"Swash" Quotes from Famous Books
... listened. A heavy noise, like that of some huge flouring-mill in full operation, could be plainly heard above the swash of the waves and the drive ... — Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... earl's abode stretched, in numerous deformity, sheds rather than houses, of broken plaster and crazy timbers. But here and there were open places of public reception, crowded with the lower followers of the puissant chief; and the eye rested on many idle groups of sturdy swash-bucklers, some half-clad in armour, some in rude jerkins of leather, before the doors of these resorts,—as others, like bees about a hive, swarmed in and out with ... — The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... family history, Judith, and she, now aged twenty-one, was possibly the sole member of the house of Talbot-Lowry for whom a successful future might confidently be anticipated. Judith, a buccaneer by nature and by practice, was habitually engaged in swash-bucklering it on a round of visits. She was good-looking, tall, talkative, and an able player of all the games proper to the state of life to which she had been called. She was a competent guest, giving as much entertainment as she received, being of those who contribute ... — Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... long awake full of thought both for myself and for the poor souls around me. At last, however, the measured swash of the water against the side of the vessel and the slight rise and fall had lulled me into a sleep, from which I was suddenly aroused by the flashing of a light in my eyes. Sitting up, I found several sailors gathered about me, and a tall ... — Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... over, his pleasures and dangers past; and he was folded again to the dear mother heart, the safest, sweetest place in all the whole wide world. In warm, still summer evenings, if you will take a walk on the sea-beach, you will hear the gentle rippling swash of the waves; and some very wise people think it must be the gurgling voices of Aqua and his brother water-drops telling each other about their ... — The Story Hour • Nora A. Smith and Kate Douglas Wiggin
... ladies were never invited to invade the cricket's corner, where we were permitted to beguile the hours in gossip, song, and story until the scrub-women had cleaned the rest of the big basement and "the first low swash" of the suds and brush threatened the legs of our chairs. Then, with a parting anathema on the business of slaves that toiled when honest folk should be abed, we would ascend the stairs and betake ourselves to ... — Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... wavin' locks that scattered gold light down into the water, bright eyes that shone like stars above it. I shouldn't wonder a mite if it missed 'em and tried to say so in its gentle, pensive swish, swash, swish. ... — Samantha at Coney Island - and a Thousand Other Islands • Marietta Holley
... enterprises, that were becoming so frequent and outrageous. Vigorous measures were taken to check and punish them. Several of the most noted freebooters were caught and executed, and three of Vanderscamp's chosen comrades, the most riotous swash-bucklers of the Wild Goose, were hanged in chains on Gibbet-Island, in full sight of their favorite resort. As to Vanderscamp himself, he and his man Pluto again disappeared, and it was hoped by the people of Communipaw that he had fallen in some foreign brawl, ... — Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... numerous islands which dot the river's surface, or, what was still better, penetrated into the wild- looking creeks and rivers, more than one hundred of which enter the parent stream along the thousand miles of its course. Here, in these secluded nooks, I found security from the steamer's swash. ... — Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... pump while it was yet dark, and washing down of decks. Any enormous giant at a prodigious hydropathic establishment, conscientiously undergoing the water-cure in all its departments, and extremely particular about cleaning his teeth, would make those noises. Swash, splash, scrub, rub, toothbrush, bubble, swash, splash, bubble, toothbrush, splash, splash, bubble, rub. Then the day would break, and, descending from my berth by a graceful ladder composed of half-opened drawers beneath it, I would reopen my outer dead-light and my inner sliding ... — The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... from the stove. Too, he remembered how he and his companions used to go from the school-house to the bank of a shaded pool. He saw his clothes in disorderly array upon the grass of the bank. He felt the swash of the fragrant water upon his body. The leaves of the overhanging maple rustled with melody in the wind ... — The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... prisoners; and Blucher himself, who was quietly coming out of the chateau, had only time to turn and fly as quickly as he could, under a shower of balls from our advance guard. The Emperor thought for a moment that the Prussian general had been taken, and exclaimed, "We have got that old swash-buckler. Now the campaign will not be long." The Russians who were established in the village set it on fire, and an engagement took place in the midst of the flames. Night arrived, but the combat still continued; and in the space of twelve hours the village was ... — The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... over, he went out and took his favorite seat under the apple tree. All was still, save for the crickets' ceaseless chirp, the soft thud of an August sweeting dropping in the grass, and the swish-swash of the water against his boat, tethered ... — Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... upon excellent briar of many years' service. He has had (though I speak only by guess) a rummer of hot toddy to celebrate the greatest of all Evenings. At his elbow is a porthole, brightly curtained with a scrap of clean chintz, and he can hear the swash of the seas along his ship's tall side. And now he is reading. I can see him reading. I know just how his mind feels! Oh, the Perfect Reader! There is not an allusion that he misses; in all those lovely printed words he sees the subtle secrets that ... — Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... September 14, I left Norfolk in the C. W. Thomas, which steamed to Fortress Monroe, where she arrived at 7-1/2 p.m., when I got aboard the John Farran, and steamed by the way of the Atlantic Ocean to Cape Hatteras, through the Swash, and through Pamlico sound to Neuse river, and thence up to Newbern, where we arrived at 7 p.m. of the 15th. Having expended all the money that I took with me but a few cents, I felt perplexed as to how I should reach ... — Reminiscences of Two Years in the United States Navy • John M. Batten
... quarterings of an ancient house, and you halt, almost expecting that the rusted hinges will creak a warning and the wooden halves begrudgingly divide, and that from under the slewed arch will issue a most gallant swashbuckler with his buckles all buckled and his swash ... — Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... of the guard, standing motionless in the swash of the rout, like rocks in running water, held out till night. They awaited the double shadow of night and death, and let them surround them. Each regiment, isolated from the others, and no longer connected with the army, which was broken on all sides, died ... — Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... chamber, indolently trimming his nails. A tall swash-buckler, with a red nose and a black patch over his eye, was with him, also seated and conversing with familiar earnestness, as the ... — St George's Cross • H. G. Keene
... souls, it may be that she gloried in her shame, like other fallen creatures; for her large, slanting oval hawse-pipes and boot-top stripe gave a fine, Oriental sneer to her face-like bow, and there was slur and insult to respectable craft in the lazy dignity with which she would swash through the fleet on the port tack, compelling vessels on the starboard tack to give up their right of way or be rammed; for she was a large craft, and there was menace in her solid, one-piece jib-boom, thick as an ordinary mainmast. An outward-bound coasting-schooner, resenting this ... — "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... the large fibrous roots of the pond-lilies. He splashes along till he finds a suitable spot, when he begins feeding, sometimes thrusting his bead and neck several feet under water. The hunter listens, and when the moose lifts his head and the rills of water run from it, and he hears him "swash" the lily roots about to get off the mud, it is his time to start. Silently as a shadow he creeps up on the moose, who by the way, it seems, never expects the approach of danger from the water side. If the hunter accidentally makes a noise the moose looks toward ... — Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... and the old schooner was rollin' like a washtub. One minute I'd see the skipper and the mate h'isted up in the air, hammerin' for dear life, and then, swash! under they'd go, clear under, and stay there, seemed to me, forever. Every dip I thought would be the end, and I'd shet my eyes, expectin' to see 'em gone when she lifted; but no, up they'd come, fetch a breath, shake the salt water out of ... — Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... the Kabekanka River. A brisk wind was blowing from the north, and the waves ran so high as to cause some anxiety in the minds of those who were not accustomed to the motion of a canoe; for, now they rose lightly to the top of the wave and anon sank with a swash into the trough, splashing and dashing the water over their bows. Gradually, however, as they became more used to their frail barks, their anxiety lessened, and they began to enjoy the beautiful prospect before them, and to inhale with delight ... — Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... hair trunk of monstrous compass, whose knobby lid opened at one end and showed a red morocco lining, when the pretty girl, in leaning over to point out the rising monster, dropped into the water one of her little gloves, and the swash made by the hippopotamus drifted it close under Billy's hand. Either in play or as a mere coincidence the animal followed it. The other children about the tank screamed and started back as he bumped his nose against the side; but Billy manfully bent down and grabbed the ... — Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... his ear to the door and listening intently. "I can hear the swash of water just the same, Dick. We had better be a ... — The Hilltop Boys on Lost Island • Cyril Burleigh
... grim, solemn, and angular, and he was as combative as one of Cromwell's disputatious troopers. In his capacious pocket, he always carried a copy of the New Testament—as, of old, the carnal controvertists bore a sword buckled to the side. Thus armed, he was a genuine polemical "swash-buckler," and would whip out his Testament, as the bravo did his weapon, to cut you in two without ceremony. He could carve you into numerous pieces, and season you with scriptural salt and pepper; and he would do it with a gusto so serious, that it would have been no unreasonable apprehension ... — Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... cave amidst the rocky Mount, and when he desired victuals he would wade across the tides to the mainland and furnish himself forth with all that came in his way. The poor folk and the rich folk alike ran out of their houses and hid themselves when they heard the swish-swash of his big feet in the water; for if he saw them, he would think nothing of broiling half-a-dozen or so of them for breakfast. As it was, he seized their cattle by the score, carrying off half-a-dozen fat oxen on his back at a time, and hanging sheep and pigs to his ... — English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... melodious strain. The nags pricked up their ears in a twinkling, and made no more ado but bolted. Poor aunty tugged! but all in vain; her bay-cob ran into the water; and she lost both her presence of mind and her seat, and plumped swash into the pond—her riding habit spreading out into a beautiful circle—while she lay squalling and bawling out in the centre, like a little piece of beef in the middle of a large batter-pudding! Miss Scragg, meanwhile, stuck to her ... — The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... bottle-green, And the other eye was out, my dear; And the calves of his wicked-looking legs Were more than two feet about, my dear. Oh, the great big Irishman, The rattling, battling Irishman— The stamping, ramping, swaggering, staggering, leathering swash ... — The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... Second Emperor Frederick of Swabia. In its revival of old forms, old customs, it is a masquerade. But behold that it is a gorgeous blood-coloured masquerade and that Cercamorte is a distinct portrait of the swash-buckler ... — O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... distance we sat upon a rock and looked out over the ocean, which extended afar, under a sky that was dark with mountainous masses of piled-up clouds. The great roll of the sea struck the foot of the cliffs rather slowly, as if performing some solemn function, and the swash of the returning water was like some strange dirge. The very waves had lost their blueness and were tinted with a leaden, ... — Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... the offence in him was foulest and the insult from him to her deepest, she assuredly conceived and cherished a bitter loathing. But there was one man who had always been ready to champion her cause, the daring, reckless, ruffianly James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, who nevertheless was no mere swash-buckler, but according to Scottish standards of the day, a man of education [Footnote: Lang, Hist. Scotland, ii., p. 168.] and even, it would seem, of some culture. From this time, Bothwell was her one ally. She had the policy and the self-control to profess a desire for reconciliation even ... — England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... case a Hull bargee gave his name as ALFAINA SWASH. Nevertheless the Court did not decide to hear the rest of ... — Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 3, 1920 • Various
... for which none are ready, dashes in, and with it tumble ashore, in one great wreck of humanity, small craft and large, stout hulk and swift clipper, helm first, topsail down, forestay-sail in tatters, keel up, everything gone to pieces in the swash of ... — Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... was the lovely bay of Bolinas, blue and sparkling in the summer afternoon sun, its borders dotted with thrifty ranches, and the woody ravines and bristling Tamalpais Range rising over all. The tide was running out, and only a peaceful swash whispered along the level sandy beach on our left, where the busy sandpiper chased the playful wave as it softly rose and fell along the shore. On the higher centre of the sandspit which shuts in the bay on that side, a row of ashy-colored gulls sunned themselves, and blinked at us ... — Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... "you have challenged every gentleman who has dared address me. Did you think such swash-buckling was going to win my heart? Any girl possessing self-respect would revolt at such methods. Whatever affection I may have felt for you as a boy has been driven from me by these actions. You wanted a slave, a servant, not a companion, and it is not in Mortimer blood to yield ... — My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... Scottish ballards, struck me just then as peculiarly appropriate, though its real meaning is quite different. A gentle breeze, from which I had hoped for a ripple, had utterly died away, and it was a warm, breathless Southern night. There was no sound but the faint swash of the coming tide, the noises of the reed-birds in the marshes, and the occasional leap of a fish; and it seemed to my overstrained ear as if every footstep of my own must be heard for miles. However, I could have no more postponements, and the ... — Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... to consciousness after being wounded the first thing that met my ears was the roar of musketry and the boom of cannon, with the continual swish, swash of the grape and canister striking the trees and ground. I placed my hand in my bosom, where I felt a dull, deadening sensation. There I found the warm blood, that filled my inner garments and now trickled down my side as I endeavored to stand ... — History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... celebrated familiars of English witches. "Such as I have read of are these: Mephistophiles, Lucifer, Little Lord, Fimodes, David, Jude, Little Robin, Smacke, Litefoote, Nonsuch, Lunch, Makeshift, Swash, Pluck, Blue, Catch, White, Callico, Hardname, Tibb, Hiff, Ball, Puss, Rutterkin, Dicke, Prettie, Grissil, and Jacke." In the confession of Isabel Gowdie, a famous Scotch witch, (in Pitcairne's Trials, vol. iii. page 614,) we have the following catalogue of attendant ... — Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... and no motion is visible save perchance the slow drift of the tide-current. The prolonged roar of its fall comes with startling effect, and heavy swells are raised that haste away in every direction to tell what has taken place, and tens of thousands of its neighbors rock and swash in sympathy, repeating the news over and over again. We were too near several large ones that fell apart as we passed them, and our canoe had narrow escapes. The seal-hunters, Tyeen says, are frequently lost in these ... — Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... call dimmed and died. Despite the lazy swash of the swells on the beach below the sunny afternoon was heavy with silence. Ellen's eyes swept the vast circle of the distance. The smoke of the south-bound steamer was no more. Far down the tundra toward the cliffs stood the one lone tree of Kon Klayu facing the sea like a waiting woman with long, ... — Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... of water-side hamlets holds its accommodations at lofty premiums. A number of public pleasure-steamers and many private steam-launches ply up and down, making the whole trip in two or three days, drawing up at night at towns, and by day provoking curses both loud and deep by the swash of their tidal waves against the liliputian navy. Many of the merry boating-parties of men and women seek only sleeping-accommodations at the inns, and do their own cooking upon bosky islands, on the wooded or sunny banks of the river, by means of kerosene- or charcoal-stoves and tiny tents. ... — Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... light, can't you, Birkenshead? What has happened? Bah! this is horrible! I have swallowed the sea-water! Hear it swash against the sides of the boat! Is the boat ... — The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... "it was a time of jubilee for offenders; every culprit started up into an accuser." All the ills of the colony, many of them inevitable in such an enterprise, many of them due to the shiftlessness and folly, the cruelty and lust of idle swash-bucklers, were now laid at the door of Columbus. Aguado was presently won over by the malcontents, so that by the time he was ready to return to Spain, early in 1496, Columbus felt it desirable to go along with him and make his own ... — The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... welkum, young man," said the woman tartly. "And if you'll take my advice, you won't bring him into these parts again, where they're doing nothing else but swash-buckling from morning to night. The broken heads I've seen this ... — In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... pellmell within door for the smoking shower, the men making shelter for their straws with a clout or kerchief, womenfolk skipping off with kirtles catched up soon as the pour came. In Ely place, Baggot street, Duke's lawn, thence through Merrion green up to Holles street a swash of water flowing that was before bonedry and not one chair or coach or fiacre seen about but no more crack after that first. Over against the Rt. Hon. Mr Justice Fitzgibbon's door (that is to sit with Mr Healy the lawyer upon the college lands) Mal. Mulligan a gentleman's gentleman ... — Ulysses • James Joyce
... the water and echoed back and forth from sail to sail. The shouting hushed. Only the creak of the swaying yard, the hoarse swash of the water, the panting of deep breathing broke the silence, then once more from the lofty prow came ... — The Iron Star - And what It saw on Its Journey through the Ages • John Preston True
... since you began the dishes, but rattle and swash that mop about in the pan as if you were mining the ore from the cave," complained Polly, as she managed ... — Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... of summer in the warmth of its breath and the cheeriness of its smile. Pope's Creek, as it rippled along, made pleasant music, the partridges drummed in the under brush, and the redbirds whistled weirdly in the leafless chestnut grove near the swash. Now and then a Bohemian crow, moping lazily from the Maryland border, looked down at Lawrence in the old arm-chair and uttered a ... — Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field
... a dreary enough day, no sun, with occasional splatters of rain and a persistent crash of seas over the weather rail and swash of water across the deck. With my eyes glued to the cabin ports, which gave for'ard along the main deck, I could see the wretched sailors, whenever they were given some task of pull and haul, wet through and through by the ... — The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... dozed, myself, as the hours passed, although hardly aware of doing so. The soft, continuous chugging of the engine, the swash of water alongside, the ceaseless sweep of the current, and the dark gloom of the shadows through which we struggled, all combined to produce drowsiness. I know my eyes were closed several times, and at last they ... — The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... this to journey in, my master; and the fool will travel by night too, although, (besides all maladies from your tussis to your pestis, which walk abroad in the night-air,) he may well fall in with half a dozen swash-bucklers, who will ease him at once of his baggage and his earthly complaints. I must send forth to inquire after him, since he hath stuff of the honourable household on hand—and, by our Lady, he hath stuff of mine too—certain drugs sent me from the city for composition ... — The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... on "Portygees" strode past the awed crew with an air that they instinctively recognized as belonging to the quarter-deck. Their meek eyes followed him as he stumped into the swash and kicked up two belaying-pins floating in the debris. He took one in each hand, came back at them on the trot, opening the flood-gates of his language. And they instinctively recognized that as quarter-deck, too. They knew that no mere mate could possess that quality of ... — The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... "Rotten! Punk! No good! Swash! Flubdub! Sacre tas de—de—piffle!" Already his vocabulary was rich and plenteous, though, in those days, ... — From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... or cares, and those horrid boys will never catch up!" she cried in despair, as the boat began to rock more and more, and the loud swash of water dashing in and out of the Chasm drew nearer and nearer. Holding on now with both hands she turned and looked straight before her, pale and shivering, while her eyes tried to see some sign of hope among the steep cliffs that rose up on the left. No one was there, though usually at this ... — Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... without difficulty. But scarcely had I stooped to raise it when an emotion of fear seized me, and I started back alert and listening, though I was unconscious of having heard any thing more than the ordinary swash of the water beneath the windows and the beating of my own overtaxed heart. An instant's hearkening gave me the reassurance I needed, and convinced that I had alarmed myself unnecessarily, I bent again over the board, and this time succeeded in moving it aside. ... — The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... the Middle Ages were very skilful in the use of the lathe, and turned out much beautiful screen and stall work, still to be seen in our cathedrals, as well as twisted and swash-work for the balusters of staircases and other ornamental purposes. English mechanics seem early to have distinguished themselves as improvers of the lathe; and in Moxon's 'Treatise on Turning,' published in 1680, we find Mr. Thomas ... — Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... distance from the Minnesota lay the strangest-looking craft I ever saw. It was a platform of iron, so nearly on a level with the water that the swash of the waves broke over it, under the impulse of a very moderate breeze; and on this platform was raised a circular structure, likewise of iron, and rather broad and capacious, but of no great height. It could not be called a vessel ... — Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... into deep water, waves swash up and down the face of the rocks but cannot break and strike effective blows. They therefore erode but little until the talus fallen from the cliff is gradually built up beneath the sea to the level at which the waves drag bottom ... — The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... the gun he made his plans. Swish-swash the sponge-staff ran in and out—he would try to steal away at dog-watch. He struck the sponge smartly on ma couzaine's muzzle, cleansing it—he would have to slide into the water like a rat and swim very softly to the shore. He reached for a fresh cartridge, and thrust it into the throat ... — The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... brand," admitted Smith, laughingly; "but I believe it's good sound criticism just the same. If a man is going to play the swashbuckler, I like to see him able to swash his buckle. But seriously, I shouldn't have objected to that one bad piece of business if it hadn't seemed to me that the whole performance was out of key and wrong. But here's the ... — White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... to me that day and I lay a long time looking up at the rustling canopy overhead. I remember listening to the waves that came whispering out of the further field, nearer and nearer, until they swept over us with a roaring swash of leaves, like that of water flooding among rocks, as I have heard it often. A twinge of homesick ness came to me and the snoring of Uncle Eb gave me no comfort. I remember covering my head and crying softly as I thought of those who had gone away and whom I was to meet ... — Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... "Think you that we are the sufferers? No, it is Christ in us; for He sends none a warfaring on their own charges." The tide crept up upon this second martyr like the death-chill, but her heart was strong and fearless in the Lord. Her voice arose sweetly above the swash of the waves, reciting Scripture, pouring forth prayer, and singing Psalms. The tide swelled around her bosom, ascended her naked neck, touched her warm lips, yet the heavenly music continued. But now a breaker dashes over ... — Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... we hear the melodious swash of its waves on its green banks—we see fur off the gleam of its white, ... — Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... against the peace and dignity of the ship. As he did so, he discovered a steamer, which had just passed through the narrow opening between Odderoe and the main land, and whose course lay close to the point of the island where the cutter was moored. He saw that the swash of the steamer was likely to throw the boat on the rocks, and grind her planking upon the sharp points ... — Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic |