Lowering

Ahead of us the lowering smoke-screen of Leeds and her gloomy satellites hung like an incubus over the land.

Speeds up to 90 m.p.h. were permitted and achieved on the regular daily main line services, but as the pressure of external demands imposed on the railways by the needs of war increased it became necessary to accept handicaps which resulted in a general lowering of standards of track conditions.

The morning had been intensely hot, with but little wind; and the lowering gloomy aspect of the clouds appeared to indicate the approach of one of those sudden gales peculiar to tropical climates, and which, although of short duration, are generally productive of mischief.

The wide prospect up stream was grey and lowering, the long still-distant waterfront of Dundee, and the Fife shore were alike colourless, and there was ample evidence of rough weather not far ahead.

Jon crossed the pass into Glen Maraich in a stinging flurry of sleet, heading down between dark walls of rock under a lowering sky.

Bleak fields stretched to the horizon beneath lowering clouds.

One glance sufficed to identify the intruder, for none but he could boast of such a dark, lowering countenance ; and all exclaimed in mingled wonder and terror at his unwonted presence in those sunlit regions:

A kind of dark pallor lent him a ghostly appearance in the uncertain light, an effect heightened by the satanic darkness of his lowering brows.