"Coxswain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... followed, which was, however, much relieved when, on stepping into the boat, he was accosted by Wishart, though in a feeble voice, and with an aspect pale as death from excessive bleeding. Directions having been immediately given to the coxswain to apply to Mr. Kennedy at the workyard to procure the best surgical aid, the boat was sent off without delay to Arbroath. The writer then landed at the rock, when the crane was in a very short time got into its place and again put in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... (crocodile) is known especially to avoid the points where the current sweeps swiftly past, yet no one will hang his hand over the canoe into the water: we did not see any of these wretches, but at Boma Coxswain Deane observed ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... men. He was not without honours either. When Washington was rowed from Elizabethtown Point to the first inauguration, his barge was manned by a crew of thirteen ships' captains, and he who had the signal distinction of being coxswain of that historic boat's ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... lofty sides, and called on Don Hugo to surrender. The answer was, a smile of derision from the haughty Spaniard, as he looked down upon them from what seemed an inaccessible height. Then one Wilton, coxswain of the Delight; of Winter's squadron, clambered up to the enemy's deck and fell dead the same instant. Then the English volunteers opened a volley upon the Spaniards; "They seemed safely ensconced in their ships," said bold Dick Tomson, of the Margaret and Joan, "while we in our open pinnaces, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... day, however, a barge came out to us, ill-manned and ill-managed by as scared a set of "galoots" as ever capsized a boat, or trembled at a shadow! The coxswain had more to say than the doctor, and the Yahoo—I forgot to mention that we were still in Yahoodom, but one would see that without this explanation—the Yahoo in the bow said more than both; and they all took a stiff pull from a bottle of cachazza,[3] the doctor having ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... Lord. Easy, starboard oars," again said the Coxswain; and in a quarter of an hour, we were taking the copper kettle into the gig, which P—— placed quietly away, within his reach and sight, ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... perquisite of the first lieutenant. My curiosity, however, would not allow me to resist the temptation of attending the party in my gig; and I had my friend Mr. Brooke as a companion, who was likewise attended by a sampan and crew he had taken with him to Sarawak from Singapore. His coxswain, Seboo, we shall all long remember: he was civil only to his master, and, I believe, brave while in his company. He was a stupid-looking and powerfully-built sort of savage, always praying, eating, smiling, or sleeping. When going into action, he always went down on his knees ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... boats below us. The shanty cannot have drifted far, and perhaps the family are safe by this time," says the coxswain hopefully. ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... lads, I call it, to be dumped on this bit o' purgatory," said the coxswain to Peter Tobey. "The great Cap'n Teach must ha' been in ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... could see no propriety in thanking Heaven for the small amount of injury we had inflicted. I have since had reason to suspect, from several circumstances, that the contest was not as bloodless as it was represented to be at the time. The coxswain of the boat that brought Miles over heard him make the remark that no one was hurt on the rebel side. The man stared at him for a moment in undisguised amazement, and then stepped aside behind an angle of the work, where he could indulge in a hearty fit of laughter. His whole action was that of ...
— Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie in 1860-'61 • Abner Doubleday
... except the second lieutenant, who had the watch, and the master, now got into our own gig also, rowed by ourselves, and away we all went in a covey; the purser and doctor, and three of the middies forward, Thomas Cringle, gent., pulling the stroke oar, with old Moses Yerk as coxswain;—and as the Dragon-flies were all red, so we were all sea-green, boat, oars, trousers, shirts, and night-caps. The strain was between the Devil's Darning Needle and our boat, the Watersprite, which was making capital play, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 579 - Volume 20, No. 579, December 8, 1832 • Various
... said, "It is my duty to make my men happy, and I will." Captain Reece had a daughter, ten female cousins, a niece and a ma, six sisters and an aunt or two, and, at the suggestion of William Lee, the coxswain, married these ladies to his crew—"It is my duty to make my men happy, and I will." Last of all, Captain Reece married the widowed mother of his coxswain, and they were all married on one day—"It was their duty, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... her beam ends, resulting, I fear, in her total destruction, and in the loss of many lives. Providentially only four men were lost; these were in the boats at the time the shock commenced. The boats that were down were all swamped except my gig, which was crushed under the keel, killing my coxswain, a most valuable man. During this terrific scene the officers and men behaved with coolness and subordination. It affords me great pleasure to state, that, after a careful examination of the position and condition of the ship, I am enabled to report that ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... in his hand, and flown away in fragments, leaving only a small portion of the barrel at my feet. How it happened that the coxswain and myself were unhurt seemed a miracle. I was on the right of Mr. Gore, in the stern-sheets of the yawl, and the coxswain was a little on the left, and over him, steering. Our preservation can only ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... trouble myself to come down to the boat, for they had orders not to carry me on board any more. Any one may guess what a surprise I was in at so insolent a message; and I asked the man who bade him deliver that message to me? He told me the coxswain. ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... sound of the boatswain's pipe, too, the cutter's crew had begun to muster on the poop, the leading hands unloosing the gripes with which the boat was secured and the coxswain attending to the tiller; while two or three of the men had already put on their cork jackets and taken their seats on the thwarts, ready for lowering away, the little craft being swung out from the ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... crab-pots—'accessories,' as a painter would say—rest on the beach above high-water mark, the summer through; a few tanned nets hang, and have hung for years, a-drying against the wall of the school-house. But the prevalent odour is of honeysuckle. The aged coxswain of the lifeboat reported to me last year that an American visitor had asked him how, dwelling remote from the railway, the population dealt with its fish. 'My dear man,' said I, 'you should have told him that you get it by Parcels' Post ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... companion—"I rejoice to hear you say this, for I am an inveterate star-gazer and moon-ite; and I shall hope to persuade you and Mrs. Dutton to waste yet another hour, with me, in walking on this height. Ah! yonder is Sam Yoke, my coxswain, waiting to report the barge; I can send Sir Gervaise's message to the surgeons, by deputy, and there will be no occasion for my hastening from this lovely spot, and ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Farragut lay apparently asleep, but in reality listening and watching, the coxswain of the Alert came to his hammock with a pistol in hand. Farragut scarcely breathed until he had passed by, then noiselessly the young midshipman crept to the cabin where Captain Porter was, aroused him and told him what he had seen. The Captain sprang from his cot, crying "Fire! Fire!" The sailors ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... the vessel in its turn, we arranged that four of us should get on board—two (I being one of them) to see to the safety of Mr. Blanchard's daughter, and two to beat back the cowardly remnant of the crew if they tried to crowd in first. The other three—the coxswain and two oarsmen—were left in the boat to keep her from being crushed by the ship. What the others saw when they first boarded La Grace de Dieu I don't know; what I saw was the woman whom I had lost, the woman vilely stolen from me, lying in a swoon on the ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... cruisers. That it was an errand of imminent risk did not trouble the bold American tars. There were volunteers enough eager to undertake the perilous task to form a ship's crew, and to the six seamen chosen Coxswain Clausen added himself as a stowaway. The love of adventure was stronger than fear of ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... my hand to the captain. He grasped it powerfully. 'That crew in a boat, and wouldn't you know the devil'd be coxswain?' he called ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the checker-board went in one direction, the table in another, while the checkers rolled to every corner of the little volunteer life-saving station house, Eric Swift made a leap for the door. Quick as he was to reach the boat, he was none too soon, for the coxswain and two other men were tumbling over the gunwale at ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... as the vessels in which the Phoenicians circumnavigated Africa. Even their single canoes were sometimes between 100 and 150 feet long, and the crews of these, wielding their elastic paddles, kept time in a fashion that has won respect from the coxswain of a University eight. For their long voyages they stored water in calabashes, carried roots and dried fish, and had in the cocoa-nut both food and drink stored safely by nature in the most convenient compass. In certain seasons they could ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... four. We'd put Jack in yours, and take you girls a nice spin up to the Hemlocks," said Frank, whose idea of bliss was floating down the river with Annette as coxswain. ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... Count," answered the coxswain for the boat's crew. His words were accompanied by the fall of the oars and the boat shot ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... gained on 3rd Trinity all the way to Ditton Corner, where we were overlapping. Our coxswain made a shot, missed them, and we went into the mid-stream. After our misfortune we paddled slowly over the long reach, and came in half a length behind 3rd Trinity and 2 lengths ahead of 1st Trinity. To-night we did not gain much up to the Plough, where ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... round with the tide. The clock struck the half-hour; a boat left the side of the vessel and made straight for the steps near where he was seated. A tall, noble-looking man sat in the stern-sheets beside the coxswain; he was put ashore, and, after exchanging a few words with the boat's crew, he mounted the steps which led him to Wylie's side, followed by one of the sailors, ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... advertisement were as yet in the clouds. Captain Moore came from Sydney in the revenue cutter 'Prince George' to look for smugglers, but he did not find any. He was afterwards appointed collector for Gippsland, and he came down again from Sydney with a boat's crew of six prisoners, a free coxswain, and a portable house, in which he sate for the ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... astonishing tactics of a lonely dingy in a raging sea were observed from the bridge of the cutter, a red-nosed and profane man, who wore a faded blue cap with peak over one ear, gave orders to lower away a sponson boat, and came himself as coxswain, as though unwilling to defer the time ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... should be conducted on principles different from those that control the training of every other person in the fleet. Men being the same in general, their qualities differing only in degree, it is logical to conclude that, if a gun-pointer or coxswain is best trained by being made first to understand the principles that underlie the correct performance of his work, and then by being given a good deal of practice in performing it, a commander-in-chief, or a captain, ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... even from her foes St. Eustace struggled gloriously to recover her lost water. Little by little the nose of her boat crept up and up, until it was almost abreast with Number Three's oar, while cries of encouragement from bridge and shore urged her on. But now Green, the Hillton coxswain, turned his head slightly, studied the position of the rival eight, glanced ahead at the judges' boat, and spoke ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... the boats began to enter the last quarter of this mile, the excitement rose to the highest pitch. First Burrton made a spurt that put them a boat's length ahead of their rivals. Then Brainerd responded to its coxswain's call and closed up the gap, gradually lapping its bow past the stern of the Burrton shell. Then Burrton drew away again for half a boat's length. Brainerd doggedly clung to that position for a short distance and then began slowly to fall behind, as the boats shot into the last eighth of the mile. ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... was given the tiller when a boat was sent ashore. He became an expert in steering, and was made coxswain of the captain's launch. He learned the Channel in low tide from Chatham to the Tower, making a map of it on his own account. He had a scent for rocks and shoals, and knew how to avoid them—for good pilots are ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... however, during Ernest's last year, when the names of the crews for the scratch fours were drawn he had found himself coxswain of a crew, among whom was none other than his especial hero Towneley; the three others were ordinary mortals, but they could row fairly well, and the crew on the whole was ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... Grant are waiting for you on board," replied the coxswain; "but lose no time your honor, we have not a minute, for the tide ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... is misanthropic and pleases nobody. Elder* (* Flinders' servant.) continues to be faithful and attentive as before; I like him, and he apparently likes me. Whitewood I have made a master's mate, and he behaves well. Charrington is become boatswain, and Jack Wood is now my coxswain. Trim, like his master, is becoming grey; he is at present fat and frisky, and takes meat from our forks with his former dexterity. He is commonly my bedfellow. The master we have in poor Thistle's place* (* John Aken.) is an easy, good-natured man." In another ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott |
