"Forecastle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was passing abreast, but a couple of hundred yards distant. The tug was shortening the line, and on the hulk's forecastle-head a couple of hands were busy at a cathead, preparing to let go anchor. She was ill-favored enough to look at, that hulk—weather-beaten, begrimed, stripped of all that makes a ship sightly. Nothing but the worn-out old hull was left. An eyesore, truly. Yet, any ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... equipments of a runaway—the kerchief bundle and stick; I possessed absolutely nothing—much less a mattress or hammock. Such things a skipper does not find for his crew, and of course there was none for me. I was not even allowed a "bunk" to sleep in, for the forecastle was crowded and most of the bunks carried double. Those that were occupied by only one chanced to have for their tenants the most morose and ill-natured of the crew, and I was not permitted to share with them. ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... Neoptolemus was about to depart, he besought him with many prayers that he would take him also on his ship; for the voyage, he said, would not be of more than a single day. "Put me," he said, "where thou wilt, in forecastle, or hold, or stern, and set me on shore even as it may seem best to thee. Only take me from this place." And the sailors also made entreaty to the Prince that he would do so; and he, after a while, made as if ...
— Stories from the Greek Tragedians • Alfred Church
... poets illustrate a tendency to introduce a new realistic poetry. Wordsworth wrote of Michael and the Westmoreland peasantry, but Masefield and Gibson have taken as subjects of verse the toilers of factory, foundry, and forecastle. Closeness to life and simplicity of narration characterize these authors. They approximate the subject matter and technique ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... Ascension, where we called, sticks also with its long swinging rollers breaking in white foam, its bare mountain peak capped with green, and the turtles in the ponds. Those poor turtles. We brought two of them home, and I used to look at them lying on their backs in the forecastle flapping their fins feebly. One of them died, and I got the butcher to save me the shell. Afterwards I gave it as a wedding present to Mr. and Mrs. Scroope, nicely polished and lined. I meant it for a work-basket, and was ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... always set out in the most sheltered and comfortable place. If there was anything to be seen, a cargo boat plunging along forecastle under, or a great iron sailing ship thrashing out to the westwards, with the spray clouds flying about her hove up weather side, he almost invariably appeared with a pair of powerful glasses. She was watched over, her wishes anticipated, and the man was seldom obtrusively ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... berth, and the berth was just a trifle larger than myself. My chest would have to be left outside. I strongly suspected that my lungs would have to be left outside also; for the life of me I could not see where the air was to come from. With a mental reservation in favour of investigating the forecastle, ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... or shrunk to the dimensions of the present stream. Her preservation was perfect. Horsfield thus describes the ship: "Her dimensions were, from head to stern, 65 feet, and her width 14 feet, with cabin and forecastle; and she appears to have originally had a whole deck. She was remarkably strongly built; her bill pieces and keels measuring 2 feet over, her cross beams, five in number, 18 inches by 8, with her other timbers in proportion; and in her caulking was a species of moss peculiar to the country in which ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... on the lee side of the forecastle, and the mainsail, which was still drawing, concealed from me a certain portion of the after-deck. Not a soul was to be seen. The planks, which had not been swabbed since the mutiny, bore the print of many feet; and an empty ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... strong, and not being able to perform the duty before the mast, to which I had not been accustomed, I was beat so unmercifully, that I was debating in my mind, whether I should kill the captain and then jump overboard, or submit to my hard fate; but one night as I lay groaning on the forecastle after a punishment I had received from the captain, which incapacitated me from further duty, an astonishing circumstance occurred which was the occasion, not only of my embracing the Mahomedan religion, but of making use of those expressions ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... above the men's heads, on a sort of framework, so that little Jacob had never seen the goose; but the cook had had a great deal of trouble to keep the boys from hearing it, and he had had to make it a secret with the sailors and sometimes he had the sailors take it down into the forecastle while little Jacob and little Sol were playing about. The forecastle is the place where the sailors sleep, and the little boys never went there. But little Sol rather suspected that there was something that the cook was hiding ...
— The Sandman: His Sea Stories • William J. Hopkins
... work of a man like him," said Winslow, whose superciliousness was by no means lessened by the community of sentiment between Miss Keene and Brace. "I reckon, his political reforms, and his poetical high-falutin' wouldn't go as far in the forecastle among live men as it does in the cabin with a lot of women. You'll more likely find that he's been some sort of steward on a steamer, and he's working his passage with us. That's where he gets that smooth, equally-attentive-to-anybody ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... easy to find it on land! How apparently impossible at sea! There was the forecastle (full of men) at one end of the vessel. There was the sail room (full of sails) at the other. There was the ladies' cabin (used as the ladies' dressing-room; inaccessible, in that capacity, to every male human being on board). Was there any disposable inclosed space ...
— Miss or Mrs.? • Wilkie Collins
... a sorry lot of sailors they were. They counted nineteen all told, and half of them could not speak English. I went among them and searched their dunnage for liquor and weapons, and after finding plenty of both, I bundled the entire outfit into the forecastle and let them sort it the best they could, with the result that they all struck a fair average in the way of clothes. Those who were too drunk to be of any use I let alone, and they made a dirty mess of the clean forecastle. The rest I ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... fired their pistols at them through the window; the doors were soon forced, and the Spanish brigadier fell while retreating to the quarter-deck. Nelson pushed on, and found Berry in possession of the poop, and the Spanish ensign hauling down. He passed on to the forecastle, where he met two or three Spanish officers, and received their swords. The English were now in full possession of every part of the ship, when a fire of pistols and musketry opened upon them from the admiral's stern-gallery of the SAN JOSEPH. Nelson having placed sentinels ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... looked very red in the east near the horizon, and there were many black clouds both to the south and north of it. About a quarter of an hour after the sun was up, there was a squall to the windward of us; when on sudden one of our men on the forecastle called out that he saw something astern, but could not tell what: I looked out for it, and immediately saw a spout beginning to work within a quarter of a mile of us, exactly in the wind: we presently put right before it. It came very swiftly, whirling the water up in a pillar about six ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton
... indeed, great. There is nothing in literature more remarkable than the impression produced by Dana's portraiture of the homely inner life of a little brig's forecastle. ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... the trades have yet to fail us, and every inch of canvas has its fill of the gentle steady wind. It is a heavenly night. The peace of God broods upon His waters. No jarring note offends the ear. In the forecastle a voice is humming a song of Eva Denison's that has caught the fancy of the men; the young girl who sang it so sweetly not twenty minutes since who sang it again and again to please the crew she alone is at war with our little ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... they attended demanded such proficiency. They had a dry, chuckling humor; a homely philosophy, often mingled with the queerest superstitions; a racy wit, smacking somewhat, of course, of the quarter-deck, or even of the forecastle; a seemingly incongruous sensibility, so that tears easily sprang to their eyes if the right chord of pathos were touched; a disposition to wear a high-colored necktie and a broad, gold watch-chain, and to observe a ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... the subtle tang of the South Seas drifting over from the Tropic Bird, and when a Kanaka, scantily clad, came on deck, threw a couple of fenders overside and retired to the forecastle singing one of those Hawaiian ballads that are so mournfully sweet and funereal, ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... or five men down in the forecastle also shouted, ran up on deck, and then, with cries of alarm, ran below again, and then, but quietly this time, joined their comrades, who were crouching as closely together as possible forward of the bitts. There was a roar of voices from the boats. They could hear the oars plied desperately; ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... license, he did not appear to be an Englishman. None of us ever knew, I think, from what country he originally came. His rough, mumbling, unready speech might have been picked up in any of the seaports of the English-speaking world. His manners smacked of the forecastle, and he was altogether so difficult to classify that I used to toy with the theory that he had murdered the real Captain Magnus for his papers and was masquerading ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... been induced to try the plank. The steward had taken Angelino in his arms, promising to save him or die with him, when a strong sea swept the forecastle, and all went down together. Ossoli caught the rigging for a moment, but Margaret sank at once. When last seen, she was seated at the foot of the foremast, still clad in her white nightdress, with her hair fallen loose upon her shoulders. Angelino and the steward were washed ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... into the tub of water. After about two hours' amusement the decks were dried, everything in order, and all hands at breakfast. I could not help laughing at one of the lieutenants of Marines who, to avoid getting wet, had placed himself on the forecastle to enjoy the pastime without partaking in it. One of the mids who had been ducked determined he should not escape, and had a couple of buckets filled with water on the gangway, ready to throw on him when he quitted his post, which he did when he saw ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... explore the ship, and this she did, her rifle ready for instant use should she meet with any human menace aboard the Kincaid. She was not long in discovering the cause of the apparently deserted condition of the steamer, for in the forecastle she found the sailors, who had evidently been left to guard the ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... shark! a shark!" was sounded from the captain of the forecastle; and, at the sound of these terrible words, the men who were in the water, leaped and plunged toward the ship. Right abeam, at the distance of three or four cables' lengths, was seen the wake of a shark in the ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... lee, and at a very little distance from us. We owed our safety to the interposition of Providence, a good look-out, and the very brisk manner in which the ship was managed; for, as we were standing to the north, the people on the lee-gangway and forecastle saw breakers under the lee-bow, which we escaped by quickly tacking ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... was fairly squatted in a corner of the forecastle, with my plate on my lap, in friendly proximity to Alister, I received a far worse shock than the ship's hose had given me. For under cover of the sailors' talk (and they were even noisier at their dinner than at their work) ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... was "clearing of decks, lacing of nettings, making of bulwarks, fitting of waistcloths, arming of tops, tallowing of pikes, slinging of yards, doubling of sheets and tacks." Amyas took charge of the poop, Cary of the forecastle, and Yeo, as gunner, of the main-deck, while Drew, as master, settled himself in the waist; and all was ready, and more than ready, before the great ship was ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... bunks and men—like a cattleship forecastle. One young man, fulfilling doubtless his English ritual of "dressing for dinner," was punctiliously shaving, although it was now practically dark; in another corner the devotee of some system of how to get strong and how to stay ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... handsomest ship I had ever set eyes on. A long low black schooner, with a narrow beading of white at deck level, and masts that tapered off into fishing-rods. She was pierced for six guns a-side, and a great tarpaulin cover on the forecastle and another astern hinted at something heavier there. Her lines and finish were so graceful that I felt sure she was French built, for English builders ever consider strength before beauty. A very ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... The dingy and jolly-boat gave chase; but the pirates had the start, and it was useless; for although a few men were seen to drop from their oars in consequence of our fire of musketry from the forecastle, still their pace never slackened; and when they did come within the bearing of our guns, which they were obliged to do for a minute or two while rounding the points that formed the bay, though our thirty-two pound shot fell thickly about their heads, frequently dashing the spray all over ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... break under their every stress, the Venetian ships were of the most massive construction, built wholly of the stoutest oak planking, and with timbers upwards of a foot in thickness. All were bolted together with iron pins "as thick as a man's thumb." Forecastle and poop were alike lofty, with a lower waist for the use of sweeps if needful. But this was only exceptional, sails being the usual motive power. And these were constructed chiefly with a view to strength. Instead of canvas, they were formed of ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare
... sat for a whole hour in a dark cellar that smelt of tallow where a couple of men were engaged in making those enormous candles that people in Ireland light on Christmas Day; and once Radway was forced to follow her into the forecastle of a Breton schooner reeking of garlic, where she practised the French ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... made a bit of money. Sometimes a mail steamer would come in, and Captain Nichols, having scraped acquaintance with the timekeeper, would succeed in getting the pair of them a job as stevedores. When it was an English boat, they would dodge into the forecastle and get a hearty breakfast from the crew. They took the risk of running against one of the ship's officers and being hustled down the gangway with the toe of a boot to ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... been in the Straits less than a week when Inkspot dreamed he was in heaven. His ecstatic visions became so strong and vivid that they awakened him, when he was not long in discovering the cause which had produced them. The dimly lighted and quiet forecastle was permeated by a delightful smell of spirituous liquor. Turning his eyes from right to left, in his endeavors to understand this unusual odor of luxury, Inkspot perceived the man Garta standing on the other side of the forecastle, with a ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... sailors have a toilsome life, and must endure much; but they have health. It is the sense of physical well-being that makes the mind so easy when one is on the sea; and refined men who have lived in the forecastle readily declare that they were happy but for the invariable dirt. Instead of trooping to stuffy lodgings, those of my readers who have the nerve should, if not this year, then next summer, go right away and take a cheap and charming holiday on ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... along close to the right bank until within a short distance of the boom; then we must land the greater part of our men. These must march along the bank in their phalanx; the others must keep the boat moving close alongside, and from the forecastle they will be able to fire down upon the Danes and aid those on shore to drive them back and make their way to the end of the boom. They have but to cut the lashings there and the whole will swing round. But ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... quarter-deck to the homestead, while a boy of fourteen took the hereditary place before the mast, confronting the salt spray and the gale, which had blustered against his sire and grandsire. The boy, also, in due time, passed from the forecastle to the cabin, spent a tempestuous manhood, and returned from his world-wanderings, to grow old, and die, and mingle his dust with the natal earth. This long connection of a family with one spot, as its place ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... past Cape St. Vincent now. We went within about 400 yards of the cliffs and lighthouse in a calm moonlight, with porpoises springing from the sea, the men crooning long ballads as they lay idle on the forecastle, and the sails flapping uncertain on the yards. As we passed, there came a sudden breeze from land, hot and heavy-scented; and now as I write its warm rich flavour contrasts strongly with the salt air ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... me. I've been away in India for several years; and manners have changed so much that I sometimes don't know whether I'm at a respectable dinner-table or in a ship's forecastle. ...
— Pygmalion • George Bernard Shaw
... shrieked, begged, and implored, but his trembling hands were upon my throat. First he dragged me to my feet, then he threw me upon my knees, and at last, with that grim brutality which characterizes him, he directed me to go and get a mop and bucket from the forecastle and remove the dark red stains from the chair and deck. This he actually forced me to do, gloating over my horror as I removed for him the traces of his cowardly crime. Then, with his hand upon my shoulder, he said, 'Girl! ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... simple ditties. The odd mixture of manliness and childishness—of boldness and superstitious fears; of preposterous claims for wages and thoughtless extravagance; of obedience and discontent—all goes to make the queer compound called 'Jack.' How often have I laughed over the fun of the forecastle in these small fore and aft packets of ourn! and I think I would back that place for wit against any bar-room in New York or New Orleans, and I believe they take the rag ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... understand, that you can run across all sorts of horrible sights on one of these same wrecks," continued Teddy. "Sailors get drowned, you know, down in the hold or in the forecastle. I hope we don't discover anything like that now. I never did fancy ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... now entering the Straits, and expected to anchor the next day at Gibraltar, and Jack was forward on the forecastle, talking with Mesty, with whom he had contracted a great friendship, for there was nothing that Mesty would not have done for Jack, although he had not been three weeks in the ship; but a little reflection will show ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... at Harrigan, started to laugh, looked again, and then silently held the door open. Harrigan stepped through it and followed to the forecastle, a dingy retreat in the high bow of the ship. He had to bend low to pass through the door, and inside he found that he could not stand erect. It was his first experience of working aboard a ship, and he expected to find a scrupulous neatness, ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... delights in the spilled blood of violence and horror. Without arguing this matter of my general reputation, accepting it at its current face value, let me add that I have indeed lived life in a very rough school and have seen more than the average man's share of inhumanity and cruelty, from the forecastle and the prison, the slum and the desert, the execution-chamber and the lazar- house, to the battlefield and the military hospital. I have seen horrible deaths and mutilations. I have seen imbeciles hanged, because, being imbeciles, ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... falling down over those who had been killed or wounded, and it required all the bravery and example of the French captain, who was really a noble fellow, to rally the remainder of his men, which at last he succeeded in doing, and about forty of them gained our forecastle, from which they forced our weak crew, and retained possession, not following up the success, but apparently wailing till they were seconded by the Spaniard's boarding us on our lee quarter, which ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... incident impressed itself on Scorrier's memory, and that for a disconcerting reason. In the forecastle were the usual complement of emigrants. One evening, leaning across the rail to watch them, he felt a touch on his arm; and, looking round, saw Pippin's face and beard quivering in the lamplight. "Poor people!" ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... They were excellent, new "snekrs," nearly eighty feet long each; with double banks for twelve oars a side in the waist, which was open, save a fighting gangway along the sides; with high poop and forecastle decks; and with one large sail apiece, embroidered by Sigtryg's Princess and the other ladies with a huge white bear, which Hereward had chosen ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... and his companions hastened up the plank. They were welcomed on board with the shaking of hands; place was made for them round the basin; a sticky demijohn of molasses was added to the feast in honour of company, and an accordion brought from the forecastle and significantly laid by ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... our sins and our immortal souls, instead of urging us to be smart about the ship; and he did it, too, not as Mr. Drake might do, but in such a melancholy voice as if we were all at our last hour; so when we were free of our trouble, and out on the main again, we were all called by the drum to the forecastle, and there Mr. Drake sat on a sea-chest as solemn as a judge, so that not a man durst laugh, with a pair of pantoufles in his hand; and Mr. Fletcher was brought before him, trying to smile as if 'twas a jest for him too, between two guards; and there he was arraigned; and the witnesses were ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... from his cabin, and for some while we paced the planks together. There was a pleasant hush upon the ship; the silence was as refreshing as a fold of coolness lifting off the sea. A spun-yarn winch was clinking on the forecastle; from alongside rose the ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... who had already become a great favourite of mine from his modest, quiet deportment, as well as of all the gunroom-officers, although he had not been above a fortnight in the ship. He had let himself down over the bows by the cable to bathe. There were several of his comrades standing on the forecastle looking at him, and he asked one of them to go out on the spritsail-yard, and look round to see if there were any sharks in the neighbourhood; but all around was deep, clear, green water. He kept hold of the cable, however, and seemed determined not to put himself in harm's ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 579 - Volume 20, No. 579, December 8, 1832 • Various
... it they were standing one afternoon on the forecastle of the Exeter watching the coaling of a giant dreadnought from an electric collier when a naval officer, immaculate in white linen and surrounded by his staff, came aboard. After an exchange of salutes between the deck officer of the Exeter and the visiting officer, and a brief chat, ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... Brazil. Pirates and privateers scoured the seas to rob the treasure-ships, and great expeditions were sent out by England in war times for the same purpose. The imaginations of men ran riot during this feverish state of things, and people were ready to believe almost any yarn "spun" in the forecastle. ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... bale of cargo was stowed, and the hatches put on. The landsmen who had been employed went on shore, and Frank went forward to the forecastle, with ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... his head as the door of the forward cabins opened. A priest, followed by a group of slaves, went up to the raised forecastle. Under the priest's direction, the slaves busied themselves putting up a high, crimson and yellow curtain across the foredeck. They completed ...
— The Players • Everett B. Cole
... Stanwix!" said the captain, "an artful old seadog! I never yet knew one who did not think the sun rises and sets from poop to forecastle, who did not wheedle with all the young blood to get them ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... then the tale may flow from me. Haste, haste!" So Hallblithe went down from the poop, and in to the waist, where now the rowers were bending to their oars, and crying out fiercely as they tugged at the quivering ash; and he clomb on to the forecastle and went forward right to the dragon-head, and gazed long upon the land, while the dashing of the oar-blades made the semblance of a gale about the ship's black sides. Then he came back again to the Sea-eagle, who said to him: "Son, what hast ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris
... bridge. He was alone there. A deck-hand had hooded the brass of the binnacle and search-light, listening while the owner had called the master to account. Mayo knew that the full report of that affair would be carried to the forecastle. His position aboard the yacht had become intolerable. He wondered how much Marston would say aft. His cheeks were hot and rancor rasped in his thoughts. In the hearing of the girl he adored his shortcomings would be the subject for a few moments of contemptuous discourse, even as the ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... surprised that the captain did not order the oars to be put out and lashed in that position, for it was a recognized plan for preventing a ship from being boarded by an enemy, who could thus only approach her at the lofty poop and forecastle. ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... every moment to clutch the bulwark rail and pant for breath. He heard the shrill bird-like notes of the bosun's pipe. He saw the hands emerging from the forecastle, like bees out of a hive; he watched them surrounding the main-hatch. He watched the tarpaulin and locking-bars removed. He saw the hatch opened, and a burst of smoke—black, villainous smoke—ascend to the sky, solid as a ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... Captain Drew offered to let him work his passage to that place as one of the crew of the Nancy Bell. Without much hesitation the poor Swede accepted both these offers, and as soon as he had recovered from the effects of his experience on the ice raft was provided with a bunk in the forecastle. ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe
... naughty shipwrights up, with the kettles in their hands, And bound them round the forecastle to wait the King's commands. But 'Since ye have made your beds,' said the King, 'ye needs must lie thereon. For the sake of your wives and little ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... schooner Coral, a stanchly-built, sharp-bowed little vessel of forty tons burden, built for the Honolulu trade. She was about seven years old, very fast, and constructed as strongly as iron and wood could make her. The forecastle, cook's quarters and cabin were all under deck, so that in heavy weather there was no danger of being washed from one's bunk whenever a big sea came thundering ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... 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 in Guernsey), and a tight thing, as Ingram had said. I did not go into the cabin, which occupied all the forecastle, but wrapping myself in my cloak, lay down along the stern-sheets, and feigned to be asleep, for I was so excited by the prospect of meeting Madeline, that I could no longer join in the conversation of the crew. ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... of the vessel was washed away, but the forecastle and poop remained more or less intact. The ship, after settling on the rock, had broken her back, and the great timbers, where the copper sheathing and planks had been torn away, stood up like ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... new shape of danger. The inrush of water when the lighter heeled over unsealed his lips. His shriek, "Save me!" was the first distinct warning of the collision for the people on board the steamer. Next moment the wire shroud parted, and the released anchor swept over the lighter's forecastle. It came against the breast of Senor Hirsch, who simply seized hold of it, without in the least knowing what it was, but curling his arms and legs upon the part above the fluke with an invincible, unreasonable tenacity. The lighter yawed off wide, and the ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... changed to anger and disappointment, when they discovered that the schooner had been already pillaged of everything of value about her. Even the cabin door and windows were gone, and every rope and spar and sail; the cook's galley, hold and forecastle plundered of every article worth carrying off, and an air of general desolation and ruthless ransacking pervaded her from ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume XIII, No. 51: November 12, 1892 • Various
... Ogilvy and I," continued the captain, "have gone over the fogs'l" (meaning the forecastle) "together, and we find that, by the use of mops, buckets, water, and swabs, the place can be made clean. By the use of paper, paint, and whitewash, it can be made respectable; and, by the use of furniture, pictures, ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... day, in the morning, the wind increased, and we had all hands at work to strike our topmasts, and make everything snug and close, that the ship might ride as easy as possible. By noon the sea went very high indeed, and our ship rode forecastle in, shipped several seas, and we thought once or twice our anchor had come home; upon which our master ordered out the sheet-anchor, so that we rode with two anchors ahead, and the cables veered out ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... to work in another town, he took to drink; then, once, in a drunken spree, he found himself in New York without knowing how. But it was in what he called a sailors' boarding-house, and one morning, after he had been drinking overnight "with a very pleasant gentleman," he found himself in the forecastle of a ship bound for Holland, and when the mate came and cursed him up and cursed him out he found himself in the foretop. I give it partly in his own language, because I cannot help it; and I only wish I could give it wholly in his language; it was so graphic and ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... captain's, and the others occupied by two men each. There is not the same amount of discipline on board these vessels, which are out for so short a time, as upon merchantmen or whalers, and all hands eat at the same table. We found the feast spread in the forecastle, which was also used as the galley, and was consequently oppressively warm to us from the north, in this thick, sultry weather. On each side of the forecastle I observed three large bunks, each of which accommodated at least two men. ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... brought him a message from the English lady. She was in the saloon, and wished to see him. He could scarcely believe this; for it was now past midnight, and she had never come into the saloon before. But he went down through the forecastle, and through his own stateroom, and opened ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... Seamen's Act, 1894, and the amending Acts of the two following years, mitigate the old-fashioned severity of punishments for refusal of duty, assaults on the high seas, and other nautical offences. The forecastle and the accommodation thereof become subject to the fiat of the Government inspector, as are factories on shore. Regular payment of wages is stipulated for, overcrowding amongst passengers is forbidden. Complete powers are given to the marine authorities to ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... minds the golden women of the islands, and they with red flowers in their hair? Is this me that fought side by side with good shipmates in Callao? Am I listening to the chatter of these mild people, me that's heard grand stories in the forecastle of how this man was marooned in the Bahamas, and that man was married to a Maori queen, by God? Me, the hero that dowsed skysails, and they cracking like guns. Is this lousy room a place for me that's used to a ship as clean as a cat from stem to stern?' And you stand up bravely, and you look the ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... looked, they saw that the Antelope had become an object of singular attention and interest to those on board of the steamer. Men were on the forecastle, others on the main deck, the officers were on the quarter-deck, and all were earnestly scrutinizing the Antelope. One of them was looking at her through his glass. The Antelope, as she lay at anchor, was now turned with her stern towards the steamer, and her sails flapping ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille
... polished; the passengers are preparing for another voyage to some of the islands further west, as Trinidad, St. Vincent, Barbadoes, Martinique, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, etc. On entering the harbour guns are fired in our honour, and we return the compliment by firing our six-pounder from the forecastle, the Colonial steamer comes alongside our ship, when there are cheers and waving of handkerchiefs and handshaking; the bumboats come alongside also and many people, and board our ship, offering us a great variety of things ...
— The Stoker's Catechism • W. J. Connor
... already large coal bunkers had been added to until she was enabled to carry enough coal to give her a tremendous cruising radius. It was in order to economize on fuel she was rigged for the carrying of sail when she encountered a good slant of wind. Her forecastle, originally the dark, wet hole common to whalers, had been built up till it was a commodious chamber fitted with bunks at the sides and a swinging table in the center, which could be hoisted up out of the way when not in use. Like the officers' cabins, ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... This was immediately returned from the vessel by some sixty rifle and musket shots, and discharges of small arms were continued in rapid succession from both sides for some time. The executive officer of the Sachem, Mr. J. G. Oltmanns, of the United States Coast Survey, while on the forecastle directing the crew, was dangerously wounded by a rifle ball in the breast, and fell. He was at once removed to the cabin, and Acting Assistant Harris directed to take his place. This he did instantly, and ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the officer was not to be trifled with, went forward and summoned eight ruffianly-looking fellows who had been stowed away in the forecastle. Three or four were apparently Englishmen, the others black or brown men, one a Kanaka, the other a New Zealander. By the mate's orders they lifted off the hatches, and went below. Archie observed that they had the butts of pistols sticking out of the breasts of their shirts, ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... the lad climbed up over the roof of the forecastle, and, fearlessly catching hold of the end of the walking-beam when it inclined toward him with the next oscillation of the engine, swung himself lithely on top of the machinery. It was with some difficulty ...
— Southern Stories - Retold from St. Nicholas • Various
... ships during the sailing age was much greater than the change in guns. More sails and better ones were used. The old forecastle, once something really like a little castle set up on deck, was made lower and lower, till it was left out altogether; though the name remains to describe the front part of every ship, and is now pronounced fo'c's'le or foxle. The same sort of ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... soon and eagerly should spring to life. At the belt of every oarsman dangled a sword, for boarders' work was more than likely. Thirty spare rowers rested impatiently on the centre deck, ready to leap wherever needed. On the forecastle commanded the proreus, Ameinias's lieutenant, and with him the keleustes, the oar master who must give time on his sounding-board for the rowing, and never fail,—not though the ships around reeled down to watery grave. And finally on the poop by the captain stood the "governor,"—knotted, ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... be built for the trade between Filipinas and Nueva Espana shall have and shall without fail carry their hearths under the forecastle, and in no other part. In no case shall they be carried above deck. [Felipe ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXV, 1635-36 • Various
... sailing, and I was very sleepy and stupid in spite of the abuse with which Mr. Whippleton regaled me. He had brought his whiskey bottles back with him, and several times he imbibed from one of them. Peter went forward with his bottle, and stretched himself on the forecastle. ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic
... now, and this will merely bring them on. He will see snakes, ghosts, goblins, shipwrecks, fire, and all sorts of things. It works in two or three hours. Just drop it into his drinking pot while the port forecastle ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... our order, for methinks that between the Needle rocks and the Alum cliffs yonder I can catch a glimpse of the topmasts of the galleys. Hewett, Cook, Johnson, Cunningham, your men are of the poop-guard. Thornbury, Walters, Hackett, Baddlesmere, you are with Sir Oliver on the forecastle. Simon, you bide with your lord's banner; but ten men ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... officer was not the man to neglect a search because the agent of Kutchuk Ali protested his innocence, and exhibited the apparently naked character of his vessel. She appeared suspiciously full of corn for a boat homeward bound. There was an awkward smell about the closely-boarded forecastle which resembled that of unwashed negroes. Abd-el-Kader drew a steel ramrod from a soldier's rifle, and probed ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... don't know which is the biggest fool of the two,' said Uncle Bat, very rudely.' As for him, if I had him on the forecastle of a man-of-war for a day or two, I'd soon teach him to ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... enclosed with a net of silver cords in which they could find no opening. Looking through its meshes they noted that the oars were inboard, and the great purple sails set upon the mast, also that the rowers were gone, perchance to rest beneath the deck, while on the forecastle of the ship stood the captain, white-robed and masked, and aft the steersman, also still masked, so that they could see nothing of their faces. Now, too, they were no longer sailing on a river, but down a canal bordered by banks of sand on either side, ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... the minister, slowly. He was fighting with all his might to keep his nerves under control. His impulse was to leap up those steps, rush across that deck, spring into the dory and row, anywhere to get away from the horror of that forecastle. ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Legree heard no voice. That voice is one he never shall hear. He only glared for a moment on the downcast face of Tom, and walked off. He took Tom's trunk, which contained a very neat and abundant wardrobe, to the forecastle, where it was soon surrounded by various hands of the boat. With much laughing, at the expense of niggers who tried to be gentlemen, the articles very readily were sold to one and another, and the empty trunk finally put up at auction. It was a good joke, they all thought, ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... eyes, used to great spaces, like the eyes of sailors. The same sensation of the sea and the open, which he had felt just now on approaching Guggi, Tartarin again felt here, in presence of these mariners of the glacier in this close cabin, low and smoky, the regular forecastle of a ship; in the dripping of the snow from the roof as it melted with the warmth; in the great gusts of wind, shaking everything, cracking the boards, fluttering the flame of the lamp, and falling abruptly into vast, unnatural silence, like ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... had no charms for him; but fiction had; and he got it galore; for he cruised about the forecastle, and there the quartermasters and old seamen spun him yarns that ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... and there on the forecastle were groups of lazy-looking seamen; and a man walked the quarter-deck, glancing anxiously aloft. The sea was as smooth as a mirror, and that dreadful stillness was in the air which so often preludes a terrific ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... the water, all awash from the break of her topgallant-forecastle to the lift of her high poop-deck, the green seas running under her bridge and about her superstructure, swayed a great mass of iron and steel of full five thousand tons! Ship without a soul! A wisp of a flag, upside down, still ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... difficult to get fresh supplies en route. He had to do the same with the store-rooms, and managed so well that he succeeded in laying in provisions enough for two years. There was abundance of money at his command, and enough remained to buy a cannon, on a pivot carriage, which he mounted on the forecastle. There was no knowing what might happen, and it is always well to be able to send a good round bullet flying ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... aunt Wight, and see Woolly's wife, who is a pretty woman, and after supper, being very merry, in abusing my aunt with Dr. Venner, we home, and I to do something in my accounts, and so to bed. The Revenge having her forecastle blown up with powder to the killing of some men in the River, and the Dyamond's being overset in the careening at Sheernesse, are further marks of the method all the King's work is now done in. The Foresight also and another come to disasters in ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys |
