"Oar" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... oar abaft It rippled and it dinned, And now the west wind laughed And now the south-west wind; And the sail was full in flight, And they passed by ...
— The Iphigenia in Tauris • Euripides
... villa, and assembly-room, and tavern, and pot-house, from the superb club-house, with its metamorphosed lords, to the Sun tap, with its boisterous barge-men, are as happy as mortals can be. Just before oar departure for Newport, we will to the harbour, and take a farewell peep of the "finish" of Cowes' Regatta. Though unwelcome night has prematurely interrupted the enjoyments of the multitude, it engenders a social pleasure to behold the numerous lights, forming almost ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 374 • Various
... the boat about, governed it, led it swiftly or slowly with the stream and against the stream, stopt it in its course, guided it with one hand, and with the other laid hard about him with a huge great oar, hoisted the sail, hied up along the mast by the shrouds, ran upon the bulwarks, set the compass, tackled the bowlines, and steered the helm. Coming out of the water, he ran furiously up against a hill, and with the same alacrity and swiftness ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... about it, sir," observed Ben Tarbox, who was pulling the stroke oar, "and that accounts for why Master Nicholas was praising the Spaniards. To my mind he is half a Spaniard himself; I thought no good would come of his beads and his crosses, his paters ...
— The Settlers - A Tale of Virginia • William H. G. Kingston
... sitting in an open boat, listening to the measured oar-strokes of the boatmen who were rowing him out to the nearest stopping-place of the steamer. The mountains lifted their great placid heads up among the sun-bathed clouds, and the fjord opened its cool depths as if to make room for their ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... the sensation of light reduces itself to the acceptance of motion. Up to this point we deal with pure mechanics; but the subsequent translation of the shock of the aethereal waves into consciousness eludes mechanical science. As an oar dipping into the Cam generates systems of waves, which, speeding from the centre of disturbance, finally stir the sedges on the river's bank, so do the vibrating atoms generate in the surrounding aether undulations, which finally stir the filaments of the retina. The motion thus ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... the din of elements, to hear what was taking place there. An occasional vivid flash of lightning showed us dark figures hauling about some huge object, and then again all was wrapped in roar and darkness. Mr. Smith and myself in the meanwhile were baling away, and Ruston was striving with the steer oar to keep her head to sea, for the instant she got the least broadside on the waves broke over her ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... summer solstice, or what we should call the tropic, after a long and rough voyage, his little bark being well provisioned, he came to summer seas, where he was carried along, without the aid of sail or oar, for many a long day. This, which it is to be presumed was the great gulf-stream, brought his vessel to shore somewhere about the Virginian capes, or where the American coast tends eastward, and forms the New England States. Here landing, he and his companions marched steadily ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... their fleet of bateaux and floated down the lake to their landing at the present site of Cooperstown. "This passage down the lake was made on a lovely summer's day, and the surrounding hills being covered with living green, every dash of the oar throwing up the clear, sparkling water, a thousand delighted warblers greeting them from the shores as the response of the martial music from the boats—the whole being so entirely novel—the effect must have ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... Colin, as he pulled steadily at his long oar, "that we did wrench the gun-frame when ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... water. He pulled the snorkel from his mouth and let it hang. As luck would have it, the shadow saw him first. He stood up, oar in hands, poised for ...
— The Wailing Octopus • Harold Leland Goodwin
... have given away the fact that he had done things. They were large, broad; the knuckles heavy; the palms calloused by something rougher than oar and tennis-racket. The microscopic traces of black grease did not for months quite come out of the cracks in his skin. And two of his well-kept but thick ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... doing I had to quit the helm; the bark was overturned in an instant, and I was thrown into the water. I endeavored to cling to the wreck, but missed my hold; being a poor swimmer I soon found myself sinking, but grasped a light oar that was floating by me. It was not sufficient for my support; I again sank beneath the surface; there was a rushing and bubbling sound in my ears, and all sense ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... current. With her hand clasped in his, her head resting softly upon his shoulder, while his arm fondly encircled her slender waist, they glided down the rapid River of the Mountains. No sail was raised to catch the breeze; no oar was used to impel them through the water; yet, ere the maiden had time to breathe, the light canoe was gliding, rapid as thought, down the mid-waves of the current. Then the ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... favour, so the men took in their oars after rowing for about a quarter of a mile and lay down in the bottom of the canoe, while one man ran up the sail, and the host steered with an oar. At Dunquin the host hired me a dray, without springs, kissed my hand in farewell, ...
— In Wicklow and West Kerry • John M. Synge
... what—supposing you hadn't come? Oh, Poleon! you don't know what you saved me from." She leaned forward and laid a tiny, grateful hand on the huge brown paw that rested on his oar. "I wonder ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... the boat with Dwining and Ramorny, and, waiting for no other attendance, Eviot pushed off the vessel, which descended the Tay rapidly by the assistance of sail and oar and ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... extend his fame; but he ought not to be charged with having created the spirit, which in fact created him; a spirit so powerful, and so extensively diffused, that in comparison with it, even his efforts might be said to be "dashing with his oar to hasten the cataract;" to be "waving with his fan to give speed to the wind." The favourite saying of Napoleon, "Every Frenchman is a soldier, and as such, at the disposal of the Emperor," expresses a principle which was not merely enforced by arbitrary power, ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... the fellows, even "smirking Tony," liked him and sought his company? He who could pull an oar, throw a ball, leap a bar, ride a horse, or play a game of skill as if he had been born for each particular occupation,—what wonder that the ne'er-do-wells and idlers and scamps and dullards battered at his door continually ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... are still bestow'd, Till rude Resistance lops the spreading god; The daring Greeks deride the martial show, And heap their valleys with the gaudy foe; Th' insulted sea with humbler thoughts he gains, A single skiff to speed his flight remains; Th' incumber'd oar scarce leaves the dreaded coast, Through purple billows and a floating host. The bold Bavarian, in a luckless hour, Tries the dread summits of Caesarian pow'r, With unexpected legions bursts away, And sees defenceless realms receive his sway; Short ...
— English Satires • Various
... determined on returning to the little harbour from which we had started in the morning, but the wind being directly against us, we made very little head. "We shall never get to the Nob," said Mr. Witch, who had the steer oar, to me; "it blows too hard, Sir." "What are we to do, then?" said I. "Why, Sir," he replied, "we must either beach or run out to sea," "We will beach, then," I said; "it is better to try that than to do any thing else." ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... raged. The provision ship ran full tilt into the sand banks of Sable Island, and was battered into chips before the other ships could come to rescue. All supplies were lost and all the pirate crew perished but sixteen, who jumped into the pinnace dragging astern, and, with only one oar, half punted, half drifted for seven days till the wave wash carried them to the shores of Newfoundland. There they were picked up by a ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... before his death, and relates that 'he seemed uneasy and restless, his eyes were wandering, he was as pale as marble, the stamp of death seemed on him. He told me he felt ill, but he wished to bear himself up.' In one of his letters the painter wrote: 'I am chained to the oar, but painting was never less inviting to me—business never more oppressive to me than at this moment.' Still he could play his courtier part in society, and was always graceful and winning. Haydon, who never loved a portrait-painter ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... our probable antagonists, although this knowledge constitutes the necessary basis for further inquiry; but we must picture to ourselves the intensity of the hostility with which we have to reckon and the probable efficiency of oar enemies. The hostility which we must anticipate is determined by the extent to which mutual political schemes and ambitions clash, and by the opposition in national character. Our opinion as to the military efficiency of our rivals must be based on ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi
... accepted of a restorative glass of wine from my spark, who had left me to fetch it to her, whilst her own was readjusting his affaire and buttoning up; after which he led her, leaning languish-ingly upon him, to oar stand ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... stroke of his right oar, the boy who had sung turned the boat's prow toward the shore, and Lady Holme saw a large, lonely house confronting them on the nearer bank of the lake. It stood apart. For a long distance on either side of it there was no ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... fake to boot, and then they drown us out of hand that moment, curse 'em!' We came to Strasbourg. And I looked down Rhine with longing heart. The stream how swift! It seemed running to clip Sevenbergen to its soft bosom. With but a piece of timber and an oar I might drift at my ease to thee, sleeping yet gliding still. 'Twas a sore temptation. But the fear of an ill welcome from my folk, and of the neighbours' sneers, and the hope of coming back to thee victorious, not, as now I must, defeated ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... guess I could row through any water in this harbor," bragged Amos, bending to his oar so lustily that he broke one of the wooden thole-pins, unshipped his oar, and went over backward into the bottom of the boat, losing his hold on the oar as he fell. He scrambled quickly back to his seat, and endeavored to swing the dory about with ...
— A Little Maid of Province Town • Alice Turner Curtis
... Evolution of the Trireme.—The genesis of the trireme was the old PENTECONTER ("fifty-oar ship") which, in its prime features, was simply a long, narrow, open hull, with slightly raised prow and stern cabins, pulling twenty-five oars to a side. There are a few penteconters still in existence, ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... those romantic qualities which a free forest life seems so well calculated to engender. He looks upon the deep, mysterious woods, traversed by nameless streams; the majestic mountains, haunted by shadows; the broad lakes, swept only by the wind and the wild man's oar, and he says: "it is fitting, and only fitting, that out of such a realm should come such a life." Which is the better and the more truthful Indian—that of the poet, or he who drank the rum of our fathers and then scalped them? The poet's village is the model village, ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... in my studies, and I expect to be stroke oar of the college boat club. Besides this, I have been elected catcher of the college baseball club. I am thought to excel in athletic sports, and really enjoy my college life very much. Please send me the check by return of mail. Affectionately ...
— Walter Sherwood's Probation • Horatio Alger
... took tea at Runswick, from which charming little village the Whitbys take their second title, and had ourselves rowed round the cliffs to Staithes, which we reached just before sunset; Chips and his sister also taking an oar between them, and I another. There, on the brink of the little bay, with the singularly quaint and picturesque old village behind it, were fifty fishing-boats side by side waiting to be launched, and all the fishing population of Staithes were there ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... when two galleys from Spain were carrying assistance to Marmora, which was then besieged by the Moors. These galleys struck on a shoal, when the Moors seized all the people on board, making captives of the Christians and setting at liberty all the Moors, who were chained to the oar; as for the Gypsy galley-slaves whom they found amongst these last, they did not make them slaves, but received them as people friendly to them, and at their devotion; which matter was public ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... and hove it well out with a yell to catch. Long Tom, our lean Yankee sailor, who was pulling bow oar, seized it as it fell across and took a turn around a thwart. The oars were shipped and we fell under the vessel's stern, riding the ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... that's what it is!" exclaimed a fat woman from Fishtown. "At the bottom of the river dead men tell no tales. The rebellious young sarpint of a son, who allus pulled a lusty oar, has chased them two older ones into the deep water of the channel, where a pistol shot can't be heard ashore, and he expected the property to be his'n. But there are gallowses ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... for a while, 'gainst Passion's threatful blast Let steady Reason urge the struggling oar; Shot through the dreary gloom, the morn at last Gives to thy longing eye ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... granite coping bent, Oneguine meditative stood, E'en as the poet says he leant.(18) 'Tis silent all! Alone the cries Of the night sentinels arise And from the Millionaya afar(19) The sudden rattling of a car. Lo! on the sleeping river borne, A boat with splashing oar floats by, And now we hear delightedly A jolly song and distant horn; But sweeter in a midnight dream Torquato Tasso's ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... literature, the highest and most spiritual art, the forms are often confused. The lyrical form is in fact the simplest verbal vesture of an instant of emotion, a rhythmical cry such as ages ago cheered on the man who pulled at the oar or dragged stones up a slope. He who utters it is more conscious of the instant of emotion than of himself as feeling emotion. The simplest epical form is seen emerging out of lyrical literature when the artist ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... in against his belly, while within him his heart quaked by reason of the strangeness: and he longed to get to land, groaning terribly through the stress of chilling fear. He put out his tail upon the water and worked it like a steering oar, and prayed to heaven that he might get to land. But when the dark waves washed over him he cried aloud and said: 'Not in such wise did the bull bear on his back the beloved load, when he brought Europa across the sea to Crete, as this Frog carries me over ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... Lady." On such occasions the visitors were rowed from the fort to the town in a twelve-oared barge with an awning; the drilled crew rowed well, while a sergeant stood in the stern to steer. On each oar blade was painted the word "Congress"; all the regular army men were devout believers in the Union. The dinners were handsomely served, with punch and wine; and at one Dr. Cutler records that fifty-five gentlemen sat down, together with three ladies. The fort itself was a square, with block-houses, ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... strong stroke of the oar, drove the boat into an open space between two fishing-boats; he pulled rapidly over the shining water, which glowed, at the contact of the oars, with a blue phosphorescent fire. A long trail of softly scintillating light followed the ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... depopulate, And all is in its ancient state, Save where many a palace gate 130 With green sea-flowers overgrown Like a rock of Ocean's own, Topples o'er the abandoned sea As the tides change sullenly. The fisher on his watery way, Wandering at the close of day, 135 Will spread his sail and seize his oar Till he pass the gloomy shore, Lest thy dead should, from their sleep Bursting o'er the starlight deep, Lead a rapid masque of death 140 O'er ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... again, and rock while the old man finishes his coffee, sure of a greeting, confident in a sense of entire good-fellowship, until the meal is finished, and James Parsons is ready to take his coat and a red-bladed oar, and set out. Then the boy is like a setter off for a walk,—all sorts of whimsical expressions in his face, of absolute delight; every form of extravagance in his bearing. The only trouble is, one has to laugh too much; but with all this, ...
— By The Sea - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... stood on the farther edge of the craft desperately plying an oar; the other tugged lustily at the spear-thongs. I could see a black, twisting form leap from the water directly toward the raft, and the oarsman barely drew from under before it fell. It struck the corner of ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... this fellow, in the long run, Bluewater! I do believe if I were to take him to Lambeth Palace, or even to St. James's, he'd thrust his oar into the archbishop's benedictions, or ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... him, the Duke turned his boat and went back again. No sooner had he set foot on the isle," proceeded the Norman, clenching his hands, and speaking between his teeth, "than we saw one Fleming strike him on the head with an oar; he fell senseless, the rest threw themselves upon him, and the next moment held up their bloody daggers in scorn at us! You may well think how we shouted and yelled at them, and plied our oars like men distracted, but all in vain, they were already in their ...
— The Little Duke - Richard the Fearless • Charlotte M. Yonge
... into the sail-boat, hoisted the sails, and shoved her off into deep water with an oar. Captain Patterdale thought, and then he did not know what to think. Was it possible Laud had not noticed that tin box, which had been on a chair out in the middle of the room? If he had not, why, ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic
... now, miss. Aisy now; aisy now. Now, then, I'll take one pull; pull your left oar ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... leaden coverlet of its water, exhaling a mysterious freshness that was spreading to the mountains and trees. All the landscape appeared to be acquiring the fragility of crystal. The silent air was trembling with exaggerated resonance, repeating the fall of an oar in the boats that, small as flies, were slipping along under the sky arching above the gulf, and prolonging the feminine and invisible voices passing through the ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... the oar hard over. The sampan grated against a landing. "Shanghai. Ma-tou! H[a]n liang bu dung ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... was Frithiof that he pulled the two bow oars of Ellidi; but either oar was thirteen ells long, and two ...
— The Story Of Frithiof The Bold - 1875 • Anonymous
... in both countries. The one had their Clement Marot by heart, the other their Sternhold and Hopkins. Huguenot prisoners in chains sang psalms in their dungeons, galley slaves sang them as they plied at the oar, fugitives in the halting-places of their flight, the condemned as they marched to the gallows, and the Camisards as they rushed into battle. It was said of the Covenanters that "they lived praying and preaching, and they died ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... Treacher's bugle before our three heroes reached the quay; but he continued to blow his best; and there, at the end of the causeway, Sir Caesar ran into them—ran straight into the Commandant, almost knocking out his breath—calling, as he ran, for someone to take bow oar ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... herd of Hymer's cattle, seized the largest bull, wrung off its head without any trouble, and put it in the boat. Then they both pushed off and were soon rowing seaward. Hymer could pull a strong oar, but he had never seen such a stroke as Thor's before. The boat fairly trembled under the force of it. In a few moments they reached Hymer's fishing-ground, and he called out ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... afternoon and night and into the next day, when a sloop came down from Henricus with the news that the English were in force there to stand their ground, although their loss had been heavy. Hour after hour they came as fast as sail and oar could bring them, the panic-stricken folk, whose homes were burned, whose kindred were slain, who had themselves escaped as by a miracle. Many were sorely wounded, so that they died when we lifted them from the boats; others had slighter hurts. Each boatload had the same tale to tell of treachery, ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... Canadian, and had been cruising from the St. Lawrence to Florida, —and now, as his companions would go on without him, he had a mind to try a bit of coast-life. And could he board here? or was there any handy place? And father said, there was Dan,—Dan Devereux, a man that hadn't his match at oar or helm. And Mr. Gabriel turned his keen eye and bowed again,—and couldn't Dan take Mr. Gabriel? And before Dan could answer, for he'd referred it to Faith, Mr. Gabriel had forgotten all about it, and was humming ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... ten kopecks for working all day and all night at the oar; it is true that travelers gave him tips for tea and for vodkas but the men shared all they received among themselves, and gave nothing to the Tatar, but only laughed at him. And from poverty he was hungry, cold, and frightened.... Now, when his whole body was aching and shivering, he ought ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... had heard between Boddy and Julia. Boddy asked her to take private lessons in French from him. Heriot listened to the monstrous tale as he was on the point of entering Julia's boat, where Boddy sat beside her, and Heriot rowed stroke-oar. He dipped his blade, and said, loud enough to be heard by me in ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... boy flushed. Tall, straight, handsome he sat in the boat, fingering the oar-handle nervously. In appearance he was the ideal oarsman. ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... men's bones. I'll tell thee what: there's many a ship In the wild North Ocean frore, That has lain in the ice a thousand years, And will lie a thousand more; And the men—each one is frozen there In the place where he did stand; The oar he pull'd, the rope he threw, Is frozen in his hand. The sun shines there, but it warms them not; Their bodies are wintry cold: They are wrapp'd in ice that grows and grows, Solid, and white, and old! And there's many a haunted desert rock, Where ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... next thing is to get the boat properly broadside to the wind, so that you may have next to no trouble in casting. Should a fish be hooked, see that the man keeps working the boat in such a manner that the fish cannot possibly get underneath: a single stroke of the oar in the proper direction is generally all that is necessary. You must also judge from the size of the fish, and the length and strength of your tackle, whether it is expedient that the man should follow the fish if he ...
— Scotch Loch-Fishing • AKA Black Palmer, William Senior
... had frozen. These two statements point to his having reached a considerable altitude, which is intelligible enough. It is, however, difficult to believe his further assertion that by the use of his single oar he succeeded in working himself down to within a few hundred feet of the earth. The descent of the balloon must, in point of fact, have been due to a copious outrush of gas at his former altitude. Had his oar really been effective in working the balloon down it would not have needed the ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... however, was determined, if possible, to go. He was a favourite among the men, and when he spoke to the bow oar of the gig, the latter promised to do anything he could to aid him to carry ...
— Tales of Daring and Danger • George Alfred Henty
... subordination to the judge were the registrar (an office which always points to a connexion with canon or civil law), and the marshal, who acted as the maritime sheriff, having for his baton of office a silver oar. The assistance of the Trinity Masters, which has been already mentioned, was provided for in the charter of incorporation of the Trinity House. These officers and their assistance have been preserved in the High ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Brand, the son of the former president, and about twelve hundred well-mounted men. Crossing the Orange River at Sand Drift, north of Colesberg, upon December 16th, they paused at Kameelfontein to gather up a small post of thirty yeomen and guardsmen under Lieutenant Fletcher, the wellknown oar. Meeting with a stout resistance, and learning that British forces were already converging upon them, they abandoned the attack, and turning away from Colesberg they headed west, cutting the railway line twenty miles ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the sliding fog and ranks of tumbling seas. "It was very much this kind of night, and we were lying, reefed down, off one of the Russians' beaches, when I asked for volunteers. I got them—two boats' crews of the finest seamen that ever handled oar or sealing rifle." ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... we by, with prow and oar: Ripple shadows off the wave, And reflected on the shore, Haply play about the grave. Folds of summer-light enclose All ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... powder nor shot. Of the cord he made nooses and caught eider-ducks, by which, and their eggs, he kept himself alive; in the night, he crept under an overhanging rock to sleep. At length he discovered a piece of wood floating to the shore; of this he made an oar, and, getting on a flake of ice, rowed himself to an island nearer the main land, whence he reached two more islands nearer still. About the beginning of August, he observed two boats steering towards the south, ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous
... Malcolm sung an Erse song, the chorus of which was 'Hatyin foam foam eri', with words of his own[486]. The tune resembled 'Owr the muir amang the heather'. The boatmen and Mr. M'Queen chorused, and all went well. At length Malcolm himself took an oar, and rowed vigorously. We sailed along the coast of Scalpa, a rugged island, about four miles in length. Dr. Johnson proposed that he and I should buy it, and found a good school, and an episcopal church, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... here, Robinson Crusoe," said the man at the steering oar, "our tempers are all filed up on the raw edge just now, and if you give much lip, this boat will be rowed over the top of your Noah's ark before you know what's hit it. You paddle back to your squaw and piccaninnies on the beach, Robinson, and don't you ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... went. One instant he was astride a broncho and flying through the fairy-colored Painted Desert country; the next instant he was gazing down through shimmering heat into the whited sepulchre of Death Valley, or pulling an oar on a freezing ocean where great ice islands towered and glistened in the sun. He lay on a coral beach where the cocoanuts grew down to the mellow-sounding surf. The hulk of an ancient wreck burned with blue fires, in the light of which danced the hula dancers ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... somewhat selfish and indolent. In the eighth, myself, an anxious father, charged with the important duty of guiding the vessel to save my dear family. Each of us had some useful tools beside us; each held an oar, and had a swimming apparatus at hand, in case we were unfortunately upset. The tide was rising when we left, which I considered might assist my weak endeavours. We turned our out-riggers length-ways, ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... in the list appear to have been adopted by the Papuans. These are: Tauata nau (pe), earthen dish, which is Kuni, Motu, Pokau, &c., nau; Fuyuge asi boat, Pokau and Motu asi; and Fuyuge bara, paddle, the Motu, Kabadi bara, Mekeo fanga, oar. The Fuyuge kokole fowl is also ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... boats with oars and rifles waving rather helplessly. It looked as though they were likely to pay toll, wide though the shots had gone as yet. Then the oarsmen pulled themselves together, and rowed back for the ship's protection. There was not even an oar or a boat hit ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... pass before them lay, And moving nations on the margin stray, Thick swarming, venturous; sail and oar they ply, Climb on the surge and o'er the billows fly. As when autumnal storms awake their force. The storks foreboding tempt their southern course; From all the fields collecting throngs arise, Mount on the wing and crowd along the skies: Thus, to his eye, from bleak Tartaria's shore, ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... often rowed a boat on dangerous rivers and on the sea; had been nearly lost one dark night in a high spring-tide on the sandbanks of the River Mersey; had been washed out to sea through the failure of an oar at Barmouth; had narrowly escaped being swamped with his boat off the East Coast; and a few years before had a hair-breadth escape from drowning by being drawn under the wooden framework protecting the piles for a future famous bridge over the River Thames near the ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... you up to the ridge of the hill, And we'll talk of the way we have come through the valley; Down below there a bird breaks into a trill, And a groaning slave bends to the oar of his galley. ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... of the stroke oar is probably her husband, two others are wielded evidently by her two sons, and the bow is taken by her strapping daughter. One of her arms encircles the merchandise she intends to dispose of on board our vessel, while the other vigorously helps to propel the oar held by ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... were a rosy distemper, very warm and sweet, and upon them, above the low oak book-cases, hung school and college groups, discreet sporting engravings, a glorious cathedral interior, and the Sistine Madonna over the mantelpiece. An oar hung all along one ceiling, painted on the blade with the arms of an Oxford college. There was a small prie-dieu, surmounted by a crucifix of Ober-Ammergau workmanship: there was a mahogany writing-table ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... had been sent to cover the bank in both directions were now coming in. Through the stillness of the night there sounded the thump of oar-locks. Seeing that the stranger did not seem to take his hint, ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... packed full of the slaves, some five or six to each oar, and down the centre, between the two banks, the English could see the slave-drivers walking up and down a long gangway, whip in hand. A raised quarter-deck at the stern held more soldiers, the sunlight flashing merrily upon their armor ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... now, Julie, when no breath of wind is in the heavens, and neither oar nor paddle is on ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... Pherae still may dwell; Wait for ten days, and then may all be well, And thou to fetch thy maiden home may go, And to the King thy team unheard-of show. And if not, then make ready for the sea Nor will I fail indeed to go with thee, And 'twixt the halyards and the ashen oar Finish the service well begun ashore; But meanwhile do I bid thee hope the best; And take another herdsman for the rest, For unto Ossa must I go alone To do a deed ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... to a great lake. Close to the shore lay twelve little boats, and in each boat stood a handsome prince, one hand upon an oar, the other ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... hundreds of gallons of rum and egg (at my expense) at the various houses of note above and below bridge; not by any means because he liked it, but to cure a weakness in his liver, for which the faculty had particularly recommended it - may be explained as rowed by three men, two pulling an oar each, and one a pair ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... these books, for which Whittemore had given five good dollars, was what he gave to me for my dictionary. And so we parted. I loitered at Attica, hoping for a place where I could put in my oar. But my hand was out at teaching, and in a time when all the world's veneers of different kinds were ripping off, nobody wanted me to put on more of my kind,—so that my cash ran low. I would not go in debt,—that is a thing I never did. More honest, I say, to go to ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... various means of locomotion. Some flow or roll slowly along like tiny drops of oil on an inclined surface; others develop minute outgrowths of their substance, like fine hairs, which beat the water as oars do. Some of them have one strong oar, like the gondolier (but in front of the boat); others have two or more oars; while some have their little flanks bristling with fine lashes, like the ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... greatest advantage in producing this effect is a very material point. The mode universally adopted by Nature is the oblique waft of the wing. We have only to choose between the direct beat overtaking the velocity of the current, like the oar of a boat, or one applied like the wing, in some assigned degree of obliquity to it. Suppose 35 feet per second to be the velocity of an aerial vehicle, the oar must be moved with this speed previous to its being able to receive any resistance; then if it ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... a great relief when he took her on deck with him that she might identify the three men whom she claimed as belonging to her suite. Arthur, Lanty, and Hebert, who, in their vague knowledge of the circumstances, had been dreading the oar for the rest of their lives, could hardly believe their good fortune when she called them up to her, and the Abbe gripped Lanty's arm as if he would never let him go again. The poor Italians seemed to feel their fate all the harder for the deliverance of those three, and sobbed, howled, ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... not the man who has once been swept down the stream of intemperate excitement, almost to the verge of ruin, dream of any point of security for him. He is like one who has awakened in the rapids of Niagara, and with straining oar and wild prayers to Heaven, forced his boat upward into smoother water, where the draught of the current seems to cease, and the banks smile, and all looks beautiful, and weary from rowing, lays by his oar to rest and dream; he ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... never been to before is strangely familiar. That's how I seem to see you." He gave a whimsical smile. "Perhaps I knew you in some past existence. Perhaps, perhaps you were the master of a galley in ancient Rome and I was a slave at the oar. Thirty years ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... St. Vincent, and lasted till nightfall. The privateer commanded by Columbus grappled a huge Venetian galley, which, after a hand-to-hand struggle, caught fire, and the flames spread to the privateer. Friends and enemies alike sought safety in the sea, and Columbus, supporting himself on an oar, succeeded, when nearly exhausted, in gaining the land, which was at some six miles distance. God preserved him, says his son, ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... run up this rag," cried Black Paul to Clip, the fellow in command; and so saying, he handed up the old Jolly Roger on the blade of an oar. "Our noble admiral fears that if you do not that you may be captured by some of these ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... the impulsive seaman, at the same time giving his oar a pull that well-nigh spun the boat round. "And, to say wot's the plain truth, d'ye see, I'm not sorry to ha' done with your schooner; for, although she is as tight a little craft as any man could wish for to go to sea in, I can't say much for the crew,—saving your presence, Dick," he added, ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... with a look of much perplexity, yet rising and bowing, said "I don't mean, Sir, to be so rude as to put in my oar, but if I did not take you wrong, I'm sure just now I thought you seemed for to make no great 'count of riding, and yet now, all of the sudden, one would think you was a ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... wished to see her under all aspects, and travelled incessantly, first in his native province, amid the meadows and waters of Normandy, then on the banks of the Seine along which he coasted, bending to the oar. Then Brittany with its beaches, where high waves rolled in beneath low and dreary skies, then Auvergne, with its scattered huts amid the sour grass, beneath rocks of basalt; and, finally, Corsica, Italy, Sicily, not with artistic enthusiasm, ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... attribute of Art is to suggest infinitely more than it expresses;" and such suggestions, passing from the artist's innermost thought into the mind that receives them, open on and on into the Infinite of Ideas, as a moonlit wave struck by a passing oar impels wave upon wave along one track ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... low waist was packed full of the slaves, some five or six to each oar, and down the center, between the two banks, the English could see the slave-drivers walking up and down a long gangway, whip in hand. A raised quarter-deck at the stern held more soldiers, the sunlight flashing merrily upon their armor and their gun-barrels; as they neared, the English ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... the latter at 4-1/2 pence each. The lumber supplied included white oak barrel staves at 20 shillings per thousand, red oak hogshead starves at 20 shillings per thousand, "Oyl nut" (Butternut) staves at 16 shillings per thousand, clapboards at 25 shillings and oar rafters at L2 per thousand feet. Considering the labor involved—for the manufacture was entirely by hand—prices seem small; but it must be borne in mind that 2s. 6d. was a day's pay for a man's ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... squeaked a boy who was so small that he could scarcely lift the oar, light though it was, with which he sculled his punt ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... a sense of beauty and fitness. I could even distinguish the golden curls again, which fell close on George Hammond's face, as he stood by her side arranging her stirrup, his own horse's bridle over his arm. A backward motion of the oar sent my boat under the branches again, and I sat motionless, watching them as they ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... but jumped into the little contrivance. A sort of oar lay in the bottom. He thrust ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... little man, when you are a big man, and fish such a stream as that, you will hardly care, I think, whether she be roaring down in full spate, like coffee covered with scald cream, while the fish are swirling at your fly as an oar-blade swirls in a boat-race, or flashing up the cataract like silver arrows, out of the fiercest of the foam; or whether the fall be dwindled to a single thread, and the shingle below be as white and ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... working man. I think that would grace the diminitive tea-table of the Emperor of the Lilliputians. And a pair of boat-sculls, made of white ash, and only the size of writing-pens, which I dare say, the oars of the King of Blefuscan's barge resembled; these, with a magnificent oar, thirty-six feet long, are intended as presents for His Royal Highness the ...
— The World's Fair • Anonymous
... lives in trust for those who need your succor: A flash of fire by night, a loom of smoke by day, A rag to an oar shall be to you the symbol Of your faith, of your creed, of the law ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... killed him on the spot, but he diverted them by pointing out where his money and jewels could be found. The next soldier to come up was one of the galley-slaves, whom Don John had unchained from the oar and supplied with arms. Ali's story of treasure was lost on him. With one blow he severed his head from his shoulders, and carried the gory prize to Don John, laying it at his feet. The generous Spaniard looked at it with a mingling of pity ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... shove my oar in," said Temple, "but I came back when I'd seen Lady St. Craye home. I hope there's nothing ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... never shall know here. I 'll tell thee a miracle: I am not mad yet, to my cause of sorrow: Th' heaven o'er my head seems made of molten brass, The earth of flaming sulphur, yet I am not mad. I am acquainted with sad misery As the tann'd galley-slave is with his oar; Necessity makes me suffer constantly, And custom makes it easy. Who do I ...
— The Duchess of Malfi • John Webster
... boat and at once began to bale out the puddles with his saucepan. He then drew the boat alongside of the jetty, helped Hortense in and used the one oar which he shipped in a gap in the stern to ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... place and steer his little bark up the wide river. He saw against the sky the great pile of Westminster. He had drifted almost across the river by that time. He was seated in the bow of the boat, just dipping an oar from time to time as it slipped along beneath the trees. And now the moon shone out for a few minutes clear and bright. It did not shine upon his own craft, gliding so stealthily beneath the bare trees that fringed the wall of the ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... one of the canoes, so filled with men any movement was almost impossible, yet of this I did not complain for my Uncle Chevet was next to me, and Cassion took place at the steering oar in the stern. To be separated from him was all I asked, although the very sound of his harsh voice rasping out orders, as we swung out from the bank rendered me almost frantic. My husband! God! and ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... while they were delighted with the moderate gratuity we gave them. They were tough, well-made fellows, possessing a considerable amount of endurance, but less actual strength than one would suspect. Braisted, who occasionally tried his hand at an oar, could pull them around with the greatest ease. English travellers whom I have met inform me that in almost every trial they find themselves stronger than the Norwegians. This is probably to be accounted for by their insufficient nourishment. ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... boyhood he was wedded to the sword,—he had been taken prisoner by them near Siena, where he had signalized himself by a fiery and determined bravery. With brutal insult, they chained him to the oar as a galley slave. After he had long endured this ignominy the Turks captured the vessel and carried her to Constantinople. It was but a change of tyrants but, soon after, while she was on a cruise, Gourgues still at the oar, a galley of the knights of Malta hove in sight, ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... from twenty-three pipes, led so as to fill the canoes at once, without farther trouble. We saw seven-and-twenty of these little boats laden, paddle down the creek with the tide towards the town. A single oar used rather as rudder than paddle guides the tank to the middle of the stream, where it ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... grabbed the child, and with one sweep of his strong arm took her into the boat. The bow oarsman caught Harold by the wrist. The way of the boat took him for a moment under water; but the next man; pulling his oar across the boat, stooped over and caught him by the collar, and clung fast. A few seconds more and he was hauled abroad. A wild cheer from all on the Scoriac came, sweeping ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... and to the real nature of music! It is in free three-part form, the first part of a calm nature in which we are rocked on gently undulating waves; a more rhythmic second part where, as Kullak says, the bass seems to suggest the monotonous steadiness of oar-strokes; an interlude, marked "dolce sfogato," introduced by some delightful modulations, as if in a quiet nook the poet were dreaming of the beauties of love and nature; an impassioned return to the chief subject, together with a partial presentation of the middle portion; and finally a long and ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... skirt the continent and the northern side of Bute, became so boisterous, that the boatmen began to think they should be driven upon the rocks of the island, instead of reaching its bay. Wallace tore down the sails, and laying his nervous arms to the oar, assisted to keep the vessel off the breakers, against which the waves were driving her. The sky collected into a gloom; and while the teeming clouds seemed descending even to rest upon the cracking ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... were all poor, we had founded an inexpressible colony in a horrible eating house at Argenteuil, and which possessed only one bedroom, where I have certainly spent some of the maddest nights of my life. We cared for nothing except for amusing ourselves and rowing, for we all worshiped the oar, with one exception. I remember such singular adventures, such unlikely tricks invented by those five rascals, that no one would believe them at present. People do not live like that any longer, even on the Seine, for our mad fancies which we kept ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... pass on till they come to Naindelinde, one of the highest peaks of the Kauvandra mountains. Here the path ends abruptly on the brink of a precipice, the foot of which is washed by a deep lake. Over the edge of the precipice projects a large steer-oar, and the handle is held either by the great god Ndengei himself or, according to the better opinion, by his deputy. When a ghost comes up and peers ruefully over the precipice, the deputy accosts him. "Under what circumstances," he asks, "do ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... Juan came to pay his fees To Charon, by the caverned water's shore, A beggar, proud-eyed as Antisthenes, Stretched out his knotted fingers on the oar. ...
— Forty-Two Poems • James Elroy Flecker
... Pardy," he said, "that strange thoughts and cruel misgivings have come over me concerning that very vessel? They say she is a slaver come in for wood and water, and there she has been a week, and not a stick bigger than an oar has gone up her side, and I'll engage that ten drops from Jamaica have gone on board her, to one from the spring. Then you may see she is anchored in such a way that but one of the guns from the battery can touch her; whereas, had she been a real ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... to be a four-oared match; four Cambridge against four Oxford men, old or young, it doesn't matter. It is to be part of the fun on the coming of age of Sir James's eldest son. I rather think he was born on the eighth. Young James is a Cambridge man and a capital oar, and I'm of the same college, and so is Harrison here, as you know, and we shall have no difficulty in finding a fourth; but we are rather puzzled about the Oxford men. We can calculate upon three, but don't know where to look for the fourth. I wish, Walter, you'd been old enough, and ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... things against them. Yet, unless we continue able to resist the Portuguese, they will soon unsay that speech for their own ease. When he had viewed our ship, with our ordnance and defensive preparations, we sent him and his train on shore in oar boats, in all courtesy. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... of the whistles as the falls dropped the boats from the davits; then the men, leaping down into cutters—silently and quick—no sound save the clash of a cutlass or the rattle of an oar-blade as they took their places and shoved off. Again an ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... row facing the slow river. They were toil-worn and stained; their clothing was in rags. But beneath their sandy hair more than one pair of eyes gleamed from time to time with a sudden anger, with an intelligence made for higher things than spade and oar. As they sat there they were like the notes of a piano, and Kosmaroff played the instrument with a sure touch that brought the fullest vibration out of each chord. He was a born leader; an organizer not untouched perchance by that ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... from side to side, The boat, untrimm'd, admits the tide, Borne down, adrift, at random tost, The oar breaks short, the ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... large sail-boat, and, as the water near the shore is not deep, he has to use a small boat to reach it. When Carlo sees him take down the oar from its place in the yard, he runs up, and takes it in his mouth, as much as to say, "Let me carry that for you, master." Then he trots down the hill with the oar, feeling very proud that he ...
— The Nursery, No. 106, October, 1875. Vol. XVIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... need, Learnt for ship's saving, For the good health of the swimming horse; On the stern cut them, Cut them on the rudder-blade And set flame to shaven oar: Howso big be the sea-hills, Howso blue beneath, Hail from the ...
— The Story of the Volsungs, (Volsunga Saga) - With Excerpts from the Poetic Edda • Anonymous
... I got into the air, that was scented, not disagreeably, by the chips and shavings of the long-shore boat-builders, and mast, oar, and block makers. All that water-side region of the upper and lower Pool below Bridge was unknown ground to me; and when I struck down by the river, I found that the spot I wanted was not where I had ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... taker of ships, a taker of men, A taker of cities is she! From the soft-curtained chamber of Hymen she fled, By the breath of giant Zephyr sped, And shield-bearing throngs in marshalled array Hounded her flight o'er the printless way, Where the swift-flashing oar The fair booty bore To swirling Sim'o-is' leafy shore, And stirred the crimson fray. —Trans. ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... the ship's boats could be spared, so I [MacGillivray] hired one pulled by four negro slaves who, although strong, active fellows, had great objections to straining their backs at the oar, when the dredge was down. No sieve having been supplied, we were obliged to sift the contents of the dredge through our hands—a tedious and superficial mode of examination. Two days after, Mr. Huxley and I set to work in Botafogo Bay, ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... little that is serious in these frequently graceless but generally amusing compositions. There is a curious variety about them, and incidentally a crowd of lively touches of common life. The fisherman of the Seine starts for his day's work or sport with oar and tackle; the smith plies the forge; the bath plays a considerable part in the stories, and we learn that it was not an unknown habit to eat when bathing, which seems to be an unwise attempt to double luxuries. A short sketch of mediaeval catering ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... and powder, on board a keel boat making their way down the Ohio, in a severe snow storm, toward St. Genevieve, a settlement on the Mississippi River, where they proposed to try again. The boat is steered by a long oar, about sixty feet in length, made of the trunk of a slender tree, and shaped at its outer extremity like the fin of a dolphin; four oars in the bow propelled her, and with the current they made ...
— John James Audubon • John Burroughs
... have been stopped short if you had broken his wrist. He has shown that he is a baseball pitcher, but no man can pitch with a broken wrist. He is one of the best freshmen half-backs ever seen at Yale, according to the general acknowledgment. And now he is pulling an oar and coaching the freshmen crew at the same time—something never attempted before—something said to be impossible. Where would he be if you had broken ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... The oar indeed and home with sails Flax-tissued, swelled with favoring gales, Staunch to the wave, from spear-storm free, Have to this shore escorted me, Nor so far blame I destiny. But may the all-seeing Father send In fitting time propitious end; So our dread ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... see if it were possible to find a bottom for anchoring, and to prepare ourselves for what might happen. But we found none. Finally, as we were going faster than we wished, it was recommended to put an oar astern together with some men, so as to steer to an island which we saw, in order to shelter ourselves from the wind. Two other oars also were put over the sides in the after part of the barque, to assist those who were steering, ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 2 • Samuel de Champlain
... up to my indolent and careless disposition, and to following without regularity the impulse of the moment. When the weather was calm, I frequently went immediately after I rose from dinner, and alone got into the boat. The receiver had taught me to row with one oar; I rowed out into the middle of the lake. The moment I withdrew from the bank, I felt a secret joy which almost made me leap, and of which it is impossible for me to tell or even comprehend the cause, if it were not a secret congratulation on my ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... sailed out to the attack, and for several days they fired at the French corsair, which, being a patache of light draught, had run up the bay beyond their reach. Finally one morning the Frenchmen were seen pressing with both sail and oar to escape from the port. A Spanish vessel cut her cables to follow in pursuit, but encountering a heavy sea and contrary winds was abandoned by her crew, who made for shore in boats. The other two ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... hear me grumbling, Bert; that is all the difference. I expect that, of the two, I am rather the worse, for my bones and muscles are more set than yours, and it is some years now since I pulled at either a rope or an oar." ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... very famous book, which all children know and love; and the name of which I'll tell you by and by. So busily was I reading, that I never minded the tide; and presently discovered that I was floating out to sea, with neither sail nor oar. At first I was very much frightened; for there was no one in sight on land or sea, and I didn't know where I might drift to. But the water was calm, the sky clear, and the wind blew balmily; so I waited for what ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... world. Besides the long lance and Patoo-Patoo, which have been mentioned already, they have a staff about five feet long, sometimes pointed, like a serjeant's halberd, sometimes only tapering to a point at one end, and having the other end broad, and shaped somewhat like the blade of an oar. They have also another weapon, about a foot shorter than these, pointed at one end, and at the other shaped like an axe. The points of their long lances are barbed, and they handle them with such strength and agility, that we can match them ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... She got into the boat, unfurled the sail, and fastened it as she had learned in that first brief lesson. She saw that it caught the light breeze, and this was all she cared for. Then she loosed the boat from its moorings, and tried to urge it with an oar, till she was far out from the land, till the sea was dark even to the west, and the stars were disclosing themselves like a palpitating life over the wide heavens. Resting at last, she threw back her cowl, and, taking off the kerchief underneath, which confined her hair, she doubled ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... providing for the summary and lawless punishment of the wretched woman. In the progress of the affair, hundreds of citizens assemble at her house, and raze it to the ground. The unfortunate creature, together with two or three men of like character, are committed, in an open canoe or boat, without oar or paddle, to the middle of ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... I got back to Kilronan, and beat up my crew from the public-houses near the bay. With their usual carelessness they had not seen to the leak in the curagh, nor to an oar that was losing the brace that holds it to the toll-pin, and we moved off across the sound at an absurd pace with a deepening ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... after rude and boisterous seas, My wearied pinnace here finds ease; If so it be I've gained the shore With safety of a faithful oar; If, having run my barque on ground, Ye see the aged vessel crown'd: What's to be done, but on the sands Ye dance and sing and now clap hands? The first act's doubtful, but we say It is the ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick |
