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More "Gunwale" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had not only loaded the boat they came in, but on the principle of in for a penny, in for a pound, had also taken possession of one of the company york boats, and had loaded it to the gunwale. ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... the gunwale of the boat, they made a moment's pause, their eyes turned heavenward, as if mentally repeating ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... said. "I—" The pitching of the boat threw her against Landless, and he put his arm about her. "You must let me hold you, madam," he said quietly. She shrank away from his touch, saying breathlessly, "No, oh no! See! I can hold quite well by the gunwale." He acquiesced in silence, only lifting her into a more secure position. "I ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... the fascinated crowd, not a man Jack of them but was at my service, after the display of coin which no bright eye had missed. In no time we had our gangway laid on to the gunwale, and a couple of sloping planks to roll the motor on board. The next thing was for me to jump into the car and begin to drive gently ahead, directing the sailors with nods and becks to steady her by grasping the spokes of her wheels. Thus we got her into ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... passed through the class. "He was the best swimmer on the whole shore!" said Henry. "He dived backward off the gunwale of a bark that was lying in the roads here taking in water, and came up on the other side of the vessel. He got ten rye rusks from the captain ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... came too close to the troopship. No heed being taken of signals to keep further away, the sentry on duty was instructed to fire a rifle shot across the bow of the small craft. This proved most effective, and everyone roared with laughter when the stout fisherman hastily dived below the gunwale out of sight and forced the terrified small boy to take the helm and steer away out of danger. In spite of this, however, preliminary bargaining went on with other boats' crews and first impressions were gained of the ways and manners of the gentle Egyptian. All that day ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... breeze upstream would help him in his fight with the current and coming down it would be glorious. The sun was just appearing over the row of pines that topped the low mountain range to the east when he packed his kit and blankets under the gunwale in the bow and slipped his canoe into the water. He was about to step in when a voice he had not heard for ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... plunged into the water to prevent delay, and struggled through the thick matted seaweed to the boat. The water was deeper than he expected, and when he came to the boat he needed the aid of the boatmen to climb over the gunwale. Instead of giving him this aid the rascals allowed him to flounder there, and kept looking to the shore, where the constable had by this time appeared with his musket. The moment he showed himself, the three boatmen ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... lay there, the Very Young Man could see the sides of the boat growing up steadily above their heads. The gunwale was nearly six feet above them before he realized a new danger. Scrambling to his feet he pulled the girl up with him; even when standing upright their heads came below the ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... we lay entirely buried for some moments. How my elder brother escaped destruction I cannot say, for I never had an opportunity of ascertaining. For my part, as soon as I had let the foresail run, I threw myself flat on deck, with my feet against the narrow gunwale of the bow, and with my hands grasping a ring-bolt near the foot of the fore-mast. It was mere instinct that prompted me to do this—which was undoubtedly the very best thing I could have done—for I was too much flurried ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... were promptly obeyed, for the squall was rushing down the loch very rapidly. When it burst on them the boat leaned over till her lee gunwale almost ran under water, but Ian was a skilful boatman, and managed to weather ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... pulls his line out and fastens it to the cleat which he tried to kick off. He seizes the stern of the yawl and hoists it far over the upper deck. The yawl falls outside the gunwale below, with a great ...
— David Lockwin—The People's Idol • John McGovern
... the Save were some of the large boats which trade on the river; the new ones as curiously carved, painted, and even gilded, as some of those one sees at Dort and Rotterdam. They have no deck—for a ridge of rafters covers the goods, and the boatmen move about on ledges at the gunwale. ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... himself over and lowered himself down. The water washed the foot of the wall, and he stepped directly into the boat; which Roger was keeping in its place with a pole, while Pierre held the rope. An exclamation of thankfulness broke from the two men, as his feet touched the gunwale of the boat; and then, without a word, Roger began to pole the boat along against the tide, keeping close to ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... hull and hold everything firmly in position, I nailed a top streak along from stem to stern, so as to form a gunwale, and another at the lower edges of the cases, tarring everything as I proceeded, including myself; but as the weather was hot a pair of old pants cut off at the knee, and a ragged shirt, were my only encumbrance in the ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... tacked commence stretching and pulling the canvas in the middle of the gunwales so as to make it as even and tight as possible and work toward each end, tacking the canvas as it is stretched to the outside of the gunwale. Seam the canvas along the stern and bow pieces as was done on the keelson. The deck is not so hard to do, but be careful to get the canvas tight and even. A seam should be made along the center piece. The trimming is wood, 1/4 in. thick and 1/2 in. wide. A strip ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... near them that the gunwale and the two upper streaks of their boat had been stove by their last whale, and the officer was about to throw all the whaling implements overboard, in order to lighten her, for the crew were desperately bailing out the water, which was pouring in through the broken ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... ship and rejoined her companions. Now the little maid began to cry, and with that Giermund woke up and recognised the child, and thought he knew who must be at the bottom of this. He springs up wanting to seize his sword, and misses it, as was to be expected, and then went to the gunwale, and saw that they were rowing away from the ship. [Sidenote: Thured's revenge] Giermund called to his men, and bade them leap into the cockle-boat and row after them. They did so, but when they got a little way they found how the coal-blue sea poured ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous
... departed, with his rusty narrow-brimmed hat leaning over, as if it had a six-knot breeze abeam, and its gunwale (so to speak) was dipping into his coat-collar. He announced the result of his inquiries to Helen, who had received a brief note in the mean time from a poor relation of Elsie's mother, then at the mansion-house, informing her of the critical situation of Elsie and of her urgent desire ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the boat had been secured expressly for him, and, as soon as Ross came near enough to the shore, the dog bounded through the shallow water in long leaps, swimming the last few feet, and put his paws on the gunwale. Ross picked up the terrier and heaved him into the boat. Rex gave a snort of satisfaction, shook himself so that he sent a trundling spray of water clear in his master's face and then took his ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... did not want to bestir himself from his position on the weather gunwale, where he crouched dejectedly, letting the stiff breeze dry his spray-soaked garments. He groaned, protested, grunted, and finally swore volubly as Alec prodded him, while ...
— The Boy Scouts on Picket Duty • Robert Shaler
... two-thirds of their way to London, they chanced to overtake a country squire, on his return from a visit to one of his neighbours, who had entertained him with such hospitality, that, as the lieutenant observed, he rolled himself almost gunwale to every motion of his horse, which was a fine hunter; and when the chaise passed him at full speed, he set up the sportsman's halloo, in a voice that sounded like a French horn, clapping spurs to Sorrel at the same time, in order to keep up with ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... laughing; "but there is long Tom, as hard-featured a youth of two score and ten as ever washed in brine, who has a heart as big, ay, bigger than that of a kraaken. A bright watch to you, boy, and remember a keen eye on the battery." As he was yet speaking, Barnstable crossed the gunwale of his little vessel, and it was not until he was seated by the side of his prisoner that he continued, aloud: "Cast the stops off your sails, Mr. Merry, and see all clear to make a run of everything; ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... put a large stone under each end of the bark construction, causing it to sag from the middle in either direction into the curve suitable for a canoe. The gunwale which they had constructed previously was now fitted into the bark, and the bark was stitched tightly to it, both at top and bottom, with a further use of awl and tendon, ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... we got on at first at a rapid rate, and as we carried a press of sail, the boat lay over completely, as to put the gunwale (as I believe it is called) in the water. We looked eagerly out, pleased when we saw some illustration of old customs with which the Bible had made us acquainted, or when the janissary, who was an intelligent person, pointed to a Bedouin on ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... fellows got down on some loose planks that were floating there, and had fun pushing them up and down, and almost forgot what they had come for. They found a long pump leaning against the side of the boat, with its spout out over the gunwale, and they asked Piccolo if they might pump, and he said they might, and they pumped nearly all the water out after they had got done having fun ...
— The Flight of Pony Baker - A Boy's Town Story • W. D. Howells
... cramming letters and parcels 555 Into his pockets capacious, and messages mingled together Into his narrow brain, till at last he was wholly bewildered. Nearer the boat stood Alden, with one foot placed on the gunwale,[36] One still firm on the rock, and talking at times with the sailors, Seated erect on the thwarts,[37] all ready and eager for starting, 560 He too was eager to go, and thus put an end to his anguish, Thinking to fly from despair, that swifter than ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... Gokstad vessel is of oak, twenty-eight feet long and sixteen feet broad in the center. It has seats for sixteen pairs of rowers, a mast for a single sail, and a rudder on the right or starboard side. The gunwale was decorated with a series of shields, painted alternately black and gold. This ship, which probably dates from about 900 A.D., was found on the shore of Christiania Fiord. A still larger ship, of about the same date, was taken in 1904 A.D. from the grave of a Norwegian queen ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... clean, well-ordered decks resplendent with glittering brass-work, and polished teak and mahogany fittings; her handsome boats, fresh painted, with the house-flag emblazoned on their bows, and canvas covers neatly lashed over them from gunwale to gunwale; the lofty masts, the orderly but intricate maze of standing and running-rigging; and the towering spread of canvas which seemed to reach almost to the clouds. Many of them had never in their lives before seen a ship of ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... a madman. One of his shipmates, named Wilkins, remonstrated against such unruly conduct, and received in return a blow on the side of the head, which sent him with great force against the gunwale. The peacemaker, indignant at such unexpected and undeserved treatment, returned the blow with interest. The other inebriate, hearing the disturbance, came to the assistance of his drunken companion. A general fight ensued; some heavy blows were interchanged, and for a few minutes there was ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... shipwrights. This interesting relic, doubtless the oldest ship in the world, once served the Vikings, its masters, as a sea-craft. It is eighty feet long by sixteen wide, and is about six feet deep from the gunwale. Seventy shields, as many spears, and other war equipments recovered with the hull, show that it carried ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... poled slowly off. The skiff drifted now. Rogers tried to turn to the oar athwart, and awkwardly he stumbled. The oar seemed like a roll of thunder when it struck the gunwale. ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... indecisive. He had lost all confidence, and turned aside whenever the way was barred by creepers, instead of trying to cut through them. At times he ceased paddling altogether, and sat gazing restlessly around him, at other times he paddled with feverish energy. Some water had come in over the gunwale during the struggle between the Indians, and Stephen managed to turn round, face downwards, to ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... moment that all was going well, so that it was with no little anxiety that we heard him make the above remark. However, we had no time for question or surmise, for, at the moment he spoke, a heavy squall was bearing down upon us, and, as we were then flying with our lee gunwale dipping occasionally under the waves, it was evident that we should have to lower our sail altogether. In a few seconds the squall struck the boat, but Peterkin and I had the sail down in a moment, so that it did not upset us; but, when it was past, ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... toward the boat, saying something about how he was getting old and nervous, and I saw him bend over the gunwale. I watched him closely, for a hope had sprung up in my withered heart—a hope which I hardly dared tell myself might possibly be true, after the train of disasters which had overtaken me since I went aboard ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... business. There is none of the bait-stealing tomfoolery of the cunner, none of the dancing hilarity of the pollock. It is just a steady down tug that makes the line cut your fingers and likely takes your hand under water. If he is a good one you will need to sit back and snub the line over the gunwale in that first plunge which follows the stab of the hook. Then it is a steady, muscle-grinding pull to get him up. It is a stogy, heavy resistance which he offers. To lift him out of his depths is a good ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... it's wide enough, it's near the surface and it's as good a place as any. It dips deeper lower down, but I imagine you'll find it floating out again on the other side of the valley. Runs like the ribs of a ship, with the valley the hull. And the ship's rail, the gunwale in the rim-rock ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... But his low gunwale ground against the heavy craft, and the remaining correspondent clambered aboard. Rasmunsen was over the eggs like a cat and in the bow of the Alma, striving with numb fingers ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... great rapidity; but, bent on bloody work, they had not observed it. The boat heeled over under the sudden gust; but the ruffian had already lost his footing under Hazel's blow, and, the boom striking him almost at the same moment, he went clean over the gunwale into the sea; he struck it with ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... capsizing, the young skipper at the helm let the sheet well out. Then, when Dan hurriedly rejoined him, Darrin passed the sheet over to his comrade as to one who would know exactly what to do with it. Dan perched himself on the weather gunwale, his weight there serving as ballast to keep the craft from capsizing. Yet, even so, everything had to be done with the utmost skill, for, with the mainsail up, the least fluke in handling the boat ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock
... yet dead. Again he aimed and fired, the bullet splintering the gunwale of the canoe close by Baynes' face. Baynes fired again as his canoe drifted further down stream and Malbihn answered from the shore where he lay in a pool of his own blood. And thus, doggedly, the ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... what would happen next. After an hour's watching he beheld the two women approach the side of the pinnace nearest the shore, the squaw in front. She sprang to the bank and ran lightly into the forest. Pocahontas had her foot on the gunwale to follow her when Captain Argall took hold ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... finding himself generally observed, rose slowly to his feet, picked his way with a certain exaggerated deliberation of movement over the duffel lying in the bottom of the canoe, until he reached the bow, where he paused, one foot lifted to the gunwale just above the emblem of the painted star. Immediately a dead silence fell. Groups shifted, drew apart, and together again, like the slow agglomeration of sawdust on the surface of water, until at last they formed in a semicircle of staring, whose centre was the bow of the canoe and ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White
... the surface with their spear handles, till they came to a place so shallow that they could see the bottom easily, when they suddenly turned the canoes head up stream, and while one held the craft steady by sticking his spear handle down on the bottom, the other stood erect, with a foot on either gunwale so he could see whatever came down on either side. Soon the big fish would try to pass, but Mr. Indian had too sharp an eye to let him escape unobserved, and when he came within his reach he would ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... gunwale on all fours, and let himself go with a splash, which I thought every man in the ship must have heard. He fell on his back, with his arms in the air, grasping somewhat in them, which I thought was some man who tried ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler
... also caught in small kelong with very fine split bambu nets, but a method is also employed in the Brunai river which I have not heard of elsewhere. A specially prepared canoe is made use of, the gunwale on one side being cut away and its place taken up by a flat ledge, projecting over the water. The fisherman sits paddling in the stern, keeping the ledged side towards the bank and leaning over so as to cause the said ledge to be ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher
... forehead. It crashed between his eyes and death must have been instantaneous. The knife flew from his hand, his body straightened and then collapsed, toppling over, not among his oarsmen, but across the gunwale of the craft. Before a hand could be lifted to prevent, the dead Arab and the girl were plunged ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... shelter of the hill, on the lee foot of which the village shelters from the westerly winds, the Mona went over suddenly in a gust which put her gunwale in the wash and kept it there. The dipper came adrift and rattled over. Yeo eased her a bit, and his uncanny eyes never shifted from their fixed scrutiny ahead. Our passenger laughed aloud, for ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... and then slipping down from the gunwale, ordered the sails to be filled, and, after a minute to give the Frenchman time to prepare, he fired off in the air the fusee, which he held in his hand, as a signal for the action to begin. We instantly commenced the work of death by pouring in a broadside. It was returned ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... animal into a small boat appears at first a difficulty, but the Indians managed it in a minute. They brought the cow alongside the boat, which was heeled towards her; then placing two oars under her belly, with their ends resting on the gunwale, by the aid of these levers they fairly tumbled the poor beast heels over head into the bottom of the boat, and then lashed her down with ropes. At Cucao we found an uninhabited hovel (which is the residence of the padre when he pays this Capella a visit), ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... on the gunwale, took a chew of tobacco, and questioned the universe, while Kit baled the boat and the ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... grew excited—and when Meeko grows excited the woods are not big enough to hold him. He came nearer and nearer to my canoe till he leaped upon the gunwale and sat there chattering, as if he were Adjidaumo come back again and I were Hiawatha. All the while he had poured out a torrent of squirrel talk, but now his note changed; jeering and scolding and curiosity ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... directions along the coast. When he returned to his seat the boat's course was changed. A few minutes later the bow grated upon sand. Still voiceless as specters the guards leaped ashore and Neil roused himself to follow them, climbing over the gunwale like a sick man. Nathaniel was close at his heels. With a growing sense of horror he saw two ghostly stakes thrusting themselves out of the beach a dozen paces away. He looked beyond them. As far as he could see there was sand—nothing but sand, as white as paper, scintillating in a billion flashing ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood
... he was in the track of the enemy, he took the proffered hawser on board. The brig towed well as long as the sea was smooth, and at first no discomfort was felt. Then a continued spell of bad weather ensued, and a driving rain, which found its way under the covering boards and along the gunwale of the ship, caused great unpleasantness. Worse was to follow, for it began to blow very hard, and the Brunswick set off at high speed, dragging the little brig mercilessly through the heavy seas which almost enveloped her. The sight evoked much amusement among the passengers on board the big ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... Venetian nobility were exchanging visits on the mainland, every conveyance was in motion and no other boat to be had for a week; while as for the "bucentaur" or public bark, which was just then getting under way, it was already packed to the gunwale with Jews, pedlars and such vermin, and the captain swore by the three thousand relics of Saint Justina that he had no room on board for so much as ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... then brought up close, and the foot of the stairs set inside the gunwale. The oomiak was about twenty-seven feet in length by six in width. Like the kayaks, it was covered with seal-skin; or perhaps it might have been the hide of the walrus. The framework was composed of both bone and wood tied and lashed together. This was the women's boat, and was rowed ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... firing; she, however, soon relieved us of our suspense by giving us her broadside: we were so well prepared, and kept up so good a fire, that in a short time after they waved their colours and made signs from the gunwale with their ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... steep side of the almost-empty steamer, lying at the Tyne-main Buoys, a keen, alert, bearded face looked over the gunwale above me. I stepped aboard and spoke to the owner of this face. I said, "Is ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... water poured in over the gunwale and half filled the dory, which seemed on the point of sinking before the long wave crept away, growling, as though disappointed at being baffled in ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough
... great surge, the boat suddenly turned in a boiling eddy, and the first thing anybody knew was that the Tulare was on her side and her crew in the water. Potts was hanging on to the gunwale and damning the others for not helping him ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... the Island Queen presented itself next day. Instead of putting to sea, Mr. Shaw and Captain Magnus hauled the boat up on the beach and set to work to repair it. The wild work of exploring the coast had left the boat with leaky seams and a damaged gunwale. The preceding day had been filled with hardship and danger—so much so that my heart sank a little at the recountal of it. You saw the little boat threading its way among the reefs, tossed like seaweed by the white teeth of gnawing waves, screamed at by ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... him before he understood the reason, but in another moment his brain knew what his eyes had read. Along the ridge road came something that trailed long and black like a funeral, and he sprang to his feet in the dory, and lost his footing, then caught at the gunwale, and sat down again in despair. It was like the panic of a madman, and he cursed and swore at old Ferris for his sins, with nothing to hear him but the busy waves that glistened between him and the shore. ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett
... up, for he ran to the gunwale of the boat, and he jumped over with his shoes and all his clothes on. And, strange to say, he still kept that pipe in his mouth. However, that didn't matter so very much, for he grabbed Marmaduke by the collar with one hand ...
— Half-Past Seven Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... Abraham and his family on board. His little two-masted smack was lying alongside the "Harmony," ready for a start to his fishing place. It contained an interesting variety of possessions. Tent-poles and oars lay along both sides, and his kayak was lashed to the right gunwale. Tackle, tent, skins, utensils, and boxes were secured in the bottom of the boat, and in a small pen at the bows lay ...
— With the Harmony to Labrador - Notes Of A Visit To The Moravian Mission Stations On The North-East - Coast Of Labrador • Benjamin La Trobe
... near them Mr. Bedwell found a canoe; which, being hollowed out of the trunk of a tree, was of very different construction to any we had before seen; its length was twenty-one feet, but its greatest breadth in the bilge did not exceed fifteen inches, whilst at the gunwale the opening was only from six to eight and a half inches wide; an outrigger, projecting about two feet, was neatly attached to one side, which prevented its liability to overset, and at each end was a projection, from fifteen to twenty inches long, on ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... tap of a warning that undoubtedly saved her life. Light flashed from the riding lamp at the steamer's bow full on my boat's deck, which was now heeled over deeply until the dark water rushed through her gunwale; it seemed that only a few seconds more and the poor little yawl would sink in the flood, or be ground into splinters by the two great iron monsters nearing ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... inviting Mr. Goodfellow to pass his plate for another dumpling. Miss Belcher's voice—as I may or may not have informed the reader—was a baritone of singularly resonant timbre. It sounded through the porthole as through a speaking trumpet, and I ducked and held my breath as the boat's gunwale rubbed twice against the ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... Club would surely have been frightened had they been aboard the little Coquette, as the catboat was named. She rocked and jumped, and the spume flew over her gunwale in an intermittent shower. But in this sea, which so easily swamped the canoes, the catboat was ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... existence diversified by feast and fast days; and all his social vices flourish in shelter of this seignorial system—this—this upas-tree which England is pledged to perpetuate:' and Mr. Holt struck his hand violently on the gunwale of the boat, awakening a responsive grin ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... the canoe to one side and lying down they were able to conceal themselves, they were prevented from landing by Austill and one or two other men. Two of the Indians jumped into the water and tried to swim to the shore, while the others, firing over the gunwale of the boat, were sorely annoying the whites. Austill shot one of the swimmers but the other escaped to the shore, and joined the savages there, informing them, as Dale supposed, of the weakness of his force, which they ...
— The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War • George Cary Eggleston
... still. Was it fancy, or were we moving? I turned my eyes to look for the other canoe which should be alongside of us. I could not see it, but instead I saw a lean and clutching black hand lifting itself above the gunwale of the little boat. Surely it was a nightmare! At the same instant a dim but devilish-looking face appeared to rise out of the water, and then came a lurch of the canoe, the quick flash of a knife, and an awful yell from the Wakwafi ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... that was yet round the fallen men had parted to let Thiodolf pass, and he came quickly. One of the men bore a chest, and the other a bale of somewhat. They gave these over the gunwale to my people, and Thiodolf spoke to ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler
... not in the barge but in the Queen. (To Cleopatra) The touch of your majesty's foot on the gunwale of the meanest boat in the harbor will make it royal. (He turns to the harbor and calls seaward) Ho there, boatman! Pull in ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw
... where they had left Peter in the boat, started them on the run for the bank. A scattering of shots, as from two rifles, followed. And while the Dutch superintendent, in execrable Spanish, shouted affirmations of Dutch neutrality into the menacing dark, across the gunwale of Chill II they found the body of the tow-headed youth whose business it had been not ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... 'I asked ye not to come into my barque. If ye hang to the gunwale, is it my fault an ye be drowned in my foundering ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... the landlord in his wherry, were close alongside, and holding on by the gunwale of the houseboat; so that not a word was ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... and inhuman mode of punishment, in former ages, was not uncommon in ships of war of all nations. It was performed by fastening a rope around the body of an individual, beneath the armpits, as he stood on the weather gunwale. One end of the rope was passed beneath the keel and brought up to the deck on the opposite side, and placed in the hands of half a dozen stout seamen. The man was then pushed overboard, and the men stationed to leeward ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... inspired him to renewed exertion. He struggled to get in the way of the boat, and succeeded so well that Frank, leaning over the side as far as he dared, was able to seize his outstretched hand and hold it until he could grasp the gunwale himself with a grip that no current could loosen. A glad shout of relief went up from the men at sight of this, and Frank, having made sure that the foreman was now out of danger, seized the oars and began to ply them vigorously ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley
... blunt-ended cargo-boat, rather guided than propelled by its four heavy oars, came drifting down with the current. Its gunwale was hung with horsehair sieves. Up from the thwarts stood many poles, each with cross-pieces, every cross-piece hung with sieves. Its oarsmen edged it nearer and nearer to the Quay and slowed its motion until it was almost stationary opposite ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... bore the boat down the stream in spite of the feeble efforts of the pilot to check her progress. Ben seemed to have lost all his self-possession, and stooped down, holding on with both hands at the gunwale. ...
— Try Again - or, the Trials and Triumphs of Harry West. A Story for Young Folks • Oliver Optic
... at the painter and flung it, calling out to the lifeboat's crew to catch and make fast. But either he was a moment too late in flinging, or the lifeboatmen, themselves bawling instructions to the tug's crew, were preoccupied and did not hear. The rope struck against something—the lifeboat's gunwale doubtless—but no one caught it, and next moment the tug had slipped away into darkness and into a silence which swallowed up the shouts and the throb of her engines as though she had ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... by the horror of the thing they had done, and the cranky dugout, tipped far over by the recoil of the gun, took water steadily across its gunwale; and now there was a sudden stroke from below upon its careening bottom and it went over and they were in the lake. But shore was only twenty feet away, the trunk of the uprooted tree only five. Joel, still holding fast to his hot gun, made for the log, gaining it with one stroke. ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... lost a lot of blood. All the drinking water awash in the boat was foul with it, and this bloodied flood was running, as the boat rocked, in and out among our small bags of pork and ship-bread. My job ended, I looked aft. Farrell was leaning over the gunwale in uncontrollable nausea. The face of Prout at the tiller, was dogged but inexpressive. Grimalson stood like ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... carefully wrapped me up he stepped upon the gunwale of the boat, and lifting his hat, smiled down at me. 'Good-bye, Miss Young,' he said. 'Good luck to you, and don't forget to remember me to the folks back home.' Then he stepped back and waved his hand to me as the boat was ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... what—sighted abaft the Ellen Jane, whose steersman catches it with a boathook as the oars we on the beach saw suddenly drop back water—slowly, cautiously—and only wait for him to drag the light weight athwart the gunwale to row for the dear life towards the town. The scattered crowd turns and comes back, trampling the shingle, to meet the boat as she lands, and follow what she brings to the ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... having meditated on affairs during the night, made a wild dash for freedom. The America, an English 64—double, that is, the Licorne's size—overtook her, and fired a shot across her bow to bring her to, Longford, the captain of the America, stood on the gunwale of his own ship politely urging the captain of the Licorne to return with him. With a burst of Celtic passion the French captain fired his whole broadside into the big Englishman, and then instantly hauled down his flag so as ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... his eyes, so that no insistent vision of the Spindrift's rigging should interrupt the working of his thought. At half-past eleven he was hailed from the shore. He raised himself slightly, and, leaning on his elbow, looked over the gunwale of the yacht. Major Kent stood ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... rowing-boats, lie. The boatmen rise and scream together. Each one extols with words and gestures the excellences of his boat. She makes her choice, and steps in and sits down on the cushions. The caique is narrow and sharp as a canoe, painted white, with a gold border on the gunwale. Two powerful men take their oars, and the caique darts over the blue waters of the Bosporus. Half-way between Scutari and Stambul, Fatima looks eagerly down the Sea of Marmora. She longs for an hour of freedom, and orders the ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... should have furled all her canvas. ... Can any one see a light aboard? No! And no light on the masthead, either! Look out, Victor!" Now the cutter was alongside; Victor stood waiting on the gunwale, and the next time she rose on the crest of a big wave, he leapt into the rigging of the brig, while the cutter sheered off, tacked, and ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg
... firmly, putting one foot over the gunwale. "I'm a younger man than either of you, and I'm used to a boat. I mean ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... have as hard a fare of it," said the waterman to his companion, "as if we were ferrying over an honest bankrupt with all his secreted goods—Ho, ho! good woman, what, are you stepping in for?—our gunwale lies deep enough in the water without ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... fellow-voyagers made reply, and for a time there was silence, save for the swish of the gunwale through the water. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... went in on top of the great wave, throwing their oars overboard, and as far from the boat as they could throw them, and, jumping out the instant the boat touched the beach, they seized hold of her by the gunwale, on each side, and ran her up high and dry upon the sand. We saw, at once, how the thing was to be done, and also the necessity of keeping the boat stern out to the sea; for the instant the sea should strike upon her broadside or quarter, she would be driven up ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... with a pouch about its neck ran up the anchor rope and pausing on the gunwale, sniffed at the pungent flower smell that it now knew meant sleep for all the sailors. Then it bounded toward ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... and after first putting his palms together with a hypocritical look of apology, he laid one hand on an old barge that was drawn up ashore, and sprang like a mountain goat on to the bow, lighting on the very gunwale. The position was not tenable an instant, but he extended one foot very nimbly and boldly, and planted it on the other gunwale; and there he was in a moment, headache and all, in an attitude as large ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... board the Nemorosa (for so the yacht was named) partook of the same mingled nature. We were scarcely within hail of that great and elegant fabric, where she lay rolling gunwale under and churning the blue sea to snow, before the bulwarks were lined with the heads of a great crowd of seamen, black, white, and yellow; and these and the few who manned the boat began exchanging shouts in some lingua franca incomprehensible to me. All eyes were directed on the passenger; ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... leaning idly on the gunwale, looking at them, when he observed a lady, with a child seated beside her, the mother pointing out to the child the varied beauties of the scene as they moved swiftly by. He straightened up on the instant, as if he had ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... with much grating of windlasses and of temperaments and voices, an anchor was very gently lowered into her and rested on the old sail. The anchor was so immense that it sank the dinghy up to Her gunwale, and then she was rowed away to a considerable distance, a chain grinding after her, and in due time the anchor was pitched with a great splash into the water. The sound of orders and of replies vibrated romantically over the surface of the water. Then a windlass was connected with ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... this one and that, and cramming letters and parcels Into his pockets capacious, and messages mingled together Into his narrow brain, till at last he was wholly bewildered. Nearer the boat stood Alden, with one foot placed on the gunwale, One still firm on the rock, and talking at times with the sailors, Seated erect on the thwarts, all ready and eager for starting. He too was eager to go, and thus put an end to his anguish, Thinking to fly from despair, that swifter ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... as quickly as they could in the circumstances. Finding that they could easily keep afloat, the non-swimmers had regained their confidence. Piloted by those who could swim, the men ranged themselves along one gunwale ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... wisely have ye prayed; I bid you now not shudder, though ye hear New and alarming tidings from your sire. From this high place beside the suppliants' shrine The bark of our pursuers I behold, By divers tokens recognized too well. Lo, the spread canvas and the hides that screen The gunwale; lo, the prow, with painted eyes That seem her onward pathway to descry, Heeding too well the rudder at the stern That rules her, coming for no friendly end. And look, the seamen—all too plain their race— Their dark limbs gleam from out their snow-white ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... some walked about the island for solace, and the crew fell to eating and drinking and playing and sporting. I was one of the walkers but, as we were thus engaged, behold the master who was standing on the gunwale cried out to us at the top of his voice, saying, "Ho there! passengers, run for your lives and hasten back to the ship and leave your gear and save yourselves from destruction, Allah preserve you! For this island whereon ye stand is no true island, but a great fish stationary a-middlemost of ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... swift as sight or thinking, so that he stood in the deep seas to the armpits, and his head and shoulders rose like a high isle, and the swell beat and burst upon his bosom, as it beats and breaks against a cliff. The boat ran still to the north, but he reached out his hand, and took the gunwale by the finger and thumb, and broke the side like a biscuit, and Keola was spilled into the sea. And the pieces of the boat the sorcerer crushed in the hollow of his hand and flung miles away ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ragged boys who were manoeuvring a little boat a stone-cast away, under the rocky shores of Eilean Chaisteil, and who, on catching a glimpse of me, flung themselves below the thwarts for concealment. An oar dropped into the water; there was a hasty arm and half a head thrust over the gunwale to secure it; and then the urchin to whom they belonged again disappeared. Meanwhile the boat drifted slowly away: first one little head would appear for a moment over the gunwale, then another, as if reconnoitering ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... at 6.30 p. m.; a queer, scattering town on Commencement Bay, at the head of Puget Sound. Very deep water just off shore. Two boys in a sailboat are blown about at the mercy of the fitful wind; boat on beam-ends; boys on the uppermost gunwale; sail lying flat on the water. But nobody seems to care, not even the young castaways. Perhaps the inhabitants of Tacoma are amphibious. Very beautiful sheet of water, this Puget Sound; long, winding, monotonous shores; trees all alike, straight up and down, mostly pines and cedars; ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... the wind lulled. Every now and then a wave would burst with a smashing noise, and the smugglers would laugh at those wetted by the spray. I saw that I had a better chance of landing unobserved on the port side; so I stole to that side, crawled over the gunwale, and slid into the ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... tanks, in a wearisome way. But their graceful movements and curious colours are worth notice. The conger-eels are comparatively small specimens. Those in the deep sea sometimes attain a gigantic size. They are able to use their tail as a hand, and have been known by means of it to seize the gunwale of the boat in which they were imprisoned ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... formerly very important to the Indians as food, and now attracts vast flocks of waterfowl to feed upon it in the season. In autumn the squaws used to go in their canoes to these natural rice-fields, and, bending the tall stalks over the gunwale, beat out the heads of grain with their paddles into the canoe. It is mentioned among ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... them almost as soon as its threat could be measured. Of the two, it was the young woman who met it with skilful purpose. While the man could only scramble, choked and half-blinded, to windward to throw his weight on the careening gunwale, the helmswoman had pounced upon the tiller and was standing knee-deep in the water pouring over the submerged lee rail to pay out and steer and miss the island headland ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... signal from the lookout, a squat, dark-faced steersman lounged against his crude rudder. Between these two the paddlers stood, each with one foot on the bottom of the long dugout and the other on the gunwale, swinging in nonchalant unison as their blades moved fore and aft. Under the curving roof of a rough-and-ready cabin, open at the sides to allow free play of air, Schwandorf lolled like some ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... perhaps it was, that at this juncture, in all parts of Mardi, the fleets of the hump-backed king, were fighting, gunwale and gunwale, alongside of numerous foes; else there had borne down upon the canoes of the men of Vivenza so tremendous an armada, that the very swell under its thousand prows might have flooded their scattered proas forever ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... boatmen pushed along under cover of the pier, until they reached the end, when the sail was dropped in the face of the wind, and away we shot into the watery tumult. The boat rocked and bounced over the agitated surface, running with one gunwale on the waves, and sheets of briny spray broke over me. I felt considerably relieved when I reached the deck of the steamer, but it was then diversion enough to watch those who followed. The crowd of boats pitching tumultuously around the steamer, jostling against each other, ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... when I come up, I see somethin' black, and there was John Wood's boat runnin' by me before the wind with a rush—and 'fore I knew an'thing he had me by the hair by one hand and in his boat, and we was over the Bar. Now, I tell you, a man that looks the way I saw him look when I come over the gunwale, face up, don't go 'round breakin' in and hookin' things. He hadn't one chance in five, and he was a married man, too, with small children. And what's more," he added, incautiously, "he didn't stop there. ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... absence, joyfully welcomed and kissed by the aged mulatto nurse. On rivers, boatmen safely moored at nightfall, in their boats, under shelter of high banks, Some of the younger men dance to the sound of the banjo or fiddle—others sit on the gunwale, smoking and talking; Late in the afternoon the mocking-bird, the American mimic, singing in the Great Dismal Swamp-there are the greenish waters, the resinous odour, the plenteous moss, the cypress-tree, and the juniper-tree. —Northward, young men of Mannahatta—the ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... rain-clouds, rushed out upon us with white foaming crests ten feet above the quarterdeck, and broke into clouds of blinding, strangling spray over the forecastle and galley, careening the ship until the bell on the quarter-deck struck and water ran in over the lee gunwale. It did not exactly correspond with my preconceived ideas of a storm, but I was obliged to confess that it had many of the characteristic features of the real phenomenon. The wind had the orthodox howl through the rigging, the sea was fully up to the prescribed standard, and the vessel ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... I leaned over the gunwale and began to grind. For the life of me, I don't know just what I did to her; but it seemed that she had taken some offence. Without the least warning, she leaped forward at three-quarter speed, and started up stream with that haughty head ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... carrying a large square sail, and manned by twenty-two oars. In the bow and stern, ten-foot decks formed forecastle and cabin; and in the middle part were lockers, whose tops could be raised to form a line of breastworks along either gunwale, in case of attack from Indians. The "periogues" were open boats, manned by six and seven oars. Besides these conveyances for the men and baggage, horses were led along the banks of the river, to be used by the hunters in their daily occupations and for service in emergency. The officers had observed ...
— Lewis and Clark - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark • William R. Lighton
... scream of fear, the woman in the boat dropped her oars, and grasped the gunwale of ...
— The Re-Creation of Brian Kent • Harold Bell Wright
... angry, because the dead man seemed to withhold from him the bounty of the sea. He laid the hand across the gunwale of the boat, and, taking up the axe that lay beside him, with a single blow he chopped the ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... hands? And then it came into my heart to pray. I knew I hadn't any right to pray expecting to be heard; but yet mine would be the prayer of the humble, and wasn't Faith of as much consequence as a sparrow? By-and-by, as we all sat leaning over the gunwale, the words of a hymn that I'd heard at camp-meetings came into my mind, and I sang them out, loud and clear. I always had a good voice, though Dan 'd never heard me do anything with it except hum little low things, putting mother to sleep; but here I had a whole sky to sing ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... and furnished with a sharp ram projecting from the keel, equally serviceable to cleave the waves or to stave in the side of an enemy's ship. Motive power was supplied by two banks of oars, the upper ones resting in rowlocks on the gunwale, the lower ones in rowlocks pierced in the timbers of the vessel's side. An upper deck, supported by stout posts, ran from stem to stern, above the heads of the rowers, and was reserved for the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... readily to take with them only what Uncle John advised. Tom Schuyler, however, was very anxious to take a heavy iron vise, which, he said, could be screwed on the gunwale of the boat, and might prove to be very useful, although he could not say precisely what he expected to use it for. Joe Sharpe also wanted to take a base-ball and bat, but neither the vise nor the ...
— Harper's Young People, June 8, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... dhoneys, built at Jaffna, and manned by Tamils, are imitated from those at Madras; while the Singhalese dhoney, south of Colombo, is but an enlargement of the Galle canoe with its outrigger, so clumsily constructed that the gunwale is frequently topped by a line of wicker-work smeared with clay, to protect the deck front the wash of ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... coolies; and the rush of the wave backwards and forwards at the bottom grew hourly less in the dim light of a couple of engine-room oil lamps whose light just made the darkness visible, the ship all the time rolling like a sodden lifeless log, her lee gunwale under water ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... well enough—" said the man at the net, setting himself astride the gunwale to listen, with the net hanging ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... amphibious lady, and was always ready for a trip in The Starry Flag, Levi Fairfield's well-tried craft. She had a taste for yachts, not only in pleasant weather, and on a smooth sea, but when the wind blew anything short of a gale, and the white caps whipped over the gunwale of the boat. Bessie, therefore, was frequently on the salt water with her duenna, and her constitution had been wonderfully ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... the thwart tight between calf and thigh and, resting the paddle across the gunwale, peered anxiously forward. His lips were a little dry, but he felt no fear. Being close to the water, he could not see the rapids themselves but only the first great, green curve, and below it the white tops of a multitude of waves. Then the middle ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... worthy friends and allies on this vessel, any dog who dares maintain that James is not the best of men I will beat him till the blood comes, and cut him in quarters," said this robust personage, striking with one of his fists the gunwale of the ship. Then, addressing De Chemerant: "But now you know him as well as we—you, the chosen you, the happy man who saw him first! Your hand, De Chemerant, your brave and loyal hand—more brave and more loyal, if it ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... this sight then that Gahan of Gathol looked, over the edge of the careening deck of the Vanator, as he sought to learn the fate of his warrior. Lashed to the gunwale close at hand a single landing leather that had not fouled the tangled mass beneath whipped free from the ship's side, the hook snapping at its outer end. The Jed of Gathol grasped the situation in a single glance. Below him one ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... river is curious. As their canoes cannot carry their animals over, they first drive the horse into the river up to his shoulders in the water, then launch the canoe—after tying the animal's head to the top of the gunwale—with the children and luggage on board. As the horse's feet are off the ground, he cannot injure the canoe. When travelling, however, without canoes, they form small rafts, into which they put their children; and lance in hand, and with ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... silently, leaning on the western rail of the bridge as we watched the sun set across that beautiful little water known as Coal Harbor. I have always resented that jarring, unattractive name, for years ago, when I first plied paddle across the gunwale of a light little canoe, and idled about its margin, I named the sheltered little cove the Lost Lagoon. This was just to please my own fancy, for as that perfect summer month drifted on, the ever-restless tides left the harbor devoid of water at my favorite ...
— Legends of Vancouver • E. Pauline Johnson
... said Daisy curiously. But just then there was a stir; the ladies and gentlemen were getting into the boat, and the children had to be ready for their turn. It came; and Mr. Randolph handed one after the other safe over the gunwale of the big sail-boat and placed them happily beside each other in the middle space, where they could have an excellent time for talking. But they wanted no talking at first. When all were aboard and ready, the boat was cast loose ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner
... mighty spruce and shipshape in their jerkin of Archangel tar picked out with white and green. Some carried gay iron railings, and quite a parterre of flower-pots. Children played on the decks, as heedless of the rain as if they had been brought up on Loch Carron side; men fished over the gunwale, some of them under umbrellas; women did their washing; and every barge boasted its mongrel cur by way of watch-dog. Each one barked furiously at the canoes, running alongside until he had got to the end of his ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... craft. We saw the woman (his wife) and the children go on board in the afternoon. In the evening he came. I had arranged it with the licensed boatmen; a few pesetas did that. Our boat was nearest the steps. In the dim light of the quay lamp he noticed nothing, but stepped over the gunwale and mentioned the name of his steamer in a quick way, which he thought ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... rose, and without an instant's warning— they could not tell afterwards how it happened—the boat half capsized, and they were in eight or nine feet of water. Baruch could not swim and went down at once, but on coming up close to the gunwale he caught at it and held fast. Looking round, he saw that Benjamin, who could swim well, had made for Miss Masters, and, having caught her by the back of the neck, was taking her ashore. The boatman, who could also swim, called ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford
... the sheet!" called the colonel, quickly bringing the Scout around; "there, that will do!" as Rand and Donald hauled in the sail until it was trimmed in as close as it would hold the wind, the boat laying over until her gunwale was under water. Holding her up in the wind until the peaks shivered, the colonel kept her on that course until she had run some hundred feet ...
— The Boy Scouts Patrol • Ralph Victor
... children, who were startled from their sleep by her piercing shrieks, dared not attempt a rescue. Taking her a little way from shore in their boat, the pirates flung her into the sea, and as she came to the surface and clutched the gunwale they hewed at her hands with cutlasses. She was heard to cry, "Lord, save me! Mercy! O, Lord Jesus, save me!" Next day the people found her mangled body on the rocks, and, with bitter imprecations at the worse than beasts ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... rocked gently in a glassy sea. They were almost climbing over the gunwale in their eagerness to be caught. Lovely wet shining wriggly fellows; all the varieties of the fishmonger's slab and more. In season or out, they didn't care; they thought only of doing honour to my line. No need in future for me to envy the little boys on the river-bank who pulled in fish ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 1st, 1920 • Various
... have a fair chance. He must put the gaff over the fish till the point is in a line with its broadside, and then with a sudden jerk sink the steel into, or even through, the animal, and lift him over the gunwale with all possible speed. A sharp blow or two on the snout will deprive the fish of life. Always kill your fish,—big or small,—as nothing ought to be more repulsive to a true sportsman than to see or hear any animal he has ...
— Scotch Loch-Fishing • AKA Black Palmer, William Senior
... further on the sands, the sea washing completely over her. Orders were given to cut away the lanyards of the main and mizen rigging, when the masts fell with a tremendous crash over the larboard-side: the foremast followed immediately after. The ship then fell on her starboard-side, with the gunwale under water. The violence with which she struck the ground and the weight of the guns (those on the quarter-deck tearing away the bulwarks) soon made the ship a perfect wreck abaft, and only four or five guns could possibly ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... was blowing furiously, and the Sea-horse taking green sea over her bows and wallowing gunwale under in the waves. At daylight, when they went on deck, gray masses of cloud were hurrying overhead and an angry sea alone met the eye. Not a sail was in sight, and the whole convoy ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... a bamboo chair beside his mistress, and looked ineffably happy when she handed him a cup of tea. Sky and sea were one exquisite azure—the colours of the boats glancing in the sunshine as if they had been jewels; here an emerald rudder, there a gunwale painted with liquid rubies. White sails, white frocks, white ducks made vivid patches of light against the blue. The landscape yonder shone and sparkled as if it had been incandescent. All the world of land and sky and sea was ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... were approaching our companions in misery. When there was not much more than a boat's length between us, and the white light streamed cold and clear over all our faces, both crews rested on their oars with one great shudder, and stared over the gunwale of either boat, panic-stricken at the ...
— The Wreck of the Golden Mary • Charles Dickens
... the bow and in the last canoe Mo-sar tiring of his fruitless attempts to win responses from his sullen captive, squatted in the bottom of the canoe with his back toward her and resting his head upon the gunwale sought sleep. ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... but for the unlucky accident to the tiller, which had made the Fair Maid unmanageable for the moment, and caused her to come up to the wind. They were thus able to draw very near us before the man at the helm had contrived to rig up a makeshift tiller out of a splinter off the gunwale. Just as he began to get the ship's head round again the launch approached within hailing distance, ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... had become more quiet, Stacy Brown slowly dragged himself from the shadow of the life-boat and stood gripping the gunwale. After getting his head leveled somewhat he walked unsteadily to his companions who were leaning on the steamer's rail regarding him with ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Alaska - The Gold Diggers of Taku Pass • Frank Gee Patchin
... this it will be inferred the boat is extraordinarily light, or it could never be got home again—but when twenty-four or twenty-eight barrels, each weighing four to five hundred pounds, are in it, the water comes right up to the gunwale, so an extra planking of a foot wide is tied on in the manner aforementioned, to keep the waves out, and that planking is only half an inch thick. Therefore the barrels are only divided from the seething ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... want to bestir himself from his position on the weather gunwale, where he crouched dejectedly, letting the stiff breeze dry his spray-soaked garments. He groaned, protested, grunted, and finally swore volubly as Alec prodded him, while Billy hoisted the ...
— The Boy Scouts on Picket Duty • Robert Shaler
... shot away from the landing as though an intelligent soul, rising equal to the needs of the crisis. The blue dancing water lapped between her gunwale and the shore. Drusus stood erect in the boat, brushed back the blood that was still streaming over his eyes, and looked landward. The slaves and freedmen were still on the landing, gazing blankly after their ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... killed when they'd got 'em close up to the gunwale by pounding them on the nose with a club—a good many hard whacks it took, too; but the blue-dog had to be stabbed with a lance; and I should think it took considerable courage and skill to do it, with such a big, strong, wicked-looking fellow. You ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... amidship, he gripped the thwart tight between calf and thigh and, resting the paddle across the gunwale, peered anxiously forward. His lips were a little dry, but he felt no fear. Being close to the water, he could not see the rapids themselves but only the first great, green curve, and below it the white tops of a multitude of waves. Then the middle ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... were fixed in their places; the cranes were thrust out; the mainyard was backed, and the three boats swung over the sea like three samphire baskets over high cliffs. Outside of the bulwarks their eager crews with one hand clung to the rail, while one foot was expectantly poised on the gunwale. So look the long line of man-of-war's men about to throw themselves on board an enemy's ship. But at this critical instant a sudden exclamation was heard that took every eye from the whale. With a start all glared at dark Ahab, who was surrounded by five dusky ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... brought the speaker into view. She was a girl both little and pretty. A rosy, blue-eyed, golden-haired sprite, hanging over the gunwale, ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... fifty-five feet in length, carrying a large square sail, and manned by twenty-two oars. In the bow and stern, ten-foot decks formed forecastle and cabin; and in the middle part were lockers, whose tops could be raised to form a line of breastworks along either gunwale, in case of attack from Indians. The "periogues" were open boats, manned by six and seven oars. Besides these conveyances for the men and baggage, horses were led along the banks of the river, to be used by the hunters in their ...
— Lewis and Clark - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark • William R. Lighton
... that he cannot be afforded that pleasure, as his sentence is to be hanged. But I must hasten over these painful recollections. We dropped down the river, and soon left the light-house and its long pier behind us, the mast bending like a whip, and the sea boiling like barm over the lee gunwale. Still the spirit of our party only rose the lighter, and nothing but eulogies upon the men and sailing of the craft resounded on all sides; the din and buz of the conversation went on only more loudly and less restrictedly than if the party had been on shore, and all, even myself, ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... jests back and forth. Then there was the huge bulk of the disabled ship, surging madly forward like a hunted creature dizzy and reeling with terror, her spacious decks knee-deep in the water which was incessantly pouring in over her bulwarks as she rolled gunwale-under; and for a background the mountainous seas careering swiftly past, with their lofty crests towering high and menacingly all round the ship, and the leaden-hued, ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... fell out of the upper air with a sound like that of a stone striking in water. I thought little of the deer Tip was after. His only aim in life was the one he got with a gun barrel. I had forgotten all but the beauty of the scene. Suddenly Tip roused me by laying his hand to the gunwale and gently shaking the dugout. In the dark distance, ahead of us, I could hear the faint tinkle of dripping water. Then I knew a deer was feeding not far away and that the water was falling from ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... moments. How my elder brother escaped destruction I cannot say, for I never had an opportunity of ascertaining. For my part, as soon as I had let the foresail run, I threw myself flat on deck, with my feet against the narrow gunwale of the bow, and with my hands grasping a ringbolt near the foot of the foremast. It was mere instinct that prompted me to do this—which was undoubtedly the very best thing I could have done—for I was too much flurried ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... harbor, where Roddy made soundings for his buoys, and Peter lolled in the stern and fished. His special pleasure was in trying to haul man-eating sharks into the launch at the moment Roddy was leaning over the gunwale, ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis
... of water; and the fellows got down on some loose planks that were floating there, and had fun pushing them up and down, and almost forgot what they had come for. They found a long pump leaning against the side of the boat, with its spout out over the gunwale, and they asked Piccolo if they might pump, and he said they might, and they pumped nearly all the water out after they had got done having fun ...
— The Flight of Pony Baker - A Boy's Town Story • W. D. Howells
... the zinc boat, which was fortunately unhurt. The dingy had lost a mouthful, as the hippopotamus had bitten out a portion of the side, including the gunwale of hard wood; he had munched out a piece like the port of a small vessel, which he had accomplished with the same ease as though it had been a ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... Frenchman, having meditated on affairs during the night, made a wild dash for freedom. The America, an English 64—double, that is, the Licorne's size—overtook her, and fired a shot across her bow to bring her to, Longford, the captain of the America, stood on the gunwale of his own ship politely urging the captain of the Licorne to return with him. With a burst of Celtic passion the French captain fired his whole broadside into the big Englishman, and then instantly hauled down his flag so as to ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... of which are beautiful, whereas these nineteenth century ones are so beastly ugly, ain't they? We have a piece of Edward III., with the king in a ship, and little leopards and fleurs- de-lys all along the gunwale, so delicately worked. You see," he said, with something of a smirk, "I am fond of working in gold and fine metals; this buckle here is an ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... the water. At last, in a bay where they anchored to take in water, a native canoe containing three, men was seen cautiously approaching; and the men, who were shy, were captured by the device of a sailor jumping on to the gunwale of the canoe and overturning it, the natives being easily caught in the water, and afterwards soothed and captivated by the unfailing attraction of hawks' bells. They were tall men with long hair, and they told Columbus that the name of their country was Paria; and when they were asked ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... above the lake to her middle, stiff as a post, holdin' the weeny barn out to them, and flyrin' [smiling scornfully] on them as they drew nigh her. They were half-frighted, not knowing what to make of it; but passing as close as the boatman could bring her side, the vicar stretched over the gunwale to catch her, and she bent forward, pushing the dead bab forward; and as she did, on a sudden she gave a yelloch that scared them, and they saw her no more. 'Twas no livin' woman, for she couldn't rise that height above the water, as they well knew when they came to think; and knew it ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... Hardie rose to his feet. "They are off!" cried he to the ladies, and after first putting his palms together with a hypocritical look of apology, he laid one hand on an old barge that was drawn up ashore, and sprang like a mountain goat on to the bow, lighting on the very gunwale. The position was not tenable an instant, but he extended one foot very nimbly and boldly, and planted it on the other gunwale; and there he was in a moment, headache and all, in an attitude as large and inspired as ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... Into this swift water the Indians push their canoes. It requires great skill and dexterity for this. The fishing canoe is of small size. It is steered by a man in the stern. The fisherman takes his stand in the bows, sometimes bestriding the light and frail vessel from gunwale to gunwale, having a scoop-net in his hands. This net has a long slender handle, ten feet or more in length. The net is made of strong twine, open at the top, like an entomologist's. When the canoe has been run into the uppermost rapids, and a school of fish is seen below or alongside, he dexterously ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... to the utmost extent. Amid shallows, the canoe is literally dragged by the men, wading to their knees or their loins, while each poor fellow, after replacing his drier half in his seat, laughingly strikes the heavier of the wet from his legs over the gunwale, before he gives them an inside berth. In rapids, the towing line has to be hauled along over rocks and stumps, through swamps and thickets, excepting that when the ground is utterly impracticable, poles are substituted, and occasionally also ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... deserted boat was in the trough of the sea, rolling drunkenly across each comber, its loose spritsail out at right angles to it and fluttering and flapping in the wind. The hunter and boat-puller were both lying awkwardly in the bottom, but the boat-steerer lay across the gunwale, half in and half out, his arms trailing in the water and his head ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... immediately filled, leaving Tom and me in the water, and in danger of being jammed to death between the launch and the side of the frigate. The seamen in the boat, however, forced her off with their oars, and hauled us in, while our wherry sank with her gunwale even with the water's ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... was insensible, was lifted into the boat. As soon as he was laid down Hunting Dog made his way hand over hand on the gunwale until close to the stern, where he swung himself into the boat ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... of the poor women. He called Dr Davis aft, and consulted him about the matter. It was agreed that an awning should be rigged in the centre part of the boat, over an oar a little higher than the gunwale, so as to leave room for the crew to pass on either side; and though this would afford them but a very narrow space, still they would be sheltered from the cold and rain and spray. Fortunately, a spare sail had been thrown into the boat, which would serve for this purpose; there ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... line out and fastens it to the cleat which he tried to kick off. He seizes the stern of the yawl and hoists it far over the upper deck. The yawl falls outside the gunwale below, with a great ...
— David Lockwin—The People's Idol • John McGovern
... generally observed, rose slowly to his feet, picked his way with a certain exaggerated deliberation of movement over the duffel lying in the bottom of the canoe, until he reached the bow, where he paused, one foot lifted to the gunwale just above the emblem of the painted star. Immediately a dead silence fell. Groups shifted, drew apart, and together again, like the slow agglomeration of sawdust on the surface of water, until at last they formed in a semicircle of staring, whose centre was the bow of the canoe and ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White
... the boat, saying something about how he was getting old and nervous, and I saw him bend over the gunwale. I watched him closely, for a hope had sprung up in my withered heart—a hope which I hardly dared tell myself might possibly be true, after the train of disasters which had overtaken me since I went ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... eastward, crying "Huzza for Tahiti!" There followed an open boat voyage that is unexampled in maritime history. The boat was only 23 feet long; the weight of eighteen men sank her almost to the gunwale; the ocean before them was unknown, and teeming with hidden dangers; their only arms against hostile natives were a few cutlasses, their only food two ounces of biscuit each a day; and yet they ran 3618 nautical miles in forty-one ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards
... not yet dead. Again he aimed and fired, the bullet splintering the gunwale of the canoe close by Baynes' face. Baynes fired again as his canoe drifted further down stream and Malbihn answered from the shore where he lay in a pool of his own blood. And thus, doggedly, the two wounded men continued to carry on their ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... broad-side-on, and capsized. We pulled strongly in, and as soon as we felt that the sea had got hold of us and was carrying us in with the speed of a race-horse, we threw the oars as far from the boat as we could, and took hold of the gunwale, ready to spring out and seize her when she struck, the officer using his utmost strength to keep her stern on. We were shot up upon the beach like an arrow from a bow, and seizing the boat, ran her up high ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... she said. "I—" The pitching of the boat threw her against Landless, and he put his arm about her. "You must let me hold you, madam," he said quietly. She shrank away from his touch, saying breathlessly, "No, oh no! See! I can hold quite well by the gunwale." He acquiesced in silence, only lifting her into a more secure position. "I thank you," ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... the signal. The yards flew round with such a creaking noise, that I thought the masts had gone over the side, and the next moment the wind had caught the sails; and the ship, which for a moment or two had been on an even keel, careened over to her gunwale with its force. The captain, who stood upon the weather hammock-rails, holding by the main-rigging, ordered the helm a-midships, looked full at the sails, and then at the cable, which grew broad upon the weather-bow, ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... of the ship; and in a small creek, moored head and stern, so near the shore as to reach it with a brow or stage, which nature had in a manner prepared for us in a large tree, whose end or top reached our gunwale. Wood, for fuel and other purposes, was here so convenient, that our yards were locked in the branches of the trees; and, about 100 yards from our stern, was a fine stream of freshwater. Thus situated, we began to clear places in the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... galley he went forward to assist in hauling. The skipper was on the bridge; the mate was working the donkey-engine, which was fast drawing in the long wire ropes attached to the net, and the deck hands stood at the starboard-side gunwale, watching for the net to appear. An electric light was hung up at the bridge, so that the men could see to do the work they had in hand. For a moment or two Charlie stood at the foot of the bridge, waiting for the skipper or the mate to ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... last one rose near Carr's boat, and he approached and, fatally for himself, harpooned it. When he struck, the fish was approaching the boat; and, passing very rapidly, jerked the line out of its place over the stern and threw it upon the gunwale. Its pressure in this unfavorable position so careened the boat that the side was pulled under water and it began to fill. In this emergency Carr, who was a brave, active man, seized the line, and endeavored to release the boat by restoring it to its place; but by some circumstance ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... towards the bow of the yacht where, with much grating of windlasses and of temperaments and voices, an anchor was very gently lowered into her and rested on the old sail. The anchor was so immense that it sank the dinghy up to Her gunwale, and then she was rowed away to a considerable distance, a chain grinding after her, and in due time the anchor was pitched with a great splash into the water. The sound of orders and of replies ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... river. And no sooner have we all bathed than we board the two shallops and push off gaily, and go gliding under the trees and gathering a great treasure of water-lilies. Some one sings; some trail their hands in the cool water; some lean over the gunwale to see the image of the tall poplars far below, and the shadow of the boat, with balanced oars and their own head protruded, glide smoothly over the yellow floor of the stream. At last, the day declining—all silent and happy, and up to the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... horses' were now upon them, their streaming manes enveloping the gunwale, and Maxwell gave himself up for lost. The lugger shivered, then grated violently. 'What's yon?' ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease
... bored him with his psalm-singing and exhortations, being "a living rod in soak to tickle up sluggish Christians". But, probably unwittingly, Featherstonhaugh admitted that Fort Snelling was of some service to him. For the supplies and vegetables taken from the post gardens brought the gunwale of the canoe to within four inches of ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen
... the southward and westward, careening gunwale-to, and sending the spray flying in such drenching showers over the weather bow, that presently the water rose above the bottom boards and splashed like a miniature sea in the lee bilge, compelling Dick to abandon the mainsheet to Stukely while he took a bucket and proceeded to bale. But the wind ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... alongside the lugger, rose, balanced skilfully, seized his moment, and stepped safely across her gunwale. A slight lurch caused him to throw his arms out to regain his poise; the line by which he still held the canoe straightened out its length and slipped from his grasp. In an instant the pirogue was gone. A glimmer of lightning showed her driving ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... insistent vision of the Spindrift's rigging should interrupt the working of his thought. At half-past eleven he was hailed from the shore. He raised himself slightly, and, leaning on his elbow, looked over the gunwale of the yacht. Major Kent stood on ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... had a nasty accident on the road—unavoidable—unavoidable! Big sea was running free over the sunken shoals; caught the ship aft unawares, and stove in better than half a dozen portholes. Lady passenger on deck happened to be leaning over the weather gunwale; big sea caught her up on its crest in a jiffy, lifted her like a baby, and laid her down again gently, just so, on the bed of the ocean. By George, sir, I was annoyed. It was quite a romance, poor thing; quite a romance; we all felt so put ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... him reeling against the gunwale, hands to face, for I dealt with him even as Godric served ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler
... little cortile, where gnarled rose-bushes were in bloom. A broken Venus, presiding over a dusty fountain, made the centre of the cortile, and there a strapping girl from the campagna was busy trimming the stalks of a bunch of roses. The signorina had not arrived; Lawrence lounged against the gunwale of a gondola, which lay on one side of ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... opened upon them. The cutter, commanded by the second lieutenant, was smashed by a round shot and instantly sunk. A ball struck close to the stroke-oar of the gig, deluging its occupants with water and ricochetting over the gunwale of the boat, between the stroke-oar and Mr. Hethcote. Two shot hulled the "Falcon," and ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... vessel again floated and made an effort to right herself, but she was almost completely waterlogged and heeled to larboard so much that the gunwale lay under water. They then endeavored to steer as fast as they could for land, which they knew could not be at any great distance, though through the hazy weather they were unable to see it. The foresail was loosened, and, by great efforts in bailing, she righted a little, ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... Its occupants were Indians. They were almost naked, and so intent on their occupation that the arrival of our travellers had not been observed. One of the Indians, a splendid specimen of muscular strength, stood up in the canoe with a bow and arrow in his hands and one foot on the gunwale, quite motionless. Suddenly he drew the bow, the arrow pierced the water without causing a ripple, and next moment a transfixed fish ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... Finally as dusk drew near, he threw himself down, under the cedar tree, his eyes sadly watching the evening mists rise over the river. His dark figure merged with the shadow of the cedar and Na-che and Jonas, establishing themselves on the gunwale of the Ida for one of their confidential chats did not perceive him. He himself gave them no heed until he heard ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... rested her hand on the gunwale of the boat. As he rowed Reinhard glanced along at her, but she gazed past him into the distance. And so his glance fell downward and rested on her hand, and the white hand betrayed to him what her lips ...
— Immensee • Theodore W. Storm
... of going into the water, he now is making desperate efforts to climb into the boat. His rope is held as tightly as possible, but the beast swims frantically from one side to the other, endeavoring to climb aboard. His knees thump the boat, and his chin occasionally rests on the gunwale, but active interference thrusts him back. In the meantime, the current is taking the boat well down the river, but we are not alarmed, for we have a good half-mile stretch, with convenient sandy places on the north side, on which to land. Now the horse settles down to steady hard work, ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... yet not deeper than might be accounted for by her carrying a heavy cargo; her covering-board seemed to be about eighteen inches above the water, and I therefore had no difficulty in clambering in over her bulwarks from the gunwale of the boat, of course taking care to carry the end of the boat's painter on board with me. Making this securely fast to a cleat in the bulwarks, I glanced fore and aft to see whether I could discover any indication ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... for no further invitation, and sprang from the gunwale. They watched the spreading circles that tracked his dive, and marked the white shining streak as it ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... the water of the tiny canoe. It was a dug-out, as ancient and dilapidated as its owner, and, in order to get into it without capsizing, Daughtry wet one leg to the ankle and the other leg to the knee. The old man contorted himself aboard, rolling his body across the gunwale so quickly, that, even while it started to capsize, his weight was across the danger-point and counterbalancing the canoe ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... pass his plate for another dumpling. Miss Belcher's voice—as I may or may not have informed the reader—was a baritone of singularly resonant timbre. It sounded through the porthole as through a speaking trumpet, and I ducked and held my breath as the boat's gunwale rubbed twice against the schooner's side ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... braced up for the purpose. This boat was nearly filled with water on her last trip, being a good deal damaged; obliging some of the officers, who had stayed until the last, to jump overboard into the icy cold water, and lean their hands on the gunwale, so as to relieve the boat of a part of their weight. She grounded in water about waist-deep; and the soldiers from the camp waded out and assisted our men in bearing on shore, and to the log hospital of the Twentieth Indiana, those who were in ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... with one hand, the General swung out a long arm, catching the lieutenant hard on one cheek with enough force to send him over the gunwale into the river. The lieutenant splashed, flailing out his arms, until he caught at the pole Drew extended to him. As they hauled him aboard again, ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... this, the paddle still in his hand, and his knees and feet nearly sentient in their providence of uses, the sailor threw himself upon the low gunwale, and let it glide through his palms till he could see the man at ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... wind with a rush—and 'fore I knew an'thing, he had me by the hair by one hand, and in his boat, and we was over the Bar. Now, I tell you, a man that looks the way I saw him look when I come over the gunwale, face up, don't go 'round breakin' in and hookin' things. He hed n't one chance in five, and he was a married man, too, with small children. And what's more," he added incautiously, "he did n't stop there. When he found out, this last ...
— Eli - First published in the "Century Magazine" • Heman White Chaplin
... skillful coxswain, we were fouled on the bias rather than broadside, so we didn't capsize. Clinging to the stempost, Ned Land thrust his harpoon again and again into the gigantic animal, which imbedded its teeth in our gunwale and lifted the longboat out of the water as a lion would lift a deer. We were thrown on top of each other, and I have no idea how the venture would have ended had not the Canadian, still thirsting for the beast's blood, finally pierced ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... side of the almost-empty steamer, lying at the Tyne-main Buoys, a keen, alert, bearded face looked over the gunwale above me. I stepped aboard and spoke to the owner of this face. I ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... man in it, nor yet the long bamboo pole. No. Such were common objects seen every day on their journey. It was none of these that had brought them to so sudden a stop, and caused them to stand wondering. It was the fact that along both sides of the boat—on the very edge or gunwale—was a row of large birds as big as geese. They were white-throated, white-breasted birds, mottled over the wings and back with dark brown, and having long crooked necks, large yellow bills, and broad ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... laughter of the seamen came in bursts as the wind lulled. Every now and then a wave would burst with a smashing noise, and the smugglers would laugh at those wetted by the spray. I saw that I had a better chance of landing unobserved on the port side; so I stole to that side, crawled over the gunwale, and slid into the ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... overboard, and they commence slowly and wearily pushing the boat up stream. We touch the bank a dozen times. The current swoops down and turns us round and round. The men have to put their shoulders under the gunwale, and heave and strain with all their might. The long bamboo poles are plunged into the dark depths of the river, and the men puff, and grunt, and blow, as they bend almost to the bottom of the ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... like Chinese coolies; and the rush of the wave backwards and forwards at the bottom grew hourly less in the dim light of a couple of engine-room oil lamps whose light just made the darkness visible, the ship all the time rolling like a sodden lifeless log, her lee gunwale under water ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... bed-plate will do it. Try the boat in water; if she is down by the stern, tack a piece of sheet lead in the bow inside. Nail your deck in with cut pins. Use one-eighth inch strips one-half inch high for the gunwale as far as the rounding of the stern; this must be cut out of a solid piece. Finish the gunwale with a top piece of Spanish cedar lapping over on either side ...
— Harper's Young People, July 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... The officers in charge of it got it into working order, and in the pauses of onrushing mist swept with it the surface of the sea. Once or twice its service was most effective, as when a fishing boat, with gunwale under water, rushed into the harbour, able, by the guidance of the sheltering light, to avoid the danger of dashing against the piers. As each boat achieved the safety of the port there was a shout of joy from the mass of people on the shore, a shout which for a moment seemed to ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... they had shot at them for a time, fled precipitately, each as best he could. Thorvald then inquired of his men, whether any of them had been wounded, and they informed him that no one of them had received a wound. "I have been wounded in my arm-pit," says he; "an arrow flew in between the gunwale and the shield, below my arm. Here is the shaft, and it will bring me to my end! I counsel you now to retrace your way with the utmost speed. But me ye shall convey to that headland which seemed ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... hand!" cried the commander to Mr. Tarbill. There was no need to urge Bob, who had already grasped one side of the gunwale and was helping to push the boat down ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster
... Michael, the Duke's anxious face became cheerful, for a favorable wind had set in, and the word was given to embark. Horses were led into the ships, the shields hung round the gunwale, and the warriors crowded in, the Duke, in his own Mora, leading the way, the Pope's banner at his mast's head, and a lantern at the ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... digging away the sand, undermining her thus until she lay so nicely balanced it needed but a push and the cumbrous structure, rolling gently over, lay in the necessary posture, viz: with her starboard beam accessible from gunwale to keel. And mightily heartened was I thus to discover her damage hereabouts so much less ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... I bid you now not shudder, though ye hear New and alarming tidings from your sire. From this high place beside the suppliants' shrine The bark of our pursuers I behold, By divers tokens recognized too well. Lo, the spread canvas and the hides that screen The gunwale; lo, the prow, with painted eyes That seem her onward pathway to descry, Heeding too well the rudder at the stern That rules her, coming for no friendly end. And look, the seamen—all too plain their race— Their dark limbs gleam from out their snow-white ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... Grasping the branch, I let myself swing at arm's length; and then I found that I was at least a foot too near the bank. Edging my way, therefore, still further along the branch, I kicked out in a desperate endeavour to reach the boat, and, the bough swaying with me, caught my toe inside the gunwale, drew it under me, and loosing my grasp, was sprawling upon my hands and ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... reached Forbes' Clearing. During twilight we saw a boat coming down the lake. The boatman proved to be James Sturgis with a small boat designed to carry two persons. We were four, and when we were seated the water was within an inch of the top of the gunwale. I told Sturgis to keep near the shore. In doing so he ran upon the limb of a fallen tree. The boat careened on one side and then the other, dipping water. At last we got off and after an hour's rowing, we reached the ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... her canoe, the landlord in his wherry, were close alongside, and holding on by the gunwale of the houseboat; so that not a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... paddles lay lengthwise in the boat. They were double—that is, the handle was in the middle, the ends being dipped alternately by whomsoever was propelling the craft. Jack looked behind him several times, before resting his hand on the gunwale. Something else which lay at the further end interested him, but he could not make it out at once. Leaning forward, he reached it with his bow, and then observed that it was a scalp. The barbarous trophy, by some unusual ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... current swept it toward him, inspired him to renewed exertion. He struggled to get in the way of the boat, and succeeded so well that Frank, leaning over the side as far as he dared, was able to seize his outstretched hand and hold it until he could grasp the gunwale himself with a grip that no current could loosen. A glad shout of relief went up from the men at sight of this, and Frank, having made sure that the foreman was now out of danger, seized the oars and began to ply them vigorously ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley
... shore, but, in spite of the fact that by careening the canoe to one side and lying down they were able to conceal themselves, they were prevented from landing by Austill and one or two other men. Two of the Indians jumped into the water and tried to swim to the shore, while the others, firing over the gunwale of the boat, were sorely annoying the whites. Austill shot one of the swimmers but the other escaped to the shore, and joined the savages there, informing them, as Dale supposed, of the weakness of his force, which they had not yet discovered. Dale called to the men on the other ...
— The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War • George Cary Eggleston
... to her stern, and towed her off; but he could get her no further than a shoal called Stubben, when she sunk, and soon after he had worked the NYEBORG up to the landing-place, that vessel also sunk to her gunwale. Never did any vessel come out of action in a more dreadful plight. The stump of her foremast was the only stick standing; her cabin had been stove in; every gun, except a single one, was dismounted; and her deck was covered with shattered ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... canvas, and a cask of Stockholm tar was found. After paying both the boat and a piece of canvas sufficiently large to cover her over with the tar, the canvas was passed under her keel and fastened inside the gunwale on either side. It went, of course, from stem to stern, and the thickly tarred folds nailed over the bows served somewhat to strengthen them. In our researches La Motte and I had found a hammer and a pair of pincers, which were very ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... launch is bobbing up and down, its gunwale at one instant level with the gangway-grating, at another, two or three feet below it. At the precise moment when the launch is almost at the top of its rise Dunningham says: "Now, step, please, Mr. Pulitzer." ...
— An Adventure With A Genius • Alleyne Ireland
... gardens of the broad alluvial plain, and the floating gardens of the lakes Wular and Dal. These last, more fortunate than those of Babylon and Nineveh, have maintained their existence to our day, the aquatic cultivator rowing among his parterres and gathering his melons over the gunwale. Fertility has never failed. The permanence in beauty and productiveness designed for Eden has here been sustained by the harmoniously-acting forces of Nature, and Adam might, for all that the explorers ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... vessel, to positions more inboard, where they are safer from the force of the waves, and better secured. As all the anchors of the Rancocus had been thus stowed, until Captain Crutchely got the one that was down, off the gunwale, and all the cables below, Mark and Bob had labour enough before them to occupy several hours, ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... sailed in packets, and those who had were stamped with the mark of it. We left Birkenhead in tow. There was a strong wind blowing. It was my duty to see the anchors stowed properly. I gave orders to man the fish tackle, and directed one of the men to pinch the flukes of the anchor on to the gunwale while the crew were hauling on the tackle. He looked at me for a minute or two as though he were undecided as to the condition of his hearing and his eyesight. I repeated the order in authoritative quarter-deck style. ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... and the cutter, propelled by twelve oars, shot alongside the approaching boat, and the sailors seized the gunwale and held her fast. Resistance was useless. Three rebels quietly delivered up their weapons, and one large, well-filled mail-bag was stowed away under the stern sheets of the cutter. The prisoners were taken on board the Boxer, and delivered into the ...
— Frank on the Lower Mississippi • Harry Castlemon
... breezy day of March; and about twenty small white clouds are scudding seaward before the wind, airy forerunners of the fleet of privateers and transports that spread their sails to the sunshine in the harbor. The tide is at its height; and the gunwale of a barge alternately rises above the wharf, and then sinks from view, as it lies rocking on the waves in readiness to convey the general and his suite on board the Shirley galley. In the background, the dark wooden dwellings of the town have poured forth their inhabitants; ...
— Biographical Sketches - (From: "Fanshawe and Other Pieces") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... shot the canoe under a low green archway of thickly matted creepers giving access to a miniature bay formed by the caving in of the bank during the last great flood. His own boat was there anchored by a stone, and he stepped into it, keeping his hand on the gunwale of Nina's canoe. In a moment the two little nutshells with their occupants floated quietly side by side, reflected by the black water in the dim light struggling through a high canopy of dense foliage; while above, away ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... moment's hesitation Martin slid over the gunwale into the sea, and, just as the pirate boats grappled with those of the barque, he and Barney found themselves gliding as silently as otters towards the shore. So quietly had the manoeuvre been accomplished, that the men in their own boat were ignorant of their absence. ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... deep at low tide, thus enabling sea-going vessels to cross without the aid of tugs—a great advantage to ocean liners and big lumber schooners, which may be seen almost any day either lying at the docks or loaded to the gunwale passing out ...
— The Beauties of the State of Washington - A Book for Tourists • Harry F. Giles
... a three and one half horse-power motor which could be attached to stern or gunwale of canoe or boat. It was made by the Evinrude Motor Company, who had a magneto placed in the flywheel of the engine so that we never had to resort to the battery to run the motor. Though the motor was left out in the rain and sun, often without a ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... the waters at every heave. It was with difficulty held to the rocks by a boat hook, for the current rushed furiously round the point. The veteran hoisted one end of the lumbering sea chest on the gunwale of the boat, and seized the handle at the other end to lift it in, when the motion propelled the boat from the shore, the chest slipped off from the gunwale, and, sinking into the waves, pulled the veteran ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... in tow, stole up the harbour between the lights of the vessels that lay at anchor. She came on a soundless tide, with her sprit-mainsail wide and drawing, and her foresail flapping idle; and although her cuddy-top and gunwale glistened wet with a recent shower, the man who steered her looked over his shoulder at the waning moon, and decided that the dawn would be a fine one. A furlong below the Town Quay he left the tiller and lowered sail: two furlongs above, he dropped anchor: then, having made all ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... man moved or lifted a hand. The next moment, a wave tilted and ran a dozen yards with her, but mercifully passed before it broke. A smaller one curved on the back-draught and splashed in over her gunwale as she took ground. But what knocked the wind out of our sails was this—As the first wave canted her up, two men had rolled out of her like logs; and the others, sitting like logs, had never so much as ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... itself, and lay there on the sea, smooth and bright. But it grew dull in an instant; I heard the sails flap, but saw them no more. A dense white vapour settled on us, the length of my arm bounded my sight, all movement ceased, and we lay on the water, inert and idle. I leant beside the gunwale, feeling the fog moist on my face, seeing in its baffling folds a type of the toils that bound and fettered me. Now voices rose round me, and again fell; the crew questioned, the captain urged; I heard ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... the Zamorin himself and all the native princes of the region to submit and acknowledge themselves feudatories of Portugal. So rapid were his movements, and so accurate his calculations, that before the close of 1503 he had reached Lisbon again with thirteen vessels laden to the gunwale with the plunder of the Orient—by all odds the richest argosy that had come to any European port since the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... burned in Kendrick's eyes as he drove the canoe to the landing with a few skillful strokes. Why had he been so foolish as to tell her his real name? Why didn't she want to know him? Without a word he caught the canoe in one hand and stepped out. He felt along the gunwale to the bow and fastened the painter to an iron ring in the planking, then handed her out safely. He retained his ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... in their jerkin of Archangel tar picked out with white and green. Some carried gay iron railings, and quite a parterre of flower-pots. Children played on the decks, as heedless of the rain as if they had been brought up on Loch Carron side; men fished over the gunwale, some of them under umbrellas; women did their washing; and every barge boasted its mongrel cur by way of watch-dog. Each one barked furiously at the canoes, running alongside until he had got to the end of his own ship, and so passing on the word ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... left behind begin running toward the pierhead in such numbers that each wide, bright-lit door-opening in turn suggests a flittering section of a moving-picture film. The only perfectly calm person in sight is a gorgeous, gold-laced creature standing on the outermost gunwale of the dock, wearing the kind of uniform that a rear admiral of the Swiss navy would wear—if the Swiss had any navy—and holding a speaking trumpet in his hand. This person is not excited, for he sends thirty-odd-thousand-ton ships ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... of Mariposa saw and felt that summer evening as they watched the Mackinaw life-boat go plunging out into the lake with seven sweeps to a side and the foam clear to the gunwale with the lifting ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... maddening, and he pulled desperately, first on one oar and then on the other. Around the rocks the waters ran swiftly, and before he knew it there came a crash and his craft was stove in and upset. He clutched at the gunwale of the boat, but missed it, and plunged headlong ...
— Young Captain Jack - The Son of a Soldier • Horatio Alger and Arthur M. Winfield
... is," said Josh, as there was a splash in the water and the rattling of a rope over the gunwale. ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... chimed in Little, seizing the gunwale and striking out with strong leg strokes. The seamen joined their efforts, and with twelve expert swimmers thrusting the boat forward, the skipper was dragged out of the tenacious mud with a loud ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... are worth notice. The conger-eels are comparatively small specimens. Those in the deep sea sometimes attain a gigantic size. They are able to use their tail as a hand, and have been known by means of it to seize the gunwale of the boat in which they were imprisoned and jump into ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... it, but did not attempt to snatch it from the oarsman's clutch. He had no time for that, but he made splendid use of the chance afforded him. He gave it a tremendous push, and released it. The rower, caught by surprise, was flung over the opposite gunwale, and the skiff was nearly upset. As the sampan darted away on her new course, the skiff was left floundering ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... softly over the gunwale, and so it was. Wounded to death as he had been by the arrow shot, he had yet in some way contrived to get this boat here, and afterwards to use his last strength in muffling the oars, and so died, spent, before ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... in hammocks, and left on deck till next morning. As usual, a great number had thus been disposed of. In the morning, while employed in loading the boat, one of the seamen perceived motion in one of the hammocks, just as they were about launching it down the board placel for that purpose from the gunwale of the ship into the boat, and exclaimed, 'Damn my eyes! That fellow isn't dead!' and if I have been rightly informed, and I believe I have, there was quite a dispute between the man and the others about it. They swore he was dead enough, and should go into the boat; he swore ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... leaped to the shore, and pulled the boat in for her. She prepared to jump, as usual, but as she stood, her slight figure poised on the gunwale, he took her in his arms ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... dropping them in the trough, they gave three or four long and strong pulls, and went in on top of the great wave, throwing their oars overboard, and as far from the boat as they could throw them, and, jumping out the instant the boat touched the beach, they seized hold of her by the gunwale, on each side, and ran her up high and dry upon the sand. We saw, at once, how the thing was to be done, and also the necessity of keeping the boat stern out to the sea; for the instant the sea should strike upon her broadside or quarter, she would be driven up broadside ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... imprecations that their "souls might be smashed on the end of a picket fence,"—the voyageur's common oath even to this day,—the boatmen stored goods fore, aft, and athwart till each long canoe sank to the gunwale as it was gently pushed out on the water. A last sign of the cross, and the lithe figures leap light as a mountain cat to their place in the canoes. There are four benches of paddlers, two abreast, ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... dreadful chamber of Bluebeard as I did to ascertain the secrets of this hidden receptacle. One night Fleming had quitted the barge, and I ascended from my dormitory. Marables was on deck, sitting upon the water-cask, with his elbow resting on the gunwale, his hand supporting his head, as if in deep thought. The cabin-doors were closed, but the light still remained in it. I watched for some time, and perceiving that Marables did not move, walked gently up to him. ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the Speedwell was fairly before the wind, the sails were hauled taut, the boys seated themselves on the windward gunwale, and the race began in earnest. But they soon found that it would be much longer than they had imagined. Instead of the slow, straining motion which they had expected, the Speedwell flew through the water like a duck, ...
— Frank, the Young Naturalist • Harry Castlemon
... my new command to my heart's content, we went alongside and boarded her. Her gangway was open; and so little freeboard did she show at this point—Carline measured it and found it to be exactly four-feet—that we were able to spring from the boat's gunwale to the schooner's deck without difficulty, and without the need for a side-ladder. I had by this time quite forgotten my first impression of diminutiveness in connection with the craft, and the moment that I passed ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... anchor, with forty fathoms bent and already buoyed, I now took and succeeded in getting through the surf; but my dory was leaking fast, and by the time I had rowed far enough to drop the anchor she was full to the gunwale and sinking. There was not a moment to spare, and I saw clearly that if I failed now all might be lost. I sprang from the oars to my feet, and lifting the anchor above my head, threw it clear just as she was turning over. I grasped her gunwale and held on as she turned ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... awakened from his dream by a sudden splash. Looking up he observed that the small boy was gone. With a bound he stood erect, one foot on the gunwale and hands clasped ready to dive, when a glance revealed the fact that ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... board in the afternoon. In the evening he came. I had arranged it with the licensed boatmen; a few pesetas did that. Our boat was nearest the steps. In the dim light of the quay lamp he noticed nothing, but stepped over the gunwale and mentioned the name of his steamer in a quick way, which he thought was that ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... sitting in the boat, safely moored, with a book in her hand, the pink cockatoo on the gunwale, nibbling at a stick, and the girl lying on a rug, partly on her lap. Phyllis and Anna, who had come out on the lawn, made ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... to enter the world of the dead in good company," he laughed. He stood guard over the gunwale until Leif and the other ten men of the boat's crew were ready to go down; pounding the poor wretch's fingers when he attempted to climb back, while a row of grinning faces mocked him ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... his perch by Tod, whose pole swung around his head like a flail. Then Scootsy tried it, crawling up, protecting his head by ducking it under his elbows, holding meanwhile by his hand. Tod's blows fell about his back, but the boy struggled on until Archie reached over the gunwale, and with a twist of his wrist, using all his strength, dropped the invader to ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... flaws, and put my boat about on a homeward tack. Without a moment's warning the gale burst upon us, and as my own boat bowed gracefully to the wind and threw the water from her bows, I saw John's mast quiver and bend as a large sea swept over the gunwale and drenched him from head to foot. 'Let go your sheet!' I shouted, 'and luff her up into the wind.' But instead of doing so, he hauled powerfully upon the swelling sail, put his helm hard down, and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... the bottom and looked with both eyes at the six inches of gunwale which separated him from the ocean. His sleeves were rolled over his fat forearms, and the two flaps of his unbuttoned vest dangled as he bent to bail out the boat. Often he said: "Gawd! That was a narrow clip." As he remarked it ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... silent, ceaseless occupation, when, from the mere force of habit, I dipped my hand over the boat's gunwale, with the hope of cooling my blistered palm in the salt water. Judge of my surprise, when I found my hand immersed in thick ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... can't swim a stroke," groaned the man, as he pounded his left hand against the gunwale until the blood came through the abraded skin. Plunged in darkness again, the man, whom Rose had called unimaginative, suffered all the untold agony of soul which had been hers during the moment in which she had been forced to make up her mind and ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
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