, as bent on speed, now passaging Edges the stiffer Breeze, now, yielding, drifts, Now floats upon the air, and sends from far A ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... the middle of winter, so I shall see Tierra del Fuego in her white drapery. We leave the straits to enter the Pacific by the Barbara Channel, one very little known, and which passes close to the foot of Mount Sarmiento (the highest mountain in the south, excepting Mt.!! Darwin!!). We then shall scud away for Concepcion in Chili. I believe the ship must once again steer southward, but if any one catches me there again, I will give him leave to hang me up as a scarecrow for all future naturalists. I long to be at work in the Cordilleras, the geology ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... row the ribboned fair, Others along the safer turnpike fly; Some Richmond Hill ascend, some scud to Ware, And many to the steep of Highgate hie. Ask ye, Boeotian shades, the reason why? 'Tis to the worship of the solemn Horn, Grasped in the holy hand of Mystery, In whose dread name both men and maids are sworn, And consecrate the oath ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... flying scud and back at the storm-bewitched girl with laughter rippling from her throat and the wild joy of a rare moment in ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... idea of the British power. The German ship passed among them, shrinking, humiliated, quickening its speed. "One might suppose," mused the youth, "that she had an uneasy conscience and wished to scud to safety." A South American passenger near him was jesting with one of the Germans, "What if they have already declared war! . . . What if they should ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... scarcely a whole timber in her upper works, and one of her fashion pieces being shot through, which is a principal support of the after-part of the ship, they were obliged to strap her, to keep her together. As it blew pretty fresh, they durst not carry sail, and for nearly a week together had to scud almost under bare poles, through variable winds, bad weather, and a rough sea. This was a melancholy situation for the people, in seas with which they were little acquainted, and sailing by charts on which they could not depend. Yet they found the accounts and charts of Dampier much ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... his pole, which bare gave Godefroy time to take the cue, and our prow went scouring across the scud of whipping currents where two rivers and an ocean-tide met. The seething waves lashed to foam with the long, low moan of the world-devouring serpent which, legend says, is ever an-hungering to devour voyageurs on life's sea. And for all the world that ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... deck three hours or so after he went down, and the weather got dirtier and dirtier, and the scud drove by, and the wind sang and hummed through the rigging—it made me melancholy to listen to it. I could think of nothing but the youngster down below, and what I should say to his poor old uncle if anything happened. Well, soon after ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... fierce scud of hail, hitting rather than wetting, but Dolores had the satisfaction of declaring the edges of her dress to be damp and going off to change it, though Aunt Jane pinched the kilting and said the damp was imperceptible, and Wilfred ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... must be careful of her. For it would be too bad if she should die and leave me all alone with this tedious youngster. I could not hold out. I should run away. Go, Capet, get into your room, and do not get in my way again to-day, else I will strangle you before you can make a sound. Come, scud, clear, and do not let me see you again, if your life is ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... was less violent, and after looking for a moment at the angry sea and the grey, cloud-wrapped sky streaked with its wisps of flying white scud, the skipper nodded slowly. "You're right," he said. "It has gone down a bit. We're beginning to feel the lee of the land. Work her up gradually to twelve knots and ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling
... to cat-land, and was never seen again, And the dog sneaked out beneath the bed to scud with might and main; While Polly sits upon her roost, and rolls her eyes in fear, And when she sees a bit of cake, she ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... our love are poured Through the slow welter of the primal flood From some blind source of monster-haunted mud, And flung together by random forces stored Ere the vast void with rushing worlds was scored— Because we know ourselves but the dim scud Tossed from their heedless keels, the sea-blown bud That wastes and scatters ...
— Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton
... as much. Still, for all that, caribou deer beat every other animal of the deer tribe, so far's I know, in the size of their hoofs, as you'll see bime-by if luck's with us! And my stars! how they scud along on them big hoofs. I'd back 'em in a race against the smartest of your city chaps that ever spun through Maine on his new-fangled 'wheel,' that he's ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... such it could he called—an uprising of some of the sailors, driven to almost insane anger because of the refusal of the captain to put into a port, the harbor of which could not he made in such a sea as was running, nor in the teeth of such furious wind. The only thing to do was to scud before the gale, with the engines and crew ...
— The Motor Girls on Waters Blue - Or The Strange Cruise of The Tartar • Margaret Penrose
... the sea-scud and the snow-flakes flying about their ears, while the waxing rollers rose ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... Scene I of the drama of my life; and yet the scene—or, rather, the captain's face—lingered for some time in my memory. I was no prophet, as I say; but I was something else—I was an observer; and one thing I knew—I knew when a man was terrified. Captain Trent, of the British brig Flying Scud, had been glib; he had been ready; he had been loud; but in his blue eyes I could detect the chill, and in the lines of his countenance spy the agitation, of perpetual terror. Was he trembling for his certificate? ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of stubborn sway, Pulls up his rod, but soft, as having skill, Wherewith the hook fast holds the fish's gill; Then all his line he freely yieldeth him, Whilst furiously all up and down doth swim Th' insnared fish, here on the top doth scud, There underneath the banks, then in the mud, And with his frantic fits so scares the shoal, That each one takes his hide, or starting hole: By this the pike, clean wearied, underneath ...
— Pastoral Poems by Nicholas Breton, - Selected Poetry by George Wither, and - Pastoral Poetry by William Browne (of Tavistock) • Nicholas Breton, George Wither, William Browne (of Tavistock)
... thus pursu'd from place to place, Kept in the view, and cross'd at ev'ry turn? In vain I fly, and, like a hunted deer, Scud o'er the lawns, and hasten to the covert; E'er I can reach my safety, you o'ertake me With the swift malice of some keen reproach, And drive the winged shaft ...
— Jane Shore - A Tragedy • Nicholas Rowe
... the gorge that gives the stars at noon-day clear— Up the pass that packs the scud beneath our wheel— Round the bluff that sinks her thousand fathom sheer— Down the valley with our guttering brakes asqueal: Where the trestle groans and quivers in the snow, Where the many-shedded levels loop and twine, So I lead my ...
— The Seven Seas • Rudyard Kipling
... older surface. There was no impact, as there is with rain. The flakes, of course, did not rebound. But they did not come to rest either, not for the most imperceptible fraction of time. As soon as they touched the white, underlying surface, they would start to scud along horizontally at a most amazing speed, forming with their previous path an obtuse angle. So long as I watched the single flake—which is quite a task, especially while driving—it seemed to be ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... grizzlies? You might have imported a few grizzlies to keep up the name of your railroad. Where are your herds of antelopes scudding before the advancing train? Nary an antelope have you got for to scud. Rocky Mountains, sir? They ain't rocky at all—they're as flat as my hand. Where are your savage gorges? I can't see none. Where are your wild injuns? Do you call them loafing tramps in dirty blankets, injuns? My belief is that they are greasers looking out for an engagement ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... glimpse of a distant black figure stooping and disappearing in one of those ditches, and reappearing the next moment with a motion which you would know meant the heaving out of a shovelful of snow. But you needed to be quick, for that black figure would not linger, but would soon drop that shovel and scud for the house, thrashing itself with its arms to warm them. Yes, it was too venomously cold for snow-shovelers or anybody ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... woes, and mock her sore distress. As now in louder peals, the loaded winds Bring on the gathering storm, her fears prevail; And o'er the plain, and o'er the mountain's ridge, 220 Away she flies; nor ships with wind and tide, And all their canvas wings, scud half so fast. Once more, ye jovial train, your courage try, And each clean courser's speed. We scour along, In pleasing hurry and confusion tossed; Oblivion to be wished. The patient pack Hang on the scent unwearied, ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... willowy bogs, all are kept wholesome and sweet the year round. Cloud and sunshine alternate in bracing, cheering succession, and health and abundance follow the storms. The outer sea margin is sublimely dashed and drenched with ocean brine, the spicy scud sweeping at times far inland over the bending woods, the giant trees waving and chanting in hearty accord as ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... heaps of greater height. The wind caught their crests, and scattered them over the sea, the whole surface of which was seething white. The aspect of the clouds was a fit accompaniment to the fury of the ocean. The moon was almost full—at times concealed, at times revealed, as the scud flew wildly over it. These things appealed to the eye, while the ear was filled by the groaning of the screw and the whistle ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... proceeding from the ash trees planted in or near the site of murders or suicides, and as I sit here writing, a scene opens before me, and I can see a plain with one solitary tree—an ash—standing by a pool of water, on the margin of which are three clusters of reeds. Dark clouds scud across the sky, and the moon only shows itself at intervals. It is an intensely wild and lonely spot, and the cold, dank air blowing across the barren wastes renders it all the more inhospitable. No one, no living thing, ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... may as well go back to the level where we were," declared Tom. "The wind, both above and below that particular strata is stronger, and we will be safer up above. Our only chance is to scud before it, until it has blown itself out. And I hope ...
— Tom Swift and his Wireless Message • Victor Appleton
... floor. The garden, with its muddy walks, and the chill, dripping foliage of its summer-house, was an image to be shuddered at. Nothing flourished in the cold, moist, pitiless atmosphere, drifting with the brackish scud of sea-breezes, except the moss along the joints of the shingle-roof, and the great bunch of weeds, that had lately been suffering from drought, in the angle ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... father mourning for his dead son. In another lament a grieving mother is compared to the drooping fronds of the tree-fern. The maiden keeping tryst bids the light fleecy cloudlets, which in New Zealand so often scud across the sky before the sea-wind, to be ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... the afternoon, when the wind lulled, the mercury experienced a sudden further fall, and a great mass of murky cloud began to bank up in the south-western quarter. This rapidly overspread the sky, until the whole of the visible heavens became obscured by a thick curtain of flying scud. The sea, inky black, suddenly became agitated, and formed itself into a confusion of irregular waves without any "run," but which reared themselves tremblingly aloft, and then subsided again, only to ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood |
