“Small showers last long, but sudden storms are short.”
Thus, in Norfolk, the peasantry say that “the faster the rain, the quicker the hold up,” which is only a difference in words from the popular adage, “after a storm comes a calm.”
Clouds. In days gone by, clouds floating before the wind, like a reek or vapor, were termed racking clouds. Hence in “3 Henry VI.” (ii. 1), Richard speaks of:
“Three glorious suns, each one a perfect sun;
Not separated with the racking clouds.”
This verb, though now obsolete, was formerly in common use; and in “King Edward III.,” 1596, we read:
“Like inconstant clouds,
That, rack’d upon the carriage of the winds,
Increase,” etc.
At the present day one may often hear the phrase, the rack of the weather, in our agricultural districts; many, too, of the items of weather-lore noticed by Shakespeare being still firmly credited by our peasantry.
FOOTNOTES:
[89] Singer’s “Shakespeare,” vol. x. p. 292.
[90] “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” 1839, pp. 255, 256.