"Skiff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... boy, in a small, bright-painted and half-decked skiff, sailed close in to the wall and let go his sheet to spill the wind. "Want ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... My skiff is of bark from the white birch-tree, A butterfly's wing is my sail, And twisted grasses my cordage be, Stretched taut by ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... book, this finale of jingling singing will jar upon the public ear; all men must shrink from a lengthy snake with a rattle in its tail: and this ballast a-stern of over-ponderous poetry may chance to swamp so frail a skiff. But I have promised a dozen sonnets in this after-thought Appendix; yea, and I will keep that promise at all mortal hazards, even to the superadded unit proverbial of dispensing Fornarinas. Ten have been told off fairly, and now we come upon the gay court-cards. ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... cannot imagine such water; why should it be blue on top, and green when you look down into it? I have a little skiff of my own in which I drift, and I have been happy for hours, studying the bottom; you see every colour of the rainbow, and all as clear as in an aquarium. I have been fishing, too, and have caught a tarpon. That is supposed to be a great adventure, and it really is quite thrilling ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... the boat which had just been so solemnly "beached" had been her father's. It was a good boat, strong in every timber, an old world Buckie skiff, notorious for fending in foundering seas; but it had failed Promoter in the last storm, and three days after he and his sons had gone to the bottom had been found floating ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... retreat and defense for the inhabitants and their flocks, in case of alarm or attack. They are governed in the manner of the families of the patriarchs, the Sheck of the village being both judge and captain. Saw at this island a small skiff, the first boat belonging to the inhabitants of the country that I have ...
— A Narrative of the Expedition to Dongola and Sennaar • George Bethune English
... the authorities to remain at her moorings until further notice, in consequence of the wharfage being required for military purposes. Jim and Terry thereupon got into conversation with the man in charge of the boat, and made arrangements with him to come off that same night in a small skiff and take them ashore. ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... we were also furnished with a great bote, which was able to cary 10 tunnes of water, which at our returne homewards we towed all the way from Chio vntill we came through the straight of Gibraltar into the maine Ocean. We had also a great long boat and a skiff. We were out vpon this voyage eleuen moneths, yet in all this time there died of sicknesse but one man, whose name was George Forrest, being seruant to our Carpenter called ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, v5 - Central and Southern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... wind was gentle, and the life-savers were polishin' their boat in full view of the wondherin' throng; and I thought of this ould tub out here on the ind of a chain and pitied thim all. Thin I sthrolled around the point to the bay and found me bould Tad dhrillin' his gang in an ould skiff, with home-made oars in their little fists and Tad sthandin' in the stern-sheets, with a huge steerin' sweep between his arms and much loud language in his mouth. When I appeared they looked at me and Tad swung his boat up to the beach ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... handsome or so expert." Thus they expressed their sentiments. Then he began his speech of impudence: "Listen, thou knight, who art bound for the sword-bridge! If thou wishest, thou shalt cross the water very easily and comfortably. I will quickly have thee ferried over in a skiff. But once on the other side, I will make thee pay me toll, and I will take thy head, if I please to do so, or if not, thou shalt be held at my discretion." And he replies that he is not seeking trouble, and that he will never risk his head in such an adventure for any consideration. ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... without protection from the heat or venomous insects. Then he managed to slip unobserved into the dense swamp, and began to make his way to the fleet. Toward evening he came out on a small stream, near a camp of Confederate soldiers. They had moored to the bank a skiff, and, with equal stealth and daring, he managed to steal this and to paddle down-stream. Hour after hour he paddled on through the fading light, and then through the darkness. At last, utterly worn out, he found ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... treading the innumerable ripples with an incessant weltering splash; and until I got my eye above the window-sill I could not comprehend why the watchmen had taken no alarm. One glance, however, was sufficient; and it was only one glance that I durst take from that unsteady skiff. It showed me Hands and his companion locked together in deadly wrestle, each with a hand upon the ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hadn't gone on the excursion,—as soon as he knew that the boat was signalling for help and that Miss Lawson was sending up rockets,—rushed for a row boat, grabbed an oar (two would have hampered him), and paddled madly out into the lake. He struck right out into the dark with the crazy skiff almost sinking beneath his feet. But they got him. They rescued him. They watched him, almost dead with exhaustion, make his way to the steamer, where he was hauled up with ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... restraint by the volleys of culverin and cannon, slipped anchor, and passing from the body of the fleet, lay close up to the 'War Sprite,' pushing the 'Dreadnought' on one side. Raleigh, seeing him coming, went to meet him in his skiff, and begged him to see that the fly-boats were sent, as the battery was beginning to be more than his ships could bear. The Lord Admiral was following Essex, and Raleigh passed on to him with the same entreaty. This parley between ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... MERIVALE,—I am motoring down to Hampton, and will gladly meet you there. I shall wire for the skiff and lunch. Au revoir." ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... was much like our cedar "shells" used at regattas,—a narrow skiff about twenty-three feet in length by eighteen inches in width. At the centre there was a small round hole just large enough for one to sit with his legs under the seal-skin deck, which was bound tightly to ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... early dawn of morning could be seen the welcome sight of land. Fortunately they lighted on the only secure entrance through the reefs. The vessel was run ashore and wedged between two rocks, and thereby was preserved from sinking, till by means of a boat and skiff the whole crew of one hundred and fifty, with provisions, tackle and stores, reached the land. At that time the hogs still abounded, and these, with the turtle, birds and fish which they caught, afforded excellent food for the castaways. The Isle of Devils Sir ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II. No. 5, February, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... up from the pier. Instantly a boat was sent out, and the little freight steamer lay by and put out her skiff. ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... through the advance line of vessels, and make the way to the front. Raleigh was chafing with rage because the fly-boats did not come, yet, in spite of the danger of being shot, he jumped into a light skiff, and was rowed over to the ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... Yesterday we missed him, but in the evening a little boat drifted up on the sands, and in it lay the fox, covered with blood. While his wounds were being tended in the palace with all the care imaginable, I set out to consult a wizard, who told me that I must enter the skiff and seek for the prince and princess of Lombardy, and that if, in twenty-four hours, I could bring them into the presence of the fox, his life would be saved. On a rock along the beach I found your father with an arrow through his shoulder, from the ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... while tacking slowly down the bay, I met the Marquis. He was pulling himself in a small skiff, and when he saw me he made haste to come alongside and hitch on. At first I wondered whether it would not be against his father's wishes that he should enter into conversation with such a worldly person as myself. But he evidently saw what was passing in my mind, and banished ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... a hint for your stupidity in that matter. Take the maid an' be done with it. God be thanked I isn't a widower-man. If I was, I'd bring your chance into peril soon enough," said his father. "'Tis t' be a fair day for fishin' the Skiff-an'-Punt grounds the morrow. Go t' bed. I'll pray that wisdom may overcome your ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... few minutes, the cardinal was turning away in extreme disappointment, when a small skiff, rowed by a female hand, shot round an angle of the lake and swiftly approached them. A glance from Patch would have told Wolsey, had he required any such information, that this was the forester's granddaughter. Her beauty quite ravished him, and drew from him an exclamation of wonder and delight. ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... wilt take the skiff, Roland, and two of my people,... and fetch off certain plate ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell
... love with Culver's half-breed American," said Cosmo Fletcher brutally, nearly three weeks later. He had just been rejected finally and emphatically by the girl who faced him in the stern of his skiff. ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... of Bertha, even if he did not speak to her; and at the risk of being captured, he determined to stay in the neighborhood of Woodville till the next morning. Near the place where he sat there was a skiff moored to the bank. He hauled it in, and took up the oars. He did not mean to steal it, only to borrow it till the next morning. With this comfortable reflection he cast off the painter, and pulled over to the other ...
— Work and Win - or, Noddy Newman on a Cruise • Oliver Optic
... he did not realize what had happened, and then, with angry self-reproach, he flung the oars into the rowlocks of his skiff and drove down and athwart the stream ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... In a skiff, spreading a sprit sail, they crossed the Rhine at Bingen by that postmaster's assurance of "Certainly, as good a ferry as there is in Germany.—Ja—Ja—we do it often." Through the Duchy of Nassau they tested its wines from Johannesberg to Wiesbaden. Then up the Main to Frankfort, on to ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips
... A skiff, a crumpled throwaway, Elijah is coming, rode lightly down the Liffey, under Loopline bridge, shooting the rapids where water chafed around the bridgepiers, sailing eastward past hulls and anchorchains, between the Customhouse old ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... in looking at his game that he thought it not worth while to look at whoever might be passing in the skiff; so, once more, Dorothy slid out of danger down ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose
... Trans-Atlantic Skiff, a certain Old Traveler, who owed allegiance to George and Mary, reclined on his Cervical Vertebrae with a Plaid Shawl across him ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... mysterious green-painted cupboards, Pichou would lie contentedly at his feet. In the frosty autumnal mornings, when the brant were flocking in the marshes at the head of the bay, they would go out hunting together in a skiff. And who could lie so still as Pichou when the game was approaching? Or who could spring so quickly and joyously to retrieve a wounded bird? But best of all were the long walks on Sunday afternoons, on the yellow beach that stretched away toward the Moisie, or through the fir-forest behind the ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... returned Steamboat Dan. "I've been aboard the yacht since eight o'clock until twenty minutes ago. I came ashore in that skiff. Sure, he ought to be in the drain; they've been sending down ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... night, good an' cleah, Skiff o' snow upon de groun'; Jes' 'bout fall-time o' de yeah W'en de leaves is dry an brown; Tek a dog an' tek a axe, Tek a lantu'n in yo' han', Step light whah de switches cracks, Fu' dey 's huntin' in de lan'. Down thoo de valleys an' ovah de ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... smiled. Her chin lifted and her brows drew together. I recognized that look; I had seen it before, on that afternoon when I announced my intention of carrying her from the dingy to the skiff. ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... skiff-boat neared: I heard them talk, 'Why, this is strange, I trow![59] Where are those lights so many and fair, 525 That signal made ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various
... statement, Williamson strolled down to the beach, untying a small skiff and pulling himself out to the newer of the pair of very capable submarine torpedo boats that lay at moorings out in the ...
— The Submarine Boys' Lightning Cruise - The Young Kings of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... fantastic forms which at night might be taken for spirits of the powers of nature. The mountain-dweller saw them through the panes of his little window. They sailed in hosts before the Ice Maiden as she came out of her palace of ice. Then she seated herself on the trunk of the fir-tree as on a broken skiff, and the water from the glaciers carried her down the river to the ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... that is concerned,' exclaimed the king, 'we shall send for your wife. She shall live with you at Windsor.' But my husband laughed and said: 'She will never come, your majesty. She would not cross the Danube in a skiff, much less make a trip beyond the sea. And, therefore, there is nothing left to me but to return myself to my little wife.' And he did so, and left the king, and the queen, and all the noble lords and ladies, and came back ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... Windermere—what poetry belongs To such a name—deep, pure and beautiful, As its trout-peopled wave!—on Windermere Our skiff pursued its way amid the calm Which fill'd the heart with holiest communings. On Windermere—what scenes entranced the eye That wander'd o'er them! either undefined Or traced upon the outline of the sky. Afar the lovely panorama glow'd, Until the mountains, on whose purple brows ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 575 - 10 Nov 1832 • Various
... a two-man rowboat which possesses as many of the different, and sometimes contradictory, good points of the canoe, skiff, punt, and lifeboat as it is possible to {160} combine in a single craft. It can be rowed, sculled, sailed, or driven by a motor. It is the first aquatic plaything for the boys, and often the last salvation ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood
... the last gun, the battery on the Island had been quitted by the officer in command, who, descending to the beach, preceded by two of his men, stepped into a light skiff that lay chained to the gnarled root of a tree overhanging the current, and close under the battery. A few sturdy strokes of the oars soon brought the boat into the centre of the stream, when the stout, broad built, figure, and carbuncled ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... that he had once taken a drive in a hired tandem, but Etonians who knew him as a schoolboy decided that an aspiring memory here made him boast of crimes that were not his. He was assiduous in the Eton practice of working a small boat, whether skiff, funny, or wherry, single-handed. In the masquerade of Montem he figured complacently in all the glories of the costume of a Greek patriot, for he was a faithful Canningite; the heroic struggle against the Turk was at its fiercest, ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... drank his beer and thumped off for the water front, satisfied that the village would hear nothing from Mr. Donovan. Nevertheless, it was shameful to let a hundred go that easy; twenty would have served. He was about to hail the skiff when he was accosted by the quiet little man he had recently observed sitting alone in ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... and Weston. Great, however, was the surprise of Collins, then a little in advance, when, on nearing the spot where the boat lay moored, he beheld, not those of who they were in search, but a naked, and hideously painted savage, in the very act of untying the rope by which the skiff was fastened to the knotted and projecting root of the tree. Sensible that there was impending danger, although he knew not of what precise kind, inasmuch as there was no Reason to apprehend anything hostile from ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... East. At Noon sounded, but had no ground with 240 fathoms of line; hoisted a Boat out to try if there was any Current, but found none. The weather was such as to admit Mr. Banks to row round the Ship in a Lighterman's Skiff shooting birds. Wind, South-East by East, South-South-East, East; course, North-West by West; distance, 106 miles; latitude 58 degrees 46 minutes South, longitude 78 degrees ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... of their search was changed. They wanted a small, handy skiff on hire. It did not turn out an easy quest, but by the late afternoon they succeeded in obtaining the desired article. They purchased also close-fitting caps and rubber-soled shoes, together with some food for the night, a couple of electric torches, and a yard of black ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... had been a little awry while Mrs. James neglected her steering to wave her handkerchief to her husband and Mrs. Stephen; but now the light skiff went straight onward again, and they could soon see nothing more of the two figures it contained than Olive's light mantle and Stephen's white shirt ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... if my skiff might brave The winds that lift the ocean wave, The mountain stream that loops and swerves Through my broad meadow's channelled curves Should waft me on from bound to bound To where the River weds the Sound, The Sound should give me to the ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... bearers. The disabled physician was accommodated with a seat on the bottom of the scow, two of the Richards boys being displaced in his favour. The Captain reported a prize in the shape of a handsome varnished skiff, which he found drawn up on some skids or rollers at the foot of a great mass of rock, that seemed as if cut all about in regular form, in readiness for quarrying. The finding of the boat just opposite it, the worn appearance of the ground, the absence of moss ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... the steeps, Where'er, below, amid the savage scene Peeps out a little speck of smiling green. A garden-plot the mountain air perfumes, Mid the dark pines a little orchard blooms; A zig-zag path from the domestic skiff, Threading the painful crag, surmounts ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... might appear to one seated in a skiff, and floating down the tranquil Thames, with its well-defined banks. But far different is the aspect of the stupendous Solimoes to the ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... the boat-house pier lay a skiff, the oars resting upon the seats. I knew it was wrong to make use of the craft, but "necessity knows no law," ...
— True to Himself • Edward Stratemeyer
... party of men, had remained on shore, at the observatory near the morai. Before long the natives began to attack them, but met with so warm a reception that they willingly agreed to a truce. As soon as the murderers of Cook had retired, a party of young midshipmen pulled to the shore in a skiff, where they saw the bodies of the marines lying without sign of life; but the danger of landing was ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... to embark with thee On the smooth surface of a summer sea, And would forsake the skiff and make the shore When the winds whistle and ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... fast towed through the water, as the land-breeze, driving me gently, increased my distance from the land. For some moments I was rather scared; the oars were left on shore, and I had no means of propelling my little skiff. ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... descended to a lower plateau, where now lies the suburb of St. Roch, and, still advancing, reached a pleasant spot at the extremity of the Pointe-aux-Livres, a tract of meadow land nearly inclosed by a sudden bend of the St. Charles. Here lay a canoe or skiff; and, paddling across the narrow stream, Le Jeune saw on the meadow, two hundred yards from the bank, a square inclosure formed of palisades, like a modern picket fort of the Indian frontier. [ 1 ] Within this inclosure were two buildings, ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... or two of the penning of this epistle, Tom realised one of the objects of his young Oxford ambition, and succeeded in embarking in a skiff by himself. He had been such a proficient in all the Rugby games that he started off in the full confidence that, if he could only have a turn or two alone, he should satisfy not only himself but everybody else ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... satisfied, and went into the house to dress for the occasion. He was soon ready, and walked down the beach towards the skiff he used to go off to the sail-boat. The sky was overcast, and the wind blew a smashing breeze, promising a lively race. The Juno had been entered for the regatta, but she was still at her moorings off the shop, and Donald ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic
... spoon, which is in reverse position, the larger end being turned outwards and the point inwards. Elsewhere, a young girl (fig. 251) playing upon a long- necked lute as she trips along, is framed in by two flowering stems. Sometimes the fair musician is standing upright in a tiny skiff (fig. 252); and sometimes a girl bearing offerings is substituted for the lute player. Another example represents a slave toiling under the weight of an enormous sack. The age and physiognomy of each of these personages is clearly indicated. The lotus gatherer is of good birth, as may ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... something else—chasing after your boat. Mr. Emerson was in great distress, and said, 'I told her not to go, but she is so self-willed.' And then he jumped into a boat and, taking the oars, went gliding out after you as swiftly as the wind. I never saw mortal arm make a boat fly as he did that little skiff. And I saw him strike the monster with his oar just as his huge jaws were opened to devour you. Dear! dear; but I was frightened, and woke up all in ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur
... that season, and he had been obliged to take others at hazard. Among them was a broad-shouldered, black-bearded fellow clad in a leather jerkin, with spurs upon his heels—bloody spurs—that he seemed to have found no time to take off. This hard rider came aboard in a skiff after the anchor was up, and, having cast the skiff adrift, offered good money for a passage to Spain or any other foreign port, and paid it down upon the nail. He, Goody, had taken the money, though with ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... fregi, break, breach; fagus, [Greek: phega], beech, f changed into b, and g into ch, which are letters near akin; frigesco, freeze, frigesco, fresh, sc into sh, as above in bishop, fish, so in scapha, skiff, skip, and refrigesco, refresh; but viresco, fresh; phlebotamus, fleam; bovina, beef; vitulina, veal; scutifer, squire; poenitentia, penance; sanctuarium, sanctuary, sentry; quaesitio, chase; perquisitio, ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... shall shine. Be the black-brow'd Pluto told, And the Stygian boatman old, Whose rude hands grasp the oar, the rudder guide, The dead conveying o'er the tide,— Let him be told, so rich a freight before His light skiff never bore; Tell him that o'er the joyless lakes The noblest of her sex her dreary ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... wilderness, one old chief dressed in black bearskin gesticulating protest against the cross till Cartier explained by signs that the whites would come again. Two savages were invited on board. By accident or design, as they stepped on deck, their skiff was upset and set adrift. The astonished natives found themselves in the white men's power, but food and gay clothing allayed fear. They willingly consented to accompany Cartier to France. Somewhere north of Gaspe ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... city, a network of passages along which, with the lower branches of the trees caressingly brushing against them, they softly glided, alone, as it were, in the world, with the ringdoves and the kingfishers. He at times had to spring out upon the sand, with bare legs, to push off the skiff. She bravely plied the oars, bent on forcing her way against the strongest currents, and exulting in her strength. And in the evening they ate cabbage soup in the kitchen, laughing at Melie's stupidity, as they had laughed at it the day before; to begin the ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... wood, drawing water; and all this without being ordered. Lay any command on him, and the stubborn sea-urchin was sure to rebel. He was never so much at home, however, as when on the water, plying about in skiff or canoe, entirely alone, fishing, crabbing, or grabbing for oysters, and would bring home quantities for the larder of the Wild Goose, which he would throw down at the kitchen door, with a growl. No wind nor weather deterred him from launching forth on his favorite element: indeed, the wilder the ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... said Stafford, with a smile, as he signed to the man to bring up a skiff. "Now, let me make you as comfortable as I can. We ought to have had a gondola," he added, as he handed her to the seat in ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... sandhills to the east. His appearance was at first unremarked: Scougal not expecting him so early, and my gentry watching on the other side. Then they awoke on board the Thistle, and it seemed they had all in readiness, for there was scarce a second's bustle on the deck before we saw a skiff put round her stern and begin to pull lively for the coast. Almost at the same moment of time, and perhaps half a mile away towards Gillane Ness, the figure of a man appeared for a blink upon a sandhill, waving with his arms; and though he was gone again in the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... later Francis Vere with Captain Allen and the two boys took their seats in the stern of a skiff manned by six rowers. In the bow were the servitors of the two officers, and the luggage was stowed in the ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... confident was the company of success that the hamlet was thrown into a fever of excitement by the establishment of a boatyard and, the actual construction of a bateau; but a Democratic Congress turned its back on the proposed improvement. No boat bigger than a skiff ever ascended Salt River, though there was a wild report, evidently a hoax, that a party of picnickers had seen one night a ghostly steamer, loaded and manned, puffing up the stream. An old Scotchman, Hugh Robinson, when he heard of ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... keel of a skiff which lay upon the deck. He groaned sadly and held his green face between his two hands. "I would gladly sling you into the sea once more, master-shipman," said he, "if by so doing I could get off this most accursed vessel of thine. Or if you would wish to have your ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... now in the outer harbour and not far from the Watergate which led into the inner castle-haven. Presently an officer of the guard put off in a skiff and came on board the vessel. He held a little conversation with the two boatmen, observed that the castle was—much in want of full, took a survey of the turf with which the ship was apparently laden, and then lounged into the little cabin. Here he was only separated ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... The skiff passed the little point or platform of rock on which the fire was blazing, and running about two boats' length farther, stopped where the cavern (for it was already arched overhead) ascended from the water by five or six broad ledges of rocks, so easy and regular that they might be termed natural ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... her character and motives. When the Fifth Avenue Hotel is burning the great lady is amazed at such behavior, and shrieks peremptory orders to have the fire put out immediately. When she reaches Plum Island, and is transferred from the steamboat to the skiff which is to carry her ashore, she is "angrily scared at the seething waters and the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... fisher's skiff Swift from beneath some shadowy cliff Dart, like a gust of wind; And, as she skimm'd the sunny lake, In many a playful wreath her wake Far-trailing, like a silvery snake, ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... rocks a-lee, The dancing skiff puts forth to sea. The lone dissenter in the blast Recoils before the sight aghast. But she, although the heavens be black, Holds on upon the starboard tack. For why? although today she sink Still safe she sails in printers' ink, And though today ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... vessel at once capsized and went down. Five of her crew immediately perished; but the remaining two succeeded in getting a hold in the cross-trees of the mainmast, which were above water, where they clung for nearly an hour. It was then that the three heroic brothers took a small flat-bottomed skiff, twelve feet long, three feet wide, and fifteen inches deep, the only boat available on the coast, and leaving their weeping wives and children, who formed a part of the watching group of forty or fifty persons on the shore, went out in this frail shell to the rescue. ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... the Revolutionary War, a Swede named Jeremiah Dobbs, established a ferry here connecting with the northern end of the Palisades (visible on the left across the river). Originally only a dugout or skiff, it was the first ferry north of Manhattan, and was kept up by the Dobbs family for a century. In times past the residents have often tried to change the name of the town to something more "distinguished," but the old name ...
— The Greatest Highway in the World • Anonymous
... cypress-swamp to the Mississippi River, opposite New Orleans. He would have pressed Mr. Tarbox to bear him company; but before he could ask twice, Mr. Tarbox had consented. They went in a cat-rigged skiff, with a stalwart negro rowing or towing whenever the ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... must have got off the road," announced the stranger. Then he peered out across the river: "Say! Ain't that a skiff coming yonder?" he inquired. ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... height which skirt many parts of the Antarctic shores. Piedmont. Coastwise stretches of the ancient ice sheet which once covered the Antarctic Continent, remaining either on the land, or wholly or partially afloat. Pram. A Norwegian skiff, with a spoon bow. Primus. A portable stove for cooking. Ramp. A great embankment of morainic material with ice beneath, once part of the glacier, on the lowest slopes of Erebus at the landward ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... accompanied the larger boat in their own skiff. It was an unwieldy craft, with but one pair of oars, and as the two young men were not accustomed to rowing together, and as Mr. Raybold was not accustomed to rowing at all and did not like it, ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton
... The blood of innocence! Thou, who art mercy, Spare a father's tears! Thou, who art love, Look on a mother's anguish! Thou, who art justice, Save! oh, save their children! Thou, who art power, Strengthen my hands to-night. [Rises. Now, may an angel's hand direct my skiff Straight to their camp, till with one blow I strike Their freedom ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... long, and so narrow that to look over one's shoulder in it was a manoeuvre of extreme delicacy, especially where the rapids caused the water to be in wild commotion. I was told that it would go down stream like an arrow, and so it did. There was no need to row hard, for the current took the fragile skiff along with it so fast that the trees on the banks sped by as if they were running races, and every few minutes brought a change of landscape. It was very delightful; only one sensation of movement could have been ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... sloop-of-war, propelled by the stout arms of a couple of seamen, while two persons sat in the stern, a closer examination of whom would have revealed them to be the captain of the ship and surgeon. At the same moment there shot out from a little nook or bay in the rear of the barracoons, a light skiff propelled by a single oarsman, who rowed his bark in true seamen style, cross-handed, while a second party sat in the stern. The rower was Captain Ratlin, and his companion was the swarthy and fierce-looking Don Leonardo. That the same purpose guided the course of ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... launch; life boat, long boat, jolly boat, bum boat, fly boat, cock boat, ferry boat, canal boat; swamp boat, ark, bully, battery, bateau [Can.], broadhorn^, dory, droger^, drogher; dugout, durham boat, flatboat, galiot^; shallop^, gig, funny, skiff, dingy, scow, cockleshell, wherry, coble^, punt, cog, kedge, lerret^; eight oar, four oar, pair oar; randan^; outrigger; float, raft, pontoon; prame^; iceboat, ice canoe, ice yacht. catamaran, hydroplane, hovercraft, coracle, gondola, carvel^, caravel; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... may: I come now to the extraordinary fact, which is the butt-end of this story. It happened late one night, that Yan Yost Vanderscamp was returning across the broad bay, in his light skiff, rowed by his man Pluto. He had been carousing on board of a vessel, newly arrived, and was somewhat obfuscated in intellect, by the liquor he had imbibed. It was a still, sultry night; a heavy mass of lurid clouds was rising in the west, with the ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... skiff in mid-river, a young man rowing toward the dead city rested on his oars and looked over his shoulder to the temple on the hilltop. There was something very boyish in the reverent eagerness with which his dark eyes rested upon the pile, tracing the splendid lines from its broad, gray base to ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... them the worst. No boat had left the ship, no Margaret had come aboard her. But some six hours before they had watched the Spanish vessel, San Antonio, that had been berthed above them, pass down the river. Moreover, two watermen in a skiff, who brought them fresh meat, had told them that while they were delivering three sheep and some fowls to the San Antonio, just before she sailed, they had seen two tall women helped up her ladder, and heard one of them say in English, ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... admiring the guns and the carved and gilt work with which the ship was adorned; for it was the custom, especially in the Spanish navy, in those days to ornament ships of war far more profusely than at present. At length Don Hernan came on deck. He observed the skiff alongside; and his eye falling on Lawrence, he very naturally at first took him to be some poor fisherman habited in the cast-off finery of a gentleman. Lawrence, however, guessed who he was from his uniform, and, shuffling along the ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... collect the several articles belonging to the equipment of Desborough's canoe, promising fair to cover the sound of our footsteps, I now whispered to Sambo, and we hastily made good our retreat to the point where we had left our skiff. In a few minutes, we were again on the lake, paddling swiftly but cautiously towards my gun boat. I had instructed the sentinels not to hail me on my return, therefore when I gained the deck, it was without ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... prow of the boat as the guild clambored on at the stern. The captain and two of his men had taken the skiff belonging to the barge, and were absent at Lorch, purchasing provisions. Roland stood at the prow of the barge, slightly in advance of his two lieutenants, and awaited the approach of Kurzbold, with ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... a distance up the way, a young man in a canoe, passing, much to their good-natured chagrin, a party of three in a skiff, who had engaged him in a trial of speed. From both boats a shower of hilarious French was issuing. At the nearest corner the skiff party turned into another street and disappeared, throwing their lingual fireworks to the last. The canoe came straight on with the speed of a fish. Its ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... scarce again his horn he wound, When lo! forth starting at the sound, From underneath an aged oak That slanted from the islet rock, A damsel guider of its way, A little skiff shot to the bay, That round the promontory steep Led its deep line in graceful sweep, Eddying, in almost viewless wave, The weeping willow twig to rave, And kiss, with whispering sound and slow, The beach of pebbles bright as snow. The boat had touched this silver ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... parts of the coast, can you get to what might be reasonably called a beach. The so-called shore-road is high up on the hills, and gives a good view far out over the billows, but does not take the traveller's feet near the water at all. Ill-advised would he be who should strive to guide his skiff from the outer firth to any chance cove on the shore, for the uncouth crags, huge and sombre, would have no mercy on any timber jointed by the hand of man. Perhaps the summer sun would give a gentler appearance to the rocky and wave-beaten shore, but I am certain ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... had been winding steadily down to the sea. And presently they caught sight of the boat, riding at anchor near the landing place, with a little skiff drawn up on the sand. Of course you know that the boat was a scallop-shell, with sails of gossamer; but Sara had been expecting an ordinary boat, and she was perfectly delighted. Of course it was large enough to hold Sara, ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... supposed to be the ancient Bethulia, which was besieged by Holofernes. Tabara, an insignificant place, occupies the site of Tiberias, which gave its name to the lake more generally known by that of Genesareth, or the Sea of Galilee; but industry has now deserted its borders, and the fisherman with his skiff and his nets no longer animates the surface of its waters. Nazareth still retains some portion of its former consequence. Six miles farther south stands the hill of Tabor, sometimes denominated Itabyrius, presenting ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... placid except for the dip of the oar Of the skiff, or the barge striking out from the shore, While merry excursionists shout till the gale Reverberates ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... feet, in their smart high-heeled buckled shoes and clocked stockings, which peeped out at him from under her embroidered camlet petticoat in such a maliciously coquettish manner; he longed to kneel down there in the skiff, at the imminent risk of spoiling his own gay attire, and declare the passion which consumed him; but something—he did not know what it was, and she did not tell him—constrained him, and he sat still, and felt himself as far away as if she had ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... castle, leading into the open air, he had escaped down a narrow stone stairway which, protected by a little roof, ran down to a few boats on the Elbe. At least, Herse reported that at midnight the Squire in a skiff without rudder or oars had arrived at a village on the Elbe, to the great astonishment of the inhabitants who were assembled on account of the fire at Tronka Castle and that he had gone on toward Erlabrunn in a ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... he should feel it his duty to go with his daughter, if we all separated in different boats. I thought that would hardly do, sir," pursued Pedgift Junior, with a respectfully sly emphasis on the words. "And, besides, if we had put the old lady into a skiff, with her weight (sixteen stone if she's a pound), we might have had her upside down in the water half her time, which would have occasioned delay, and thrown what you call a damp on the proceedings. Here's the boat, Mr. Armadale. What ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... amount of quiet humour about Campbell's record; for instance, he states that they used their "pram" or Norwegian skiff and tried trawling for biological specimens on March 27—"our total catch was one sea-louse, one sea-slug, ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... have taken the necessary precaution to prevent all the delays attendant upon travels of adventure, and would they have entrusted their lives to so frail a skiff, if they ...
— Common Sense - - Subtitle: How To Exercise It • Yoritomo-Tashi
... enough for spice and sauce and salt; just enough for you to play at storm and shipwreck, and heroism in danger. The rocking and splashing of the early rapids is mere fun; but when you get on, when the steamer slackens speed, and a skiff puts off from shore, and an Indian pilot comes on board, and mounts to the pilot-house, you begin to feel that matters are getting serious. But the pilot is chatting carelessly with two or three bystanders, ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... fellow by his side until he was safely moored to the Pittsburgh shore; then as a reward for his services, presented Paul with a little flat boat about twelve feet long by five feet wide and ordered two of the crew to tow it with a skiff ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... to the mare's head, took her by the bit, and turned her from the spot. We set out. I clung to the cushion of the drozhky, which rocked like a skiff at sea, and called the dog. My poor mare splashed her feet heavily through the mire, slipped, stumbled; the forester swayed from right to left in front of the shafts like a specter. Thus we proceeded for ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... ledge where, nearly two months before, they had begun their friendship. The sun beat warmly down and the hill at their backs kept off the east wind. Below them the river was brightly blue, and a skiff dipping its way up stream caught the sunlight on sail and hull until, as it danced from sight around the headland, it looked like a white gull hovering over the water. Above, on the campus, the football ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... was naturally, of my horses and men. Will you be kind enough to fancy my feelings, when I heard that they were miles away, and—the reason why. Three days before the ferry-boat had been carried away and shattered by the floods; nothing but a skiff could cross till a cable was rigged from bank to bank; there was no chance of this being completed before the beginning of the following week. The neighborhood was too dangerous to linger in; there was a provost-marshal guard actually stationed in Sharpsburg: so my ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... whirred away Bobby's eyes happened to rest upon a young man and a young woman rowing idly down-stream in a skiff, and he smiled as he recognized Biff Bates ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... they had drifted across many headlands and past carven cliffs of marvellous designs to a long sickle sweep of strand on which two men could be seen solemnly walking up and down. Then, at a signal from Patsy, Godfrey McCulloch let down the anchor and pulled in hand over hand the little skiff which they had been dragging in ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... boat deep freighted, sinking to the edge Of the dark flood, and voices hears, yet sees No substance; but, arrived where once again His skiff floats free, hears friends to friends Give lamentable welcome. The unseen Shore faint resounds, and all the mystic air Breathes forth the names of parent, ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... daily task. In general the canoe is assigned to her, into which she puts the fire and pushes off into deep water, to fish with hook and line, this being the province of the women. If she have a child at the breast, she takes it with her. And thus in her skiff, a piece of bark tied at both ends with vines, and the edge of it but just above the surface of the water, she pushes out regardless of the elements, if they be but commonly agitated. While she paddles to the fishing-bank, and while employed there, the child is placed on her shoulders, ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... spectacle, by a singular mixture of boldness and timidity. They advanced within the distance of two feet from the animal, but at the least movement he made they drew back. In order to observe more nearly the manners of these creatures, we went into the little skiff that accompanied our canoe. Tigers very rarely attack boats by swimming to them; and never but when their ferocity is heightened by a long privation of food. The noise of our oars led the animal to rise slowly, ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... see; a woman born and edicated; one that never had on man's dress until I knew you. You supposed me to be a man, when I came off to you in the skiff to the eastward of Riker's Island, but I was ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... Dryburgh, or rather to the banks of the Tweed, where a ferryman, with a small skiff ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... out into the offing, and it was only when he had let his eyes come back from where the sea and sky met, and they had beheld nothing but the waste of waters, that he beheld the Ship-stead closely; and therewith he saw where a little to the west of it lay a skiff, which the low wave of the tide lifted and let fall from time to time. It had a mast, and a black sail hoisted thereon and flapping with slackened sheet. A man sat in the boat clad in black raiment, and the sun smote a gleam from the helm on his head. Then Hallblithe leapt off ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris
... vessels of Ternatans, which were coasting from point to point—their enemies and ours, as I have said. These invaders, seeing their prey alone and defenseless, were not willing to lose it; accordingly, some of them went in a little skiff, and seized the woman and the children, carrying them away captive. The poor wretch who had been thus despoiled, reached the shore some distance behind them; and seeing that he could not overtake them, began ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... The cap'n'll pay well. That's square. We can't afford to try the other now, at any rate. Is the skiff here?" ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... towers of Ellfeld the sky spread blue and clear; the river danced beside the old gray walls with a sunny wave, and close at hand a vessel crowded with passengers, and loud with eager voices, gave a merry life to the scene. On the opposite bank the hills sloped away into the far horizon, and one slight skiff in the midst of the waters broke the solitary brightness of ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to me those renowned cities, of which I have heard below,—Nineveh, the capital of Sardanapalus, Babylon, Mycenae, Cleone and that famous Troy, on account of which I remember ferrying across there such numbers that for ten whole years my skiff was never high and dry and never caught cold," (that being Charon's fun, according to Lucian's conception, in conveying that all that long time his boat was in the water (hence "catching cold") from being perpetually used: [Greek: "Thelo soi deixai ton tou Achilleos taphon, horas ton ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... from Toronto to the wharf at the mouth of the Niagara River in an ordinary double-scull, lap-strake pleasure-skiff, by the writer and another Argonaut—Herbert Bartlett—one unruly morning in the summer of 1872. Though a risky row, and not previously attempted, it was not regarded as a remarkable feat by ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... the afternoon of this third day, upon his return from a long pull in the borrowed skiff around the group of islands in the upper and unfrequented part of the lake, that he found a note awaiting him. It was from Miss Farnham, and its brevity, no less than its urgency, stirred him apprehensively, bringing a suggestive ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... Chamilly took his skiff from the boathouse himself, and was soon pulling swiftly from the shore, while as they got out upon it the vastness and power of ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... Standing in this hotel of modern Boston, we must confine our inquiries to a far later epoch than the Pharaohs'. Step aside, and let the old history sweep past, like the turbid and eddying current of the mysterious Nile; forbearing to launch our skiff earlier than at the beginning of ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... when a crash, succeeded by a grating sound, warned him of danger. A curse, followed by an ejaculation of surprise and pleasure, enlightened him as to the nature of the collision: he was in contact with one of the anchored vessels. "Odin is good!" cried a voice; "ha! a skiff drifted from a wrecked vessel! and all eyes but mine sleeping!" The speaker threw over a small anchor and grappled the boat. Jean was prepared; without a moment's hesitation he cut the anchor-rope: his craft drifted onwards, leaving the ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous
... house was situated on the shores of the lake and the lawn came down to the water's edge. I rambled amidst the wild scenery of this lovely country and became a complete mountaineer: I passed hours on the steep brow of a mountain that overhung a waterfall or rowed myself in a little skiff to some one of the islands. I wandered for ever about these lovely solitudes, ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
... Creek used to be before the railroad came?" I said, "Yes, it ran along yonder." "And can you point out the swimming-hole?" "Yes, out there." And he said, "Can you point out the place where we stole the skiff?" Well, I didn't know which one he meant. Such a wilderness of events had intervened since that day, more than fifty years ago, it took me more than five minutes to call back that little incident, and then I did call it back; it was a white skiff, and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... remember that the writer, Mr. Allen, had an interview with you and Mr. Skiff, in which he protested on behalf of the National Commission that no time was given the Commission to investigate the character of qualifications of the jurors thus nominated, and that it was placing in the hands ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... children," called Miss Jenny Ann warningly as the girls arranged themselves for a row in their skiff. "In all our experience on the water I never saw so many yachts and pleasure boats as there are on these waters. If you don't keep a sharp lookout one of the larger boats may run into you. Don't ...
— Madge Morton's Victory • Amy D.V. Chalmers
... narrow way rough with rocks and now slippery with rain. One of the canoes was lost here by being driven out into the strong current, where the force of the water was so great that it could not be held by the men; the frail skiff drifted down the rapids and disappeared. They now had two canoes and two periogues left, and the loads were divided among these craft. This increased the difficulties of navigation, and Captain Lewis crossed over to the ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... African storms, to have recourse to piteous prayers, and to make a bargain with my vows, that my Cyprian and Syrian merchandize may not add to the wealth of the insatiable sea. Then the gale and the twin Pollux will carry me safe in the protection of a skiff with two oars, through ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... to think to know that Gavegan would be making his vindictive approach from the westerly regions where lay Headquarters. So, keeping in the deeper shadows close to the building, Larry took the eastern course of the street, remembering in a flash a skiff he had seen tethered to a scow moored to the pier which stretched like a pointer finger from the little Square. As yet he had no plan beyond the necessity of the present moment, which was flight. Could he ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... eye of this man, who appeared to be eagerly watching the frigate's gangway for a fare, and holding up a small piece of silver, in a moment the light boat was at the foot of the accommodation-ladder. Ghita now descended; and as soon as her uncle and she were seated, the skiff, for it was little more, whirled away from the ship's side, though two or three more, who had also been left by recreant boatmen for better fares, called out to him ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... "if any of you scout kids goes about sayin' as how Uncle Jimmy went away to the convention, and I ever meet you in your old skiff, by the Big Dipper I'll run you down and cut you in half, that's what I'll do! Do you hear?" he shouted. "If you ever run afoul of the General Grant in the bay or anywheres else, by thunder, I'm Cap'n Savage, I am, and once upon a time I was Major Savage, and I should be at that there convention ...
— Roy Blakeley • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... Boswell to Temple on this day helps to fill up the gap in his journal:—'It gives me acute pain that I have not written more to you since we parted last; but I have been like a skiff in the sea, driven about by a multiplicity of waves. I am now at Mr. Thrale's villa, at Streatham, a delightful spot. Dr. Johnson is here too. I came yesterday to dinner, and this morning Dr. Johnson and I return to London, and I go with Mr. Beauclerk to see his elegant ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... sustained that she must speedily go down. The captain and officers were still cool, and preserved perfect subordination. As night came on, and their situation became more terrible, several passengers insisted on being set on shore; and some small sloops being near, one of which sent off a skiff, two ladies, and three other passengers went away in her. More would have embarked had they not feared to encounter a tempestuous sea in so ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... Cap'n Amazon just then for several reasons, Louise did not re-enter the store but strolled down to the sands. There was a skiff drawn up above high-water mark and the hoop-backed figure of Washy Gallup sat in it. He was mending a net. He nodded with friendliness to Louise, his jaw working from side to side like a cow chewing her cud—and for the same reason. Washy had ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... high-brows—had raised yawping voices to point out that Paul Revere galloping along the pre-Revolutionary turnpike to spread the alarm passed en route two garages and one electric power house; that Washington crossing the Delaware stood in the bow of his skiff half shrouded in an American flag bearing forty-eight stars upon its field of blue; that Andrew Jackson's riflemen filing out from New Orleans to take station behind their cotton-bale breastworks marched for some distance beneath a network of trolley wires; that Abraham ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... sister, and that thrice-accursed Bedford, did not, on the 7th of August 1821, go for a sail on the piece of water at Lowfield, and the skiff was not, in the deadly, sudden, jealous strife between him and me, accidentally upset? But I know how it is: it is this brat, and the memories he ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 434 - Volume 17, New Series, April 24, 1852 • Various
... orchard. Neither is it without a degree and kind of picturesqueness, both in its nearness and in the distance, when a blue gleam from its surface, among the green meadows and woods, seems like an open eye in Earth's countenance. Pleasant it is, too, to behold a little flat-bottomed skiff gliding over its bosom, which yields lazily to the stroke of the paddle, and allows the boat to go against its current almost as freely as with it. Pleasant, too, to watch an angler, as he strays ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... dive deeper than Ishmael can go. The subterranean miner that works in us all, how can one tell whither leads his shaft by the ever shifting, muffled sound of his pick? Who does not feel the .. irresistible arm drag? What skiff in tow of a seventy-four can stand still? For one, I gave myself up to the abandonment of the time and the place; but while yet all a-rush to encounter the whale, could see naught in that brute but ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... But it makes 'em suffer so much that a soldier had pity on the criminal and gave him his canteen; and then, as soon as the Egyptian had drunk his fill, he gave up the ghost with all the pleasure in life. But that's a trifle we couldn't laugh at then. Napoleon embarked in a cockleshell, a little skiff that was nothing at all, though 'twas called 'Fortune;' and in a twinkling, under the nose of England, who was blockading him with ships of the line, frigates, and anything that could hoist a sail, he crossed over, and there he was in France. For he ...
— Folk Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... sail'd, and sail; but for The stars, I own my telescope is dim: But at least I have shunn'd the common shore, And leaving land far out of sight, would skim The ocean of eternity: the roar Of breakers has not daunted my slight, trim, But still sea-worthy skiff; and she may float Where ships have founder'd, ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... early Virginia plantations, both large and small, were located either on the rivers or their estuaries, travel was almost entirely by sloop for distances, and by shallop or skiff for brief journeys. The families used such craft to attend church, and the planters to attend Court, the Council or sessions of the Assembly. In the latter half of the century, travel by horseback to the centers, or to attend funerals, ...
— Domestic Life in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century - Jamestown 350th Anniversary Historical Booklet Number 17 • Annie Lash Jester
... hired a man with two yearling steers to take my trunk full of papers from the Zumbro River that we had crossed in a skiff, as the bridge was out, to Minnieski where we could again take the stage. Those steers ran and so did we eight men who were following them in water up to our knees. We reached Minnieski about as fagged ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... already made aware of his good fortune in seeing two such famous persons as Don Quixote and Sancho, and the instant they came to the shore all the galleys struck their awnings and the clarions rang out. A skiff covered with rich carpets and cushions of crimson velvet was immediately lowered into the water, and as Don Quixote stepped on board of it, the leading galley fired her gangway gun, and the other galleys ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... spoke out of the fog and into the glare of the fire shot a phantom skiff, beaching itself straight and swift at his feet, and so suddenly that he had to withdraw them like a flash to avoid the crunch of the sharp bows across the sand. 'Always let the other man speak first,' he thought; 'this boomerang of a boat has a ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... in the basin at night. Two miles away, in the direction of the "run," there are on Woodboo plantation two similar basins connected by a shallow streamlet, and with no outlet which a minnow could navigate: one of them is large enough for a little skiff to float on, and the gray rock slopes down to a centre depth of ten feet. Just where the sides meet is a long, irregular fissure, out of which huge bass, pike, jack and mudfish are constantly emerging, and into which they retreat when ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... containing five men put off to collect the tallow which floated on the water, but it got surrounded by tallow which had caught fire, and the whole of its occupants were either burned to death or drowned. Later in the night a small skiff rowed by a single man was drawn by the tide into the vortex of the fire. Another boat ran out and saved the man, but a second boat which was pulled off by a single rower for the same purpose was drawn too near the fire, and its brave occupant perished. So eager were the multitude ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... eyes toward the sea, and by the light of the moon he saw the hermit's slender skiff approaching. The old man was plainly visible, with his long gray hair floating over his shoulders as he ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... however, became clamorous; one portion were for throwing Schriften overboard, the other for throwing Philip; at last, the point was decided by the captain, who directed the small skiff, hanging astern, to be lowered down, and ordered both Philip and Schriften to get into it. The seamen approved of this arrangement, as it satisfied both parties. Philip made no objection; Schriften screamed and fought, but he was tossed into the boat. There he remained ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... wedding by the hands of the Empress herself, or, if she were too ill, by those of the Grand Duchess; how Catharine used, at Oranienbaum, to dress herself from head to foot in male attire, and go out in a skiff, accompanied only by an old huntsman, to shoot ducks and snipe, sometimes doubling the Cape of Oranienbaum, which extends two versts into the sea,—and how thus the fortunes of the Russian Empire, during the latter half of the eighteenth century, were at the mercy of a spring-tide, a gust of wind, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... The little skiff slipped out on to the broad bosom of the river, and Chippy looked eagerly ahead. He saw his men at once. They were paddling gently down-stream close inshore. At this point the river ran due west, ran towards the quarter of the sky now bright with ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... he interlaced His sorry skiff with wattled willows; And thus equipped he would have ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... command of her, and her captain, Faucon, had taken the Pilgrim, and was the green-jacketed man on the quarter-deck. The boat put directly off again, without giving us time to ask any more questions, and we were obliged to wait till night, when we took a little skiff, that lay on the beach, and paddled off. When I stepped aboard, the second mate called me aft, and gave me a large bundle, directed to me, and marked "Ship Alert.'' This was what I had longed for, yet I refrained from opening it until I went ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... the river stood Mr. Hammond in good stead that morning, as soon as I understood that he was looking for a place where his men could land easily. It was only to sweep round a small bluff that jutted into the river, and carry the skiff into the mouth of Nat's Creek, where the bank sloped gradually down to the water from a level bit of meadow-land that extended back some rods before the hills began to rise. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various |
