1. Look at the ten underlined figurative verbs in the text. Explain what effect each one creates and why is it appropriate.
Every night, at exactly eight minutes past nine, it roars through the village. I can see it comingseveral miles away, its powerful headlight fingering rails and telegraph wires with a shimmer of
light. Silently and slowly it seems to draw nearer; then sud denly, it is almost above me. A wild
roar o f steam and driving wheels, the wail of its hoarse whist le at the crossing, and then,
looming black against the night sky, it smashes past, and in the swing of drivers and connecting
rods I think of a greyhound , or a racehorse thundering the final stretch. High in the cab window,
a motionless figure peers ahead into the night; sud denly he is blackly silhouetted by the glare of
the opened fire -door, and in the orange light I can see the fireman swing back and forth as he
feeds his fire. The light burns against the st eam and smoke above ; then blackness – and now
the white windows of the carriages flicker past, and through the swirl of dust and smoke I
watch the two red lights sink down the trac k.
