"Pitchy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... this suggestion, which, as the blackness round us was pitchy, seemed a good one. At any rate it answered, for off we went at a fair pace, the three camels marching in line, first over soft ground and afterwards on a road. Presently I thought that the rain had stopped, since for a few seconds none fell ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... devouring it whole; from the four sides flames belched forth, and fiery steam ascended up to heaven; tempestuous winds arose on every side; the mountain forests shook and quaked. Wind, fire, and steam, with dust combined, produced a pitchy darkness, rendering all invisible. And now the Devas well affected to the law, and all the Nagas and the spirits, all incensed at this host of Mara, with anger fired, wept tears of blood; the great company of Suddhavasa gods, beholding Mara tempting Bodhisattva, free from low-feeling, ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... the pitchy night the fire died down and the wood pile grew small. Neither of us moved to replenish the stock, and the darkness consequently came up very close to our faces. A few feet beyond the circle of firelight it was inky black. Occasionally a stray puff of wind set the willows shivering ...
— The Willows • Algernon Blackwood
... lightning flashed; the rain poured down like Heaven's wrath. Surrounded at one moment by intolerable light, and at the next by pitchy darkness, they still pressed forward on their journey. Even when they arrived at the end of the stage, and might have tarried, they did not; but ordered horses out immediately. Nor had this any reference ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... let's go up the hill and scare ourselves, As reckless as the best of them to-night, By setting fire to all the brush we piled With pitchy hands to wait for rain or snow. Oh, let's not wait for rain to make it safe. The pile is ours: we dragged it bough on bough Down dark converging paths between the pines. Let's not care what we do with it to-night. Divide ...
— Mountain Interval • Robert Frost
... sad eyes that from the night's faint rim Gaze sick with longing on them as they speed With golden gates, that only shut on him; And shapes sometimes from hell's abysses freed Flap darkly by him, with enormous sweep Of wings that roughen wide the pitchy deep. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... sole trust and stay, Be silent lest your words be overheard, And borne by some loose babbler to the ear Of those in power, whom soon I hope to see Laid smouldering on the pitchy funeral pile. ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... Silence and darkness suit well together in solitude at noonday, and settled on huge objects make them sublime. And they were huge; all ranged together, and stretching away to a great distance, with the pitchy water, still as ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... pulled on his trousers and tore away like a madman. Such a storm was raging that he could hardly keep his feet; houses and trees quivered and swayed, mountains trembled, and the rocks rolled into the sea. The sky was pitchy black; it thundered and lightened, and the sea ran in black waves, mountains high, crested with white foam. He shrieked out, but could hardly ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... rose, and with an anxious expression of countenance, he went to the window, and looked out into the darkness of the night. All was still, and not an object was visible. It was that pitchy darkness without, which, for some hours, when the moon is late in lending her reflected beams, comes over ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... quite dark before we reached the river; we had been much delayed by repeated falls into deep holes, and over hidden stones; thus I was well satisfied to find myself once more at home after having crossed the river, in pitchy darkness, in a similar manner as before. Every person in the village had had a good view of the stalk; therefore, as two giraffes had been seen to fall, the Arabs were waiting on the bank ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... himself to sleep in the launch of the Dane. The weather had sensibly altered in the brief interval, and there were signs that, to the understanding of our young seaman, denoted a change. The darkness was intense. So, deep and pitchy black, indeed, had the night become, that even the land was no longer to be distinguished, and the only clues the two gentlemen had to its position were the mouldering watch-fires of the Arab camp, and the direction of ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... at Belle Plain, past a break in the wall of the forest where the pale light of stars showed Betty the corn-field she and Hannibal had but lately crossed, and then on into pitchy darkness again. She clung to the desperate hope that they might meet some one on the road, when she could cry out and give the alarm. She held herself in readiness for this, but there was only the steady pounding of the big bays as Jim with voice and whip urged them forward. At last ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... as pitchy copper-ore (Ger. Kupferpecherz), and of some importance as an ore of copper, is usually classed as a variety of chrysocolla containing much admixed limonite. It is dark brown to black in colour, with a dull to glassy or resinous lustre, and ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... distance in silence. The sky seemed growing darker and the wind was rising. A thick clump of trees hard by cast a gloomy shadow across the road, and just as they passed into this the floating clouds covered the face of the moon, and they were in pitchy darkness. ...
— The Daughter of a Republican • Bernie Babcock
... starless night. Suddenly his horse drew back and refused to take another step. He urged it forward, but it only threw itself back upon its haunches. Just then a vivid flash of lightning revealed a great precipice upon the brink of which he stood. It was but an instant, and then the pitchy blackness hid it again from view. But he turned his horse and anxiously rode away ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle
... darkness" first falls upon the prophet, like that which in an earlier age fell upon Abraham, but without the "horror;" and, as the Divine Spirit moves on the face of the wildly troubled waters, as a visible aurora enveloped by the pitchy cloud, the great doctrine is orally enunciated, that "in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Unreckoned ages, condensed in the vision into a few brief moments, pass away; the creative voice is again heard, "Let there be light," and straightway ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... it! In hunger, and cold, and nakedness, they guarded it still. In the bright days and the dark, they stood at their posts unmoved. In the black night-watches as by day—toward morning, as at evening—they stood, clutching the musket, peering out into the pitchy darkness; or lay, dozing around the grim cannon, in the embrasures. Hunger, and cold, and wounds, and the whispering voice of Despair, had no effect on them. The mortal tedium left them patient. When you saw the gaunt faces contract, and tears flow, it ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... yawned to its lowest depth, and then cast its waters across the dykes, deep into the forts, and far over the land. The earth shook as with the throb of a volcano. A wild glare lighted up the scene for one moment, and was then succeeded by pitchy darkness. Houses were toppled down miles away, and not a living thing, even in remote places, could keep its feet. The air was filled with a rain of plough-shares, grave-stones, and marble balls, intermixed ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... of O'Driscol, the newly-made magistrate. It was pretty late that evening when he took leave of the Purcels, but as the distance was not far he felt no anxiety at all upon the subject of his journey. The night, however, was so pitchy dark, that even although well acquainted as he was with the road, he found some difficulty in avoiding the drains and ditches that enclosed it. At length he had arrived within a couple of hundred yards of O'Driscol's ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... morning I was aroused out of an uneasy slumber by the ceasing of all motion about me. The appalling truth flashed upon me instantly—we were captives in a snow-drift! 'All hands to the rescue!' Every man sprang to obey. Out into the wild night, the pitchy darkness, the billowy snow, the driving storm, every soul leaped, with the consciousness that a moment lost now might bring destruction to us all. Shovels, hands, boards—anything, everything that could displace snow, was brought into instant requisition. It was a weird picture, that small ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... storm, but by a curious movement of my bedstead. I had once felt the slight shock of an earthquake, and it seemed to me that this must be something of the kind. Certainly my bed moved under me. I sat up. The room was pitchy dark. In a moment I felt another movement, but this time it did not seem to me to resemble an earthquake shock. Such motion, I think, is generally in horizontal directions, while that which I felt was more ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... seen that before the light went. Now, in the pitchy darkness of the drenching rain, as he crouched at the foot of the wall he could hear the hoarse murmur of many voices behind it, ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... before the cellar, and bowed to Prince John and the Preceptor. Then from a niche within the door of the chamber he lifted a large crucible, and a siffle of indrawn breath was heard in the crowd as he carried it toward the fire. Gathering pitchy twigs and chaff from a heap of fuel he packed them deftly into the open top, and set the jar on the brazier, returning then ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... everything moveable from the iron locker on the weather-side down to leeward, and blocked up the openings. Making another effort he cleared all this away, and sprang out of the berth, which was half full of water. Pitchy darkness enshrouded him, for the water had put out the lights as well as the fire. Just then ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... pitchy dark, and blazing flashes of lightning showed a white ascending road at intervals. Rain rushed in torrents, splashing against the carriage wheels, which moved uneasily, as though they could but scarcely stem the river that swept down upon them. Far away above us to the left, was ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... I saw approaching, from the S.W. apparently, a solid range of immense brown mountains, high in air. So rapid was the passage of this extraordinary phenomenon, that in a few minutes we were in actual pitchy darkness. At first there was no wind, and the peculiar calm gave an oppressive character to the event. We were in "a darkness that might be felt." Suddenly the wind arrived, but not with the violence that I had expected. There were two persons with me, Michael Latfalla, my agent, and Monsieur ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... servants and the kitchens. The stucco with which the house had been originally covered had blackened under the influence of time, weather, and the smoke from the Tressady coalpits. Altogether, what with its pitchy colour, its mean windows, its factory-like plainness and height, Ferth Place had no doubt a cheerless and repellent air, which was increased by its immediate surroundings. For it stood on the very summit of a high hill, whereon the trees were few and windbeaten; ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... sable COAL his massy couch extends, 350 And stars of gold the sparkling Pyrite blends; Hence dull-eyed Naphtha pours his pitchy streams, And Jet uncolour'd drinks the solar beams, Bright Amber shines on his electric throne, And adds ethereal lustres to his own. 355 —Led by the phosphor-light, with daring tread Immortal FRANKLIN sought the fiery bed; Where, nursed in night, incumbent ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... most Monstrous this; no greater Wrath God sends 'mongst Men; it comes from depth of pitchy Hell: And Virgin's Face, but Womb like Gulf unsatiate hath, Her Hands are griping Claws, ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove
... but the gathering of clouds in the south soon cautions the weather-wise sailors to desist from their advance. Timely is the warning; for, as we rest on our oars, the glimmer of lightning illuminates the distant hills; whilst low heavy rolling clouds of pitchy darkness, preceded by a heavy gale and a foaming sea, outspread over the whole southern waters, rapidly advance. It is an ocean-tempest in miniature, which sends us right about to our former berth. Some of our men now employ themselves in fishing for small fry with a slender rod, a piece of ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... them, Ossaroo included, were too well accustomed to the habits of hunters to act rashly. Any sudden movement among them might frighten the game; and if it bounded off into the forest, or even turned its head, it could no longer be seen in the pitchy darkness that surrounded them. The shining eyes were all of it that were visible; and if the creature had but chosen to shut its eyes it might have stood there till the morning light, without the least chance of ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... had begun to fall slightly as we walked out the railroad, on our route, and soon it increased to torrents. The night was pitchy dark, and we stumbled along, falling into gutters here, and nearly sticking in the mud there, until midnight, when we resolved to seek shelter ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... barrier, and Sam needed all his knowledge of the forest to enable him to work his way southward at night through such woods as those. The little party of wanderers sometimes found themselves apparently walled in in the pitchy darkness, with no possible way out but Sam's instinct, as he called it, which was simply his ability to remember the things he had learned, and to put two facts together to find out a third, always extricated them. Once they found themselves in a swamp, where ...
— The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War • George Cary Eggleston
... unoffending victims, who strewed the floor like swaths behind the mower. Whenever a lucky individual could disentangle himself from his comrades, he darted through the door, and in spite of the storm and pitchy darkness without, thought himself too happy in escaping with a few holes in his skin. Yet he of the horns and tail, by some chance or another, always passed unhurt; a hideous laugh accompanying the adroit contrivances by which he ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... headache in pitchy darkness; and with the twilight of returning consciousness there grew in him an awful fear that he had been coffined and buried alive. For he lay at full length in a bed which yet was unlike any bed of his acquaintance, being so narrow that he could ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... deluge seemed to slacken. The wind arose, and there were signs of its shifting, erelong, to the northwest, which would bring clear weather in a few hours. The night was dark, but not pitchy; a dull phosphoric gleam overspread the under surface of the sky. The woods were full of noises, and every gully at the roadside gave token, by its stony rattle, of the ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... for anything further, Field slipped out by the way he had come. Once in the road, he glanced back at the house, but the whole place seemed to be in pitchy darkness. There was nothing for it now but to make his way to the nearest police station, and get all the assistance possible. There was no trouble at the station across the Common, the mere mention of Field's name being sufficient. A few minutes later half a dozen constables in silent shoes ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... tent was torn from the grasp of the four scouts, and went sailing off into the pitchy darkness. Paul could only hope that it might become fast in some friendly tree, and be ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... phenomenon that has occurred in Canada since the country became inhabited by civilized man, was first seen in October, 1785, and again in July, 1814. At noonday a pitchy darkness, of a dismal and sinister character, completely obscured the light of the sun, continuing for about ten minutes at a time, and being frequently repeated during the afternoon. In the interval between each mysterious eclipse dense masses ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... and went into the cabin to arrange for lights. He had no intention of shirking a share in the actual work of the camp; even though Allister had set that example for his following. He took some lengths of pitchy pine sticks and arranged them for torches. One of them alone would send a flare of yellow light through the cabin; two made a comfortable illumination. But he worked cheerlessly. The excitement of the robbery and the chase was over, and then the conflict with the men was passing. ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... really a terrible night. It was pitchy dark: not a star, nor one glimpse of the pale moon could be distinguished. The wind howled among the rocks, and cast the spray up with violence against the cliffs, which, however, in front of the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... the sleeve of the man next it. The rear rank had their rifles slung and carried spades. Nearest the river bank were two companies (G and H.) who were followed by the 7th company of Royal Engineers carrying picks and empty sand bags. The long line stole through a pitchy darkness, knowing that at any instant a blaze of fire such as flamed before the Highlanders at Magersfontein might crash out in front of them. A hundred, two, three, four, five hundred paces were taken. ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... his surmises. The pitchy darkness of a winter night would scarcely have sufficed to hide the movements attendant on the sudden arrival of a large body of men in the English camp, had not the hoarse artillery of the wind, moaning, sweeping, and then rushing o'er the hills with a crashing sound like ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... The pitchy gloom without makes the heart dilate on entering the room filled with the glow and warmth of the evening fire. The ruddy blaze diffuses an artificial summer and sunshine through the room, and lights up each countenance with a kindlier welcome. Where does the honest face of hospitality expand into ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various
... beyond town, the rain pouring in torrents, the ground soaked, slippery, and caving, out into pitchy darkness, leaped three men and seven women from a puffing, unsteady train, no physician with them, and no instructions save the charge of their leader as the last leap was made, and the train pushed on: "Nurses, you know what to do; go and do your best, and God help ...
— A Story of the Red Cross - Glimpses of Field Work • Clara Barton
... of December 2nd the 'Sunbeam' gained the northern entrance to the channel which divides Fayal and Pico. An attempt was made to reach Horta, but it was found that a heavy sea was running into the anchorage. It was a pitchy night, and we determined to wait outside till daylight, standing across to Pico under steam for shelter ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... by reason of its clouding up in gusts of pitchy blackness acquired the power, like darkening skies, of discharging thunderbolts, it would have been, I am sure, a hot and heavy one which Mopsey, blackening and blazing, had delivered, as she departed to the kitchen, lowering upon Mr. Tiffany Carrack,—"'He thought he saw her son Elbridge!' The ...
— Chanticleer - A Thanksgiving Story of the Peabody Family • Cornelius Mathews
... 'Twixt needy vice and tempting villainy. Sound in himself, yet when such flaws appear, He doubts of all, and learns that self to fear: For where so dark the moral view is grown, A timid conscience trembles for her own; The pitchy-taint of general vice is such As daubs the fancy, and you dread the touch. Far unlike him was one in former times, Famed for the spoil he gather'd by his crimes; Who, while his brethren nibbling held their prey, He like an eagle seized ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... me gazed at me spectrally. The windows in the white houses were like the eye sockets of skulls. About me my imagination found a thousand noiseless enemies moving. Terror seized me, a horror of my temerity. In front of me the road became pitchy black as though it was tarred, and I saw a contorted shape lying across the pathway. I could not bring myself to go on. I turned down St. John's Wood Road, and ran headlong from this unendurable stillness towards Kilburn. I hid from the night and the silence, until ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... in fresh snow that had fallen during the night down to within a hundred feet of the sea-level. We made a grand fire, and after an early breakfast pushed merrily on all day along beautiful forested shores embroidered with autumn-colored bushes. I noticed some pitchy trees that had been deeply hacked for kindling-wood and torches, precious conveniences to belated voyagers on stormy nights. Before sundown we camped in a beautiful nook of Deer Bay, shut in from every wind by gray-bearded trees and fringed with rose bushes, rubus, potentilla, asters, ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... crew, lines being thrown on board of the wreck and secured. One of the people from the schooner then threw himself into the sea, and was hauled into the boat; but unhappily the others appeared to be either fearful or unable to follow his example; and, from the pitchy darkness and the noise of the sea and wind, it was impossible to communicate intelligibly with them. Captain Wasey learned from the man saved, that three persons remained; one—the master—had his back hurt, and another—a boy—his leg broken. While endeavouring to carry out their humane ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... the land was pitchy black. There are night people on the plain who love the dark. Amid the black level land they meet to frolic under the stars. Then when their sharp ears hear any strange footfalls nigh they scamper away into the deep shadows of night. There they are safely hid from all ...
— Old Indian Legends • Zitkala-Sa
... follow, you can reach points where the action of the water, violent and riotous, can be seen in all its reckless force. But, "Don't hold on by the trees," says Halicarnassus; "you will get your gloves pitchy." This to me, when I was in imminent danger of pitching myself incontinently over the rocks, ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... of a pitchy brown, beneath it is yellowish and hairy; the margin of the thorax is yellowish, its disk has many short rust-coloured hairs, the elytra have 9 longitudinal impressed lines, the spaces between ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... the battle, on the hostile ranks Dread panic fell; prone as in death they lay Where else upright they should withstand the foe; Nor more availed their valour, and in vain The cloud of weapons flew, with none to slay. Then blazing torches rolling pitchy flame Are hurled, and shaken nod the lofty towers And threaten ruin, and the bastions groan Struck by the frequent engine, and the troops Of Magnus by triumphant eagles led Stride o'er the rampart, in their ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... the potent rod Of Amram's son, in Egypt's evil day, Wav'd round the coast, up call'd a pitchy cloud Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind, That o'er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung Like night, and darken'd all the land of Nile; So numberless where those bad angels seen Hovering on wing under the cope of Hell, 'Twixt ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... is wonderful sweetness and solace in these undulating hill-sides, clothed with brightest green, their little tossing rivers and sunny glades all framed by solemn hills—I should rather say mountains—pitchy black with the solemn pine. You may search far and wide for a picture so engaging as Grardmer when the sun shines, its gold-green slopes sprinkled with white chlets, its red-roofed village clustered about a rustic church tower, and at its feet the loveliest little lake in the world, ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... there was activity, of construction trains laden high with rails, ties, boxes and bales, puffing out, their locomotives belching pitchy black smoke that extended clear to the ridiculous little cabooses; of wagon trains ploughing on, bearing supplies for the grading camps; and a great herd of loose animals, raising a prodigious spume as they were driven at a trot—they also heading ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... skies! Bid the sudden storm arise. Bid the pitchy clouds advance, Bid the forked lightnings glance, Bid the angry thunder growl, Bid the wild wind fiercely howl! Bid the tempest come amain, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... midnight black with clouds is in the sky; I seem to feel, upon my limbs, the weight Of its vast brooding shadow. All in vain Turns the tired eye in search of form; no star Pierces the pitchy veil; no ruddy blaze, From dwellings lighted by the cheerful hearth, Tinges the flowering summits of the grass. No sound of life is heard, no village hum, Nor measured tramp of footstep in the path, Nor rush of wing, while, ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant
... vacation, but I never seem to get around to it." As, alack-a-day! he did not get around to me before that occasion, I went, packed in the bottom of a trunk, with the young man and his wife on their annual holiday. In my pitchy gaol I had, of course, no means of calculating the flight of time, but when I next saw the light, after what seemed to me an interminable spell, I appeared to be the occasion of some excitement. The young man brought me up after several ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... thoughts and followed the gondolier to the bank. Miss Barton lingered by one of the well-heads to peer at the pitchy bottom. ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... muttered Diggory to himself. He opened the door, pulling it to again after him as he crept inside; then taking a step forward in the pitchy darkness, promptly fell over a bucket with an appalling crash. Scrambling once more to his feet, he felt in his waistcoat pocket, and finding there a fusee which he remembered to have taken from a box owned by "Rats," he struck ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... pitchy dark and the rain was pouring, but the wind only sighed weakly as though tired by its violence when she helped the Bronco into his saddle. The effort wrenched a groan from him, but he insisted upon her tying his feet ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... The psalmist's imagination stops at its base, nor dares to gaze into that light above; and the silence is more impressive than all words. Instead of pagan attempts at a likeness of God, we have next painted, with equal descriptive accuracy, poetic force, and theological truth, the pitchy blackness which hides Him. In the gloom of its depths He makes His "secret place" His "tent." It is "darkness of waters," that is, darkness from which streams out the thunder-rain; it is "thick clouds of the skies;" ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... years, with each succeeding summer, more and more a place of favourite resort with the inhabitants of Babel. Mr Montague Whalebone took an early liking to the place, and built a row of goodly houses by the water-side, and a grand hotel at the end of the few stumps of pitchy stakes dignified by the name of the pier. But the hotel lacked customers, and the houses wanted tenants; and the whole affair threatened to fall a prey to river-fog and mildew, when the Babel and Lowriver ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 460 - Volume 18, New Series, October 23, 1852 • Various
... I salute thee, but with wounded nerves, Wishing the golden splendor pitchy darkness. What's here? THE ARRAIGNMENT! ay; this, this is it, That our sunk eyes have waked for all this while: Here will be subject for my snakes and me. Cling to my neck and wrists, my loving worms, And cast you round in soft and amorous folds, Till I do bid uncurl; then, ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... was wet and pitchy dark. Only by the help of the lightning I had stumbled and plunged home to bed, when at about eleven a perfect storm of rifle-fire suddenly swept along the ridges at our end of the town. Rushing out I saw the edges of the hills twinkle ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson
... disappointment. A fire in the darkness gives hopes that men will be at hand. Here there was not any human society. The fire crouched on its ashes. It was on a little circular eminence of mossed rock; black sticks, and brushwood, and dry fern, and split logs, pitchy to the touch, lay about; in the centre of them the fire coiled sullenly among its ashes, with a long eye like ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... up his position there. At eleven o'clock, Dalbrque climbed a bank, scrambled over a wire fence, hid his bicycle under the branches and moved away. It seemed impossible to follow him in the pitchy darkness, on a mossy soil that muffled the sound of footsteps. Rnine did not make the attempt; but, at daybreak, he came with his chauffeur and hunted through the park all the morning. Though the park, which covered the side of a hill and was bounded below by the ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... to feel quite cheerful. But as night drew on our spirits sank again, for with the daylight all evidence of our security vanished away. We could no longer see the firm rock on which we lay, while we were stunned with the violence of the tempest that raged around us. The night grew pitchy dark as it advanced, so that we could not see our hands when we held them up before our eyes, and were obliged to feel each other occasionally to make sure that we were safe, for the storm at last became so terrible ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... the red light of the smouldering fire and the blue flashes from without. At length he softly rose and crept noiselessly to the door; the fastening was the primitive latch with a string attached; it opened without a sound in his cautious handling, and he found himself in the pitchy darkness outside, the wild mountain wind whirling about him, and the rain descending in ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... he trembled at the thought. He stood by the fire, and Gudruda, watching from the shadow of the high seat, saw the dull light glow upon his golden helm, and a sigh of joy broke from her lips. Eric heard the sigh and looked, and as he looked a stick of pitchy driftwood fell into the fire and flared up fiercely. Then he saw. There, in the carved high seat, robed all in bridal white, sat Gudruda the Fair, his love. Her golden hair flowed about her breast, her white arms were stretched towards him, and on her sweet face shone ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... inhales with his mouth scorching air, as though from a deep furnace, and perceives his own chariot to be on fire. And neither is he able now to bear the ashes and the emitted embers; and on every side he is involved in a heated smoke. Covered with a pitchy darkness, he knows not whither he is going, nor where he is, and is hurried away at the pleasure of the winged steeds. They believe that it was then that the nations of the thiopians contracted their ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... signs of moderating, and that night, as Salve Kristiansen and another were taking their turn at the wheel, there gleamed suddenly out of the pitchy darkness to leeward of the fore-rigging the white crest of a tremendous eddy wave, which a moment after came crashing down upon the deck, carrying clean away the round-house, binnacle, and long-boat, damaging the wheel, and leaving many of ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... had walked a few yards my nerve began to go; for the gleam on the walls faded, the last glimmer of light went out. I was walking along an unknown path in pitchy darkness, hearing only the drip, drip, splash of the water slowly falling from the roof. Suddenly I ran against a sort of breastwork of mortared stones, and the shock almost made me faint. I stretched my hand out beyond it, but could feel nothing, and then downward on the ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... alarm the old man suddenly stood still. It was pitchy dark under the overhanging trees, and only a faint gleam from a large bow window showed her the length of the garden-path that they ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... basket-women left Number Nine gallery and went further up Number Sixteen. At one turn of the road they could see the pitchy black water lapping on the coal. It had touched the roof of a gallery that they knew well—a gallery where they used to smoke their huqas and manage their flirtations. Seeing this, they called aloud upon their Gods, and the Meahs, who ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling
... they ran her, in that pitchy blackness, into the surf; she went through it close hauled, and beyond it into the deep sea the other side, and searched the outside edge of the sands, but to no purpose. Then, having shouted all together and listened, they stood back again through ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor
... musketry flamed, thundered, roared in the cavern, bringing down enormous fragments from the vaults. The cavern was lighted for an instant by this discharge, and then immediately returned to pitchy darkness rendered thicker by the smoke. To this succeeded a profound silence, broken only by the steps of the third brigade, now ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the material for your bed your hands will be covered with a sticky sap, and, although they will be a sorry sight, a little lard or baking grease will soften the pitchy substance so that it may be washed off with soap ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... tremendous irresistibility of the freshet, which must have ended the lives of the hapless party almost on the instant. The bravest swimmer would be absolutely helpless in the grasp of such a terrific current, and in a night of pitchy darkness would be unable to make the first intelligent effort ...
— The Telegraph Messenger Boy - The Straight Road to Success • Edward S. Ellis
... appeared the holy saints and glorified men; and the last and lowest were occupied by mere men who had not passed through this life to the regions of eternity. On one side of this lowest platform was the resemblance of a dark pitchy cavern, from whence issued appearance of fire and flames; and when it was necessary the audience were treated with hideous yellings and noises, as imitations of the howlings and cries of the wretched souls tormented by the relentless demons. From this ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... Radicofani, Brandilancia examined the huge state-bedstead, and with a little exertion trundled it forward. Behind its tapestry hangings a secret door, suspected only by a crack in the wainscotting, opened beneath his prying fingers, and revealed a spiral staircase leading downward into pitchy darkness. Comprehending Malespini's admonition, he hastily appropriated the candles, and, drawing the bedstead into its place behind him, descended the dizzily circling steps. Eighty-seven he counted, twisting ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... account him happy that kills most of them. These men, moreover, tell us a great many romantic things about these gods, whereof these are some: They say that Oromazes, springing from purest light, and Arimanius, on the other hand, from pitchy darkness, these two are therefore at war with one another. And that Oromazes made six gods[114], whereof the first was the author of benevolence, the second of truth, the third of justice, and the rest, one ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... and dung, although easily managed, did not thoroughly harden the pottery, but burned it very evenly; dead wood or spunk-cakes baked as evenly as any of the materials thus far mentioned, and more thoroughly than the others. Resinous or pitchy woods, while they produced a much higher degree of heat, could be used only when color was unimportant, as they still are used to some extent in the firing of black-ware or cooking pots. The latter, while still hot from a preliminary burning, if coated externally with ...
— A Study of Pueblo Pottery as Illustrative of Zuni Culture Growth. • Frank Hamilton Cushing
... everlasting sun lies in all its power and warmth, unaffected by the cloud; and the light will yet strike, the light of His love will yet pierce through, with its merciful shafts bringing healing in their beams, and dispersing all the pitchy darkness of man's transgression. And as the mists gather themselves up and roll away, dissipated by the heat of that sun in the upper sky, and reveal the fair earth below—so the love of Christ shines in, molting the mist and dissipating ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... of General Gregg's command, including the Harris Light, which had been kept mostly in reserve during the conflicts of the past few days. Thus reenforced, this intrepid leader marched directly toward the Monterey Pass, arriving at the foot of this rocky defile in the mountains in the midst of pitchy darkness. ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... drop his lantern, and, in his eagerness to save it, he let go the cask, which suddenly stove in, the spirits communicated with the flame, and the whole place was instantly in a blaze. Hopes of subduing the fire at first were strong, but soon heavy volumes of smoke and a pitchy smell told that ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... altered again and again, till they ran one into another, anastomosing (as Professor Owen would say) considerably. So Tom fairly lost his way in them; not that he cared much for that, though he was in pitchy darkness, for he was as much at home in a chimney as a mole is underground; but at last, coming down as he thought the right chimney, he came down the wrong one, and found himself standing on the hearthrug in a room the like of which ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... nearer came the sound, and the garrison, who could see nothing in the pitchy darkness, fired wherever they could hear a sound. Presently a bright light burst up. The redskins, provided with faggots of resinous sticks, had crept up towards some buildings, consisting of several store houses, a hospital, and saw mill, and the huts and tents of the rangers, ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... little boy and the meiboss; remember the young girl and the young man; remember the lake, the fire, and the brimstone; remember the suicide's skeleton on the pitchy billows of Mount Etna; remember the voice of warning that has this day sounded in your ears; and what I say to you I say to all—watch! May the Lord ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... fashioned out of the solid rock and stretching along a corridor that was almost as dark as the cells themselves. Here, so we were told, countless wretched beings, awaiting the tardy pleasure of the torturer or the headsman, had moldered in damp and filth and pitchy blackness, knowing day from night only by the fact that once in twenty-four hours food would be slipped through a hole in the wall by unseen hands; lying here until oftentimes death or the cruel mercy of madness came upon them before the ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... however, the Archduke Charles was ready to meet them with a force equal, or, perhaps, superior to their own. Moreau was compelled to fight two battles, in both of which he was defeated; and nothing but a violent storm saved the wreck of his army. This, and the pitchy darkness of the night, prevented the Austrian cavalry from acting, and enabled him to get his broken columns on the safe side of the Rhine. The archduke Charles had ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... moment the candle which burned before him went suddenly out, and the chapel was wrapped in pitchy darkness; the sound as if of rushing wings fell upon our ears, and fifty voices dwelt upon the last words of his oath with wild and supernatural tones, that seemed to echo and to mock what he had sworn. There was a ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... him groaning as he went. Ere long arriving at the pleasant stream Of eddied Xanthus, progeny of Jove, 520 They laid him on the bank, and on his face Pour'd water; he, reviving, upward gazed, And seated on his hams black blood disgorged Coagulate, but soon relapsing, fell Supine, his eyes with pitchy darkness veil'd, 525 And all his powers still torpid by the blow. Then, seeing Hector borne away, the Greeks Rush'd fiercer on, all mindful of the fight, And far before the rest, Ajax the swift, The Oilean Chief, with pointed spear 530 On Satnius ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... a bit of a philosophical turn, and I daresay I spent the best part of five minutes in such thoughts before I went below to find where the blessed dust was stored. It was slow work hunting, feeling it was for the most part, pitchy dark, with confusing blue gleams down the companion. And there were things moving about, a dab at my glass once, and once a pinch at my leg. Crabs, I expect. I kicked a lot of loose stuff that puzzled ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... turn are forced to abandon the attempt in despair. First of all, the weather is against us. It is maddeningly uncertain, and the best-arranged entertainment cannot be considered a success if the guests have to struggle through rain and tempest and streets ankle-deep in water and pitchy darkness to assist at it. People are hardly likely to make themselves pleasant at a party when their return home through storm and darkness is on their minds all the time: at least, I know I cannot do so. But the weather is only one of the lets and hinderances to society in Natal. We are ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... Galician Village (for the two words are Spanish, and have that signification), it a place containing, I should think, about four thousand inhabitants. It was pitchy dark when we landed, but rockets soon began to fly about in all directions, illuming the air far and wide. As we passed along the dirty unpaved street which leads to the Largo, or square in which ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... reached the southern edge of the bayou at the point opposite his only house and home, and it was pitchy dark, when, having swam across the stagnant channel, he trudged, wet and weary, to the barred door of Cacosotte's Tavern, and knocked. Mex undid the bolts and let her master in, her sagacious eyes swiftly taking note of ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... that as the evening advanced, so too would the impending storm. Twilight was darkening around him when, urged on by a mistaken sense of duty, the intrepid young man descended into the boat, and not half an hour afterwards the storm came on with terrific violence, and the pitchy darkness had entirely frustrated every effort of the crew of the Stranger to trace the boat. Morning dawned, and brought with it some faint confirmation of the fate which all had dreaded. Some spars on which the name of the Gem was impressed, and which were easily recognised as belonging to ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar
... than he expected. The vague, black shadow of a lightless house loomed up before them. In a twinkling he was hustled across the road and into a door. Then down a flight of stairs, through pitchy darkness, guided by two of the men, a whispered word of advice now and then from the Yankee saving him from perilous stumbles. He was jerked up sharply with a command to stand still. A light flashed suddenly in his face, blinding him for the moment. Voices ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... by the future brightness of thy epistolary emanations, for the pitchy cloud that ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... conscious of a small hurricane that blew up about two o'clock, accompanied by a sharp down-pour of rain; some of the tents were blown down, and the men, wakened out of their sound slumber, were drenched and had to scamper in the pitchy darkness, while theirs stood firm and they were warm and dry, thanks to the ingenious device of ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... which I could not well understand. Once I caught the name of Charles Le Sorcier, and again I fancied that the words "years" and "curse" issued from the twisted mouth. Still I was at a loss to gather the purport of his disconnected speech. At my evident ignorance of his meaning, the pitchy eyes once more flashed malevolently at me, until, helpless as I saw my opponent to be, I trembled as ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... she was quite certain"—most familiar words in Mrs. Beauchamp's ears—"that she would get home all right. But Dick had hurt his foot, and we left her on the rocks, sitting quite in a pool. And it has rained so ever since; and perhaps she is on the rocks still, and it is pitchy dark, and both of we feel as if we ...
— Troublesome Comforts - A Story for Children • Geraldine Glasgow
... the gloomy shadow of the earth, Longing to view Orion's drizzling look, Leaps from th' antartic world unto the sky, And dims the welkin with her pitchy breath, Faustus, begin thine incantations, And try if devils will obey thy hest, Seeing thou hast pray'd and sacrific'd to them. Within this circle is Jehovah's name, Forward and backward anagrammatiz'd,[49] Th' abbreviated[50] ...
— The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus • Christopher Marlowe
... of Pleasure's sun, Then, by gradations dark and drear, Sinks low as thee, poor wingless one: How hearts from proud Ambition's height Have drooped to darkest, lowest hell— From blazing noon to pitchy night, With pangs a demon-tongue may tell: How aspirations glory-fraught Have gained the goal in dark despair; How golden hopes have come to nought But wailings ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... more and more confident now of the strength to protect him of the man-o'-war's men, and every now and then, as the party continued its way along what proved to be a carefully constructed tunnel, he stopped short and whispered to Murray to shade the light while he hurried on into the pitchy darkness. ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... community was going to die or get a new Constitution, or do something that was important on the other side of the world, and the paper was to be held open till the latest possible minute in order to catch the telegram. It was a pitchy black night, as stifling as a June night can be, and the loo, the red-hot wind from the westward, was booming among the tinder-dry trees and pretending that the rain was on its heels. Now and again a spot of almost boiling ...
— The Man Who Would Be King • Rudyard Kipling
... stories of murder and robbery committed along the route they were traveling. It is true they had two stout men, and all were armed, yet they might easily come upon a party too strong for them; and no one could tell what might happen, thought the princess. There was that pitchy darkness through which she could hardly see her horse's head—a thing of itself that seemed to have infinite powers for mischief, and which no amount of argument ever induced any normally constituted woman to believe was the mere negative ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... would go to bed. Of course she had flung the door wide open when she entered, and left it so, and happening to glance toward it now, it seemed to her that there was a horrible peculiar kind of pitchy ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... and listened until the last sound dropped into silence. Then he went back. It was pitchy dark when he reached the cabin. There were mutterings of thunder in the distance again, and the odour of scorched meal in the air. Mary, with Molly hanging to her, stood by the rough table in the middle of ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... that his pursuers, if there were any upon his track, could have travelled in the night, for it had been pitchy black; and, as he now had a good start of them, he thought he might go so far that they would give up the search. Then he hoped to be able to keep himself alive until he was reasonably sure that ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... upper edge of the field above the house into a smooth, brown path among the dark spruces. The hot sun brought out the fragrance of the pitchy bark, and the shade was pleasant as we climbed the hill. William stopped once or twice to show me a great wasps'-nest close by, or some fishhawks'-nests below in a bit of swamp. He picked a few sprigs ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett
... pitchy wine, Comes an odor of the brine, Half suggesting solemn surges of the sea; A sailor in the shrouds, Furling sail amid the clouds; Noisy breakers singing dirges on the lee, To those friends upon the main, Who have ventured once again, In the realm which cleaves in twain Loving hearts, that ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... with Satan and Black Bart. She lay quite still, shivering with pleasure as the footsteps approached her. Then a match scratched—she saw by the blue spurt of flame that he was lighting a pine torch, then whirling it until the flame ate down to the pitchy knot. He held it above his head, and now she saw him plainly: the light cascaded over his shoulders, glowed on his eyes, and then puffed out sidewise in ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... across it were two long, thick "bilian" logs, to which the natives were now fastening their long rattan ladders before descending them to collect the nests. We crept along the logs and listened to the everlasting twittering far below; but, although we could see nothing but pitchy darkness, the thought of what was below made me soon crawl back with a very shaky feeling ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... yard rise up and say that no such crimes in liberty's name have ever been committed, on this continent, at least. Up stairs, in Castle Thunder, there are two or three large rooms, barred and dimly lit, and two or three series of condemned cells, pent-up and pitchy, where, by a refinement of cruelty, the ceiling has been built low so that no man can stand upright. Here fifteen or twenty were crowded together, and, in the burning atmosphere, they stripped themselves stark naked, so that when in the morning the cell-doors ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... he now had lost. It was pitchy dark, with a most villainous storm of rain and wind. Saracen caught the infection of his master's doubts; he stopped short, and bowed his head to snuff the ground. Prosper laughed at the plight they were both in, ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... Bert returned his eyes to the instrument. Directly before him in the field of vision a group of the spider men advanced over the pitchy sea with a curiously constructed cage of woven transparent material which they set down at a point so close by that it seemed he could touch it if he stretched out his hand. The illusion of physical nearness was perfect. The evil eyes of ...
— Wanderer of Infinity • Harl Vincent
... out of the sweet-scented air, we came into another that smelt of asphaltus, pitch, and sulphur burning together, with a most intolerable stench, as of burned carcases: the whole element above us was dark and dismal, distilling a kind of pitchy dew upon our heads; we heard the sound of stripes, and the yellings of ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian
... took yet another form, and one that increased the sublimity of the scene, by adding a slight feeling of uneasiness to the admiration with which we had contemplated it so far. A cloud of pitchy darkness rose in the south, and crossed the plain, shedding deepest night in its track, and shooting its fires downward on the earth as it came onwards. It passed right over our heads, enveloping us for the while (like some mighty archer, with ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... the eastern wood Shone at its full; the hill-range stood Transfigured in the silver flood, Its blown snows flashing cold and keen, Dead white, save where some sharp ravine Took shadow, or the sombre green Of hemlocks turned to pitchy black Against the whiteness at their back. For such a world and such a night Most fitting that unwarming light, Which only seemed where'er it fell To ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... from the shore; the chest slipped off from the gunwale, sunk into the waves, and pulled the veteran headlong after it. A loud shriek was uttered by all on shore, and a volley of execrations by those on board; but boat and man were hurried away by the rushing swiftness of the tide. A pitchy darkness succeeded; Wolfert Webber indeed fancied that He distinguished a cry for help, and that he beheld the drowning man beckoning for assistance; but when the lightning again gleamed along the water all was drear ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... made much less formidable than at Aurelia's first introduction. The sitting-room was arranged as it was when Mr. Greaves read prayers, with a very faint light from a shrouded lamp behind the window curtain. To new comers it seemed pitchy darkness, but to Aurelia and Dr. Godfrey it was a welcome change, allowing them at least to perceive the forms of one another, and of the furniture. From a blacker gulf, being the doorway to the inner room, ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of the discovery! Oh, the thunders of remonstrance with which Hades resounded! The wheel of Ixion might whirl, and the pitchy depths blaze with the fires of indignation, but all this did not dry the tears of the nymph, nor soothe her bitterness of woe. Every tenderness that could reconcile, every enjoyment that could wean, was vainly essayed; mourning for her Orpheus, ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... there's always a dry spot under them. See here!" And he showed him the sheltered circle beneath the tree. "You can always get twigs for kindling from their inner branches," he added, "or you can hew into one of these dead trees and get some pitchy splinters. There's material for everything you want if you know where to find it. Shelter, food, fire are all here for us as they were for the Indians. A ranger who needs a roof all the time is not worth ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland
... set out, Jack, Bob, Frank and Captain Folsom at his heels in the order mentioned. They found that, despite the pitchy-black darkness, they were able to make good progress, for the narrow confines of the tunnel permitted of no going astray. All kept listening with strained attention for sounds of pursuit, but none came for so long they ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... Storm's impending rage, When to the Clouds the Waves ambitious rise, 10 And seem with Heaven a doubtful war to wage, Whilst total darkness overspreads the skies; Save when the lightnings darting wingd Fate Quick bursting from the pitchy clouds between In forkd Terror, and destructive state[2:2] 15 Shall shew with double gloom ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... ship was brought into requisition by the eager officers, in their endeavours to catch an occasional glimpse of the stranger; but the night had settled down pitchy dark, the sky having rapidly become obscured by a thick veil of clouds immediately after the disappearance of the sun below the horizon, so that not so much as a solitary star was visible; all efforts to get a sight of the chase ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... had the Anglo-Saxon name Pimm, from pen, or pin, a sharp rock,—"ab acumine foliorum," or perhaps as a contraction of picinus—pitchy. It furnishes from its leaves an extract, and the volatile oil. Wool is saturated with the latter, and dried, being then made into blankets, jackets, spencers, and stockings, for the use of rheumatic sufferers. There are establishments in Germany where the ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... sluice-gate. When I looked round, I could see the other lights coming in after us. The torches we carried dropped great blotches of fire upon the track, and I could see those, too, lying smoking and flaring. I could see nothing else but black darkness. Our lights warmed the air about us with their pitchy blaze, and the two prisoners seemed rather to like that, as they limped along in the midst of the muskets. We could not go fast, because of their lameness; and they were so spent, that two or three times we had to ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... Alfergany wrote the first Arab treatise on the Astrolabe and adopted the Greek division of the seven Climates to the new learning. Solyman, at the time of closest intercourse between China, India, and the Caliphate, travelled in every country of the Further East, sailed in the "Sea of Pitchy Darkness" on the east coast of Asia, and by his voyages became the prototype of ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... From grave-clods rid ye, Come! From South and North, I bid ye forth, From East, from West, At my behest— Come! Come great, come small, Come one, come all, Heed ye my call, List to my call, I say, From pitchy gloom Of mouldered tomb Here find ye room For sport and holiday. Come grisly ghosts and goblins pale, Come spirits black and grey, Ye shrouded spectres—Hail, O Hail! Ho! 'tis your holiday. Come wriggling snakes From thorny ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... is not merely the destructive power of death, not merely its negation of life, that terrifies our author. The pitchy darkness that stretches beyond, the impossibility of penetrating the veil that separates existence from non-existence—in a word, the riddle of the universe—is, to a mind constituted like Andreyev's, a source of perhaps even greater ...
— Savva and The Life of Man • Leonid Andreyev
... Mecisteus, son of Echius, and noble Alastor, supporting, bore to the hollow ships, deeply groaning. In the meantime Idomeneus ceased not his mighty valour; but always burned either to cover some of the Trojans with pitchy night,[429] or himself to fall with a crash, repelling destruction from the Greeks. Then the hero Alcathous, the beloved son of AEsyetas (and he was the son-in-law of Anchises, for he had married Hippodamia, the eldest of his daughters, whom her father and venerable ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... make bold to record it as the only specimen that reached my ears of the old, rough water-wit for which the Thames used to be so celebrated. Passing directly along the line of the sunken Tunnel, we landed in Wapping, which I should have presupposed to be the most tarry and pitchy spot on earth, swarming with old salts, and full of warm, bustling, coarse, homely, and cheerful life. Nevertheless, it turned out to be a cold and torpid neighborhood, mean, shabby, and unpicturesque, both ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... nineteenth, found their vanguard in a deep forest of pines, less than a mile from Fort Caroline, and near the low hills which extended in its rear, and formed a continuation of St. John's Bluff. All around was one great morass. In pitchy darkness, knee-deep in weeds and water, half starved, worn with toil and lack of sleep, drenched to the skin, their provisions spoiled, their ammunition wet, and their spirit chilled out of them, they stood in shivering groups, ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... rugged as well as winding, and so pitchy dark that the youth could not have advanced at all without stumbling, unless his host had held him all the way. At last a glimmer of light was seen in the distance. It seemed to increase suddenly, and in a few moments the two emerged from total darkness ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne |
