"Skiff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... on the sea With home-sick longing. WOLE, the eager-eyed, From his far height espied them where they sat, And sent four of his people to their aid (Such power hath youth and beauty through the world!) Bearing a skiff, contrived of ribs of whales, For frame work,—these, inwove with fibrous moss, And lined with furs of savage Arctic beasts Which he had slain. When, with this welcome gift The slaves appeared, and bowed at OLIVE's feet, The tears sprang to her eyes; her heart ...
— The Arctic Queen • Unknown
... reason or other, did not arrive. Meanwhile, Essex, excited beyond all 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 ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... be lying on his breast. He heard the rushing of waters. He saw the flood come leaping through all the valleys, over the tops of all the hills, wave upon wave, from all sides. The moon was shining. He saw Angele climb to a little skiff lying moored somewhere; and the tide carried away the skiff with her in it. ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... now was confirmed, and he was sure he knew the culprits. Taking the hoop, he returned to his boathouse with all possible speed, and leaping into his skiff, paddled up the river, his eyes scanning the marsh lines on either bank of the channel. Arriving at the bridge, he learned by inquiry from the tender stationed there that he had not seen the Lillian coming up stream within ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... dark and damp night in November, a light skiff with muffled paddles, manned by a few chosen men, provisioned with three biscuits each, lay alongside the waiting vessel." Under cover of the night, the disguised Governor embarked, attended by an orderly sergeant, and his devoted Aide-de-Camp, Charles Terieu de la Perade, Sieur de Lanaudiere, ...
— Famous Firesides of French Canada • Mary Wilson Alloway
... boats scattering in all directions; the French boat getting up a sail or two, and all confusion; whips cracking, wheels ploughing through the soft sand, and horses galloping off to get to the other side of the sandbank. We were close aside the long, low chasse-maree, in our bit of a skiff thing, when the alarm was given, and pushed off hard for the shore, which was about two hundred yards distant, while on all sides there were other boats setting us the example, or following in our wake; in front of us there was a heavy cart backed as ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... 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 to ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... stormy wave That dasht like midnight revellers in;— And such the strange, mysterious din At times throughout those caverns rolled,— And such the fearful wonders told Of restless sprites imprisoned there, That bold were Moslem who would dare At twilight hour to steer his skiff Beneath the Gheber's lonely cliff.[226] On the land side those towers sublime, That seemed above the grasp of Time, Were severed from the haunts of men By a wide, deep, and wizard glen, So fathomless, so full ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... 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 ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... the naturalists, benefit by the designation given to this or that object in life's treasure-house: it is the skiff wherein they keep afloat for a brief while. A patch of lichen on the bark of an old tree, a blade of grass, a puny beastie: any one of these hands down a man's name to posterity as effectively as ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... said Darrel, "the soul in me is like a toy skiff, tossing in the ripples of a duck pond an' mayhap stranding on a reed or lily. An' then," he added, with kindling eye and voice, "she is a great ship, her sails league long an' high, her masthead raking the stars, her hull ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... reached the landing place, she saw that the gunwale of the old boat was stove, and her heart sank within her. There were several persons at the landing, and she told them what she feared. One of them took a skiff and rowed out to the yacht. Paul and John were both in the cabin, and when the messenger came alongside, the captain called them on deck. Seeing Mrs. Duncan on the shore, they got into their boat, and soon ...
— Little By Little - or, The Cruise of the Flyaway • William Taylor Adams
... 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 ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, v5 - Central and Southern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... unseen world, boomerangs of hard wood, and the battle-axe of Ahmosis. Besides these, there were two boats, one of gold and one of silver, originally intended for the Pharaoh Kamosu—models of the skiff in which his mummy crossed the Nile to reach its last resting-place, and to sail in the wake of the gods on ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... 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 that he was a ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... 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 deck, made him one of his profoundest bows, which Don Hernan returned ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... 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 ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... billows mounted, and its towers Totter'd, beneath the watery gulf oppress'd. Nor land nor sea their ancient bounds maintain'd, For all around was sea, sea without shore. This seeks a mountain's top, that gains a skiff, And plies his oars where late he plough'd the plains. O'er fields of corn one sails, or 'bove the roofs Of towns immerg'd;—another in the elm Seizes th' intangled fish. Perchance in meads The anchor oft is thrown, and oft the keel Tears the subjacent vine-tree. Where were ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... those two venerable gentlemen floating in a skiff upon the clear waters of Lake George. One of them is a successful statesman, an ex-President of the United States, a lawyer versed in all the curious eccentricities of the "lawless science of the law." The other is a learned doctor of medicine, able to give a name to all ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... solitude it was! After the winter rains it might roll furiously and threateningly, but during the long months of bright weather it traversed Rome without a sound, and Pierre could remain there all day long without seeing either a skiff or a sail. The two or three little steam-boats which arrived from the coast, the few tartanes which brought wine from Sicily, never came higher than the Aventine, beyond which there was only a watery desert in which here and there, at ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... unto thy mountain dwelling, Haste, as a bird unto its peaceful nest! Haste, as a skiff, through tempests wide and swelling, Flies to its ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... We now entered our skiff again and went on down the great river till we came to a place nearly opposite Mineral Point, when we gave our boat to a poor settler, and with guns and bundles on our backs took a straight shoot for home on foot. The second day about dark we came ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... for starting without delay on the quest: "There is my skiff; it will take us quickly to the rock; one night you shall wait in the boat on the shore, then shall you lead ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... 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 ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur
... discharge of 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 face of an officer in the uniform of the —— ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... locomotive, and arrived at Goshen about 10 A. M., where, after some little encouragement, the stage-driver attached his horses to the stage, and we started slowly through the mountains, breaking the track. On reaching the Baths, the North River was unfordable, but I was ferried across in a skiff, with all my bundles (I picked up two more in Staunton and one at Goshen) and packages, and took a stage detained on the opposite bank for Lexington, where I arrived in good time. I found all as well as usual, and disappointed at not seeing you with me, though I was ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... 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 ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips
... all," he was saying in Louisiana French, "there is no spot comparable, for comfortable seclusion, to the old orange grove under the levee on the Point; twenty minutes in a skiff, five minutes for preliminaries—you would not want more, the ground has been measured off five hundred ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... cotton-woods fringed the bank of the river, and under their shade had been erected a number of seats of japanned mason-work, in a style peculiar to Spanish countries. There were steps cut in the face of the bank, overhung with drooping shrubs, and leading to the water's edge. I had noticed a small skiff moored under the willows, where these steps went down to ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... sea and of danger; they share the life of their parents. We have but one life, and we do not flinch from it. We have but one life, our names are written on the same page of the book of Fate, one skiff bears us and our ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... cutter, manned and provisioned, with the skiff in tow, hoisted her foresail and sheered off from the after gangway. The India-rubber Man, as Senior Officer of the expedition, took the helm and banished the Young Doctor into the bows, where, to judge by the ecstatic shouts of merriment that floated aft, his peculiar form of wit was much ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... 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 ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... born of him, And crowding nigh, or in the distance dim, Lifts the white throng of sails, that bear or bring The commerce of the world;—with tawny limb, And belt and beads in sunlight glistening, The savage urged his skiff like wild bird on ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant
... fall, Sheila had become a splendid oarswoman. In a skiff belonging to little John-Ed which was drawn up on the sands not far from the cabin she had paddled out through the narrow neck of the tiny cove's entrance and pulled bravely through the surf and out upon the sea beyond. She had learned more than a bit of sea lore, ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... it a very spacious and pleasant seat; the rolling of the boat which had alarmed her when standing gave her only a delightful sensation. She put her hand over the side of the skiff and let the water glide through her fingers while she watched with interest ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne
... with coming good, Or ere the tongue of happiness Be silenced by your soft caress, Relate how, musing here of you, The clouds, the intermediate blue, The air that rings with larks, the grave And distant rumour of the wave, The solitary sailing skiff, The gusty corn-field on the cliff, The corn-flower by the crumbling ledge, Or, far-down at the shingle's edge, The sighing sea's recurrent crest Breaking, resign'd to its unrest, All whisper, to my home-sick thought, Of charms in you till now uncaught, ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore
... 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 ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... food in a primitive fashion, outdoors, over a hole in the soggy earth or upon the rusted red ruin of an old cook stove, and he drank the saffron water of the lake out of a dipper made of a gourd, faring and fending for himself, a master hand at skiff and net, competent with duck gun and fish spear, yet a creature of affliction and loneliness, part savage, almost amphibious, set apart from his fellows, ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... went in stately procession, he first, with that kind of walk by which a surveyor of taxes could have at once assessed his income, and I, the humblest of the bookman tribe, following in the rear, trembling like a skiff in the wake of an ocean liner. "There," he said, with his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, "what do you think of that?" And that was without question a very large and ornate and costly mahogany bookcase with glass doors. Before I saw the doors I had ...
— Books and Bookmen • Ian Maclaren
... of 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
... resolved to communicate with our fleet that night, which happened to be a beautiful moonlight one. At the wharf belonging to Cheeves's mill was a small skiff, that had been used by our men in fishing or in gathering oysters. I was there in a minute, called for a volunteer crew, when several young officers, Nichols and Merritt among the number; said they were good oarsmen, and volunteered to ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... 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 ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... clothing, food, and firearms, Radisson left the Mohawk Valley with three hunters. By the middle of August, the rind of the birch is in perfect condition for peeling. The first thing the hunters did was to slit off the bark of a thick-girthed birch and with cedar linings make themselves a skiff. Then they prepared to lay up a store of meat for the winter's war-raids. Before ice forms a skim across the still pools, nibbled chips betray where a beaver colony is at work; so the hunters began setting beaver traps. One night as they were returning to their wigwam, there ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... use of a man going on to town when he lives out here?" responded the General. "Besides what matter is it to you?" "Oh nothing," said the soldier, and paid him no further attention. Reaching the river, which runs close to this point, they gave a little boy two dollars to put them across in a skiff. ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... shouldered the canoe and marched off with it, though he subsequently allowed both Isidore and Amoahmeh to assist him in carrying it. A short hour's march brought them to another creek sufficiently large to float their skiff, and soon afterwards they came upon a second lake, which they traversed from end to end. Then, as they neared the shore, Isidore's ears were greeted by a well-known and most welcome sound—the challenge of a French sentinel. They had ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... o'clock a skiff drew alongside, being propelled by one oar—a method much in vogue with Havana harbormen—and when Monsieur came aboard we saw at once evidences of disappointment. His arms hung listlessly, and his large head drooped ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... this? what have we here! we must not pass it by; A Telescope upon its frame, and pointed to the sky: Long is it as a Barber's Poll, or Mast of little Boat, Some little Pleasure-Skiff, that doth on ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... snapped and the captain fell on his back in the bow of the boat, striking his head on the gunwale with a force that stunned him. At this moment the outflowing wave from the falling water swept over the skiff, rolling it upside down. Dick, who was a regular water-dog, saw the big wave coming and, as it rolled the dingy over, he sank for a moment beneath the surface till the wave had passed, then came up with all his senses alert. He swam to the capsized dingy, which ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... the mate, "I remember you now! Yo're that play-actor! Yo're the man, by gad! who hauled me into yo' skiff half roasted and half drownded when the Quakeress was a-burnin'! By George, look here! What do you want on this boat, that you ain't already got? Name it, sir, just name it! Oh, by hokey, ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... Skiff Miller's abstraction disappeared. The pretty woman before him passed out of his field of vision. He had eyes only for the dog, and a great wonder ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... called and turned out the morning guard he had been up busy gardening, or reading, or writing. At a quarter to nine he breakfasted. Very shortly after breakfast an ex-champion sculler the admirable Bill East, would arrive from Richmond, and he and Sir Charles would row in a racing skiff a measured mile or more of the river. One summer at least he changed from rowing kit to boots and breeches after his rowing, and rode till luncheon. At four o'clock there would be a second bout with East, and thereafter, ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... poor 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 ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... air to break the wave That rolls below the Athenian's grave, That tomb[55] which, gleaming o'er the cliff, First greets the homeward-veering skiff High o'er the land he saved in vain; When ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... why Prevail'd not thy pure prayers? Why pray To one who heeds not, who can save But will not? Great in faith, and strong Against the grief of circumstance Wert thou, and yet unheard. What if Thou pleadest still, and seest me drive Thro' utter dark a fullsailed skiff, Unpiloted i' the echoing dance Of reboant whirlwinds, stooping low Unto the death, not sunk! I know At matins and at evensong, That thou, if thou were yet alive, In deep and daily prayers wouldst strive To reconcile me with thy God. Albeit, ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... man who was nearly rescued. He had stepped into the skiff and then walked back into his home, which a short time later floated away with him. Incidents of ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall
... alone with Doctor Dennis. She stood so quiet, her eyes glued on the dull, shaking shadow yonder on the bar, that he thought she did not care. Two figures came round from the inlet to where the water shoaled, pulling a narrow skiff. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... that little pea-green boat. It is a nice one," she said, pointing to a frail skiff ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... the midst of the deep blue sea. The silvery glimmer of moonlight shone on the rippling waves; moonlight breaking through dark clouds,—producing the most dazzling contrast of light and shade. A large vessel, in full sail, glided along in the gloom of the shadows; a little skiff floated on the white-crested, sparkling, shining tide. The flag of our country waved from the rocky tower. I seemed gazing on a familiar scene. Those wave washed battlements; that floating banner; the figures of soldiers marching on the ramparts, with folded arms ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... wavelets speeds our skiff To the oar's measured beat; Cloudclapt, the heaven-aspiring hills Appear our ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... oars, watching the scene with the eager, vivid interest which was characteristic of her. So absorbed was she that she failed to notice that her own small skiff was getting rather dangerously hemmed in. To her right lay a biggish sailing vessel, blocking the view on that side, behind her a small fry of miscellaneous craft, packed together like a flotilla of Thames boats on a summer's day awaiting the opening of the lock gates. Half unconsciously ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... also a good sailor, and has the reputation of understanding the management of a sail-boat as well as any other boy in the village. He has two boats, which are in the creek, tied to the wharf in front of the house. One of them is a light skiff, which he frequently uses in going to and from the village and on his fishing excursions, and the other is a scow, about twenty feet long and six feet wide, which he built himself. He calls her the Speedwell. ...
— Frank, the Young Naturalist • Harry Castlemon
... "Come to think of it, I never see 'im afore this. I'm standing back there, looking down at my old skiff and wondering about my job, when this fella comes up. 'This is for you, Charon,' he says, and held out your official incombusterible letterhead with the cross-bones ...
— Satan and the Comrades • Ralph Bennitt
... the birds began to sing— They see not now the milking maids—deserted is the spring! Mid-summer day—this gallant rides from distant Bandon's town— These hookers crossed from stormy Skull, that skiff from Affadown; They only found the smoking walls, with neighbours' blood besprent, And on the strewed and trampled beach awhile they wildly went— Then dashed to sea, and passed Cape Cleire, and saw five leagues before The pirate ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... was sourly ruminating after his solitary meal. A very red sun was pouring its last low beams through the valley at the western extremity of the lake, across its elsewhere sombre waters, and touching with a sudden and blood-red tint the sail of the skiff in which Feltram was returning from ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... 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 ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... on public occasions and witty talk in private. His first appearance was typical of the man. He came down clamorous to the eastern landing, where the surf was running very high; scorned all our signals to go round the bay; carried his point, was brought aboard at some hazard to our skiff, and set down in one corner of the cockpit to his appointed task. He had been hired, as one cunning in the art, to make my old men's beards into a wreath: what a wreath for Celia's arbour! His own beard (which he carried, for ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... soon in possession of Ancona. They eagerly sought for the young prince, who bore a name which despots have ever feared. A price was set upon his head. The sagacity of the mother rescued the child. She made arrangements for a frail skiff to steal out from the harbor and cross the Adriatic Sea to the shores of Illyria. Deceived by this stratagem, the Austrian police had no doubt that the young prince had escaped. Their vigilance was accordingly relaxed. Hortense then took ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... A skiff burst from the darkness, grounding on the beach beneath. A figure scrambled out and up the ladder leading to the wharf. Immediately a second boat, plainly in pursuit of the first one, struck on the beach ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... 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 ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... well-known Broad street broker, found drowned in the East river. At ten o'clock last night Martin Kelly, an old junk dealer, picked up the mutilated corpse of a well-dressed man in the East river off the foot of East Forty-second street. He towed it behind his skiff to the morgue, and turned the corpse over to the authorities, with an account of his ghastly find. The body had been in the water so long it would have been unrecognizable if it were not for some private papers found in the ...
— The Bradys Beyond Their Depth - The Great Swamp Mystery • Anonymous
... broad day. We leaped up, and rubbing the sleep from our eyes, saw a light skiff drifting toward us. It contained two men—Frank and Charley. We had met them at Benton, and during an acquaintance of three weeks we had learned of their remarkable ability as cooks. Frank was a little Canadian Frenchman, and Charley was English. Both, in the parlance of the road, were "floaters"; ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... was closely pursued by Douglas, with a party of horse, who followed him as far as Dunbar, where the English had still a friend in the governor, Patrick, Earl of Mans. The earl received Edward in his forlorn condition, and furnished him with a fishing skiff, or small ship, in which he escaped to England, having entirely lost his fine army, and a great number of his ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... 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 the ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... 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 stuff ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... skiff beached among the cottonwoods that grew along the water's edge and his eyes lighted up instantly. He had a ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... he exclaimed. "So that's the way you do it, eh? Don't talk to me of motor-boats! A good old-fashioned skiff with a leg-o'-mutton sail in her is good enough fur ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... upturned 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 ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... can brave The terrors of this gloomy lake; And so a skiff you needs must take, And try alone the icy wave; Being in that most trying strait The absolute master ...
— The Purgatory of St. Patrick • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... 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
... them. It was soon all over!—A rock, just covered by the tossing waves, and so unperceived, lay in wait for its prey. A crash of thunder broke over my head at the moment that, with a frightful shock, the skiff dashed upon her unseen enemy. In a brief space of time she went to pieces. There I stood in safety; and there were my fellow-creatures, battling, now hopelessly, with annihilation. Methought I saw ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... thanks of this Commission be extended to the President of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission, Honorable David R. Francis; to the Secretary, Honorable Walter B. Stevens; to the Director of Exhibits, Honorable Frederick J.V. Skiff; to the Director of Works, Honorable Isaac S. Taylor, and to the chiefs of each exhibit department of the Exposition, with whom the Commission or its representatives have been brought in contact; be ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... rescued by the seamen, her continued screams even after its safe delivery quite intimidated me, but with the usual sure-footedness of the blind, I went down with so much ease that I was greatly complimented by the astonished captain. Our skiff-ride to shore was a pleasant episode, and the romance was much heightened by the floating sea plants around us, which could be easily touched with our hands. There were no good hotels in Santa Barbara, but we were comfortably accommodated in a private family. The climate is ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... 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 to receive ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... aspects of beauty and sublimity. From the Northern wastes, where the hunter and the trapper pursue by force or guile the fur-bearing animals, to the ever-perfumed latitudes of the lemon and the myrtle,—from the stormy Atlantic, where the skiff of the fisherman rocks fearlessly under the menace of beetling crags amid the foam of angry breakers, to where the solemn surge of the Pacific pours itself around our Western continent, boon Nature has spread out fields which ask only the magic ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... I have trained him! And all I have done for him. I let him buy that skiff he said he wanted. Absolute waste of money! Our old rowboat is good enough for the girls, so why isn't it good enough for him? And I never laid a hand on him in punishment either; not ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... likely?" 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 ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... As the little skiff moved out upon the river, a carriage rattled across the bridge. Sightseers who had driven over from Williamsburg were returning. However satisfied they may have felt with their short visit, we ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... became aware of an outrigger skiff rapidly approaching them. The rower of course had his back turned, and evidently not expecting anything ahead, was steering himself "over his toes," as the term is—that is by some landmark behind the boat. Who he was Parson could not make out, but he ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... steersman. Tell guided the vessel to the foot of the great Axenberg, where a ledge of rock distinguished to the present day as Tell's platform, presented itself as the only possible landing-place for leagues around. Here he seized his cross-bow, and escaped by a daring leap, leaving the skiff to wrestle its way in the billows. The vogt also escaped the storm, but only to meet a fate more signal from Tell's bow in the narrow pass near Kussnacht. The tidings of his death enhanced the courage of the people, but also alarmed the vigilance of their rulers, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 554, Saturday, June 30, 1832 • Various
... him were the painted natives of the 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 the smoke of the French ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... pleasure again. There are no pleasure-boats on the Arno; and the shallowness of its waters (except in winter-time, when the stream is too turbid and impetuous for boating) rendered it difficult to get any skiff light enough to float. Shelley, however, overcame the difficulty; he, together with a friend, contrived a boat such as the huntsmen carry about with them in the Maremma, to cross the sluggish but deep streams that intersect the forests,—a boat of laths and pitched canvas. It held three persons; ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... from her window, and when she saw her captive and the renegade return in the skiff of the vessel, she hastened below into the garden. She was bedecked with a fortune in pearls and precious stones. She asked the renegade to follow her into the house, and when they returned, they brought with them a chest laden with gold. Just then her father was awakened ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... he purchased a small and very fast rowing-skiff at Liege, and taking his place in this with his four remaining followers, he rowed up the river. It took them three days before they reached the edge of the forest. On reaching their former hiding-place, ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... exploded under the vessel's overhang, and she soon sunk. At the moment of the explosion a cannonball crashed through the launch. Cushing plunged into the river and swam to shore through a shower of bullets. After crawling through the swamps next day, be found a skiff and paddled off to the fleet. Of the launch's crew of ...
— History of the United States, Volume 4 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... strangely clad in the mortal habiliments of woe, crowding the banks of the fateful river, and waiting, sick with hope deferred, their turn to cross; and your eyes wander curiously along the swollen, dashing stream to catch sight of the unclean grizzly beard, Charon, the ferryman, and his crazy skiff:— ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood
... drawn upon the water, their whiteness appears and disappears in the trembling of the light; and the underwood, how warm and quiet it is, and penetrated with the life of the summer; and the yellow-painted skiff, how happy and how real! Colours, tints of faint green and mauve passed lightly, a few branches indicated. Truly, the art of ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... easy," said Betty to herself, writing the name "Robinson Crusoe" after the last act, as the crew of little pickaninnies, seated in an old skiff which had been dragged up from the mill stream for that purpose, took up a piece of patch-work and began to sew. Betty was the only one who had ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... a natural impulse to visit this inviting region. I procured a skiff and rowing across the river landed at the principal wharf of the city. No one met me there. I looked, and saw no one: I heard no movement: though the stillness everywhere was such that I heard the flies buzz, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... 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 ropes. ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... 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 venture was, ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... 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 ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... can see his face this minute—so white and wild-looking. 'Take me down this river a way,' says he. I was working then, you'll remember, far down on the line, across from Amsterdam. I told him I was no boatman. 'It's an affair of life and death,' says he. 'Take me on a few miles. Yonder skiff is not locked, but it may be a poor man's boat and I'd be loath to rob him!' (The words might differ some, vrouw, for it's all like a dream.) Well, I took him down—it might be six or eight miles—and then he said he could run the rest of the way on shore. I was in haste to get the ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... quiescent Over mountain, vale and lea, And the moon uplifts her crescent Far above the peaceful sea, Little Rose, the fisher's daughter, Passes in her cedar skiff O'er the dreamy waste of water, To ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster
... were saved, while the upper and lower floes crunched and ground together under the keel, lifting the light craft still further above the tide and throwing it over on one side. Without a second's pause, the now consolidated field of ice swept downward, carrying with it the wedged and stranded skiff. ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... intelligible and commanding signs he ordered the reckless young artist to turn his little skiff, and follow in the wake of the ferry-boat, which was by ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... and leaves the barge where he did not meet with it. I do not know how a wayfarer, following in our track, contrives to reach our side of the water; but I fancy some person, unseen, must be left in charge of these ferries, and rows across in a skiff, or other ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... he would have perished miserably weighed down by his robes and pelted by the Egyptians—his garments, being purple, offered a good mark—had he not thrown off the incumbrances and then succeeded in swimming out somewhere to a skiff, which he boarded. In this way he was saved without wetting one of the documents of which he held up a large number in his left hand as he swam. His clothing the Egyptians took and hung upon the trophy which they ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... 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 bow of his ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... us, and we all ran out like sheep from a pen, or school children at intermission. We drank fresh water from the spring under the green hillside; we bought apples and oranges at the store, and furs of the furrier; we rowed in a skiff and scampered over the hills to Dutch Harbor; we watched jelly-fish and pink star-fish in the water; we saw white reindeer apparently as tame as cows browsing on the slopes; we visited an old Greek church, and were kept from ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... story from her son, and told it over the whole village. Some people wondered, but the most part laughed at it as a good joke; and Civil and his mother were never known to be angry but on that day. Dame Civil advised her son never to fish with Sour again; and Civil got an old skiff which one of the fishermen was going to break up for firewood, and cobbled it ...
— Granny's Wonderful Chair • Frances Browne
... rushed, dodging the things like a crow in a flock of pestering jays, and we really enjoyed the excitement. It was more fascinating sport than shooting rapids in a careening skiff, and at last we grew so confident in the powers of our car and its commander that we were rather sorry when the last meteor passed, and we found ourselves once more ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... grief, Sigmund tenderly raised his son's body in his arms, and strode out of the hall and down to the shore, where he deposited his precious burden in a skiff which an old one-eyed boatman brought at his call. He would fain have stepped aboard also, but ere he could do so the boatman pushed off and the frail craft was soon lost to sight. The bereaved father then slowly wended his ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... webs across the ways Carved by the wind, a half-breathed sigh, That spoke in ripples. "O Heart's Delight," I cried, "The skiff comes for me now across the water." And, as I bent to kiss her, Love's fair daughter, She barely breathed, "Good-night," And some musician blended Chopin with her phrase: "Good-bye, Love's youth, Youth's ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... imagination to wander. Now a river like this suggests an infinity of possibilities, drifting on and on and on into undiscovered regions, by ever-varying shores. I feel to-night as if I should like to step into that little boat yonder,' pointing to a light skiff bobbing gently up and down with the tide, at the bottom of a flight of steps, 'and let the stream take me ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... 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 |
