"Skiff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fisherman trimming his boat. E'en that frail skiff from all danger might tear me, And to the dwellings of friends it might bear me. Scarcely his earnings can keep life afloat. Richly with treasures his lap I'd heap over,— Oh! what a draught should reward him to-day! Fortune held fast in his ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... she gave an exclamation of surprise; then ran up the spiral stairway to the tower, where in the rays of the steady light she could see more clearly. Far out on the waves, beyond the frozen surface of the inner bay, she saw a light skiff bobbing up and down, the toy of wind and wave; in it by the aid of her powerful glass she could see a stiff, still figure. A man had been overcome by the cold—he would die if he were not rescued at ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... volleys of culverin and cannon, slipped anchor, and passing from the body of the fleet, lay close up to the 'War Sprite,' pushing the 'Dreadnought' on one side. Raleigh, seeing him coming, went to meet him in his skiff, and begged him to see that the fly-boats were sent, as the battery was beginning to be more than his ships could bear. The Lord Admiral was following Essex, and Raleigh passed on to him with the same entreaty. This parley between ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... that the writer, Mr. Allen, had an interview with you and Mr. Skiff, in which he protested on behalf of the National Commission that no time was given the Commission to investigate the character of qualifications of the jurors thus nominated, and that it was placing in the hands of the chiefs ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... dawned, there were only eight men still alive on the rigging, and no effort was made to rescue them until about eleven o'clock, A.M., when a boy of thirteen years of age put out alone, in a small skiff from Herring Cove, to their assistance, thus setting a noble example of humanity and heroism to older and more experienced men, who should have been leaders, and not followers, on such an occasion. With great ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... alone on her side of the river. At the landing opposite, however, were two men; and presently Lucy recognized Joel Creech and his father. A second glance showed Indians with burros, evidently waiting for the boat. Joel Creech jumped into a skiff and shoved off. The elder man, judging by his motions, seemed to be trying to prevent his son from leaving the shore. But Joel began to row up-stream, keeping close to the shore. Lucy watched him. No doubt he had seen her and was coming across. Either the prospect of meeting him or the idea of ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... Samson, the laws of hydrostatics would set at naught their strength. The shock with which they touch the mill will recoil on the skiff; if they grapple it they will be dragged away by it. It is as if a spider would catch a ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... Finding no opportunity of going to Staten Island, we asked our old friend Symon, who had come over from Gouanes, what was the best way for us to get there, when he offered us his services to take us over in his skiff, which we accepted; and at dusk accompanied him in his boat to Gouanes, where we arrived about eight o'clock, and where he welcomed ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... and the little skiff shot ahead smoothly and silently from the great brown fishing boat and her equally brown owners. Gliding on—watched for a little by the fishers, then their attention was claimed by the flapping shad in the net, and the sail boat set her canvas towards Kildeer river. Mr. Linden went forward and ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... on my hands. I sat on the dock and talked it over with Nickey the Greek, another idle oyster pirate. "Let's go," said I, and Nickey was willing. He was "broke." I possessed fifty cents and a small skiff. The former I invested and loaded into the latter in the form of crackers, canned corned beef, and a ten-cent bottle of French mustard. (We were keen on French mustard in those days.) Then, late in the afternoon, we hoisted our small ...
— The Road • Jack London
... not slow to obey, and when it touched the water they swarmed into it, so that, being overloaded, it upset and left its occupants struggling in the water. A number of the men who could swim, immediately jumped overboard and tried to right the skiff, but they failed, and, in the effort to do so, broke the rope that held it. Some clung to it. Others turned and swam ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... (a.u. 490)] Meantime Gaius Claudius, military tribune, sent in advance with a few ships by Appius Claudius, had arrived at Rhegium. But to sail across was more than he dared, for he saw that the Carthaginian fleet was far larger. So he embarked in a skiff and approached Messana, where he held a conversation, as extended as the case permitted, with the party in possession. When the Carthaginians had made reply, he returned without accomplishing anything. Subsequently he ascertained that the Mamertines were at odds (they did not want to submit to the ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... enemy's flags and carried them back to their own ship, shouting, "Victory!" with joyful voices. Just then our ship, having taken in a great quantity of water from all sides, was by the permission of God suddenly swallowed in the waves with all the sailors, except a few who by the help of a skiff captured from the Dutch, or by swimming, made their way to land. The general was one who threw himself into the water with two flags ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume XI, 1599-1602 • Various
... as that is concerned,' exclaimed the king, 'we shall send for your wife. She shall live with you at Windsor.' But my husband laughed and said: 'She will never come, your majesty. She would not cross the Danube in a skiff, much less make a trip beyond the sea. And, therefore, there is nothing left to me but to return myself to my little wife.' And he did so, and left the king, and the queen, and all the noble lords and ladies, and came back to Vienna, and to his little wife. Say, Catharine, was not that ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... willing to be," Mr. Pinchem said. "He stole a skiff from the boat club in Northvale and it was found empty down ...
— Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... letter from Boswell to Temple on this day helps to fill up the gap in his journal:—'It gives me acute pain that I have not written more to you since we parted last; but I have been like a skiff in the sea, driven about by a multiplicity of waves. I am now at Mr. Thrale's villa, at Streatham, a delightful spot. Dr. Johnson is here too. I came yesterday to dinner, and this morning Dr. Johnson and I return to London, and I go with Mr. Beauclerk ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... small skiff rapidly around the edge of the clear-water lake, and then shoved her gently ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XII, Jan. 3, 1891 • Various
... trailing long green veils, all but met across the Di below them. Once they passed a saw-mill, set and buzzing; once they had to wait in the woods while a string of cattle stampeded by; once they saw a man in a skiff far down the Di. He raised his hand and waved to them for loneliness' sake. He ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... drives were arranged to the beauty-spots and historical places round about, but I appreciated most the facilities offered by a temporary membership of the boating club for the absurdly small sum of 3s. 6d. per week. For this one could have a skiff or, if a party, a large boat, any day for any length of time, bathing costume and fishing tackle thrown in. I took full advantage of this, and most mornings and afternoons were spent on the water. We used to pull over to the obsolete battleships that lay in the stretch of ...
— One Young Man • Sir John Ernest Hodder-Williams
... my forehead light:— From off the oars, perchance, as feather'd spray, They drop, while some fair skiff bends on her way Across the ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... July, and I had been an Etonian nearly three months. During this time I had experienced a fair average of fighting, bullying, fagging, and flogging, and had also acquired some useful accomplishments. I could paddle my skiff up to Surly Hall and back, swim across the river at Upper Hope, and had even begun to get in debt, having some weeks ago "gone tick" with Joe Hyde for a couple of bottles of ginger-beer, with the proviso of returning them when empty, ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... held out longer, but the soldiers did not wait for the Dutch to board, for some of them escaped from the galleon by swimming. Thirteen or fourteen of them were drowned, among them Christobal de Fegueredo. Some jumped into a small skiff belonging to the galleon, for they had taken all the boats from the city, so that they had none in which to come thence. The galleon was left with a few men, who were no longer firing and were silent. At this juncture, the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVII, 1609-1616 • Various
... thy mountain dwelling, Haste, as a bird unto its peaceful nest! Haste, as a skiff, through tempests wide and swelling, Flies to its haven ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... of seamen, while two persons sat in the stern, a closer examination of whom would have revealed them to be the captain of the ship and surgeon. At the same moment there shot out from a little nook or bay in the rear of the barracoons, a light skiff propelled by a single oarsman, who rowed his bark in true seamen style, cross-handed, while a second party sat in the stern. The rower was Captain Ratlin, and his companion was the swarthy and fierce-looking Don Leonardo. That the same purpose ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... of the narrow passage?—a boat, lump of wreckage or a shadow? Stare as he would, he could not determine the nature of the thing in that faint and elfin twilight; but it drew his eye and aroused his curiosity as no natural shadow of any familiar rock could have done. He dragged a skiff from under one of the stages and launched it into the quiet harbor and with a single oar over the stern sculled out toward the black object on the steel-gray tide. It proved to be a fine bully, empty and with the frozen painter hanging over the ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... the musters of January 1625 give much more information. Jamestown had a church, a court-of-guard (guardhouse), 3 stores (probably storehouses), a merchant's store, and 33 houses. Ten of the Colony's 40 boats were here, including a skiff, a "shallop" of 4 tons, and a "barque" of 40 tons. There were stores of fish, 24,880 pounds to be exact, corn, peas, and meal. There were four pieces of ordnance, supplies of powder, shot and lead, and, for individual ...
— The First Seventeen Years: Virginia 1607-1624 • Charles E. Hatch
... he lashes, and enchains the wind, New pow'rs are claim'd, new pow'rs 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 ...
— English Satires • Various
... of a boat comes athwart the bows of a six thousand ton steamer, with triple-expansion engines, that can make twenty knots an hour. What will become of the skiff, do you think? You can thwart God's purpose about yourself, but the great purpose goes on and on. And 'Who hath hardened himself against Him and prospered?' You can thwart the purpose, but it is ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... fell on one half of the people of the lost vessel, who embarked in the long-boat, and on the skiff which they had before, the other half remaining ashore. Lolonois having set sail, arrived in a few days at the river of Nicaragua: here that ill-fortune assailed him which of long time had been reserved for him, as a punishment due to the multitude ...
— The Pirates of Panama • A. O. (Alexandre Olivier) Exquemelin
... of these vessels, which had created such a sensation among the inhabitants of Belle-Isle, was moored within cannon-shot of the place. It was soon seen, notwithstanding the darkness, that a sort of agitation reigned on board this vessel, from the side of which a skiff was lowered, of which the three rowers, bending to their oars, took the direction of the port, and in a few instants struck land at the foot of the fort. The commander of this yawl jumped on shore. He had a letter in his hand, which he waved in the air, and seemed ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... recitation, dwelling strongly on the rhyme, the lines in the Lady of the Lake which relate that incident. "Yonder is the island where Douglass concealed his daughter. Under that broad oak, whose boughs almost dip into the water, was the place where her skiff was moored. On that rock, covered with heath, Fitz James stood and wound his bugle. Near it, but out of sight, is the silver strand where the skiff ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... to have reached my last proofsheet, but shall have two or three more yet. In a fortnight or three weeks my little raft will be afloat.* Expect nothing more of my powers of construction,—no shipbuilding, no clipper, smack, nor skiff even, only boards and logs tied together. I read to some Mechanics' Apprentices a long lecture on Reform, one evening, a little while ago. They asked me to print it, but Margaret Fuller asked it also, and I preferred the ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... was a long and weary waiting before they could expect the return of their companions. There were times when the boys worked their way along the shore, or, with Zeke in supreme command, used the one skiff that remained They did not, however, venture far in the little boat because they were compelled to tow it back one or two of the boys remaining in the boat, while their companions dragged it along the rocky or projecting shore. It was easier ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and Simon's Mine • Ross Kay
... author of all these scientific inquiries listened to the old gentleman's remarks on sleep-walking in general, and the phenomena of his own case in particular, till the boat disappeared in the cove above the pier. He then jumped into his skiff, and pulled off ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... in love with Miss Lawson, the high school teacher? In love with HER? What a ridiculous idea. You mean merely because on the night when the Mariposa Belle sank with every soul on board, Pupkin put off from the town in a skiff to rescue Miss Lawson. Oh, but you're quite wrong. That wasn't LOVE. I've heard Pupkin explain it himself a dozen times. That sort of thing,—paddling out to a sinking steamer at night in a crazy skiff,—may indicate a sort of attraction, but not ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... is quite dark," he said. "Take the little skiff. The water will be high two hours before midnight, so you will have no trouble in getting across. When you come back, come here, and tell the porter that I have ordered you to see that my fire is properly kept up. Then go to sleep in the ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... from Toronto to the wharf at the mouth of the Niagara River in an ordinary double-scull, lap-strake pleasure-skiff, by the writer and another Argonaut—Herbert Bartlett—one unruly morning in the summer of 1872. Though a risky row, and not previously attempted, it was not regarded as a remarkable ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... straight ahead, and the sea increasing every moment. They were not, of course, exposed to the full swell of the ocean; but the wide sea-channel was full of short, fierce waves that struck the little skiff repeated rapid blows, and dashed the spray over both ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... their oars just in time as the shell grazed the stern of a heavy skiff, which a boy, who was rowing, had stopped just in the course ...
— The Boy Scouts Patrol • Ralph Victor
... Palace gardens. Thousands of lights glittered through the foliage. The air was burdened with perfume. High above the sombre umbrage rose slender snowy spires, around which the moonbeams lingered lovingly. He left the little skiff and trod the terraced ascent. A meandering brooklet, tributary of the larger stream, was spanned by fairy-like bridges. He hesitated among the intersecting ways, mazy, enchanting, and flower-bordered. The living air was full of subdued sound. Bubbling ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer
... 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
... walked about the deck admiring the guns and the carved and gilt work with which the ship was adorned; for it was the custom, especially in the Spanish navy, in those days to ornament ships of war far more profusely than at present. At length Don Hernan came on deck. He observed the skiff alongside; and his eye falling on Lawrence, he very naturally at first took him to be some poor fisherman habited in the cast-off finery of a gentleman. Lawrence, however, guessed who he was from his uniform, ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... 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 heaven-born oar. But the truth soon began to dawn ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... streets, dining with his old friends at the club, pulling a skiff over the placid current of the Thames, shooting quail on his brother's estate, dancing at a ball at Government House, Calcutta, marching through Indian jungles at the head of his men, plotting the capture of the Rajah, ...
— The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon
... 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
... The little skiff slipped out on to the broad bosom of the river, and Chippy looked eagerly ahead. He saw his men at once. They were paddling gently down-stream close inshore. At this point the river ran due west, ran ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... at once capsized and went down. Five of her crew immediately perished; but the remaining two succeeded in getting a hold in the cross-trees of the mainmast, which were above water, where they clung for nearly an hour. It was then that the three heroic brothers took a small flat-bottomed skiff, twelve feet long, three feet wide, and fifteen inches deep, the only boat available on the coast, and leaving their weeping wives and children, who formed a part of the watching group of forty or fifty persons on the shore, went out in this frail shell to the rescue. The ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... The chief reason why he does not, is that the evils come from the lusts of his life's love, and are not felt to be evils but enjoyments, to which one does not give thought. Who gives thought to the enjoyments of his love? His thought floats along in them like a skiff carried along by the current of a stream; and he perceives a fragrant air which he inhales with a deep breath. Only in one's external thought does one have a sense of the enjoyments, but even in it he pays no attention to them unless he knows well that ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg
... an army for an attack on Louisburg. He drilled his troops all summer, and then gave up the attack because he learned that the French had one more skiff than ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... her waiting to hear his laudation when he came back; and in the early morning she was on the terrace, impatient to lead him down to the lake. There, at the boat-house, she commanded him to loosen a skiff and give her a paddle. Between exclamations, designed to waken louder from him, and not so successful as her cormorant hunger for praise of Steignton required, she plied him to confirm with his opinion an opinion that her reasoning mind had almost formed in the close neighbourhood of the beloved ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... when one believes one's self in the vicinity of supernatural beings, in presence of those whom one does not know either how to divine or to lay hold of, to embrace or to charm. He always made the melody undulate like a skiff borne on the bosom of a powerful wave; or he made it move vaguely like an aerial apparition suddenly sprung up in this tangible and palpable world. In his writings he at first indicated this manner which gave so individual an impress to his virtuosity by the term tempo rubato: stolen, ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... way down the creek to a long, deep pool, where a blue and white skiff floated gaily at anchor. A piece of white cardboard was tacked over the name so they ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... Post, with its low beams and mysterious green-painted cupboards, Pichou would lie contentedly at his feet. In the frosty autumnal mornings, when the brant were flocking in the marshes at the head of the bay, they would go out hunting together in a skiff. And who could lie so still as Pichou when the game was approaching? Or who could spring so quickly and joyously to retrieve a wounded bird? But best of all were the long walks on Sunday afternoons, on the yellow beach that stretched away toward the Moisie, or through the fir-forest behind the ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... is smart, weird, pleasing and eminently suitable for a Drury Lane pantomime. Of shallow draught, and of size varying in accordance with the waters they are destined to patrol, I have seen them as large as twenty tons and as small as a skiff, having an old flint gingall mounted forrard with all the ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... quietly 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 ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... Gate, and, as it appeared, would not come in from the sea, but would presently be off to Wayfarer's Tickle, to the north, where she would harbour for the night. The lanterns were shining cheerily in the dark of the wharf; and my father was speeding the men who were to take the great skiff out for the spring freight—barrels of flour and pork and the like—and roundly berating them, every one, in a way which surprised them into unwonted activity. Perceiving that my father's temper and this ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... the evening a little boat drifted up on the sands, and in it lay the fox, covered with blood. While his wounds were being tended in the palace with all the care imaginable, I set out to consult a wizard, who told me that I must enter the skiff and seek for the prince and princess of Lombardy, and that if, in twenty-four hours, I could bring them into the presence of the fox, his life would be saved. On a rock along the beach I found your father ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... later Francis Vere with Captain Allen and the two boys took their seats in the stern of a skiff manned by six rowers. In the bow were the servitors of the two officers, and the luggage was stowed in the ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... headlands and past carven cliffs of marvellous designs to a long sickle sweep of strand on which two men could be seen solemnly walking up and down. Then, at a signal from Patsy, Godfrey McCulloch let down the anchor and pulled in hand over hand the little skiff which they had been dragging in their wake ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... To such a name—deep, pure and beautiful, As its trout-peopled wave!—on Windermere Our skiff pursued its way amid the calm Which fill'd the heart with holiest communings. On Windermere—what scenes entranced the eye That wander'd o'er them! either undefined Or traced upon the outline of the sky. Afar the lovely panorama glow'd, Until the mountains, on whose purple brows The clouds ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 575 - 10 Nov 1832 • Various
... reached the sea at last. The National Guard of Boulogne began firing on them. The prince, Count Persigny, Colonel Voisin, and Galvani, an Italian, were put into a boat. As they pushed off, a fire of musketry shattered the little skiff, and threw them into the water. Colonel Voisin's arm was broken at the elbow, and Galvani was hit in the body. The prince and Persigny came up to the surface at some distance from the land. Colonel Voisin and Galvani, ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... to traverse the pond, with places to secure it on the opposite shores; and early passers along the State road, that overlooked the placid waters, often marked a solitary boatman pulling a little skiff towards the ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... 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 galleys ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... 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 ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... had bought second-hand two years before, was jacked up in the middle of the floor. The engine, which I had taken apart to clean, was in pieces beside it. On the walls hung my two shot guns and my fishing rod. Outside, on the beach, was my flat-bottomed skiff, which I used for rowing about the bay, her oars under the thwarts. In the boathouse was a comfortable armchair and a small shelf of books, novels for the most part. A cheap clock and a broken-down couch, the latter a discard from the original outfit ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... paddle in hand, and a boat-hook laid ready for instant use, the bold young fellow now ordered the men to shove off the skiff into the river and then pay out the line, as he should direct—thus lowering him, yard by yard, down toward the "jam" where ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... per skiff at twelve o'clock. If there was one drawback, it was the fact that the oar-locks of the boat had been mislaid. After consuming an hour in not finding them, Frank Hatch became discouraged at seeing us ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... wounded, and one since dead; twenty-four are sent to headquarters. The remainder, being impressed from this and neighboring towns, are permitted to return to their friends. This morning Capt. Lindzee warped off with but one-half of his men, with neither a prize-boat nor tender, except a small skiff the wounded lieutenant ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... mountains that only in two places is it possible to effect a landing. The dark pines and silvery birches clothing the sides of the mountains; the gray limestone cliffs rising step and sheer from the water, in which their slim, green skiff glided swiftly on, the oars, which were more like long, brown spades, pulled by a man and woman, who took it in turns to sit and stand; the man with gay tie and waistband, Tyrolese hat and waving feather; the woman wearing a similar hat over ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... navigated to the west and a quarter southwest a matter of a hundred leagues, where on March 6, 1521, they fetched two islands inhabited by many people of little truth; and they did not take precautions against them until they saw that they were taking away the skiff of the flag-ship, and they cut the rope with which it was made fast, and took it ashore without their being able to prevent it. They gave this island the name of Thieves' ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... victim, they had brought a boat up into this very inlet among the rocks; and the same boat had been at hand during the whole day. Unluckily, before they had come hither, it had been taken round the headland to a place among the rocks at which a government skiff is always moored. The sea was still so quiet that there was hardly a ripple on it, and the boat had been again sent for when first it was supposed that they had at last traced Aaron Trow to his hiding-place. Anxiously now were all eyes ...
— Aaron Trow • Anthony Trollope
... one's shoulder in it was a manoeuvre of extreme delicacy, especially where the rapids caused the water to be in wild commotion. I was told that it would go down stream like an arrow, and so it did. There was no need to row hard, for the current took the fragile skiff along with it so fast that the trees on the banks sped by as if they were running races, and every few minutes brought a change of landscape. It was very delightful; only one sensation of movement could ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... from his pocket and pushed him down the stair, then dragged him along the lower deck. They passed a line of sleeping deck-hands too stupid to observe them. Dragging astern of the boat, high between the two long diverging lines of the rolling wake, there rode a river skiff at the end ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... coming in full-sailed before the steady sea-breeze. To furl that heavy canvas, a hundred men cluster like bees upon the yards, yet to us upon this height it is all but a plaything for the eyes, and we turn with equal interest from that thronged floating citadel to some lonely boy in his skiff. ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... the Fifth Avenue Hotel is burning the great lady is amazed at such behavior, and shrieks peremptory orders to have the fire put out immediately. When she reaches Plum Island, and is transferred from the steamboat to the skiff which is to carry her ashore, she is "angrily scared at the seething waters and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... young friends, I made a great mistake; and I want to caution you not to surrender to any such nonsense as I did. If you wish to go to sea in a skiff, it is well to give in to a fisherman's advice to stay at home, for he can assure you that winds and waves will be the death of you; but if you have a good hand-wagon, and are willing to stand a few taunts, by all means go on your ...
— How to Camp Out • John M. Gould
... heed not if My rippling skiff Float swift or slow from cliff to cliff; With dreamful eyes My spirit lies Under the ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... warm to do any speeding," and Frank Racer, a lad of fifteen, with a quiet look of determination on his face, rested on the oars of his skiff, and glanced across the slowly-heaving salt waves toward his brother Andy, a ...
— Frank and Andy Afloat - The Cave on the Island • Vance Barnum
... carefully 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 many ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... it was all high and dry and painted white. He trotted his horse around it, and finding no owner, hitched the nag to the sloop's bobstay and hauled as though he would take her home; but of course she was too heavy for one horse to move. With my skiff, however, it was different; this he hauled some distance, and concealed behind a dune in a bunch of tall grass. He had made up his mind, I dare say, to bring more horses and drag his bigger prize away, anyhow, and was starting off for the settlement ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... 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 fourteen, only ...
— History of the United States, Volume 4 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... style of performance, Chopin imparted this constant rocking with the most fascinating effect; thus making the melody undulate to and fro, like a skiff driven on over the bosom of tossing waves. This manner of execution, which set a seal so peculiar upon his own style of playing, was at first indicated by the term 'tempo rubato', affixed to his writings: a Tempo agitated, broken, interrupted, a movement flexible, yet at the ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... sexton; frango, fregi, break, breach; fagus, [Greek: phega], beech, f changed into b, and g into ch, which are letters near akin; frigesco, freeze, frigesco, fresh, sc into sh, as above in bishop, fish, so in scapha, skiff, skip, and refrigesco, refresh; but viresco, fresh; phlebotamus, fleam; bovina, beef; vitulina, veal; scutifer, squire; poenitentia, penance; sanctuarium, sanctuary, sentry; quaesitio, chase; perquisitio, purchase; anguilla, eel; insula, isle, ile, island, iland; ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... fatigue, stumbles and dies. The adventurer, climbing up a craggy eminence, discovers Loch Katrine spread out in evening glory before him. The huntsman winds his horn; and sees, to his infinite surprise, a little skiff, guided by a lovely woman, glide from beneath the trees that overhang the water, and approach the shore at his feet. Upon the stranger's approach, she pushes the shallop from the shore in alarm. After a short parley, however, she carries him to a woody island, where she ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... amount of quiet humour about Campbell's record; for instance, he states that they used their "pram" or Norwegian skiff and tried trawling for biological specimens on March 27—"our total catch was one sea-louse, one ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... position, the larger end being turned outwards and the point inwards. Elsewhere, a young girl (fig. 251) playing upon a long- necked lute as she trips along, is framed in by two flowering stems. Sometimes the fair musician is standing upright in a tiny skiff (fig. 252); and sometimes a girl bearing offerings is substituted for the lute player. Another example represents a slave toiling under the weight of an enormous sack. The age and physiognomy of each of these personages is clearly indicated. ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... elsewhere. He asked Hymir what bait he should use, but Hymir told him to look out for himself. Then Thor went up to a herd of oxen belonging to Hymir, and capturing the largest bull, called Himinbrjot, he wrung off its head, and went with it to the sea-shore. Hymir launched the skiff, and Thor, sitting down in the after-part, rowed with two oars so that Hymir, who rowed in the fore-part, wondered to see how fast the boat went on. At length he said they had arrived at the place where he was accustomed to ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various
... 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 of your acts ...
— The Purgatory of St. Patrick • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... 100. men, we were also furnished with a great bote, which was able to cary 10 tunnes of water, which at our returne homewards we towed all the way from Chio vntill we came through the straight of Gibraltar into the maine Ocean. We had also a great long boat and a skiff. We were out vpon this voyage eleuen moneths, yet in all this time there died of sicknesse but one man, whose name was George Forrest, being seruant to ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, v5 - Central and Southern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... try and learn it; for I will do anything you ask me. You say I must not love you, but I love you already. When I am with you I am carried away, like a boat spinning down the Neva in the springtime. Can the river stop itself in order that what lives in it may not move any more? Can it say to the skiff, 'Go no further,' when the skiff is already far from the shore, at ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... hall an entire unmarred beard of the beautiful gray Spanish moss, eight feet long. I had got this unusual specimen by tiptoeing from the thwarts of a skiff with twelve feet of yellow crevasse- waters beneath, the shade of the vast cypress forest above, and the bough whence it hung brought within hand's reach for the first time in a century. Thus I explained it ...
— Strong Hearts • George W. Cable
... there a strange resemblance between this legend and that relating to the Mexican god Quetzalcoatl, who, forced to fly from the wrath of a more powerful god, embarked upon a skiff of serpent skin, promising those who accompanied him to return at some later time, and visit the country ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... could be seen the welcome sight of land. Fortunately they lighted on the only secure entrance through the reefs. The vessel was run ashore and wedged between two rocks, and thereby was preserved from sinking, till by means of a boat and skiff the whole crew of one hundred and fifty, with provisions, tackle and stores, reached the land. At that time the hogs still abounded, and these, with the turtle, birds and fish which they caught, afforded excellent food for the castaways. The Isle ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II. No. 5, February, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... forms which at night might be taken for spirits of the powers of nature. The mountain-dweller saw them through the panes of his little window. They sailed in hosts before the Ice Maiden as she came out of her palace of ice. Then she seated herself on the trunk of the fir-tree as on a broken skiff, and the water from the glaciers carried her down the river to ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... gale. And now the blue and distant shore I hail, And nearer now I see the port expand, And now I gladly furl my weary sail, And, as the prow light touches on the strand, I strike my red-cross flag and bind my skiff ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott
... dek-ses. Sixty sesdek. Size grandeco. Size (of a book) formato. Size glueto. Skate gliti. Skates glitiloj. Skein fadenaro. Skeleton skeleto. Sketch skizi. Sketch skizo. Skewer trapikileto. Skid malakcelo. Skiff boateto. Skilful lerta. Skill lerteco. Skilled lerta. Skim sensxauxmigi. Skimmer sxauxmkulero. Skin hauxto. Skin (animal) felo. Skin senfeligi. Skinner felisto. Skip salteti. Skirmish bataleto. Skirt jupo. Skittles kegloj. Skulk kasxigxi. [Error in book: ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... priests—my priests in their linen robes, with great harps, carrying along a mystic skiff ornamented with paterae of silver. No more feasts on the lakes! no more illuminations in my Delta! no more cups of milk at Philae! For a long ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... against one of the paddle-boxes of the steamer that the destruction of all on board seemed inevitable. Through all these trying scenes the fragile, sylph-like duchess manifested intrepidity which excited the wonder and admiration of every beholder. The little skiff which was to convey her to the beach soon disappeared in the ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... descended the little path to the beach. The night was inky dark, and for a moment he paused irresolute. Then a dark form appeared against the faintly luminous foam, wading knee deep and dragging the bows of a small skiff towards the shore. The tinker gave a low whistle, ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... cannot imagine such water; why should it be blue on top, and green when you look down into it? I have a little skiff of my own in which I drift, and I have been happy for hours, studying the bottom; you see every colour of the rainbow, and all as clear as in an aquarium. I have been fishing, too, and have caught a tarpon. That is supposed to be a great adventure, ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... like wild, white-maned horses—and then the whales far out in the offing! They dash one against another like steel-clad knights! Ha, what joy to be a witching-wife and ride on the whale's back—to speed before the skiff, and wake the storm, and lure men to the deeps with lovely ...
— The Vikings of Helgeland - The Prose Dramas Of Henrik Ibsen, Vol. III. • Henrik Ibsen
... had one, a rather light skiff, he told me. He used it to go up and down to look at the bridges he was now busily laying. When I asked for its use the next day, he said Yes, if I would send him some ducks; adding that I should need a pass. He would send it that ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... quiet, and a little as it were a one side, she watched the play and the people. She was so delightfully set free for the moment from all her home cares and life anxieties. It was like getting out of the current and rush of the waves into a nook of a bay, where her tossed little skiff could lie still for a bit, and the dangers and difficulties of navigation did not demand her attention. She rested luxuriously and amused herself with seeing and hearing what went on. And to tell the whole truth, Dolly was more ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... Garfield——" and the boy noticed the use of the surname—"I want to tell you that your father is safe. We've been keeping the wires hot to Port-au-Prince and have found out that some one resembling the description you gave me of your father commandeered a sailing skiff at a small place near Jacamel and set off westward. Two days afterward, he landed at Guantanamo and registered at a hotel as 'James Garfield.' He stayed there two days and then took the train for Havana. So you don't need to worry over that, ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... King Edward time to alight from horseback even for an instant, and followed him as far as Dunbar, where the English had still a friend in the governor, Patrick, Earl of March. 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 ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... priest, indistinctly, sitting in a small skiff, which he tried to keep off the roof with a ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... Paper but my old Athenaeum, which, by the way, now tells me of some Lady's Edition of Omar which is to discover all my Errors and Perversions. So this will very likely turn the little Wind that blew my little Skiff on. Or the Critic who incautiously helped that may avenge himself on Agamemnon King, as he pleases. If the Pall Mall Critic knew Greek, I am rather surprised he should have vouchsafed even so much praise as the words you quoted. But I certainly have found that those few whom ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... wistfully. But first had he looked out into the offing, and it was only when he had let his eyes come back from where the sea and sky met, and they had beheld nothing but the waste of waters, that he beheld the Ship-stead closely; and therewith he saw where a little to the west of it lay a skiff, which the low wave of the tide lifted and let fall from time to time. It had a mast, and a black sail hoisted thereon and flapping with slackened sheet. A man sat in the boat clad in black raiment, and the sun smote a gleam from the helm on his head. ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris
... felt that he had reached a point high enough up the flooded bank to justify him in the attempt to get across. He jumped into the home-made skiff, and, setting his strength to the clumsy oars, began to pull with ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... creek at the head of the island by means of a skiff, and, ascending the high grounds on the shore of the mainland, proceeded in a northwesterly direction, through a tract of country excessively wild and desolate, where no trace of a human footstep was to be seen. Legrand led the way with decision; ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... A skiff grazed the side of the Dazzler softly and interrupted Joe's reveries. He wondered why he had not heard the sound of the oars in the rowlocks. Then two men jumped over the cockpit-rail and ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... could persuade, and in the presence of a curious and doubting crowd the first real steamboat was launched on the Savannah River. Some of the friends of those on board, feeling anxious for their safety if the "contraption" should explode, secured a skiff, and followed the steamboat at a safe distance, ready to pick up such of the passengers as might survive when the affair had blown to pieces. Longstreet headed the boat down the river, and went in that direction for several miles. Then he turned the head of the little boat upstream; and, ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... a single skiff adrift upon the face of the ocean. Its only occupant was a delirious seaman, who yelled hoarsely as they hoisted him aboard, and showed a dried-up tongue like a black and wrinkled fungus at the back of his mouth. Water and nursing soon transformed him into the strongest ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... told me he should feel it his duty to go with his daughter, if we all separated in different boats. I thought that would hardly do, sir," pursued Pedgift Junior, with a respectfully sly emphasis on the words. "And, besides, if we had put the old lady into a skiff, with her weight (sixteen stone if she's a pound), we might have had her upside down in the water half her time, which would have occasioned delay, and thrown what you call a damp on the proceedings. Here's the boat, Mr. Armadale. What ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... late, and your folks will be abed." He looked at his watch. "Midnight! Be here in an hour, and I'll have the skiff ready." ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... her wild green mountains, From valleys where her slumbering fathers lie, From her blue rivers and her welling fountains, And clear cold sky— From her rough coast, and isles, which hungry Ocean Gnaws with his surges—from the fisher's skiff, With white sails swaying to the billow's motion Round rock and cliff— From the free fireside of her unbought farmer, From her free laborer at his loom and wheel. From the brown smithy where, beneath the hammer, Rings the red steel— From each and all, ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... through that strange abode. Sound of chariot-wheel there was none. Nothing was audible but the soft dip of the oar, and the startled shout of an occasional gondolier, who feared, perhaps, that our heavier craft might send his slim skiff to the bottom. In about a quarter of an hour we turned out of the Grand Canal, and began threading our way amid those innumerable narrow channels which traverse Venice in all directions. Then it was that the dismal silence of the city fell upon my heart. The canals we were now navigating were not ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... there!" [He repeats it.] "A Henry cinq cedera (his crown of course); de Saint-Cloud partira; en nauf (that's an old French word for skiff, vessel, felucca, corvette, ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... sure it was not a dream, which he did in about half a second, he began to yell, too, and to say: "How did you get there? Fire, fire, fire! What are you on? Fire! Are you in a tree, or what? Fire, fire! Are you in a flat-boat? Fire, fire, fire! If I had a skiff—fire!" ...
— The Flight of Pony Baker - A Boy's Town Story • W. D. Howells
... about a quarter of a mile of her, when we saw a man jump on the taffrail, and wave his hat at us as if in derision. Even at that distance, some of our people declared they recognised him as Jan Johnson, whom all of us knew well enough by sight. The next instant a skiff was launched from her decks, into which he jumped, and pulled as hard as he could towards the shore, to which he was already nearer than we ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... impertinent private secretary had been indulging in some practical joke or mystification at his expense; but as he drew near to the Spree, he heard the light stroke of oars in the water. Pollnitz hastened forward, and his eyes, accustomed to the darkness, discovered a skiff drawn up near the ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... the dangers of the 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
... It's completely decked over, absolutely watertight, and held solidly in place by bolts. This ladder leads to a manhole cut into the Nautilus's hull and corresponding to a comparable hole cut into the side of the skiff. I insert myself through this double opening into the longboat. My crew close up the hole belonging to the Nautilus; I close up the one belonging to the skiff, simply by screwing it into place. I undo the bolts ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... scourged the timbers of the skiff incessantly, and its soft patter induced melancholy thoughts, and the wind whistled as it flew down into the boat's battered bottom through a rift, where some loose splinters of wood were rattling together—a disquieting and depressing sound. The waves of the river were splashing on ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... 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 way home, taking comfort from the thought ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... thrown into a fever of excitement by the establishment of a boatyard and, the actual construction of a bateau; but a Democratic Congress turned its back on the proposed improvement. No boat bigger than a skiff ever ascended Salt River, though there was a wild report, evidently a hoax, that a party of picnickers had seen one night a ghostly steamer, loaded and manned, puffing up the stream. An old Scotchman, Hugh Robinson, when ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... small boy, in a small, bright-painted and half-decked skiff, sailed close in to the wall and let go his sheet to spill the wind. "Want to get aboard?" ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... 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 home ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... out the fire on the captured boat to save the cargo, when a skiff was seen coming down the river. Some of our people cried out, "Here comes an express from Prairie du Chien." We hoisted the British flag, but they would not land. They turned their little boat around, and rowed up the river. ...
— Autobiography of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black Hawk • Black Hawk
... neck in this here no-dram wave what is a-sweeping around over the state and pretty nigh rising up as high as the necks of even private liquor bottles. Gid's not to say a teetotaler, but he had to climb into the bandwagon skiff or sink outen sight. He's got to tie down his seat in the state house with a white ribbon, and he's got no mind for fooling with phosphate dirt. He's a mighty fine man, and all of Sweetbriar thinks a heap of him. Do you ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... skiff,— The night wind's sigh is on the air, And o'er the highest Alpine cliff, The pale moon rises, broad and clear. The murmuring waves are tranquil now, And on their breast each twinkling star With which Night gems her dusky brow, Flings its ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands
... think, I lay down to rest among some bushes. Ten minutes after I'd got there a boat rowed by some persons came along. They beached it right alongside the brush. Then one of them, a boy, lifted a mail bag from the bottom of the skiff." ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... screws were loose between brother and brother, While sisters fastened their nails on each other; Such wrangles, and jangles, and miff, and tiff, And spar, and jar—and breezes as stiff As ever upset a friendship—or skiff! The plighted lovers who used to walk, Refused to meet, and declined to talk: And wished for two moons to reflect the sun, That they mightn't look together on one: While wedded affection ran so low, That the oldest ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... man. Ropes were thrown out to us. We caught hold of one of them with our four hands, but the sudden pull of the men in drawing us towards them cast our raft so suddenly against the ice edges that it broke in two, and we remained, full of fear this time, on one small part of our skiff. I laughed no longer, for we were beginning to travel somewhat fast, and the channel was opening out in width. But in one of the turns it made we were fortunately squeezed in between two immense blocks, and to this fact we owed being able to escape ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... precocious fourteen-year-old cabin-boy from the Hydra, pointed to the boat which lay ready, and took Ledscha's bundle in his hand; but she sprang into the light skiff before him and ordered it to be rowed to the Owl's Nest, where she must bid Mother Tabus good-bye. The cabin-boy, however, declared positively that the command could not be obeyed now, and at his signal two black sailors urged it with swift oar strokes toward the northwest, to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the 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 ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... my wishes,—let us now Descend from this ethereal height; Then take thy way, adventurous Skiff, More daring far than Hippogriff, And ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... seated herself on one of the benches. Many boats were going by, a majority of them containing only two persons—a young man who pulled, and a girl who held the strings of the tiller. Some of these couples Monica disregarded; but occasionally there passed a skiff from which she could not take her eyes. To lie back like that on the cushions and converse with a companion who had nothing of ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... 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 not expected. I told them ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... weigh fifteen pounds. There were a few wild ducks on both lakes. A brood of the goosander or red merganser, the young not yet able to fly, were the occasion of some spirited rowing. But with two pairs of oars in a trim light skiff, it was impossible to come up with them. Yet we could not resist the temptation to give them a chase every day when we first came on the lake. It needed a good long pull to sober us down so we ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... early 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, too, ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... row very fairly, for he belonged to a boat club at school. It was not very much of a club; but then the club boat was not very much of a boat, being a small, flat-bottomed skiff, which leaked so badly that she could not be kept afloat unless one boy kept constantly at work bailing. However, Harry learned to row in her, and he now found this knowledge very useful. He was anxious to start on the cruise immediately, ...
— Harper's Young People, June 1, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... yet ignorant of the fate of the army, were on the waters of the Santee, very busily executing our boat-burning orders. Not content with destroying the common scows and flats of the ferries, we went on to sweep the river of every skiff and canoe that we could lay hands on; nay, had the harmless wonkopkins been able to ferry an Englishman over the river, we should certainly have declared war and hurled our ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... Hampshire and Massachusetts. In the year following he tried to found a small colony somewhere in these regions, but was defeated by violent storms; and at a subsequent attempt he fell in with French pirates, and his ship and fortune were lost, though he himself escaped in an open skiff: the chains were never forged that could hold this man. Nor was his spirit broken; he took his map and his description of New England, and personally canvassed all likely persons with a view to fitting ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... himself down before the little feet, in their smart high-heeled buckled shoes and clocked stockings, which peeped out at him from under her embroidered camlet petticoat in such a maliciously coquettish manner; he longed to kneel down there in the skiff, at the imminent risk of spoiling his own gay attire, and declare the passion which consumed him; but something—he did not know what it was, and she did not tell him—constrained him, and he sat ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... Club and Boat Racing is the popular sport of crew rowing or sculling, where each college appoints a crew of eight strong scull pullers or oarsmen and one small coxswain or steersman to pilot a long narrow boat called a skiff or shell. The coxswain calls the strokes and is generally the coach and commander of the crew. Unlike in a canoe, the pullers face backwards, and the one nearest the coxswain is called the "stroke oar", because all the ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... canoe tight to us," Cora said, as the two visitors were about to climb into their frail skiff. "You would be washed out during the storm that's coming. Here, Bess, hold this," handing Bess one end of the awning tie. "Belle, can ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose
... the sharp keel, and tracks the wave with light. While just beneath him bounds the lighter skiff With bird-like speed; and darting to the ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... crown Of all my life was utmost quietude: More did I love to lie in cavern rude, Keeping in wait whole days for Neptune's voice, And if it came at last, hark, and rejoice! There blush'd no summer eve but I would steer My skiff along green shelving coasts, to hear 360 The shepherd's pipe come clear from aery steep, Mingled with ceaseless bleatings of his sheep: And never was a day of summer shine, But I beheld its birth upon the brine: For I would watch all night to see unfold Heaven's gates, and AEthon ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... the skiff, we were chatting of one thing and another, when Ned Land stretched his hand toward a point in ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... the Le Vert House with his unpleasant discovery he was burning like a furnace. In spite of a rain storm just beginning and a dark night, he strode out and walked he knew not whither. He found himself, he knew not how, on the bank of the Ohio. He untied a skiff and pushed out into the river. How to advance himself over his rival was his first thought. But this darkness and this beating rain and this fierce loneliness reminded him of that night when he had clung desperately to the abutment of ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... of dying as I now am; but you need not be concerned about me, for I mean to repent yet." Not many days afterwards, he was crossing a river, with a number of others, for the purpose of spending the day in amusement. The skiff upset, and they were plunged into the water. All the rest of the company but A—— (who was the best swimmer among them), reached the shore. He was heard, as he struggled towards the bank, to utter a fearful ...
— Anecdotes for Boys • Harvey Newcomb
... likely to pitch upon me here in broad daylight, so I paid them little heed at the moment. I found old Crab Bolster and his skiff to lighter my cargo across the inlet, and when the boy came down from the store with the barrow, Crab and I loaded the provisions and spring water into his boat. Paul and his companions looked on, whispering together now and then, from ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... was rumored that he had an army behind him and an empire before him. It was a great day—his arrival—to poor Nolan. Burr had not been at the fort an hour before he sent for him. That evening he asked Nolan to take him out in his skiff, to show him a canebrake or a cottonwood tree, as he said—really to seduce him; and by the time the sail was over, Nolan was enlisted body and soul. From that time, though he did not yet know it, he lived as A ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... Nigel to resemble the houses near the sea-coast, which are too often furnished with the spoils of wrecked vessels, as this was probably fitted up with the relics of ruined profligates.— "My own skiff is among the breakers," thought Lord Glenvarloch, "though my wreck will add little to ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... make a dash for Cragan's dock, and borrow his skiff!" suggested Larry, ready to toss fishing poles, and even the fine catch in the dusty weeds bordering the road, so that they might be unimpeded ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... out in the beautiful harbor, a half mile from the ancient gate of the clock. A few curious idlers along the shore watched it and commented on its perfect lines. And the numerous officials of the port lazily craned their necks at it, and yawningly awaited the arrival of the skiff that was immediately lowered ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... then in wild despair To save their cumbrous wealth essay, I to the vessel's skiff repair, And, whilst the Twin Stars light my way, Safely the breeze my little craft Shall o'er ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... of life, —all this to explain, would be to dive deeper than Ishmael can go. The subterranean miner that works in us all, how can one tell whither leads his shaft by the ever shifting, muffled sound of his pick? Who does not feel the .. irresistible arm drag? What skiff in tow of a seventy-four can stand still? For one, I gave myself up to the abandonment of the time and the place; but while yet all a-rush to encounter the whale, could see naught in that brute but the deadliest ill. ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... sinking heart that he stepped into the frail skiff, which seemed scarcely more than a nutshell upon the tempestuous deep. He was on the point of asking his servant, unacquainted though he was with seamanship, to be the third man in the boat; but the latter, anticipating ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... masters in Boone County, Kentucky, on Sunday, June 11, 1854, having three horses with them. Arrived at the river, they turned the horses back, and taking a skiff crossed at midnight to the Ohio shore. After travelling two or three miles, they hid during Monday in a clump of bushes. At night they started northward again. A man, named John Gyser, met them ...
— The Fugitive Slave Law and Its Victims - Anti-Slavery Tracts No. 18 • American Anti-Slavery Society
... out to the war ships during the bombardment. They called to the commander of the flagship as they pushed their skiff alongside: ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... became riveted on a smart skiff rounding the headlands in a manner which proved that she was managed by skilful hands. As the boat drew nearer, rising lightly on the waves, Yaspard said, "Yes, it's the Laulie. What splendid sea-boys those lads of Lunda are! They are always off somewhere; always having ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... were the only ones saved from drowning or capture. Captain Cushing, after blowing up the ram, jumped into the river, swam ashore, lay in the swamps near Plymouth till night, then proceeded through the swamps till he came to a creek, where he captured a skiff belonging to a Confederate picket, and paddled himself to the Valley City. The torpedo boat was sunk, and about a dozen men were either drowned or captured. In the meantime, the fleet had moved up to the mouth of Roanoke ...
— Reminiscences of Two Years in the United States Navy • John M. Batten
... the Wind; New Pow'rs are claim'd, new Pow'rs are still bestow'd, Till rude Resistance lops the spreading God; The daring Greeks deride the Martial Shew, And heap their Vallies 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. [Footnote ...
— The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750) • Samuel Johnson |
