"Overhead" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... lantern just turning into the Sperrits' gate. He came back by way of Sidney's farm, where he saw the light twinkling across three acres of shining water, for the rain had ceased and the clouds were stripping overhead, though the brook was noisier than ever. Now there was only that doubtful mill-pond to look after—that and his swirling ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... passengers was but slightly excited. The soldiers sat quietly in their seats, their repeating rifles held between their knees, and the officer in front. Sinclair joined the latter, and had a few words with him as the train moved on. A little later, when the stars were shining brightly overhead, they passed into the express-car, and sent for the conductor and other trainmen, and for Foster. In a few words Sinclair explained the position of affairs. His statement was received with perfect coolness, and the men only asked what they ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various
... raindrops began to drum upon the near- by tent roofs, the spruce-tops overhead bent low, limbs threshed as the gusty night wind beat upon them. But he heard none of it, felt none of it, for in his ears rang the music of the spheres and on his face lingered the warmth of a woman's lips, the first love kiss that he had ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... must both get down with her from the carriage and come to meet her from the house. Her glance involuntarily took in the familiar masses and details; the patches of short tough grass mixed with decaying chips and small weeds underfoot, and the spacious June sky overhead; the fine network and blisters of the cracking and warping white paint on the clapboarding, and the hills beyond the bulks of the village houses and trees; the woodshed stretching with its low board arches to the barn, and the milk-pans ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... tells me," continued Mr. Armstrong, "that just a few minutes previous to the time the whole household was aroused last night he heard a step in the hall overhead, then the sound of a light foot descending the little staircase in the servants' hall. Being anxious to find out what this person wanted at an hour so late, he lowered the gas, closed his door, and listened. The steps went by his door. Satisfied that it was a woman he heard, he pulled ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... its stand; a work of immense labor, rendered all the harder by the necessity of keeping silence. Tom was a man of great strength, however, and at last he had the satisfaction of seeing the barrel once more in its place without having heard a sound from the sleepers overhead. Having washed the buckets and tools, he put them back where they came from, locked the door, and for the second time that night ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp
... Threshing and winnowing proceed in the manner represented on the monuments, and the methods of sowing and reaping have not changed. Along the embanked roads, men, cattle, and donkeys file past against the sky-line, recalling the straight rows of such figures depicted so often upon the monuments. Overhead there flies the vulture goddess Nekheb, and the hawk Horus hovers near by. Across the road ahead slinks the jackal, Anubis; under one's feet crawls Khepera, the scarab; and there, under the sacred tree, sleeps the horned ram of Amon. In all directions the hieroglyphs of the ancient ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... thus leaps into the ship, and finding no speedy vent runs roaring fore and aft, till the mariners come nigh to drowning while yet afloat. And ever, as the white moon shows .. her affrighted face from the steep gullies in the blackness overhead, aghast Jonah sees the rearing bowsprit pointing high upward, but soon beat downward again towards the tormented deep. Terrors upon terrors run shouting through his soul. In all his cringing attitudes, ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... further, for the shrieking of the wind drowned out every other sound. Then came a strange grinding and creaking overhead, and the barn ...
— The Rover Boys out West • Arthur M. Winfield
... saw the fire, before which the white men and the chiefs lay sleeping, sink lower and lower. The night remained dark. The heavy drifting clouds which nevertheless were not ready to open for rain, moved overhead in solemn columns. The surface of the river grew dim, but now and then there was a light splash as a strong fish leaped up and fell back into the current. The Indian guards knowing well what made them, paid no ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... them still flourishes in the form of amiable prepossessions. A vast mass of mystic and traditional lumber still enters into the foundations of Conservatism, and if all this "wood, hay, and stubble" were to be burnt up it would fare ill with the frail fabric overhead. The practical policy of Conservatism would not alter, and could not be altered much, but its pretensions would have to be pitched in a lower key, and the excessive modesty of the part which alone remains to it in the politics of the future would be ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... all that in the moonshine lay Behynde them fled afar; And backward scudded overhead ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... tea's made, and, maybe, there's a shrimp or two; she attends to your creature comforts. When everything's locked up and tight and right, I'm gay, and ask for a bit of society: well, I'm at my tea: I hear her foot thumping up and down her bed-room overhead: I know the meaning of that: I'd rather hear nothing: down she runs: I'm at my tea, and in she bursts."—Here followed a dramatic account of Dahlia's manner of provocation, which was closed by the extinction ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... what has been previously said in relation to the conditions under which the majority of the plants of the Cactus family grow when wild, that during their season of growth they require a good supply of moisture, both at the root and overhead; and afterwards a somewhat lengthened period of rest, that is, almost total dryness, accompanied by all the sunlight possible, and generally a somewhat high temperature. The growing season for all those kinds which require to be ...
— Cactus Culture For Amateurs • W. Watson
... of the washed earth and leaves, and how sweet the still small voices of the storm! Detached wafts and swirls were coming through the woods, with music from the leaves and branches and furrowed boles, and even from the splintered rocks and ice-crags overhead, many of the tones soft and low and flute-like, as if each leaf and tree, crag and spire were a tuned reed. A broad torrent, draining the side of the glacier, now swollen by scores of new streams from the mountains, was rolling boulders along ...
— Stickeen • John Muir
... her complexion, set off as it was by a jaunty steamer cap. They stepped out on the deck, and found it not at all so dark as they had expected. Little globes of electric light were placed at regular intervals on the walls of the deck building. Overhead was stretched a sort of canvas roof, against which the sleety rain pattered. One of the sailors, with a rubber mop, was pushing into the gutter by the side of the ship the moisture from the deck. All around the ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... captain told other stories to the boys. Most of these were about his experiences at sea, the gales he had encountered, and his numerous narrow escapes from death. It was a novel experience for the scouts to be lying there listening to these yarns, with the stars twinkling overhead. At last, however, their eyes became heavy and, wrapped in their blankets, they were soon sound asleep upon the hard ground. The captain sat for awhile before the dying embers, smoking his clay pipe. At length, knocking the ashes ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... the babies together and fled. I could hear the lieutenant throwing things about overhead, and felt there was not a moment to lose. The servant's face showed plainly that he did not believe about the pastor, and the babies looked up at me wonderingly. What is a woman to do when driven into a corner? The father of lies inhabits corners—no doubt the proper place ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim
... elderly couple that preceded her. Halfway out she passed a slip beside which lay moored a heavily built, fifty-foot boat, scarred with usage, a squat and powerful craft. Lakeward stretched a smooth, unrippled surface. Overhead patches of white cloud drifted lazily. Where the shadows from these lay, the lake spread gray and lifeless. Where the afternoon sun rested, it touched the water with gleams of gold and pale, delicate green. A white-winged yacht lay offshore, her sails in slack folds. A lump of an island lifted ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... Bannister Field to the Gym, where Head Coach Corridan was flaying them with a tongue as keen as the two-edged sword that drove Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. A cold, bleak November afternoon, a leaden sky lowered overhead, and a chill wind swept athwart the field; in the concrete stands, the loyal "rooters" of the Gold and Green, or of the Gold and Blue, shivered, stamped, and swung their arms, waiting for the excitement of the scrimmage again to warm them. Yet, the Bannister ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... carriage road, leading up to the house was bordered by stately poplars and cedars, whose branches interlaced overhead, and formed a perfect arch. Beulah looked up at the dark- green depths among the cedars, and walked on with a feeling of contentment, nay, almost of happiness, which was a stranger to her heart. In front ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... When we raised our eyes toward the crests we stood dazzled and stupefied by what we saw. They looked red and notched like festoons of coral, for all the summits are made of porphyry; and the sky overhead seemed violet, lilac, discolored by the vicinity of these strange mountains. Lower down the granite was of scintillating gray, and under our feet it seemed rasped, pounded; we were walking over shining powder. At ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... variance with their professions, and violate the unwritten but perceptible laws binding them in consideration one to another; whenever they offend sound reason, fair justice; are false in humility or moved with conceit, individually or in the bulk—the Spirit overhead will look humorously malign and cast an oblique light on them, followed by volleys of silvery laughter. That is the Comic Spirit." The Comic Spirit is the just common sense, the subconscious wisdom of the ages. There IS a golden mean, the Comic ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... The heavens overhead are one arch of clouds, Snowing in multitudinous flakes; There is super-added the drizzling rain. When (the land) has received the moistening, Soaking influence abundantly, It produces all ...
— The Shih King • James Legge
... a poor boy who had worked in the cutting of the pit, lying on his back and picking out from the roof overhead the coal which was shovelled into the truck. From this humble position literally and socially he had proceeded, first to his feet, and then step by step, until, from one grade to another, he had amassed a large fortune, and sufficient ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... symptoms; but she was incapable of asking him any question with a social bearing. Sociably enough, however, they continued to wander through the principal street of the little town, darkened in places by immense old elms, which made a blackness overhead. There was a salt smell in the air, as if they were nearer the water; Doctor Prance said that Olive's house was ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... steamers, nor perhaps to what are termed weekly boats). They come on board and find their forecastle just as the last crew left it, full of a week's filth,[2] possibly lumbered up with hauling lines and what-not, wanting painting badly, and often showing unmistakable signs of overhead leakage. This is quite enough to make a respectable man discontented, and naturally so. In common fairness, the often wretched place that the men have to occupy ought to be put in decent order to receive the new crew. Again, they should be distinctly made to understand, when signing ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 832, December 12, 1891 • Various
... which were paper and lighted candles. A letter lay before him, but he was not reading it. When the sound of the rocking began, he started and turned pale. A little boy once used to rock in that way in the garret overhead, but it was long ago, and for many years past the garret had been silent and deserted. "Harry's horse!" muttered the old man with a look of fear as he heard the sound. He half rose from his chair, then ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... years, when the husband died, and the widow went away. They made no complaint while tenants. The house stood empty for some time, and all I know personally about the matter is that I, my wife, and the children were in the dining-room one Sunday when we heard unusual noises in the drawing-room overhead. We went through the rooms but could find no cause or explanation of the disturbance, and thought no ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... ... until a new sound stole faintly upon the listening silence, a faint and very distant sound, barely audible as yet, but of unmistakable character. It was far away in the upper reaches of the building, overhead, remote, a little stealthy. Like the ominous murmur of a muffled drum, it had approach in it. It was coming nearer and nearer. It ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... fences, and his course was still substantially westward. His eyes constantly searched the misty purple-blue horizon for a first glimpse of the mountains, though he knew he could not possibly come in sight of them so soon. He rode steadily till the sun was overhead, when he stopped to let the pony rest and feed. He had a scanty lunch in his pocket, which he ate without water. Saddling up an hour or two later he continued his steady onward ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... to churn the butter; but when he had churned a while he got thirsty, and went down to the cellar to tap a barrel of ale. So, just when he had knocked in the bung, and was putting the tap into the cask, he heard overhead the pig come into the kitchen. Then off he ran up the cellar steps, with the tap in his hand, as fast as he could, to look after the pig, lest it should upset the churn; but when he got up, and saw the pig had already knocked the churn ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... Castle Crag. Two hundred feet above it the time-gun was mounted in the half-moon battery on an overhanging, crescent-shaped ledge of rock. In any part of the city the report of the one-o'clock gun was sufficiently alarming, but in the Grassmarket it was an earth-rending explosion directly overhead. It needed to be heard but once there to be registered on even a little dog's brain. Bobby had heard it many times, and he never failed to yelp a sharp protest at the outrage to his ears; but, as the gunshot was always followed ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... abundantly, the servants laid them out a bed near the hearth, so that by the swing of the treacherous beam they might mow off their heads, which faced the fire. When they departed, Ebb, suspecting the contrivance slung overhead, told his men to feign slumber and shift their bodies, saying that it would be very wholesome for them ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... earth still radiated, the powder dust rose and choked. The desert dragged at their feet; and in the twilight John Gates thought to hear mutterings and the soft sound of wings overhead as the dread spirits of the wastes stooped low. He had not stopped for nearly two hours. This was the last push; he must ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... of day; through big towns, by rows of sombre houses seen through a delicate screen of leaves; under low bridges crowded with children; through narrow locks; ever moving, moving, slowly and surely, sometimes sailing, sometimes quanting, sometimes being towed, with the wide Dutch sky overhead, and the plovers crying in it, and the clean west wind driving the windmills, and everything just as it was in Rembrandt's day and just as it will be ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... mean? From out their lethargy At last awaking, searchers in hot haste, Some in the saddle, some afoot with hounds, Scoured moor and woodland, dragged the neighboring weirs And salmon-streams, and watched the wily hawk Slip from his azure ambush overhead, With ever a keen eye for carrion: But no man found, nor aught that once was man. By land they went not; went they water-ways? Might be, from Bideford or Ilfracombe. Mayhap they were in London, who could tell? God help us! ...
— Wyndham Towers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... constantly thought to ride through the air on broomsticks or other equally convenient vehicles; and if they do so, how can you get at them so effectually as by hurling lighted missiles, whether discs, torches, or besoms, after them as they flit past overhead in the gloom? The South Slavonian peasant believes that witches ride in the dark hail-clouds; so he shoots at the clouds to bring down the hags, while he curses them, saying, "Curse, curse Herodias, thy mother is a heathen, damned of God ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... in the hall. She had taken off her hat and stood idly swinging it. A single globe was lighted in the chandelier overhead and the extremities of the great apartment were ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... Spring it clothed the fields with pride, When first we met together; And then unknown to all beside We loved in sunny weather; We met where oaks grew overhead, And whitethorns hung with may; Wild thyme beneath her feet was spread, ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... blue as the summer sea, The depths were cloudless overhead; The air was calm as it could be; There was no sight or sound ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... The moon was straight overhead, and the sky was filled with stars, so that in the open spaces the light was almost like that of day, except that it was softer and more beautiful. It was very still. There was no wind in the treetops, and it seemed to Baree that the howl he had given ...
— Baree, Son of Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... in my narrow bunk, bringing my cranium in violent contact with a beam overhead, which has the effect of knocking me flat down in my berth again. After recovering as much consciousness as is necessary to appreciate my position, I roll out of bed, jerk savagely at my boots, and snatching up my cap and pea-jacket, make a rush at the companion-way, up which I manage to fall ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... will flop along above the trees, upon his rusty wings. The doctor, when he has a call, from patients far or near, will quickly strap his pinions on, and hit the atmosphere. And airship racing then will be the sport to please the crowds; there'll be racecourses overhead, and grandstands in the clouds. The umpire, on his patent wings, will hover here and there; the fans, with rented parachutes, will prance along the air; the joyous shrieks of flying sports will keep the welkin hot, and soaring cops will blithely chase the ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason
... early October, the haze of Indian summer was in the air, and as we crossed the North River by the Twenty-third Street Ferry the sun flashed upon the white clouds overhead and the tumbling waters below. On each side of us great vessels with the Blue Peter at the fore lay at the wharfs ready to cast off, or were already nosing their way down the channel toward strange and beautiful ports. Lamport and Holt were rolling down to Rio; the Royal ...
— My Buried Treasure • Richard Harding Davis
... the St. James's region bear the names they bore when King George first came to London. But it is only in name that they are unchanged. The street of streets, St. James's Street, is metamorphosed indeed since the days when grotesque signs swung overhead, and great gilt carriages lumbered up and down from the park, and the chairs of modish ladies crowded up the narrow thoroughfares. Splendid warriors, fresh from Flanders or the Rhine, clinked their courtly swords against the ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... great state of delight, began to make search for something that would do to stand for artillery; but Captain Drummond presently solved the question by breaking some twigs from the tree overhead and cutting them up into inch lengths. These little mock guns he distributed liberally among the white stones, pointing their muzzles in various directions; and finally drew some lines in the sand which ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... of Kamchau there is an idol temple five hundred cubits square. In the middle is an idol lying at length, which measures fifty paces. The sole of the foot is nine paces long, and the instep is twenty-one cubits in girth. Behind this image and overhead are other idols of a cubit (?) in height, besides figures of Bakshis as large as life. The action of all is hit off so admirably that you would think they were alive. Against the wall also are other figures of perfect execution. The great sleeping idol has one hand under his ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... the bath. True, the whole earth was fair, even out in the pastures among the flocks or round the fire in front of the tent in the cool of the evening, when the shepherds sang, the hunters told tales of daring exploits, and the stars sparkled brightly overhead. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... hatchet when the face of his confrere, Dan Hicks, appeared over McGuffey's shoulder and grinned knowingly at him. Immediately, Flaherty hurled defiance at his enemies and came up on deck, and once more to Captain Scraggs came the dull sounds of apparent conflict overhead. ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... apricots and plums and peaches were ripening on the laden, starling-haunted boughs, she would wander in the orchard belonging to the house, while the heavy drenching rains drummed on the leaves overhead, and sudden furious thunderstorms rent the livid-coloured clouds above with jagged scythes and reaping-hooks of white electric fire, or leaping, dancing, playing, vanishing tongues of thin blue. Once this fire struck a krantz, under the lee of which the child ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... ceinture I love this tramway better. It speeds along the quays between the Seine and the garden of the Champs Elysees, through miles of chestnut bloom, the roadway chequered with shadows of chestnut leaves; the branches meet overhead, and in a faint delirium of the senses I catch at a bloom, cherish it for a moment, and cast it away. The plucky little steamboats are making for the landing-places, stemming the current. I love this sprightly ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... was gone and I alone in the soft luxury of this chamber, desolation filled me and I yearned bitterly for the discomforts of the little camp within the copse; the rustle of leaves, the soft, murmurous gurgle of the brook, the winking stars overhead; for Jeremy, and Jessamy Todd and my loved Diana. And coming to the open lattice, I leaned there to look upon the moon, this other Diana so placid and serene. And thinking that perhaps my Diana looked upon her even now, a Diana not ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... Overhead someone gave a loud shout, several sailors ran by, they seemed to be dragging something bulky over the deck, something fell with a crash. Again they ran by.... Had something gone wrong? Gusev raised his head, ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... the works of the Cave-men. You may have seen some in England—they disguise themselves as earth and then dig long narrow holes and live in them. The Cave-men are strange creatures. We went up one of then funny long narrow burrows, and occasionally they let off a funny toy which cracked overhead. At length we came to the real caves where these men live. I noticed that they were very vain men and were continually looking into a sort of box thing, with a glass at the end, and admiring themselves therein, and then so intoxicated were they with the sight that they would put a stick ...
— Letters from France • Isaac Alexander Mack
... New England in 1660, a royal order for their arrest was sent over after them, and a hot pursuit began. For a month they lived in a cave, at other times in cellars in Milford, Guilford, and New Haven; and once they hid under a bridge while their pursuers galloped past overhead. After hiding in these ways about New Haven for three years they went to Hadley in Massachusetts, where all trace of ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... crept in. They are some of the guests of the evening come to recover thus what they and their companions have wasted here to-night, that they may have it to waste once more. The till was quickly rifled, and at a slight noise overhead the thieves beat a precipitate retreat, and, in their haste, dropped our Sixpence in the street outside. Happy little Sixpence! to have escaped such hands; better to lie on the cold, hard pavement, curtained by the freezing air, than stay to be used as ...
— Adventures of a Sixpence in Guernsey by A Native • Anonymous
... the fire-engine on the road from Sedgwick, and some twenty or thirty couples, more impatient than the rest, had run to a distant knoll, from whence the road was visible, to peer through the darkness and to see if anything was coming. The stars shone serenely overhead, and the moon was turning the water in the fountains to cascades of silver, while from turret and roof the volumes of grey smoke belched forth, and the ineffectual fire appliances ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... up a book, and there was silence only broken by the rattle of loose shingles overhead and the soft thud against the windows of driving snow, while the girl sat dreaming over her sewing of the brighter days in far-off England which had slipped away from her for ever. Five years was not a very long time, but during it her English friends ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... the darkness, which had been closing round him where he rode in the narrow valley, crept over the tops of the high bluffs and shut out from his vision everything but a dim track in the snow faintly illuminated by the stars. Roosevelt hurried his pony. Clouds were gathering overhead, and soon, Roosevelt knew, even the light that the stars gave would be withdrawn. The night was very cold and the silence was profound. A light snow rendered even the hoof-beats of his horse muffled and indistinct, and the only sound that came out of the black world about him was the long-drawn, ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... a shadowy, pinched, sallow, dispirited, bloodless woman, with the habitual look of the people in the funeral carriage which follows next to the hearse, and the tone in speaking that may be noticed in a household where one of its members is lying white and still in a cool, darkened chamber overhead. Bathsheba Stoker was not called handsome; but she had her mother's youthful smile, which was so fresh and full of sweetness that she seemed like a beauty while she was speaking or listening; and she could ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... and Abe set to work. Using their sharp knives, they began cutting the corn close to the ground. They stood the tall golden stalks on end, tying them together in neat shocks or bundles. By the time the sun stood directly overhead, several long rows had been cut and stacked, and John Carter was coming toward them across the field. ...
— Abe Lincoln Gets His Chance • Frances Cavanah
... out in high windows and sounds of bagpipes and beating tom-toms began inside the open doors of a nautch house. An evil-looking house where green dragons curled up the fretted entrance, and where, overhead, faces peered from a balcony into the street. There was noise enough there to attract any amount of attention. Smart carriages, with white-uniformed syces, hurried up, bearing stout, plethoric men from the wharf offices, and Mhtoon Pah ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... shells throwing up water-spouts that almost splashed aboard. Instantly the British destroyers strung out, farther apart, and put on full racing speed as the next two bunches crept closer in. Whirrh! went the fourth, just overhead, as the flotilla flagship Arethusa signalled to fire torpedoes. At once the destroyers turned, all together, lashing the sea into foam as their sterns whisked round, and charged, faster than any cavalry, straight for the enemy. When the Germans found the range and once more began bunching their ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... Cornelia had taken off her shoes and let her little white feet trail down into the water. She wore only her white tunic, and had pushed it back so that her arms were almost bare. At the moment she was resting lazily on one elbow, and gazing abstractedly up at the moving ocean of green overhead. She was only sixteen; but in the warm Italian clime that age had brought her to maturity. No one would have said that she was beautiful, from the point of view of mere softly sensuous Greek beauty. Rather, she was handsome, as became the daughter of ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... of a little, red and grey, home county town; a place of but one street dominated by a great inn-signboard a-top of an enormous white post. The effigy of So-and-So of gracious memory swung lazily, creaking, overhead. ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... and the cable. To suit local conditions the former has three general applications—overhead, underground, and accumulator systems; while the latter has but one, the underground. Hence, the former, electricity, has three chances to the latter's one to meet the whims, opinions, or decisions of municipal authorities. Other advantages accruing ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 611, September 17, 1887 • Various
... there, gripping the desk, gazing at the rafters overhead, groaning in the lover's conscious luxury of despair. Should I go away? No; I would stay and see it out. I would be light and gay—a bear's waltz. I would laugh and rebuke fate; I would punish Guinea for having played with that boy up and ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... child of the wriggling type, had successfully clambered up the rope almost to the beam overhead and was now surveying the gallery with lofty compassion, which included a lively ...
— The Girls of Central High in Camp - The Old Professor's Secret • Gertrude W. Morrison
... me that when the French soldiers were not firing they amused themselves watching these women pruning and trimming as fatalistically as if guns were not thundering east and west of them, shells singing overhead. For the most part they were safe enough, and nerves had apparently been left out of them; but once in a while the Germans would amuse themselves raking the valley with the guns. Then the women would ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... instant, or it shall be the worse for you;' but ere he could stride up the first flight, Maurice's last leg was disappearing round the corner above, and the next moment the exhibition was repeated overhead in the gallery. Thither did Algernon rush headlong, following the scampering pattering feet, till the door of Maurice's little room was slammed in his face. Bursting it open, he found the chamber empty, but there was a shout of elvish laughter outside, and ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... pass!" the old man said; "Dark lowers the tempest overhead. The roaring torrent is deep and wide!" And loud ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... wheels. At times came street cleaners and swept up some of the mud, and carted it away, having first freely spattered the clothes of all who passed near them. In some streets were slaughter-houses, and terrified cattle occasionally made their way into the neighboring shops. The signs swung merrily overhead. They appealed to the most careless eye, being often gigantic boots, or swords, or gloves, marking what was for sale within; or if in words, they might be misspelt, and thus adapted to a rude understanding. Large placards on the walls ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... there just before noon, and at three o'clock on the following morning, in the company of his shikari, his skinner and his donkey-boy he was riding along a narrow path high above the river. It was very dark, so that even with the vast blaze of stars overhead, Hillyard could hardly see the flutter of his shikari's white robe a few paces ahead of him. They passed a clump of bushes and immediately afterwards heard a great shuffling and lapping of water below them. The shikari stopped abruptly and seized the bridle of Hillyard's donkey. The night was ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... heads and elbows. But little things like that do not make for wakefulness on a submarine. The apartment or vault is about ten feet long; standing in the middle, a man by stretching out his arms may easily have his fingers in contact with the steel walls on either side. Overhead is a network of wires, while all about there is a maze of levers, throttles, wheels, and various mechanical appliances that are the dismay of all but the mind specially ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry
... to the peak, saying, "I was lying on my back by the tarn, when my lady eagle came sailing overhead, so low that I could see this poor little thing, and ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... neither set of star, Large nightfall, nor imperial plenilune, Nor strong sweet shape of the full-breasted noon; But where the silver-sandalled shadows are, Too soft for arrows of the sun to mar, Moves with the mild gait of an ungrown moon: Hard overhead the half-lit crescent swims, The tender-coloured night draws hardly breath, The light is listening; They watch the dawn of slender-shapen limbs, Virginal, born again of doubtful death, Chill foster-father of the ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... yellow sky began to darken and the flocks of rooks flew cawing overhead, Ruth would shiver with a delicious sense of security as she stood beneath the porch in the gathering twilight and heard the wind begin to moan and sigh mysteriously, as if it trembled at the thought of spending the night on the hillside with no other company ...
— Drolls From Shadowland • J. H. Pearce
... peaked tops); a little pond with ducks and geese chattering together as they paddled about, and for additional music the trickling of two tiny burns making "a singan din" as they wimpled through the bushes. A speckle-breasted thrush perched on a corner of the gray wall and poured his heart out. Overhead there was a chorus of rooks in the tall trees, but there was no sound of human voice save that of the plough-laddie whistling ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... general government in the fiscal year 1947 are expected to continue the slowly rising trend which began in 1943. This category includes a great variety of items—not merely the overhead costs of the Government. It includes all the expenditures of the Cabinet departments, other than for national defense, aids to agriculture, general public works, and the social security program. It includes also expenditures of the legislative branch, ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Harry S. Truman • Harry S. Truman
... The moon overhead was gibbous, and there were no clouds in the sky. Thompson's place was such that he was close to the river, which flowed on his right, and he had that stream and the prairie in his front at his command. Mickey O'Rooney, being upon the extreme left, was ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... practical religion which it introduced, and from the effects of faith in Jesus which blessed individuals and society. So, while the human intellect has been wrestling with the giant problem of life, the being of God has silently been established. Overhead has been the battle of the elements, as on earth the quiet growth of the seed of truth which fell from the Master's hand. While the Titans have been warring in the air, the power of God's love and the offer of his Gospel have been making the world better. The laws of Christ have been ...
— Joy in Service; Forgetting, and Pressing Onward; Until the Day Dawn • George Tybout Purves
... them; and this was the fact decisive in the scales of justice. She said, as the officer had said, that the Germans were "out there." Across the fields one saw nothing on that still August day; no sign of war unless a Taube overhead, the first enemy aeroplane I had seen in war. For the last two days the German patrols had ceased to come. Liege, we knew, had fallen. Looking at the map, we prayed that ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... let her go," and so the fields and plains, the lanes and roads are filled with Canadian soldiers celebrating their Dominion Day, drilling, bayonet fighting, route marching, while overhead soars thrumming the watchful airship, Britain's eye. For Britain has a business on hand. Just yonder stretches the misty sea where unsleeping lie Britain's men of war. Beyond the sea bleeding Belgium has bloodsoaked ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... white mark was drawn on the door—a lady occupied the confidential place of housemaid in this "private residence," who brought a good character, who seemed to have a cheerful temper, whom I used to hear clattering and bumping overhead or on the stairs long before daylight—there, I say, was poor Camilla, scouring the plain, trundling and brushing, and clattering with her pans and brooms, and humming at her work. Well, she had established a smuggling communication of beer over the area frontier. This neat-handed Phyllis used ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a pretty sight. I see it all in my mind's eye now. I often wonder I have not made a picture of it. The high cliff stretching overhead, and covered with bushes and bracken, amongst which nestled the red-tiled cottages. Then below the cliff the level green, covered with strong, hardy fishermen and their sunburnt wives, and surrounding ...
— Christie, the King's Servant • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... dancing brown eyes, "at home all is winter—white, beautiful, glorious winter, with ice two or three feet thick on the rivers, and great fields and fields of snow, all sparkling in the sun, and the sky a vast sapphire overhead, without a speck. Oh, the glory of it, the splendor of it! And here—here it is neither fish, flesh, fowl, nor good red herring. A wretched, makeshift season, which they call winter because they don't know what else to ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards
... saw the crowd about the station begin to move, and presently the funeral-bell swung out its solemn tones of lamentation; its measured, lingering strokes, mingled with the woful shrieking of the wind and the sighing of the pine-tree overhead, made a dirge of inexpressible force and melancholy. A weight of grief seemed to settle on my very breath: it was not real sorrow; for, though I knew it well, I had not felt yet that Frank was dead,—it was not real to me,—I could not take to my stunned perceptions the fact that he was gone. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... the declining sun shone on the gilded eikon in the corner of the room, and on the chromo-covered walls. When darkness fell, and the simmering music of the samovar had gradually died away; when the flitting swallows in the room had ceased their chirp, and settled down upon the rafters overhead, we ourselves would turn in under our fur-lined coats ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... leaping over the bulwarks. Wave after wave thus leaps into the ship, and finding no speedy vent runs roaring fore and aft, till the mariners come nigh to drowning while yet afloat. And ever, as the white moon shows her affrighted face from the steep gullies in the blackness overhead, aghast Jonah sees the rearing bowsprit pointing high upward, but soon beat downward again towards the ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... that presently he missed the road to Pyecrafts—if ever he had been on the road to Pyecrafts at all—altogether. He found himself upon a highway running across a flattish plain, and presently discovered by the sight of the Great Bear, faint but traceable in the blue overhead, that he was going due north. Well, presently he would turn south and west; that in good time; now he wanted to feel; he wanted to think. How could he best help England in the vast struggle for which ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... his stand with some misgiving. Some flecking clouds overhead made the light uncertain, and a handful of wind frolicked across the range in a way quite disturbing to a bowman's nerves. His eyes wandered for a brief moment to the box wherein sat the dark-eyed girl. His heart leaped! she met his glance and smiled ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... realize their ill fortune at first, for their hearts were gladdened by the sight of a ray of sunshine coming through a small crack in the roof of the cave, far overhead. That meant that their world—the real world—was not very far away, and that the succession of perilous adventures they had encountered had at last brought them near the earth's surface, which meant home to them. But when the adventurers looked more carefully around them they discovered that there ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... calm before the storm, and as we awaited the word to advance into the fight that was raging overhead, I had an opportunity of studying the faces of the soldiers who were going, perhaps, to death. Some were pale with excitement, and their eyes flashed as they clutched their rifles and compressed their lips. Others laughed wildly, another was hungrily ...
— From Aldershot to Pretoria - A Story of Christian Work among Our Troops in South Africa • W. E. Sellers
... sang in the tree overhead, Apples and cherries, roses and honey; "Come and sing your song on my finger instead, All so ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... though I never heard that there was anything peculiarly remarkable in its history. Sitting thus, and thus engaged in serious, solitary contemplation, the sudden fall of something heavy in the garret overhead gave me a momentary start. I could compare it to nothing but to the effect likely to be produced by something as solid as a smaller description of cannon-ball, though it afterwards appeared to have attracted the attention ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous
... the bright patches of starlight and into the shadows of the cedars. But he saw no moving form in the open, no dim white shape against the gloom. And he heard no sound—not even a whisper of wind in the branches overhead. ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... very strange—these people! There were the boys and men who rose at dawn—yet never paused to watch the sun flood the world with light; who stayed in the fields all day—yet never raised their eyes to the big fleecy clouds overhead; who knew birds only as thieves after fruit and grain, and squirrels and rabbits only as creatures to be trapped or shot. The women—they were even more incomprehensible. They spent the long hours behind screened doors and windows, washing the ...
— Just David • Eleanor H. Porter
... as they were still journeying on the open sea, that Faithful John, as he sat in the forepart of the ship and made music, caught sight of three ravens in the air flying overhead. Then he stopped playing, and listened to what they said one to another, for he understood them quite ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... bitterly cold, with an east wind which had been blowing many days, and overhead the sky was of a hard, steely grey. I was cycling along the valley of the Ebble, and finally leaving it pushed up a long steep slope and set off over the high plain by a dusty road with the wind hard against me. A more desolate scene than ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... zenith, torn by the winds so that they resembled the craters of the moon, were tinted for an instant around the crater's rims; the clouds faded to a dove-like gray; they darkened; the gray disappeared; the purple crept from the canyon into the arched dome overhead; the day was ended, twilight passed, and darkness settled ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... strange, fantastic forms; And every form is lit with burning eyes, Which pierce me through and through like fiery arrows! The dim walls grow unsteady, and I seem To stand upon a reeling deck! Hold, hold! A hundred crags are toppling overhead. I faint, I sink—now, let me clutch that limb— Oh, devil! It breaks to ashes in my grasp! What ghost is that which beckons through the mist? The duke! the duke! and bleeding at the breast! Whose dagger ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... Overhead the green, shining leaves of stephanotis spread a canopy, pale clusters of its white, heavy-scented bloom gleaming star-like in the faint light of Chinese lanterns swung from the leaf-clad roof. From somewhere near at hand came ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... the semi-attic kind, with roofs that sloped and a sky-light in one of them and the slates close overhead. It was a grey windy morning, and as she stood there, alone in that large house save for the cook far away in the kitchen, with a loose slate rattling in the gusts, and a glimpse of clouds driving over the sky-light, ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... the elemental battle began in desperate earnest. Peal after peal of thunder crashed directly overhead, and with it came such a display of heavenly pyrotechnics that in their wildest moments these men had never dreamed of. Their eyes were blinded, and their ear-drums were bursting with the incessant hammering ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... surface. Parallels of latitude, meridians of longitude, the equator, etc., will have the same imaginary position on the celestial sphere that they have on the earth. Your actual position on the earth will be projected in a point called your zenith, i.e., the point directly overhead. ...
— Lectures in Navigation • Ernest Gallaudet Draper
... interview between husband and wife, which ends in the woman seizing a loaded rifle with the intention of killing both herself and her husband. In the struggle which ensues for the possession of the weapon, the gun is discharged, there is a cry overhead and the figure of Madeleine is seen to rise, opening the trap-door, and then to fall the length of the stairs, at the feet of the woman who ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... they safely sped Across the realms of snow— The glittering planets overhead, The sparkling frost below— Until the reindeer stopped before A mansion tall and fair, Up to whose wide and lofty door Inclined ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris
... who were making the falling pink blossoms into necklaces at her feet; the pigeons, Dionea's white pigeons, which never leave her, strutting and pecking among the basil pots, and the white gulls flying round the rocks overhead. This is what I heard... "And the three fairies said to the youngest son of the King, to the one who had been brought up as a shepherd, 'Take this apple, and give it to her among us who is most beautiful.' And the first ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... herself?" I said half-aloud, but instantly afterward I was laughing at my fancy, for Mr. Edison had overhead me ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss
... shaded part of the road. Ann was almost out of sight and walking rapidly homeward. There was no one close behind Mostyn and Dolly. A full moon shone overhead, and its beams filtered through the foliage of the trees. He felt the light and yet trusting touch of her hand on his arm. A warm, triumphant sense of ownership filled him. How beautiful, how pure, how brave and brilliant ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... bed and rubbed my eyes. Within the house everything was as mute as the grave. That horrible tramping overhead had ceased—had ceased, doubtless, with the return of daylight, which would otherwise have shifted it from the region of the weird to that of the commonplace. I smiled to myself as I thought of my terrors of the past night, and felt brave enough just then ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various
... the woman and tried to make out something of what she was saying, but could not. The dogs still barked spasmodically, drops fell from the tall, dark trees that rose overhead. ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... lower end, or tail, of Chateau Landon, while the inn was up at the head, under the great church spire. With this clew to go upon he stumbled and groped forward, now breathing more freely in the open places where there was a good slice of sky overhead, now feeling along the wall in stifling closes. It is an eerie and mysterious position to be thus submerged in opaque blackness in an almost unknown town. The silence is terrifying in its possibilities. The touch of cold window bars to the exploring hand startles the man like the touch ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... M.A., F.M.S. "The author, when walking close to the Cathedral of Norwich, was struck with the unusual fluttering of the flags on the top of the spire, which was 300 feet high. They were streaming with a strained, quivering motion perpendicularly upwards. A heavy cloud was passing overhead at the moment and as it passed, the flags followed the cloud and then gradually dropped into comparative quietness. The same phenomenon was noticed several times. As the cloud approached, the upper banner began to feel ...
— New and Original Theories of the Great Physical Forces • Henry Raymond Rogers
... French phrase which kept recurring in his mind—all had the effect of conjuring up giant shadows in Joe's fanciful mind. During all his life, until this moment, he had never feared anything; now he was afraid of the darkness. The spectral trees spread long arms overhead, and phantom forms stalked abroad; somewhere out in that dense gloom stirred this mysterious ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... came fast, steel-blue and thick with stars; but yet he did not come, the untouched meal on the table was untouched still. Hour after hour of starry darkness crept by, and she sat watching at the window-pane; overhead, constellations marched across the heavens in relentless splendor, careless of man or sorrow; Orion glittered in the east, and climbed toward the zenith; the Pleiades clustered and sparkled as if they missed their lost sister no more; the Hyades marked the celestial pastures of Taurus, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... blankets, every fiber of which glistened with little beadlike drops of water, and looked out in vain hope of discovering some token of fair weather. The clouds, in lead-colored volumes, rested upon the dismal verge of the prairie, or hung sluggishly overhead, while the earth wore an aspect no more attractive than the heavens, exhibiting nothing but pools of water, grass beaten down, and mud well trampled by our mules and horses. Our companions' tent, with an air of forlorn and passive misery, and their wagons in like manner, drenched and woe-begone, ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... profane poem, is a deep, personal, and intimate love of nature expressed not by detailed description, but more often by a single picturesque and telling epithet. Thus we have the hermit who prays God to give him a hut in a lonely place beside a clear spring in the wood, with a little lark to sing overhead; or we have Marban, who, rich in nuts, crab-apples, sloes, watercress, and honey, refuses to go back to the court to which the king, his brother, presses him to return. Now, we have the description of the summer scene, in which the blackbird ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... the flowers containing not less than twenty-five different stones, assorted shades of agate, carnelian, jasper, blood-stone, lapis lazuli, and turquoise. Ere leaving we put to test the celebrated echo; that beautiful echoing, that—"floats and soars overhead in a long, delicious undulation, fading away so slowly that you hear it after it is silent, as you see, or seem to see, a lark you have been watching, after it is swallowed up in ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... her weight too suddenly on the reins, the horse arched his neck, and the overhead check snapped like a harp-string. Again he reared from the object of his terror, shaking his head from side to side, trying to get a purchase on the bit. Then his lower jaw settled against his chest, and all at once he realised that no pair of human ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... calm again; and he was masterful for the first time in all his dealings with her. "We are very far from any understanding. Indeed, we are overhead in a misunderstanding already. You misconstrue my words. I am very angry with you. I do not think that in all my life I have ever been so angry with anybody. But you are not to mistake the source of my anger. I am angry with you ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... green, stand the silver birches, and the somber hemlocks, and the resinous pines. Upbursting from the mold below is another miniature forest—a forest of ferns putting out the hairy fronds that in another month will be above the height of a man. Overhead, like a flame of fire, flashes the scarlet tanager with his querulous call; or the oriole flits from branch to branch, {50} fluting his springtime notes; or the yellow warbler balances on topmost spray to sing his crisp love song on the long journey ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... up proudly above the scrubby bronze and purple growths hardly yet in bud and leaf. From every gentle swell the landscape swept away to the vanishing line of distances in billowy seas of green and gold, while far overhead arched the deep-blue skies of May. Fleecy clouds, white and soft as foam, drifted about in the limitless fields of ether. The glory of the new year, the fresh sweet air, the spirit of budding life, set the pulses a-tingle with the very joy ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... golden sea of Wales, When the first star shivers and the last wave pales: O evening dreams! There's a house that Britons walked in, long ago, Where now the springs of ocean fall and flow, And the dead robed in red and sea-lilies overhead Sway when ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh) |
