"Ferryman" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... officers with us (ah! what gentlemen, what noblemen of nature they seemed), and they hurried off with me; leaving Kate and Anne on a crag of ice; and clambered after me over the rocks at the foot of the small Fall, while the ferryman was getting the boat ready. I was not disappointed—but I could make out nothing. In an instant I was blinded by the spray, and wet to the skin. I saw the water tearing madly down from some immense height, but could get no idea of shape, or situation, or anything but vague ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... sorrowing but hopeful relations awaited results. They had not very long to wait. For no sooner had the ghost, armed with the stone club, stepped down to the sea-shore than he called imperiously for the ferry-boat. It soon hove in sight, with the ghostly ferryman in it paddling to the beach to receive the passenger. But when the prow grated on the pebbles, the artful ghost, instead of stepping into it as he should have done, lunged out at it with the stone club so forcibly that he broke the prow clean off. In ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... not originally (as later asserted) a fee to Charon the ferryman to Hades, but simply a "minimum precautionary sum, for the dead man's use" (Dr. Jane Harrison), placed in the mouth, where a Greek usually ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... dreadful spectres that would cross his path on his adventurous journey. Hence when Aeneas, emerging from the forest, comes to the banks of Styx, winding slow with sluggish stream through the infernal marsh, and the surly ferryman refuses him passage in his boat, he has but to draw the Golden Bough from his bosom and hold it up, and straightway the blusterer quails at the sight and meekly receives the hero into his crazy bark, which sinks deep in the water under the unusual ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... had come to the conclusion as they walked that it would be too late to attempt to get on that night beyond Burnham. The storm was as wild as ever, and although the passage was a narrow one it was as much as the ferryman could do to ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... no fortune, nor no hope of end To our infamous, monstrous slaveries. Gape, earth, and let the fiends infernal view A [276] hell as hopeless and as full of fear As are the blasted banks of Erebus, Where shaking ghosts with ever-howling groans Hover about the ugly ferryman, To get a passage to Elysium! [277] Why should we live?—O, wretches, beggars, slaves!— Why live we, Bajazeth, and build up nests So high within the region of the air, By living long in this oppression, That all the world will see and ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part I. • Christopher Marlowe
... squadron suddenly appeared at about two o'clock of an April afternoon, to the great astonishment of the inhabitants of both places. It seemed too large a fleet to be a mere collection of trading vessels, nor did they appear to be Spanish ships. Peter Koppelstok, a sagacious ferryman, informed the passengers whom he happened to be conveying across the river, that the strangers were evidently the water beggars. The dreaded name filled his hearers with consternation, and they became eager to escape from so perilous a vicinity. Having ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... inches deep in sand the whole way. It was scarcely possible to see more than fifty yards ahead of you, so thickly grew the banksia trees. After crossing the ferry, we lost sight of the river for several miles, and then diverged from the dismal road by a path which we had been directed by the ferryman to look out for, and which brought us to a sandy beach at the bottom of a beautiful bay, called Freshwater Bay. From this point to the opposite side was a stretch of several miles, and the broad and winding river, or rather estuary, with its forest ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... I demanded of the ferryman, on reaching the further bank. "The raya is many leagues from hence," replied the ferryman; "you seem a stranger. Whence do you come?" "From England," I replied, and without waiting for an answer, I sprang on the burra, and proceeded ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... there, and we'll leave the little boat for them. Come, I want to get over and have a run on dry land, for I'm as cold as a stone. This living like a duck, half in the water and half out, don't suit me at all. The next river we cross over, I'll make Henri get another ferryman." ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... to a close. It had been a good meeting; the church had been revived, and there had been important additions. I took dinner with Bro. Brown, and in the afternoon we rode toward Ripley. On crossing the ferry at Crooked Creek, "Old Rob Burton," the ferryman, a tall, stalwart Kentuckian, looking down on me, asked, "Are you the man that's goin' to ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... trade a fisherman; but as his house, built of black tarred timber, stood right on the foreshore a few yards from the pier, he was employed in such cases as a sort of ferryman. He was a big, black-browed youth generally silent, but something seemed now to ...
— The Trees of Pride • G.K. Chesterton
... praised the construction of the boat; it was so convenient, he said, because one person could so easily manage it with a pair of oars. She should herself learn how to do this; there was often a delicious feeling in floating along alone upon the water, one's own ferryman and steersman. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... his papers, and went out in dead silence. He followed Enrico to the massive gate; and, without a word of farewell, descended to the water's edge, where a ferryman was waiting to take him across the moat. As he mounted the stone steps leading to the street, a girl in a cotton dress and straw hat ran up to ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... continuous travel we reached Lismus Ferry on the second morning from Hell Creek. The ferryman had a bit of information for us. We would find nothing at the mouth of Milk River but a sandbar, he advised us. But he had some ointment to apply to the wound thus inflicted, in that Glasgow, a town on the Great Northern, was only twenty-five miles inland. ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... a boat there in readiness for him, and also a good horse, to take across the ferry with them to the other side. So, at twelve o'clock, he and Appelmann embarked privately, with Johann Bruwer, the ferryman, and were safely landed at Mahlzow. Here he mounted his horse, and told the two others to await his return, and conceal themselves in the wood if any one approached. Appelmann begged permission to accompany his Highness, which, however, was denied; the young Prince charging them strictly ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... in that strained whisper. "Mother, when I went to sleep I dreamt a ferryman came for us, and his boat was close to the shore, and we were stepping in when you called me back. I knew your voice, and you said 'Susie' quite plainly. I wouldn't go, and I wouldn't let him take Dick! I screamed and held him tight, and the ferryman said we must pay him, all the same; and then ...
— Troublesome Comforts - A Story for Children • Geraldine Glasgow
... tales, so therewith we may cut short the waking hours of this our night," and quoth Shahrazad:—It hath reached me, O King of the Age, that Mubarak and Zayn al-Asnam came upon a lake where, behold, they found a little craft whose planks were of chaunders and lign-aloes of Comorin and therein stood a ferryman with the head of an elephant while the rest of his body wore the semblance of a lion.[FN33] Presently he approached them and winding his trunk around them[FN34] lifted them both into the boat and seated them beside himself: then he fell to paddling till he passed through ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... boxes in the chaise by accident, containing some caps and laces belonging to my wife, I still hoped the postilion had exaggerated in the distance between the boat and the city gate, and was confirmed in this opinion by the ferryman, who said we had not above half a league to walk. Behold us then in this expedition; myself wrapped up in a very heavy greatcoat, and my cane in my hand. I did not imagine I could have walked a couple ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... the gold ring off his arm Unto the dead man's wife: "Take that as an atoning gift For the Ferryman's young life." ...
— Grimhild's Vengeance - Three Ballads • Anonymous
... fell on the flame. Three strangers in Russian dress, but speaking the language of Poland, crossed the Oka River, and gave the ferryman the high fee of six ducats, saying, "You have ferried the czar; when he comes back to Moscow with a Polish army he will not ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... his padded arm-chair there Sat the ancient ferryman, Ill and grey. His nieces sweet Like two angels ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine
... nigger woman in the horse-ferry to stay all night at her friend's house, Miss What-you-may-call-her I disremember her name—and they lost their steering-oar, and swung around and went a-floating down, stern first, about two mile, and saddle-baggsed on the wreck, and the ferryman and the nigger woman and the horses was all lost, but Miss Hooker she made a grab and got aboard the wreck. Well, about an hour after dark we come along down in our trading-scow, and it was so dark we didn't notice the wreck till we ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... sped arrow from itself that ran so swift a course through the air, as a very little boat which I saw coming through the water toward us at that instant, under the direction of a single ferryman, who was crying out, "Art thou ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... ferryman—to keep the figure whole—was a letter from his father, a letter longer than the commonplace chronicles, and painfully written with the mechanic hand on both sides of a company letter-head. Caleb Gordon wrote chiefly ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... accepted in the vulgar belief. For instance, that the popular mind honestly held that, in some vague sense or other, the ghost, on leaving the body, flitted down to the dull banks of Acheron and offered a shadowy obolus to Charon, the slovenly old ferryman, for a passage in his boat, seems attested not only by a thousand averments to that effect in the current literature of the time, but also by the invariable custom of placing an obolus in the dead man's mouth for that purpose when ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... contact with them. The hut was crowded by a party of provincials,—a simple and merry set, who had spent the afternoon fishing near the Falls, and were bartering black and white bass and eels for the ferryman's whiskey. A greyhound and three spaniels, brutes of much more grace and decorous demeanor than their masters, sat at the door. A few yards off, yet wholly unnoticed by the dogs, was a beautiful fox, whose countenance ...
— Fragments From The Journal of a Solitary Man - (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... bright as heaven, from whence the blessing came: But few, oh! few souls, preordained by fate, The race of gods, have reached that envied height. No rebel Titan's sacrilegious crime, By heaping hills on hills can hither climb: The grizzly ferryman of hell denied Aeneas entrance, till he knew his guide. How justly then will impious mortals fall, Whose pride would soar to heaven ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... showed a flat space between bulwarked hills, one yellow spot—the light in the ferryman's window—shining like an eye unwinking and vigilant. Garland's hail was answered from within the shack, and the ferryman came out, a dog at his heels, a lantern in his hand. There was a short conference, and the lantern, throwing golden gleams on the ground, swung toward the flat boat, ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... and puffed at her cigar. "Do you know the history of the family?" she asked. "The founder was a rough old ferryman. He fought his rivals so well that in the end he owned all the boats; and then some one discovered the idea of buying legislatures and building railroads, and he went into that. It was a time when they simply grabbed things—if you ever look into it, you'll find they're making ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... not so weary of life, that I would drown me in these broad waves. Sooner shall men die by my hands in Etzel's lands. That will I well. Stay by the water's side, ye proud knights and good, and I will seek the ferryman myself along the stream, who shall ferry us across to Gelfrat's ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown
... Nevertheless, no court more certainly awaits its wealthy lord, than the destined limit of rapacious Pluto. Why do you go on? The impartial earth is opened equally to the poor and to the sons of kings; nor has the life-guard ferryman of hell, bribed with gold, re-conducted the artful Prometheus. He confines proud Tantalus; and the race of Tantalus, he condescends, whether invoked or not, to relieve the poor freed from ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... Hollander by the name of Peter Houter was the ferryman. He stood at the clumsy steering-beam, while four stout rowers manned the oars of his wide, flat-bottomed craft. Approaching the steersman, Bob asked where in the town he would be likely to find the Captain of a merchantman then taking cargo in the port. The Dutchman ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... were seen through the poplars and walnuts. A delightful spot for a poetical angler is this, for the Dordogne runs close by in the shadow of prodigious rocks and overhanging trees. What a noble and stately river I thought it, as the old ferryman, with white cotton nightcap on his head, punted me across! I took the greater pleasure in its breadth and grandeur here because I had seen it an infant river in the Auvergne mountains, and had watched its growth as it rushed ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... must move somewhere— in a direction where the obstruction is less. It certainly belongs to the science of hydraulics, for it is not such a boat as can be propelled by steam or wind. I had occasion recently to cross the Mississippi on a similar ferry, early in the morning, and before the ferryman was up. The proprietor of it was with me; yet neither of us knew much of its practical operation. I soon pulled the head of the boat towards the current, but left down the resistance board, or whatever it is called, at the bow ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews
... on horseback, ten cents for a single animal, and five cents for a foot-passenger. Two cards, with these rates neatly printed on them by Ruth in large letters, were tacked up on the anchorage posts, so that passengers might not have any chance to dispute with the ferryman, or "superintendent of ferries," as he liked ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe
... the ferryman, who worked the horse-boat with his eldest son, had himself walked over to Bottesford earlier in the morning: and Johnny felt some uneasiness at finding his place supplied by a boy scarcely fourteen. ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... moored in a nook on the opposite bank; near which a chimney sending up a wreath of smoke through the thick-set willows, was the only symptom of human habitation; and Robin naturally conceiving the said chimney and wreath of smoke to be the outward signs of the inward ferryman, shouted "Over!" with much strength and clearness; but no voice replied, and no ferryman appeared. Robin raised his voice, and shouted with redoubled energy, "Over, Over, O-o-o-over!" A faint echo alone responded "Over!" and again died away into deep ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock
... his. We stopped at his door to inquire after the family, though with little hope of finding them at home, having seen a large company at work in a hay-field, whom we conjectured to be his whole household, as it proved, except a servant-maid who answered our enquiries. We had sent the ferryman forward from the head of the glen to bring the boat round from the place where he left it to the other side of the lake. Passed the same farm-house we had such good reason to remember, and went up to the burying-ground that stood ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... a taxi was heard to arrive at the other side of the ferry, and the ferryman's voice was heard shouting: "All right, all right, I'll be there in ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... say that having naught To pay the ferryman, the churl refused To ferry him across the swollen stream, When he was raised and wafted through the air. What matter whether that all-powerful Love Which moves the worlds, and bears with all our sins, Sent him a chariot and steeds of fire, Or moved the heart of some poor ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles
... maidens broke into weeping, and when the news spread through the city no sounds but those of wailing were heard. Only the voice of Psyche was silent among them. She moved about as one that was sleeping, and indeed she felt as if the boat, with its grim ferryman, had already borne her across the Styx. So the days passed on, and one evening a white-clad priest arrived from the shrine to bid the king tarry ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... and Rollo went to the margin of the road where the ferry boat had its little landing place, and when it came up they stepped on board. The ferryman could only talk Dutch, and so Mr. George could not ask him what was to pay. The only thing to be done was to give him a piece of silver, and let him give back such change as he pleased. Mr. George gave him a piece of money about as big as half a franc, and he got back so much change ...
— Rollo in Holland • Jacob Abbott
... to which we have before incidentally alluded, and whither we are now about to repair, was a low, lone hovel, situate on the banks of the deep and oozy Don, at the eastern extremity of that extensive moor. Ostensibly its owner fulfilled the duties of ferryman to that part of the river; but as the road which skirted his tenement was little frequented, his craft was, for the most part, allowed to sleep ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... and made several unavailing attempts to cross the Bidassoa. The ferryman, acting under instructions from the gendarmes, refused to take passengers. By the evening train a delegate from the Paris Society for the Succour of the Wounded arrived from Bayonne with a box of medicine and surgical appliances. He, too, was unable to pass into Spain. Meantime, ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... fisherman or two there were few men by the river. The workmen had finished their day's labour. A ferryman said that I might talk an Indian into selling his boat, but it was doubtful. My next job was to find such ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... quilt or blanket over them; then the hay she always put in for her team over that, and a bag of apples, and another of potatoes, or any thing she generally brought into market, placed in front so as to present the appearance of a load of marketing. As she had been over so often, she said, the ferryman hardly ever asked her for her pass, for he knew her so well. "Don't you see you are the very one to bring yourself and family here? You could drive over and take your family to either of three places: to a colored family on Macallister ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... had arrived at the bank of the river, where they found that the ferryman was at the other side, and his boat with him. He was lying on the stern seat, in the sun, and an empty whiskey bottle beside him sufficiently denoted the reason of his inertia. When the Colonel called to him, he answered in endearing terms, but moved not; and when ...
— Harper's Young People, April 13, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... The ferryman looked surprised, then disgusted, and finally he turned an inquiring glance upon Joe, who said that ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume VIII, No 25: May 21, 1887 • Various
... the Baron cries; "Whatever boon he craves, I swear, by Christ, that man shall win, My ferryman ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... speed. He was an excellent runner and a good jumper, so that he gradually drew away from his pursuers until he lost the sound of their feet; but he knew that they were doggedly following, and that his only chance was to reach the ferry, and get the ferryman to help him. Now this same ferry plied across a swift stream that ran into the sea about two and a half miles north of the place where he met the men. The current was so very strong that no boatman could possibly row from bank to bank: the boat would have been swept out to sea. So a strong chain ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... detail of the ferry is given by J. H. Beadle, in his "Western Wilds." He told of reaching the ferry from the south June 28, 1872. The attention of a ferryman could not be attracted, so there was use of a boat that was found hidden in the sand and brush. This was the "Emma Dean," left by Powell. The ferryman materialized two days later, calling himself "Major Doyle," but his real identity was developed soon thereafter. ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock
... would not have been annexed to a story utterly without foundation, and consequently throws no incredibility on the fact that the eldest son of the young Earl of Derby was nursed at Courtfield. Thus, too, though the recorded salutation of the ferryman of Goodrich congratulates his Majesty on the birth of a (p. 012) noble prince, as the King was hastening from his court and palace of Windsor to his castle of Monmouth; yet the unstationary habits of Bolingbroke, ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... stated, that neither offers nor acceptances are confined to communications made in spoken or written words. Acts or signs may and constantly do signify proposal and assent. One does not in terms request a ferryman to put one across the river. Stepping into the boat is an offer to pay the usual fare for being ferried over, and the ferryman accepts it by putting off. This is a very simple case, but the principle is the same in all cases. Acts fitted to convey ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various
... a tip as was ever given to a waiter or at a horse-race. There was nothing between Lucullus and the "bread line" except his last sweetbread; yet as a gentleman he gave it up to the ferryman rather than lose his poise when ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... to swim; and one tribe, called the Bamangwato, wishing to cross the Zambesi, was ferried over, men and women separately, to different islands, by one of the Batoka chiefs; the men were then left to starve and the women appropriated by the ferryman and his people. Sekomi, the present chief of the Bamangwato, then an infant in his mother's arms, was enabled, through the kindness of a private Batoka, to escape. This act seems to have made an indelible impression on Sekomi's heart, for though otherwise callous, he still ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... jug's bin ter wah, mon. Hit's wunner deze yer ole timers. I got dat jug down dar in Putmon County w'en Mars 'Lisha Ferryman wuz a young man, an' now he's done growed up, an' got ole an' died, an' his chilluns is growed up an' dey kin count dere gran'chilluns, an' yit dar's dat jug des ez lively an' ez lierbul fer ter kick up devilment ez w'at she wuz w'en she come fum ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... years of age, it happened that, in a cavern in Derbyshire, I had to cross in a boat (in which two people only could lie down) a stream which flows under a rock, with the rock so close upon the water as to admit the boat only to be pushed on by a ferryman (a sort of Charon) who wades at the stern, stooping all the time. The companion of my transit was M.A.C., with whom I had been long in love, and never told it, though she had discovered it without. I recollect my sensations, but cannot ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... am not yet weary of life, O king, and I wish not to drown in these broad waves. Better that men should die by my sword in Etzel's land. Stay thou then by the water's edge, whilst I seek a ferryman along ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... like a path up the bank," added Deck, who had been studying the river above. "I think this must be a ferry, Ben; though I should suppose the ferryman would find it hard work to get through the current that ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... near Petit Val, a thing we needed greatly. When you were here, if you remember, one had to walk from the station to the river, about a little quarter of a mile. Once there you had to wave and shout for the ferryman, who, before allowing you to get on the boat, would attend to what cattle or merchandise were waiting there for transport. I do not think the bridge would have been built had not the Duke de Morny come out by train to Petit Val to avoid the long drive of twelve miles from ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... a silly fellow. He has but to place his oars in the hands of the first comer and jump ashore. Who ever receives the oars will replace him as ferryman. But leave me in peace now, mother, and do not wake me again. I have to rise very early, and must first dry the eyes of a Princess. The poor thing spends all night weeping for her husband who has been sent by the King to get three of my ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... ever been any Mormon preachers in that country. They said there had not been any there. The young women were modest and genteel in behavior. I passed on to the Cumberland River, was set over the river by the ferryman, ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... The ferryman, whose hut is situate at the bend of the river below the Synodune hills, where people cross for Wittenham, says that late on the night in question a boat with four people passed down the river, and that it struck him that one only rowed, while two of the rest ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... these springs, we reached the valley of the Merrimack, just at nightfall; and notwithstanding the threatening atmosphere, and the commencement of rain, before we descended to the stream, we prevailed with the ferryman to go down and set us over, which we urged with the view of reaching a house within less than a mile of the other bank. He landed us at the right spot; but the darkness had now become so intense that we could not keep the road, and groped our way along an old wheel-track into the forest. It also ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... smile, and both entered the boat. When Davy the ferryman returned, an hour later, he reported that his master had embarked safely on a barge bound ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... on and came to a wide river over which he must go. The ferryman asked him what his trade was, and what he knew. "I know everything," answered he. "Then you can do me a favour," said the ferryman, "and tell me why I must always be rowing backwards and forwards, and am never set free?" ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... parts of the body were cut off and worn under the arm-pits, to prevent the murdered person's ghost taking revenge for the unlawful deed. In preparing a body for burial, the Greeks took a piece of money and put it into the mouth, to give to the ferryman Charon. With the money a small quantity of pudding or cheese was put in for Cerberus, to propitiate him. As a corpse was being carried out to be interred, the deceased was commended to the protection ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... which the lad thought a sum sufficient to secure his independence. Among the passengers frequently crossing the ferry was Mr. Canvass White, U. S. Engineer, at that time superintending the construction of public works in various parts of the country. Mr. White took a strong fancy to the juvenile ferryman, and was so much impressed by the interest the boy manifested in construction, that he applied to Stillman's father for permission to take the lad and educate him in his own profession. The permission was granted, and from that day dates the career ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... THE ferryman, whilst plying over a water which was only slightly agitated, was asked by a timid lady in his boat, whether any persons were ever lost in that river. "O no," said he, "we always finds 'em agin the ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... confidence and intermeddles, he cannot stop at will and leave the roof open to the weather. So in the case of the farrier, when he had taken charge of the horse, he could not stop at the critical moment [279] and leave the consequences to fortune. So, still more clearly, when the ferryman undertook to carry a horse across the Humber, although the water drowned the horse, his remote acts of overloading his boat and pushing it into the stream in that condition occasioned the loss, and he was answerable ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... to kill a number of crocodiles, but he keeps on until he gets the right one. This is not as difficult as it sounds, for the big man-eaters usually have their recognized haunts in certain deep pools in the rivers, many of them, indeed, being known to the natives by name. The old ferryman at Bandjermasin has been so successful in the conduct of his curious avocation that, so the Dutch Resident assured me, he has several hundred policy holders who pay him their premiums with punctilious regularity, thereby giving ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... nor symbolically, but as they may see it who shall not sleep, but be changed. Only one traditional circumstance he has received with Dante and Michael Angelo, the Boat of the Condemned; but the impetuosity of his mind bursts out even in the adoption of this image; he has not stopped at the scowling ferryman of the one, nor at the sweeping blow and demon-dragging of the other; but, seized Hylas-like by the limbs, and tearing up the earth in his agony, the victim is dashed into his destruction; nor is it the sluggish Lethe, nor the fiery ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... usually visited while waiting for the ferryman on our return journey after the summer's absence, the plantation could be seen stretching away into the distance, hemmed in by the flat-topped cypresses. From there we had a view of our distant dwelling, gleaming white in the sunlight and standing in a green oasis of trees and grass, all looking ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... shoulder, somewhat as it was wont to lie on Growler's head. And in spite of Master Willis's opinion, he rode home to the gulley a new man, assuring Patience, on the donkey by his side, that there was more staunchness and kindness in little Emlyn than ever they had thought for. Even the ferryman who put them over the river declared that the doctor must have done Master Kenton a power of good, and Stead smiled and ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... I have found cursory mention of that. But I doubt if the group of My Lord Howe's gay young blades who were sent north to capture Major Atwood ever reported exactly what happened to them. The old Dutch ferryman divulged that he had been hired to ferry the homecoming major; this, too, is recorded. But Tony Green and his fellow officers, sent to apprehend the colonial major, found him inexplicably murdered; and by dawn they were back at the Bowling Green, white-faced ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... mingled with earth near the top, but below 2 or 3 feet the mass is of clean shell to a depth, as exposed by the river, of at least 10 feet. The bottom of the deposit is not visible, being concealed by mud piled against it in high water. The old ferryman says it is 20 feet deep. Although the shell piles are built up higher than the bottom lands to the rear or on either side, they are submerged several feet in great freshets. It is impossible to explain this fact otherwise than by the assumption that the bed of the river ...
— Archeological Investigations - Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 76 • Gerard Fowke
... bright morning ten days later, I was visiting other worlds than those of finance and gas; but on the tenth day they told me I had eluded the grim ferryman and, barring accident, might get out into the world again in five weeks. A suspicion which owed its origin to that glimpse of Addicks on the first night of my illness awakened in my mind, and the following day I sent for my principal ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... occur to Rosamond to suggest that between four and five in the afternoon was an unusual dinner-hour for a ferryman. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... have walked the roads from Acharn unobserved with a gun, for the Highlanders had been disarmed. At this point he must have had the assistance and the gun of the other man. Allan came down from the hill, asked the ferryman if Glenure had crossed, and returned to his point of observation. About five o'clock in the afternoon, Glenure, with a nephew of his, Mungo Campbell, a 'writer' or solicitor, crossed the ferry, and was greeted ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... by side, they were slowly borne over the still waters under a sunless sky, Kenelm would have renewed the subject which his companion had begun, but she shook her head, with a significant glance at the ferryman. Evidently what she had to say was too confidential to admit of a listener, not that the old ferryman seemed likely to take the trouble of listening to any talk that was not addressed to him. Lily soon did address her talk to him, "So, Brown, the ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of either. Then, as now, a ferry not far from the Adzuma bridge crossed to the pretty sounding "Eight hundred Pines." Yashiki then surrounded, a palace to-day covers the site. They watched the ferryman pushing off into the river's darkness. Then hand in hand they strolled up the bank of the stream, under the gloomy trees, seeking the favoured spot of their undoing. Suddenly O'Some stopped; sank at the feet of Masajiro[u]. His hand sought the handle ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... head and arm raised above the foaming torrent, far down stream. I dashed in, in spite of M'Kenzie's remonstrances, and in a minute more I had caught the drowning man. I must have been struck on the head by the advancing boat. That mattered little—the sturdy old ferryman saved us both; and for a few days the artist had the ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... suppose we shall ever get dry again?" asked Eleanor lightly, while they waited for the ferryman ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... week, a piece of Gold was passed, through mistake, at Beverly Ferry, to Asa Leech's Ferryman, with coppers, for a copper.——The owner may have it again, applying to said Leech, telling the marks, and paying ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 4: Quaint and Curious Advertisements • Henry M. Brooks
... you, Father. They saw two vagabonds by the river. Their clothing was torn and dirty, for they'd been in the water. And when it came to paying the ferryman, they'd no money. Now they're drying their clothes in ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg
... "Chaplet of the Infernal Gods," because of its [142] narcotic effects. Nevertheless, the roots of the asphodel were thought by the ancient Greeks to be edible, and they were therefore laid in tombs as food for the dead. Lucian tells us that Charon, the ferryman who rowed the souls of the departed over the river Styx, said: "I know why Mercury keeps us waiting here so long. Down in these regions there is nothing to be had but, asphodel, and oblations, in the midst of mist and darkness; whereas up in heaven he finds it ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... you may fancy that, on the model of Caesar's address to his poor ferryman,—"Caesarem vehis et fortunas ejus"—M. Des Cartes needed only to have said,—"Dogs, you cannot cut my throat, for you carry Des Cartes and his philosophy," and might safely have defied them to do their worst. A German emperor had the same notion, when, being cautioned ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... because of the nature of the service which they render and the privileges they enjoy. This principle was overlaid in many cases by the human desire to punish the railroads as the cause of economic distress, but it was visible in all the laws. It is an old rule of the common law that the ferryman, the baker, and the innkeeper are subject to public control, and railways were now classified with these. In Wisconsin, the "Potter" Law established a schedule with classified rates, superseding all rate-cards of railroads in that State. Illinois created a railroad and warehouse ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson
... from the survey of a mine in Mexico, reached the Arizona bank with no money to pay for the crossing, and hit upon the ingenious plan of surveying a town site here and trading lots to the German for a passage. Boldly commencing operations, the sight of the work going on soon brought the ferryman over to investigate, and when he saw the map under construction he fell headlong into the scheme, which would, as they assured him, necessitate a steam ferry.* The result was the immediate sale of a portion of the town to him and the exchange of a lot for the necessary transportation ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... Scriven, from Old Fr. escrivain (ecrivain), we have an isolated agential suffix. The English form is usually lengthened to Scrivener. In Ferrier, for farrier, the traditional spelling has prevailed over the pronunciation, but we have the latter in Farrar. Ferrier sometimes means ferryman, and Farrar has absorbed the common Mid. English nickname Fayrhayr. Aguilar means needle-maker, Fr. aiguille, but Pinner is more often official (Chapter XIX). Culler, Fr. coutelier, Old Fr. coutel, knife, and Spooner go together, but the fork is a modern fad. Poynter ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... the afternoon of the next day, as the sight of troops by the miners might make them hard to manage; otherwise, I assured the Major, he would have no trouble. We proceeded at once to a point opposite Dubuque, where we found a comfortable stopping place with the ferryman, and he being a man of considerable influence, I suggested to him the propriety of going over to Dubuque to send men to all the mining camps, requesting a meeting the next morning, at nine o'clock, of all the miners, with the agent, to hear what he had to say, and to assure ...
— Autobiography of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black Hawk • Black Hawk
... your passenger hasn't missed his train," observed the ferryman to Mr. Jimmy Fallows, who sat on the river bank with the painter of his rickety little naphtha launch held ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice
... loads were safe but that one of the boatmen had gone to the village and no one knew when he would return. We went to the river with Wu as soon as breakfast was over and spent an aggravating hour trying by alternate threats and cajoling to persuade the remaining ferryman to cross the river to us. But it was useless, for the louder I swore the more frightened he became and he finally retired into a rock cave from which the mafus had to drag him out bodily and drive him ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... splashing. At one place on the Hastings River, called Blackman's Point, a party of four of us took thirteen fish, the heaviest of which was 62 lb. and the lightest 9 lb. Next morning, however, the Blackman's Point ferryman, who always set a line from his punt when he turned in, showed us one of over 90 lb. When they grow to such a size as this they are not eaten locally, as the flesh is very often full of thin, thread-like worms. The young fish, however, ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... among the planters, and the public paid regular tolls for its use. On one occasion General Stone, the authority for the previous anecdote, crossed the ferry and offered a moidore in payment. The ferryman objected to receiving it, on the ground that it was short weight, but Stone insisted, and it was finally accepted. On being given to Washington it was weighed, and being found three half-pence short, the ferryman was ordered to collect ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... must find some way to cross the river without having recourse to the ferryman, who ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... is from Alzellen, and to guard his honour From touch of foulest shame, has slain the Wolfshot, The Imperial Seneschal, who dwelt at Rossberg. The Viceroy's troopers are upon his heels; He begs the ferryman to take him over, But frightened at the storm ...
— Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... the ferryman at Henderson's Ferry at this time. Now you know, Henderson's Ferry is on the Enoree just above where it empties into the Broad. Henderson's Island is in the middle of Broad River in full sight of where old Enoree goes into the channel of the Broad. Well, Mr. Hancock ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... scared at the footing,—he plunged and broke the traces; however, after a tolerable wetting, we succeeded in getting safe out. A little above the place where we made the attempt, we found there was a ferry-flat. The ferryman considered our attempt as dangerous, for had we gone much further into the stream we should have shot into the quicksands in the deep current. This day the fates were most unpropitious to us; and ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... the Mississippi to the Pacific, and was appointed one of that committee to take the matter to New York for the inspection of capitalists—and be it said to the credit of Alphabetical Morrison that he was the only person in the crowd with money enough to pay the ferryman when he reached the Missouri River, though he had only enough to get himself across. But in spite of that the road was built, and though it missed our town, it was because we didn't vote the bonds, though old Alphabetical ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... one silver dollar and a shilling in copper coin. He insisted that the ferryman should take the coin. He said of this liberal sense of honor afterward that one is "sometimes more generous when he has little money than when he ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth
... cigarette. But the authors of the Blue Book, grave fellows who have better struck the scales from their eyes, would have computed you this distance at N, which is infinity: and so closed up the book. For what bridge shall cross the uncrossable, what ferryman ply for silver pounds on the Great Gulf? An image-breaking age; no doubt; but there are limits, in decency. No thread of destiny or clue of circumstance shall connect two Houses set upon ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... distinguished the ferry boat three-quarters of the way across the river, nearing the opposite bank. His "halloa" brought an answer from the ferryman. Cursing his luck in missing the boat by so short a margin of time, he sat down heavily on the stout wooden wall that guarded the approach. It would be ten or fifteen minutes before the tortoise-like craft ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... the ferryboat was crossing the river, I asked the ferryman to let me ride over. I was halted by a ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... If you were ferryman at Charon's ford, And I came down the bank and called to you, Waved you my hand and asked to come aboard, And threw you kisses there, what would ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... heedless boy had crawled out of it after a night's sleep, and carelessly thrown the coverlet back over it. I could hardly believe I had a passenger. When I was asked for the ferriage, I paid for two, and the ferryman asked where the ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... West Highlands, I availed myself of a lugsail ferry to cross an arm of the sea and so avoid a long detour by land. The boat was old, the sail was thick with big-stitched patches, and the ferryman was an elder. I had much edifying talk with him, and at last gliding from the Declaratory Act, of which he did not approve, I asked him if he had any family. "Yes," he replied, "I have two sons. One of them is a polissman in Glasgow, a nice lad, a very nice lad: he sends me ten ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... made fast to the bridge, the passengers bustling about for a long time on landing. The ferryman collected his paper roubles, the men continued merry-making with the girls. Their rugged forms— their chest, knees and chins were clearly discernible in the lights they carried. They all strolled up a narrow pathway, but one light withdrew from the rest and moved along a short cut that led ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... ferryman levying [toll as though for] land-duties, shall be made to pay a fine of ...
— Hindu Law and Judicature - from the Dharma-Sastra of Yajnavalkya • Yajnavalkya
... the ferry, and learned that the ferryboat no longer plied, as, since the troubles began, there was so little traffic that it did not pay the ferryman to remain there. As they had already decided to cross by the ford, four miles higher up, this did not matter. As none of them was aware of its exact position, they decided to wait where ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... Johns towards the end of April the commissioners sent on a courier to announce their arrival and prepare for their proper reception in Montreal. But the ferryman at Laprairie positively refused to accept Continental paper money at any price; and it was only when a 'Friend of Liberty' gave him a dollar in silver that he consented to cross the courier over the St Lawrence. The same hitch occurred in Montreal, ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... town is some quarter of a mile broad at high tide, and in order to cross to the other side, where lie the woods and park of Ashbridge House, it is necessary to shout and make staccato prancings in order to attract the attention of the antique ferryman, who is invariably at the other side of the river and generally asleep at the bottom of his boat. If you are strong-lunged and can prance and shout for a long time, he may eventually stagger to his feet, come across for you and row you over. Otherwise you will stand but little chance ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... spirit." He then mentions an instance, on the authority of both an eyewitness and the victim, in which Lord Kingsborough, Mr. Beresford, and an officer whose name he did not know, tortured two respectable Dublin tradesmen, one named John Fleming, a ferryman, the other Francis Gough, a coachmaker. The nobleman superintended the flagellation of Gough, and at every stroke insulted him with taunts and inquiries how he liked it. The unfortunate man was confined to his bed in consequence, for six months ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... on her way when a violent storm arose. The ferryman and his mate, both Highlanders, held a consultation, and after a short debate the ferryman turned to his passengers and remarked, anxiously: "We'll just tak' your tuppences now, for we dinna ken ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... CHARON, ferryman. Never had a childhood. Devoted life to his business. Has navigated more people than all the Atlantic liners combined. Ambition: A launch. ...
— Who Was Who: 5000 B. C. to Date - Biographical Dictionary of the Famous and Those Who Wanted to Be • Anonymous
... honor," said the ferryman, and set to work to draw the boat over hand by a rope stretched across ...
— The Miraculous Revenge - Little Blue Book #215 • Bernard Shaw
... Noss. A strong south wind was driving in the billows from the sea with noise and foam, but they were broken and checked by a bar of rocks in the middle of the strait, and we crossed to the north of it in smooth water. The ferryman told us that when the wind was northerly he crossed to the south of the bar. As we climbed the hill of the Noss the mist began to drift thinly around us from the sea, and flocks of sea-birds rose screaming from the ground ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... Babylonian mythology, even though she did not figure largely in the cult. She appears in the magical texts quite frequently at the side of Ea. In a hymn[147] where a description occurs of the boat containing Ea, Damkina his wife, and Marduk their son, together with the ferryman and some other personages sailing across the ocean, we may see traces of the process of symbolization to which the old figures of ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... thundered around the island, dashed their foam-crested surges on the shore, and, in many places, created crimson lakes where, instead of boats, blood-stained bodies floated with yawning wounds. It seemed as if the Styx had flowed to Lobau to spare the ferryman Charon the arduous task of conveying so many corpses to the nether world, and for the purpose transformed itself into a single ...
— A Conspiracy of the Carbonari • Louise Muhlbach
... incidents of minor moment as the trial of Elizabeth Cellier in 1680 for an obscure political libel, and the occasional value which they have acquired through the apparent loss of the English originals. We have, for example, a French account of a London ferryman, who, under pretence of conveying passengers across the river, strangled them (1586); a second, of the misdoings of a minister at Malden in Essex (1588); and a third, of the execution of two priests and two laymen at Oxford ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... overhanging shore which on the left hand was cut away to admit the causeway continuing up into the land. There was a small thicket of trees on the rock-top and a patch of garden which belonged to the ferryman. The only house visible was a farm-house which stood on the spot where the (Gough's) Woodside Hotel may now be found. It had a garden enclosed by a hedge round it. The road to Bidston was a rough, rutted way, and the land was for the ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... burden—a half-fledged shrike and a baby gopher—picked up in her walk. It was impossible to wrap them both in her apron without serious peril to one or the other; she could not put either down without the chance of its escaping. "It's like that dreadful riddle of the ferryman who had to take the wolf and the sheep in his boat," said Peggy to herself, "though I don't believe anybody was ever so silly as to want to take a wolf across the river." But, looking up, she beheld the approach of Sam Bedell, a six-foot tunnelman of the "Blue Cement Lead," and, hailing him, ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... broader streams, where fording was impossible and traffic was perforce carried by ferry, the canoe and the keel boat of the earliest days gave way in time to the ordinary "flat" or barge. At first the obligation of the ferryman to the public, though recognized by English law, was ignored in America by legislators and monopolists alike. Men obtained the land on both sides of the rivers at the crossing places and served the public only at their ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... bad and indifferent, forest and farm and rolling hill, and the swamps of Sumas Prairie, lies between Vancouver and Roaring Lake. At four in the morning, with dawn an hour old, they woke the Rosebud ferryman to cross the river. Twenty minutes after that Stella was stepping stiffly out of the machine before Roaring Springs hospital. The doctor's Chinaman was abroad in the garden. ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... wafter of all souls to bliss or bane! Who calls the ferryman of Hell? Come near and say who lives in bliss and who in pain. Those that die well eternal bliss shall follow. Those that die ill their own black deeds shall swallow. Shall thy black barge those guilty spirits row ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... the route of Feridun over the mountainous tracts and plains which lie contiguous to the banks of the Dijleh, or Tigris, close to the city of Bagdad. Upon reaching that river, they called for boats, but got no answer from the ferryman; at which Feridun was enraged, and immediately plunged, on horseback, into the foaming stream. All his army followed without delay, and with the blessing of God arrived on the other side in safety. He then turned toward the Bait-el-Mukaddus, ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... their watchfires glimmering in the night; and be sure that where you do, there are twisted necks and vacant nests in many a neighbouring henroost.' Mr Reach witnessed an altercation, respecting passage-money, between a party of these wanderers and a ferryman of the Garonne; and it ended in the vintagers refusing to cross the river, rather than submit to the overcharge, as they contended it was, of a sou. 'A bivouac was soon formed. Creeping under the lee of a row of casks, on the shingle of the bare beach, the women were placed ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 434 - Volume 17, New Series, April 24, 1852 • Various
... before he came to the ferry at Twickenham. The view on the other side of the river attracted him: meadows dotted with cows and sheep, a verdant hill with pleasant villas here and there; and, seeing the ferryman resting on his oars, he ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... never forget that scrap of a song I once heard in the early dawn in the midst of the din of the crowd that had collected for a festival the night before: "Ferryman, take me ...
— Sadhana - The Realisation of Life • Rabindranath Tagore
... and if they don't pay all they have to do is to stay out, and go around a few thousand miles. It is like a ferry across a little stream out west, where there is no other way to cross, except to wade or go around, and the old ferryman sizes up the wagon load that wants to cross, and takes all they have got loose, and then the travelers are ahead of the game, cause if they didn't cross the stream they would have to camp on the ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck
... round, and stood across towards the Salute. Silently, insensibly, from the oppression of confinement in the airless streets to the liberty and immensity of the water and the night we passed. It was but two minutes ere we touched the shore and said good-night, and went our way and left the ferryman. But in that brief passage he had opened our souls to everlasting things—the freshness, and the darkness, and the kindness of the brooding, all-enfolding night ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... Conemaugh at a second point in order to reach Johnstown proper. This was accomplished by a skiff ferry. The ferryman clung to a rope ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... he ran down the street to the ferry at a round trot. He might have spared his haste, for he had to cool his heels for a good ten minutes on the slipway, and fill up the time in telling his news to half a dozen workmen gathered there and awaiting the boat. Old Nicky Vro, the ferryman, had pulled the same leisurable stroke for forty years now, and was not ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... last, at a place called Oxlode, I found a boat, and the news that just beyond lay another dyke. I asked where that could be crossed, but the ferryman of Oxlode did not know. He pointed two houses out, however, standing close together out of the plain, and said they were called "Purles' Bridge," and that I would do well to try there. But when I reached them I found ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... truth," answered the man, "this morning at daybreak a strange fleet was seen coming up the river Meuse. No one could tell whence it came. Some thought it was a fleet of merchant vessels for Rotterdam: but the question was soon set at rest by my friend Peter Kopplestock, the ferryman, who, going on board one of the ships, found them to be no others than those fearful desperadoes and pirates—the Water Beggars. They sent him back to tell the magistrates that two hours would be allowed them to decide whether ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... criminality, "Les Contes Immoraux," laboriously invented lifeless things with creaky joints, pitiful lay figures that fall to dust as soon as the book is closed, and in the dust only the figures of the terrible ferryman and the unfortunate Dora remain. "Madame Potiphar" cost me forty francs, and I never read ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... undertakers, call him, as he lies, oiled and ornamented, on fine mats, saying, "Rise, sir, the chief, and let us be going. The day has come over the land." Then they conduct him to the river side, where the ghostly ferryman comes to ferry Nakelo ghosts across the stream. As they thus attend the chief on his last journey, they hold their great fans close to the ground to shelter him, because, as one of them explained to a missionary, "His soul is only a little child." People ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... the village, which is here separated from the Meuse by a little grove of trees, and where the engineers had that morning stretched a bridge of boats across the river. There was a ferry to the right; the ferryman's house stood by itself, white and staring, amid a rank growth of weeds. Great fires had been built on either bank, which, being replenished from time to time, glared ruddily in the darkness and made the stream and both its shores as light as day. They served ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... neolkaesai, maede diapsuxai to skaphidion."] The reply that then follows of Mercury shows that not a remnant was left of Nineveh in the very ancient time of Croesus, and that nobody even then knew of its site: "Nineveh, O Ferryman, is quite destroyed, and not a trace of it is left now, nor can you tell where it used to be": [Greek: "Hae Minos men, o porthmen, apololen aedae, kai ouden ichnos eti loipon autaes oud an eipois hopou pot' ae"] (Charon 23). Strabo says the ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... between the parties, that the deacon should make his last visit to his vessel in the return-boat of her master, while Roswell Gardiner should take Mary back to Oyster Pond, in the whale-boat that had brought her and her uncle over. As Baiting Joe, as usual, had acted as ferryman, it was necessary to get rid of him, the young sailor desiring to be alone with Mary. This was easily enough effected, by a present of a quarter of a dollar. The boat having two lugg sails, and the wind being light and steady, at south-west, ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... a shorter cut up the river, at whose lagoon-mouth craft can be hired. Our ferryman with his single canoe wasted a good hour over the work of a few minutes. We then remounted hammock and struck the 'true coast,' a charming bit of country, gradually upsloping to the north and east. The path passed through the plantation-villages, Benya and Arabo, growing ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... me. The vapourings of the ferryman were of no importance. "Quiller," he said, "we're in the devil's own mess. What ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... completely worn out with their exertions, and it was impossible to continue their hold upon him any longer. Nalle was at liberty. His friends rushed him down Dock Street to the lower ferry, where there was a skiff lying ready to start. The fugitive was put in, the ferryman rowed off, and amid the shouts of hundreds who lined the banks of the river, Nalle was carried ...
— Harriet, The Moses of Her People • Sarah H. Bradford
... The ferryman screwed his head around on his neck as though he had not heard correctly. "Did you say 'cut in ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... an early crossing to the other side. Here a surprise awaited them. They found, on inquiry, that the man responsible for Madame's flitting was not, as they had supposed, the hotel proprietor, but Phil himself, the good-natured, easily-imposed-upon ferryman, on whose sympathies she had worked during their first short passage from one shore to the other. Perhaps a little money had helped to deepen this impression; ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... proved the accuracy of their calculation, the lateness of the hour compelling L'Hote and his companion to rouse the reluctant ferryman from his rest, a process which involved considerable delay; and they were consequently scarcely half way across the river when they heard the clatter of horses' hoofs upon the bank, and the voice of the Marechal hoarsely shouting ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... sailor, mariner, navigator; seaman, seafarer, seafaring man; dock walloper [Slang]; tar, jack tar, salt, able seaman, A. B.; man-of-war's man, bluejacket, galiongee^, galionji^, marine, jolly, midshipman, middy; skipper; shipman^, boatman, ferryman, waterman^, lighterman^, bargeman, longshoreman; bargee^, gondolier; oar, oarsman; rower; boatswain, cockswain^; coxswain; steersman, pilot; crew. aerial navigator, aeronaut, balloonist, Icarus; aeroplanist^, airman, aviator, birdman, man-bird, wizard of the air, aviatrix, flier, pilot, test pilot, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget |
