"Seaman" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... head of steam; and in the chill of dawn he and the mate cast off warps and (with the pilot) worked the steamer out through the ship lock, practically unaided. The mate, when not in liquor, was a first-class seaman; and Bill, left alone between the furnaces and the engines, perspired in all the glory ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... she, looked wildly about him. His eyes fell on a heavy piece of iron, left on the deck by some seaman who had been repairing the windlass. Like ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick
... the pains I've took to make a seaman of that young chap, no one knows. I only wonder as they weren't all ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... smoking-cap, with the peak cocked over his left ear; then came a green shooting-jacket, and flashy silk tartan waistcoat, set off by a gold chain, hung about in innumerable festoons,—while light trousers and knotty Wellington boots completed his costume, and made the wearer look as little like a seaman as need be. It appeared, nevertheless, that the individual in question was Mr. Ebenezer Wyse, my new sailing-master; so I accepted Captain C.'s strong recommendation as a set-off against the silk tartan; explained to the new comer the position he was to occupy ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... you. And now, my young friend," said Perkins, with a singular return of his beaming gentleness, "since those two efficient and competent officers and this energetic but discourteous seaman are gone, would you mind telling me WHAT you were ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... Egypt levied duty amounting to L290,000 a year. Therefore he combined with the Venetians to expel the common enemy from Indian waters. In 1509 their fleet was defeated by the Viceroy Almeida near Diu, off the coast of Kattywar, where the Arabian seaman comes in sight of India. It was his last action before he surrendered power to his rival, the great Albuquerque. Almeida sought the greatness of his country not in conquest but in commerce. He discouraged expeditions to ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... no matter how ferocious they might be, happened to see a thorough-bred Cowes Rover equipped for his perilous afternoon voyage of two hundred yards, they would instantly lose heart and flee in terror. Such is the majesty of a true seaman. I hope that all my readers may respect the Rover when they see him. Remember that his dinner rarely numbers more than six courses, and he cannot always ice his champagne owing to the commotion of the elements. If such privations do not win pity from judicious ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... as he found the cutter was falling close under the counter of the ship, and would be in her wake in another minute. The bowman of the boat cast a light grapnel with so much precision that it hooked in the mizzen rigging, and the line instantly tightened so as to tow the cutter. A seaman was passing along the outer edge of the hurricane-house at the moment, coming from the wheel, and with the decision of an old salt, he quietly passed his knife across the stretched cordage, and it snapped like pack-thread. The grapnel fell into the sea, and the boat was lossing ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... a curious picture. The tall figure of Challis, stooping, as always, slightly forward; Challis, with his seaman's eyes and scholar's head, his hands loosely clasped together behind his back, paying such scrupulous attention to that grotesque representative of a higher intellectuality, clothed in the dress of a villager, a patched cricket-cap drawn down over his globular skull, his little arms ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... griping sands hold her keel fast. The force of the rising gale strikes her full abeam, giving her a great list to shore. It is in vain the masts are cut away, and the rigging drifts free; the hulk lifts only to settle anew in the grasping sands. Every old seaman upon her deck knows that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... him any great bodily hurt. But when the individual forming this fancy has been told that there was something like a score of sharks prowling around the carcass, he will obtain a more definite idea of the danger to which such a fall would have submitted the adventurous seaman. ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... seaman and blacksmith, in the service of the Honourable the Commissioners of the Northern Lighthouses, aged 25 years, 5 feet 10 inches high, very powerfully made, fair complexion, straight nose, dark-blue ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... into my room about eight o'clock next morning to give me this brief bulletin. At breakfast he told me he had been out most of the night, but there had only been that single case for him. A boat from the island had picked a solitary living seaman out of the scum of oil, blackened by it like a negro and without a stitch of clothing. Some of the dead had been found, but not in a condition to be discussed, and of course many fragments of debris. ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... Clare, to whom we had been formally introduced a few days before, and we were required to promise solemnly that we would obey him implicitly in every respect. Besides which our father delighted us very much by the information that he had engaged an old seaman, Mugford by name, once boatswain of an Indiaman, who had taken up his abode at the fishing town across the bay from our cape, to be with us often through the summer in our out-of-school hours; that he would be, as it were, our skipper—perhaps reside with us—and ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... To have turned toward the shore as the pilot bade them when the mast broke would have been to drown the whole company in the surf, in which case Plymouth would never have been. No one knows the name of the "lustie seaman" who then usurped the command and bade the rowers "if they were men, about with her, or else they were all cast away." On the words of this courageous unknown hung the lives of the company and perhaps the fate of the expedition itself. It is a stern and rock-bound coast ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... Effingham, Lord High-Admiral of England, distinguished for his martial character, public spirit, and admirable temper, rather than for experience or skill as a seaman, took command of the whole fleet, in his "little odd ship for all conditions," the Ark-Royal, of 800 tons, 425 sailors, and ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... replied Mr. Lowington, laughing. "We shall not leave the harbor till every officer and seaman knows his duty. You shall have enough ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... his jacket and handed it to the janitor. It was his father's best brandy. The heart of the honest old seaman ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... and West is blushing there, Except—except—oh, NOURMAHAL! Thou loveliest, dearest of them all, The one whose smile shone out alone, Amidst a world the only one; Whose light among so many lights Was like that star on starry nights, The seaman singles from the sky, To steer his bark for ever by! Thou wert not there—so SELIM thought, And every thing seemed drear without thee; But, ah! thou wert, thou wert,—and brought Thy charm of song ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... ought to run in such a direction; he had to find out which way it did actually run, according to God's method of the universe, lest it should run him ashore. Everywhere, I say, and all day long, the seaman has to observe facts and to use facts, unless he intends to be drowned; and therefore, so far from being a superstitious man, who refuses to inquire into facts, but puts vain dreams in their stead, the sailor is for the most part a very scientific-minded man: observant, patient, accurate, truthful; ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... of the prisoner, the senior officer went forward and gave his message. And the captain, with a seaman-like ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... spar of a mast peeping over an intervening barrier of rock; we wound round it, and on the other side found a cutter-rigged boat of about eighteen tons hauled close to the natural quay, with her mainsail set and flapping heavily in the night wind. Here we met another seaman. In ten minutes we were under way; the smooth groundswell running free and silent from our quarter, and the boat laying herself out with an easy speed, as she caught the breeze freshening over the lower coast. The Saucy Sally was a half-decked cutter (built for a pleasure-boat ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... blue sea, And glittering thro' their lemon groves, announce The region of Amalfi. Then, half-fallen, A lonely watch-tower on the precipice, Their ancient landmark, comes—long may it last! And to the seaman, in a distant age, Though now he little thinks how large his debt, ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... half-a-crown. This is cheaper than having it in the street—that is, if you are a gentleman; for by the Profane Oaths Act, 1745, swearing and cursing are punishable by a fine of one shilling for every day-labourer, soldier or seaman; two shillings for every other person under the degree of a gentleman; and five shillings for every person of or above the degree of a gentleman. This is not generally known. The Commissioner of Oaths is a very broad-minded man, and there is literally no limit to what you may swear ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 28, 1920 • Various
... poem in two parts by Thomas Campbell (1799). It opens with a comparison between the beauty of scenery, and the ideal enchantments of fancy, in which hope is never absent, but can sustain the seaman on his watch, the soldier on his march, and Byron in his perilous adventures. The hope of a mother, the hope of a prisoner, the hope of the wanderer, the grand hope of the patriot, the hope of regenerating uncivilized nations, extending liberty, and ameliorating the condition ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... those who knew less would understand less; but probably none of us would understand their meaning so fully, or would have so distinct and lively an image of the things, as would be enjoyed by an actual seaman; and even amongst seamen themselves, there would again be different degrees of understanding, according to their different degrees of experience, or knowledge of ships, ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... flying back with her rudder damaged, so that they had to steer her with her propellers. This affair caused Admiral Stark to be superseded; his successor being Admiral Makarov, said to be the finest seaman Russia then possessed. At the same time General Kuropatkin was appointed commander of the Russian ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... the same volume is "Exodus, &c., a Sermon Preach't Sept. 12, 1675. By occasion of the much lamented Death of that Learned and Reverend Minister of Christ, Dr. Lazarus Seaman."—By William Jenkyn. After Dr. Seaman's name Baker adds, "some time Master of Peter House." Of Jenkyn he says: "Gul. Jenkin Coll. Jo. admissus in Matriculam Academiae (designatus Joannensis), ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 43, Saturday, August 24, 1850 • Various
... fortune's wrong with bitter misery whelms thee, Thou thy sad tear-scrawl'd letter, a mark to the storm, Send'st, and bid'st me to succour a stranded seaman of Ocean, Toss'd in foam, from death's door to return thee again; Whom nor softly to rest love's tender sanctity suffers, 5 Lost on a couch of lone slumber, unhappily lain; Nor with melody sweet of poets hoary the Muses Cheer, while ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... lover of the sea, and a scientific seaman and engineer to boot, practical in every line of his face, defying mankind to suspect that he cherishes a grain of romance. On the wall, just above his shoulder, is a sketch of a Viking putting the lighted brand to his ship in mid ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... weakness. But for the evil ways in which you have wrought the land is accursed, and will be so as long as we suffer you. Go hence, and meet elsewhere what fate befalls you. In the skill you have in the seaman's craft is your one hope. ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... in order to defend them I must take an illustration from the world of fiction. Conceive the captain of a ship, taller by a head and shoulders than any of the crew, yet a little deaf, a little blind, and rather ignorant of the seaman's art. The sailors want to steer, although they know nothing of the art; and they have a theory that it cannot be learned. If the helm is refused them, they drug the captain's posset, bind him hand ...
— The Republic • Plato
... eagerly those who were accused of opposing him. These, in some terror, proposed a vote of money, backed by offers of further private contributions. Furnished with these sums, and having procured from Chios a further remittance of five drachmas (5) a piece as outfit for each seaman, he set sail to Methyma in Lesbos, which was in the hands of the enemy. But as the Methymnaeans were not disposed to come over to him (since there was an Athenian garrison in the place, and the men at the head of affairs were partisans of Athens), he assaulted and took the place ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... now wholly occupied in completing the preparations for our future proceedings. I increased my party by a few additional hands of good character, and thought myself fortunate in engaging amongst them Thomas Ruston, a seaman who had already served on the Australian coast under Captain King. On the 12th October I with great difficulty got my affairs at Cape Town so arranged as to be able to embark in the evening, and on the morning of the 13th we hove anchor and ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... there, in virtue of being the War Minister of the Committee of Defence, Gambetta proceeded to take all power into his own hands, and to become dictator of masterless France. It was like a shipwreck in which, captain and officers being disabled, the command falls to the most able seaman. Gambetta had no legal right to govern France, but he governed it by right divine, as the only man ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... stand, when tempests tear the main, On the firm cliff, and mark the seaman's toil! Not that another's danger soothes the soul, But from such toil how sweet to feel secure! How sweet, at distance from the strife, to view Contending hosts, and hear the clash of war! But sweeter far on Wisdom's height serene, Upheld by Truth, ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... 'I have been sailing the seas, yet never saw landfall like yonder. That which we look upon is cloud and not land.' 'But who,' I asked, 'ever saw a fixed cloud?' 'Marry, I for one,' he answered, 'and every seaman who has sailed beside Sicily! But say nothing to the men; for if they believe a volcano lies yonder we shall hardly get them to cross.' 'Yet,' said Morales, 'by your leave, Captain, that is no volcano, but such a cloud as might well ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... of dem. [With a certain pride.] Dey vas all smart seaman, too—A one. [Then after hesitating a ...
— Anna Christie • Eugene O'Neill
... Panama. He was "then about twenty-two years old," with several years of sea-service behind him. He had been to the north and to the east, and had smelt powder in a King's ship during the Dutch wars. He came to the West Indies to manage a plantation, working his way "as a Seaman" aboard the ship of one Captain Kent. Planting sugar or cocoa on Sixteen-Mile Walk in an island so full of jolly sinners proved to be but dull work. Dampier tried it for some weeks, and then slipped ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... you at the helm." He smiled rather sadly. "I'm a good, ordinary, common seaman. But you've got imagination, and foresight, and nerve, and daring, and that's the stuff ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber
... more information about the brig Rockhaven," suggested Ned. "Maybe that's a seaman who has some ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young
... he sighed, "that is one of the deprivations to which a seaman and his family have ...
— Elsie's New Relations • Martha Finley
... the battle of the Nile, but he early quitted the naval profession for that of the law, though he retained much of the frankness and gaiety of manner which distinguish seamen, and the activity and strength of frame which a seaman's habits create. He was afterwards Attorney General of the Bermudas, at the time when one of the Cockburn's was governor. On the appointment of the late Mr. Serjeant Blossett to the Chief Justiceship of Bengal, Mr. Cooper, who was then rapidly rising ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper
... looked just like what he was thought: a true-hearted, healthy man, a good fisherman, and a good seaman. There was no need of any one's saying it. So I only waited till ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... in at the Academy, as poor a show as ever I had seen, I thought; only Millais attracted me: a Boy with a red Sash: and that old Seaman with his half-dreaming Eyes while the Lassie reads to him. I had no Catalogue: and so thought the Book was—The Bible—to which she was drawing his thoughts, while the sea-breeze through the open Window whispered of his old Life to him. But I was told afterwards (at Donne's indeed) that it was ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... flood, than any electors can that they receive no bribes. Being thus attired, our hero changed his manners with his dress; he forgot entirely his family, education, and politeness, and became neither more nor less than an unfortunate shipwrecked seaman. ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... in his profane seaman's way about preferring to keep his own fate under control of his own most strong right arm, but saying that he would keep the matter in his thoughts, he excused himself hurriedly to go and see to somewhat concerning the working of the ship, and ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... its sinking into the water, and from offering much resistance to the progress of the swift element beneath its bottom. Hutter, too, had adopted a precaution suggested by experience, which might have done credit to a seaman, and which completely prevented any of the annoyances and obstacles which otherwise would have attended the short turns of the river. As the ark descended, heavy stones, attached to the line, were dropped in the centre of the stream, forming local anchors, each of ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... chuckle. "Cripes! that vessel was certainly a clipper for goin'! Her cap'n was wise enough to keep to wind'ard, for he seemed to know where the rough water begins to rise and how to make the most o' them keys. Never mind; off Nor'west Cape he'll have to come out like a seaman and take his duckin'! H'ist that there jib, Billy, and make Dave move his carcass where ...
— The Boy Scouts on Picket Duty • Robert Shaler
... Honourable Sir Joseph Porter, K.C.B. First Lord of the Admiralty. Captain Corcoran Commanding H.M.S. Pinafore. Ralph Rackstraw Able seaman. Dick Deadeye Able seaman. Bill Bobstay Boatswain's mate. Bob Becket Carpenter's mate. Tom Tucker Midshipmate. Sergeant of marines Josephine The Captain's daughter. Hebe Sir Joseph's first cousin. Little Buttercup A Portsmouth bumboat woman. ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... For a moment the Indians in the black darkness shrank back from the fierce attack. But already Horst was killed and several of the crew were down with mortal wounds. The vessel seemed lost when Jacobs—a dare-devil seaman—now in command, ordered his men to blow up the vessel. A Wyandot brave with some knowledge of English caught the words and shouted a warning to his comrades. In an instant every warrior was over the side of the vessel, paddling or swimming to get to safety. ...
— The War Chief of the Ottawas - A Chronicle of the Pontiac War: Volume 15 (of 32) in the - series Chronicles of Canada • Thomas Guthrie Marquis
... in holy dew; Which thrice he sprinkled round, and thrice aloud Invok'd the dead, and then dismissed the crowd. But good Aeneas order'd on the shore A stately tomb, whose top a trumpet bore, A soldier's fauchion, and a seaman's oar. Thus was his friend interr'd; and deathless fame Still to the lofty cape consigns his name. These rites perform'd, the prince, without delay, Hastes to the nether world his destin'd way. Deep was the cave; and, downward as it went ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... respect upon the philosophers' maxims. 'Well,' said Dr. Arnold, speaking ironically and in the spirit of modern times—'Well, indeed, might the policy of the old priest-nobles of Egypt and India endeavour to divert their people from becoming familiar with the sea, and represent the occupation of a seaman as incompatible with the purity of the highest castes. The sea deserved to be hated by the old aristocracies, inasmuch as it has been the mightiest instrument in the civilisation of mankind.' But the old oligarchies had their own work, as we now know. They ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... in with an old captain who had bought a schooner for a trading venture amongst the Western Carolines. Becke put in $1000, and sailed with him as supercargo, he and the skipper being the only white men on board. He soon discovered that, though a good seaman, the old man knew nothing of navigation. In a few weeks they were among the Marshall Islands, and the captain went mad from DELIRIUM TREMENS. Becke and the three native sailors ran the vessel into a little uninhabited atoll, and for a week had to keep the captain ...
— By Reef and Palm • Louis Becke
... person of a little fellow, no longer a midshipman in the Royal Navy, but a working "youngster" on board a West India ship, as he informs us in his "Sketch of my Life," belonging to the house of Hibbert, Purrier, and Horton, from which he returned to the Triumph at Chatham, a good practical seaman, but with a horror of the Royal Navy, and a firm belief in a saying then constant with the seamen, "Aft the most honour, forward the better man." The next situation we find him in, will probably shock the delicate feelings ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... Moody Dick! he's sailing under new colors. Who would have thought of his hoisting a petticoat for a flag?" said Blunt Harry, an old, fat seaman, who is esteemed the wit of ...
— Hurrah for New England! - The Virginia Boy's Vacation • Louisa C. Tuthill
... fair wind out of the Clyde, and for near upon a week we enjoyed bright weather and a sense of progress. I found myself (to my wonder) a born seaman, in so far at least as I was never sick; yet I was far from tasting the usual serenity of my health. Whether it was the motion of the ship on the billows, the confinement, the salted food, or all of these together, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of us—Will Percy and a few more—made off from the woful field under cover of night, and got to the sea-shore, to a village—I know not the name—and laid hands on a fisher's smack, which Jock of Hull was seaman enough to steer with the aid of the lad on board, as far as Friesland, and thence we made our way as best we could to Utrecht, where we had the luck to fall in with one of the Duke's captains, who was glad enough to meet with ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... thoughts clung to that family circle he had left-to the man who basked in the happiness of a home life from which he, personally, was debarred. Year by year Collingwood kept his kinsman Stanhope in touch with all his movements. Year by year, Stanhope and his wife responded, supplying the absent seaman with news of the chief events which were happening in the political world at home. And the letters from Collingwood, with their stern grip of a strenuous life, with their deep underlying tragedy of a profound loneliness, afford a curious contrast ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... captive." These sentences, and many others, prove that Trelawny, himself somewhat of a cynic, cruelly exposing false pretensions, and detesting affectation in any for, paid unreserved homage to the heroic qualities this "dreamy bard,"—"uncommonly awkward," as he also called him—bad rider and poor seaman as he was—"over-sensitive," and "eternally brooding on his own thoughts," who "had seen no more of the waking-day than a girl at a boarding-school." True to himself, gentle, tender, with the courage of a lion, "frank and outspoken, ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... horrible. It was,—we blush to tell it,—it was to stop short in the road, and teach some very wicked words to a knot of little Puritan children who were playing there, and had but just begun to talk. Denying himself this freak, as unworthy of his cloth, he met a drunken seaman, one of the ship's crew from the Spanish Main. And, here, since he had so valiantly forborne all other wickedness, poor Mr. Dimmesdale longed, at least, to shake hands with the tarry blackguard, and recreate himself with a few ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... vol. ii. p. 275. Jorgenson, the Dane, who was a seaman on board the Lady Nelson, tender to the Investigator, stated, in his rattling way, that she was in good condition, and absurdly insinuated foul play. The Investigator was cut down, and returned to Europe in charge ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... A Seaman rough, to shipwreck bred, Stood out from all the rest, And gently laid the lonely head Upon his honest breast. And trav'ling o'er the Desert wide, It was a solemn joy, To see them, ever side by side, The sailor and ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... commander whose only merit was personal courage, the admirals of the various squadrons were all men of long experience in war, both by land and sea. Martinez de Recalde, the second in command and admiral of the armada of Biscay, was a veteran seaman. Diego Flores de Valdes, the admiral of Castille, was an enterprising and skilful leader, and if his advice had been taken at the outset there might have been a disaster for England. Pedro de Valdes, the admiral of Andalusia, ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... cold was unknown and gales of wind uncommon. Mr. Hazel advised them to choose a skipper, and give him absolute power, especially over the provisions. They assented to this. He then recommended Cooper for that post. But they had not fathomed the sterling virtues of that taciturn seaman; so they offered the command ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... Jeremy Runacles was driven by indignation to offer his hand at once to Mistress Isabel Seaman, sister of that same Robert Seaman who, as Mayor of Harwich, admitted Sir Anthony Deane to the freedom of the Corporation, and had the honour to receive, in exchange, twelve fire-buckets for the new town-hall. ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... buccaneer, the placid face of one at ease with fortune. He hitched up his shirt and shifted from one ham to another with supreme and sunkissed contentment. And Endymion, who sees all things as the beginnings of heavenly poems, said merrily: "As I was walking on Burling Slip, I saw a seaman ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... of the hulking peasant of interior Russia. The Jap was proven time and again to be the equal of any mariner. Native adaptability and willingness to conform to strict discipline, unite in making the Japanese a seaman whose qualities will be telling ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... prognosticated a sand wind; which accordingly commenced on the morning following, and lasted, with slight intermissions, for two days. The force of the wind was not in itself very great; it was what a seaman would have denominated a stiff breeze; but the quantity of sand and dust carried before it was such as to darken the whole atmosphere. It swept along from east to west, in a thick and constant stream, and the air was at times so dark and full of sand, that it was difficult to discern the ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... really was a splendid seaman, made some very pertinent and useful suggestions, and Denman was just sailor enough to appreciate that he had secured a useful man; ...
— The Dock Rats of New York • "Old Sleuth"
... the wall, he again filled his pipe and began to smoke placidly, scanning with a seaman's eye the various vessels lying ...
— Edward Barry - South Sea Pearler • Louis Becke
... some excuse for appropriating to himself the contents of the said ship (as he did), gave us to understand that he was suspicious, as has been said, of those Spaniards. It has been learned, however, that a seaman from the said galleon gave occasion for this feeling, when he was asked how the Spaniards had conquered so many countries. Thus far we have not been able to learn with certainty in regard to this, except that it is said that some Portuguese ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XIV., 1606-1609 • Various
... a somewhat lengthy pause. One man was reading in fits and starts a stained by coffee evening journal, another the card with the natives choza de, another the seaman's discharge. Mr Bloom, so far as he was personally concerned, was just pondering in pensive mood. He vividly recollected when the occurrence alluded to took place as well as yesterday, roughly some score of years previously in the days ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... merchantmen; then he shipped as able seaman on the Royal Prince, Captain Sir Edward Spragge, and served under him till the death of that commander at the end of the Dutch war in 1673. Soon after he made a voyage to the West Indies; then began an adventurous life—ashore ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery
... is concerned, are more disposed to remember how it was lost than how it was recovered, religion and trade being the two poles, on such a point," returned the old seaman, with a serious face. "On the whole, my dear sir, I have reason to be satisfied, however; and so long as you, my passengers and my friends, are not inclined to blame me, I shall feel as if I had done at least ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... either hand. The shining doors were shut; but Athene, like a breath of air, moved to the maid's couch, stood by her head, and thus addressed her,—taking the likeness of the daughter of Dymas, the famous seaman, a maiden just Nausicaae's age, dear to her heart. Taking her guise, thus ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... Admiralty had communicated to the International Conference of Merchant Seaman, a statement of the facts in twelve cases of sinkings during the previous seven months in which it was shown how "spurlos versenkt" was applied. It was shown that in these cases the submarine commanders had deliberately opened fire on the crews of the vessels after they had ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... followed as the Vindhya sank swamped two of the boats, and carried down not a few of those who were standing on the deck with us. The last I saw of the first officer was a writhing form whirled about in the water; before he sank, he shouted aloud, with a seaman's frank courage, "Say it was all my fault; I accept the responsibility. I ran her too close. I am the only one to blame for it." Then he disappeared in the whirlpool caused by the sinking ship, and we were left ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... general laugh; but that did not alter in the least the good opinion I had of my dog. After much conversation pro and con, I boldly told the captain that I placed more confidence in Tray's nose than I did in the eyes of every seaman on board; and therefore boldly proposed laying the sum I had agreed to pay for my passage (viz., one hundred guineas) that we should find game within half an hour. The captain (a good hearty fellow) laughed again, desired ...
— Stories to Read or Tell from Fairy Tales and Folklore • Laure Claire Foucher
... were made to settle them; and it was very probably a foresight of few ships going that route any more, which induced such as had then the direction of the Company's affairs to wish that some such survey and description might be made by an able seaman, who was well acquainted with those coasts, and who might be able to add to the discoveries already made, as well as furnish a more accurate description, even of them, ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton
... her lofty stern I found hanging therefrom a tangle of ropes and cordage whereby I contrived to clamber aboard, and so beheld a man in a red seaman's bonnet who sat upon the wreckage of one of the quarter guns tying up a splinter-gash in his arm with hand and teeth; perceiving me he rolled a pair of blue eyes up at ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... The old seaman, moved by the mayor's emotion, relaxed into a confidential undertone. "Poor Dupre! I had forgotten that you knew him. He is indeed pursued by a malignant fate. As of course you are aware, he applied a short time ago to be transferred ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... clean and orderly, and, although most of the houses are very old, they are generally in a good state of repair, exhibiting in every case the seaman's love of fresh paint. Thus, the dark and worn stone walls have bright eyes in their newly-painted doors and windows. Over their door-steps the fishermen's wives are quite fastidious, and you seldom see a mark on the ochre-coloured ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... of only one place in London where I might hope to obtain useful information, and for that place I was making now. It was Malay Jack's, whence I had been bound on the previous night when my strange meeting with the seaman who then possessed the pigtail had led to a change of plan. The scum of the Asiatic population always come at one time or another to Jack's, and I hoped by dint of a little patience to achieve what the police had now apparently despaired of ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... gives her more genuine delight than to twit her kind, fond old uncle with his wife's infidelities, to make it clear to him that all the world is acquainted with the full particulars of his shame, and to sport with his jealous agonies. Congreve was the first dramatic author who put an English seaman on the stage; and, after his characteristic fashion, he made his Ben Legend a selfish, coarse, and ruffianly lout. But if one cannot admire many of Congreve's characters, on the other hand one cannot help admiring every sentence ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... chance it awhile with the girls like that, if you please; But you want a woman to trust when you settle down with a wife; And a seaman's thought of growin' old at his ease Is a snug little house on the land to shelter the ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... launched one of the golden-hued skiffs upon the pretty dancing wavelets just where they ran, lipped with jewelled spray, on the shore, and then only had I a chance to scrutinise their material. I patted that one we were upon inside and out. I noted with a seaman's admiration its lightness, elasticity, and supreme sleekness, its marvellous buoyancy and fairy-like "lines," and after some minutes' consideration it suddenly flashed across me that it was all of gourd rind. And as ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... bellowed the frantic gun-runner. Then he repeated the command, apparently in Spanish. And to this came an answering babel of cries and expostulations and counter-cries. But still the firing from behind the searchlight kept up. Blake could see a half-naked seaman with a carpenter's ax skip monkey-like down the landing-ladder. He saw the naked arm strike with the ax, the two hands suddenly catch at the bare throat, and the figure fall back in a huddle against the ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... of the men were at the oars; Mansie was at the bow with his flaming torch, and my father at the tiller. They got within hail of the ship, and after an infinite amount of trouble succeeded in saving four precious lives. These four persons were a seaman, a gentleman passenger—who was picked up suffering from a wound he had received in the head when the vessel struck—Mrs. Kinlay, and my ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... story from the common points of view; and it has been told over and over again by many different people and in many different ways. But from one point of view, and that a most important point, it is newer now than ever. Look at it from the seaman's point of view, and the whole meaning changes in the twinkling of an eye, becoming new, true, and complete. Nearly all books deal with the things of the land, and of the land alone, their writers forgetting or not knowing that the things of the land could never have been ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... charts for the last fifty years have three rocks laid down to the westward of Ireland, which are known as the "Three Chimneys." Most American mariners have little faith in their existence, and yet, I fancy, no seaman draws near the spot where they are said to be, without keeping a good look-out for the danger. The master of the Hudson once carried a lieutenant of the English navy, as a passenger, who assured him that he had actually seen ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... have been dwelt upon by travelled poets (for I call Madame de Stael's writings poetry), and even travelled prose writers; but Lord Byron alone has sketched with knowledge and with love, the moonlight scenery of a frigate in full sail. The life of a seaman is the essence of poetry; change, new combinations, danger, situations from almost deathlike calm, to the maddest combinations of horror—every romantic feeling called forth, and every power of heart and intellect exercised. Man, weak as he is, baffling the elements, and again seeing that miracle ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... MS. was accepted, and, therefore, how Bullen became within a very few months, from an absolutely unknown ex-seaman struggling to keep himself and his family from starvation, a popular writer and lecturer, is worth recording. It shows how great a part pure luck plays in a man's life, and especially in the lives of men of letters. It is more agreeable, ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... few valueless watches and compasses, a jar of tobacco and two crossed pipes, a bottle of walnut ketchup, and some horrible sweets these creature discomforts serving as a blind to the main business of the Leaving Shop—was displayed the inscription SEAMAN'S BOARDING-HOUSE. ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... it appeared, had a life-long lease of the property on Cloud Island, and also some property on the mainland south of Gaspe Basin; but the land was worth little except by tillage, and, being a seaman, he neglected it. His father had had the land before him. Pembroke, the clergyman, had seen his father. He had never happened to see the son, who would now be between forty and fifty years of age; but when Madame Le Maitre had come to look after the farm on Cloud Island, she had ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... The seaman was the captain of a sailing merchantman bound for England, who had been engaged to transport the ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan
... servitude, fixed routes, and constant dependence upon the cabled or telegraphed orders of the owner would be intolerable. Profits were heavy, and the men who earned them were afforded opportunities to share them. Ships were multiplying fast, and no really lively and alert seaman need stay long in the forecastle. Often they became full-fledged captains and part owners at the age of twenty-one, or even earlier, for boys went to sea at ages when the youngsters of equally prosperous families ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... oilskin, and as we finally let the Kabinga go wrote us a letter of thanks, and his wife asked for an Emden armband and a button. They all gave us three cheers as they steamed away. 'Come to Calcutta some time!' was the last thing the Captain said, 'and catch the pilots so that those [unprintable seaman's epithet] fellows will feel something ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... our port bow. As the ballast went overboard we watched the bottom anxiously; the water shoaled rapidly, and the grating of the keel over the coral, with that peculiar tremor most unpleasant to a seaman under any circumstances, told us our danger. As the last of the ballast went overboard she forged ahead, and then brought up. Together we went overboard, and sank to our waists in the black, pasty mud, through which ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... has arisen in relation to the exercise in that country of the judicial functions conferred upon our ministers and consuls. The indictment, trial, and conviction in the consular court at Yokohama of John Ross, a merchant seaman on board an American vessel, have made it necessary for the Government to institute a careful examination into the nature and methods ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... hands against the girl's back; and now by sheer dint of looking continually at her, he at length recognized her, the little sister left behind in the country with all those whom she had seen die, while he had been tossing on the seas. Then, suddenly taking between his big seaman's paws this head found once more, he began to kiss her, as one kisses kindred flesh. And after that, sobs, a man's deep sobs, heaving like great billows, rose up in his throat, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... wholly on one side; the cannon rolled over to the side depressed; the water rushed in; and the gallant ship met her doom. Such was the story, told in hurried and broken words, that Clarissa heard from the pale lips of an old seaman; but he could give no other tidings. The boats of the fleet had put off to the rescue; that was all ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... sea while the French dared not send out their merchant ships for fear of capture. Nor was this all, for the ruin of the commerce of France led the shipowners of St. Malo to fit out many of their ships as privateers and corsairs, and the ruin of her navy sent many a fine seaman aboard them. Skippers of English traders who straggled from their convoy, or sailed ahead of it in order to be first in the market, were often punished for their obstinacy or greediness by these fast-sailing privateers.[1] In spite of these losses, England's supremacy ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... was a broad-shouldered fellow in a suit of blue seaman's cloth, the trousers of which were tucked inside a pair of Wellington boots. His complexion was brown as a nut, and he wore rings in his ears: but the features were British enough. A perplexed, ingratiating and rather ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... penetrated far to the south, and rounded the Cape of Good Hope; Magellan, passing through the straits now called by his name, was the first to enter the Pacific Ocean; and so in the case of a hundred others, courage and skill carried the hardy seaman over many seas and into many lands that had ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... a sea fight. He will name some deputy, perhaps a stout young friend or a son, for the real naval work. Even he may not possess great experience. The real commander of the "Invincible" is the "governor" (KYBERNATES), a gnarled old seaman, who has spent all his life upon the water. Nominally his main duty is to act as pilot, but actually he is in charge of the whole ship; and in battle the trierarch (if aboard) will be very glad to obey all his "suggestions." ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... began with the arrival of my ship in the port of Rio. Our second mate (his duty for the day being done) asked leave to go on shore—and never returned. What motive determined him on deserting, I am not able to say. It was my own wish to supply his place by promoting the best seaman on board. My owners' agents overruled me, and appointed a man of their ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... drew the blanket over the child's face, and then, with an activity no younger seaman could have surpassed, he sprang to the side of the ship and grasped a stanchion, to which he held on while he shouted to the crew of his boat, who had for safety's sake pulled her off a few fathoms from the wreck, keeping their oars going to retain ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... three wooden cottages, occupied by the master, mate, and a married seaman of the "Southern Cross." At the west end stands the Melanesian school. Fences divide the whole space into three portions, whereof the western one forms our garden and orchard; and the others pasture for cows and working bullocks; small gardens being also fenced off for the three ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Disguised as a man, she follows him to "the wars of Germany," finds him wounded on the battle-field, and nurses him back to health; then they are married. (Cf. Child, 1857 ed., iv, p. 328. The Merchant's Daughter of Bristow, 4abab, 65: Maudlin disguised as a seaman follows her lover to Padua; they are married, and return ...
— A Syllabus of Kentucky Folk-Songs • Hubert G. Shearin
... but laughed naughtily with her eyes, an accomplishment so foreign to my knowledge of her as to reduce me to utter banality; which suited Miss Jencks perfectly, however, so that she resigned the conversational rudder to her pupil and concerned herself with knitting a hideous grey comforter (for the Seaman's Home, I learned later), giving the occupation a character worthy the ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... northwest passage to Asia. Of course he failed; but in that and two later voyages he cruised about the shores of our continent and gave his name to Frobisher's Bay.[2] Next came Sir Francis Drake, the greatest seaman of his age. He left England in 1577, crossed the Atlantic, sailed down the South American coast, passed through the Strait of Magellan, and turning northward coasted along South America, Mexico, and California, in search of a northeast passage ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... had sailed slowly many days"—only a seaman could feel the pathos of that—"and scarce were come over against Cnidus, the wind not suffering us, we sailed under Crete, ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... Or, in the watches, to hear the sea lashing along her strakes in never ending music! I gave MacMuir his shore suit again, and hugely delighted and astonished Captain Paul by donning a jacket of Scotch wool and a pair of seaman's boots, and so became a sailor myself. I had no mind to sit idle the passage, and the love of it, as I have said, was in me. In a fortnight I went aloft with the best of the watch to reef topsails, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... your boy is fortunate that the Tiger should be the first ship he will sail in," he said that evening. "I regard the captain as my best officer. He is a good seaman and a capital navigator, and he is of a most kindly disposition; therefore, I can put the boy under him with the certainty that he will be well treated and cared for. In the next place, the Tiger does not, like my other ships, make regular voyages to and from a foreign ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty |
