The Passing Rain _ One large black cloud came over
from the direction of the sea. The sky was otherwise clear, but-somehow the sunlight did not catch the side of the cloud that was visible from the place in which I stood. It came sailing on, turning from black to purple and then to grey, but looking just as capable of drenching the entire countryside as it had done when I first caught sight of it. I saw its shadow crossing a ploughed field and then a pasture. Sheep that had seemed white turned grey, and their lambs vanished and reappeared as the shadow went slowly over the white farm, the quarry cliffs, the gorse and the little wood. In a quarter of an hour that cloud was still in sight, journeying up over a far-away hill. The sun had managed to light its stern now, and beneath the great bulk of vapour I could see what must have been rain, a curtain or barrier of almost vertical rods. I could imagine the rain driving into hedges, beating over dead bracken and dancing on the slates of a distant town, but I stood without a hat or a coat, thankful that the black beast had passed.
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