"Skiff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... V. Skiff; Director of Works, Harris D. H. Connick; Director of Exhibits, Asher Carter Baker; Director of Exploitation, George Hough Perry; Director of ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... we saw a man jump on the taffrail, and wave his hat at us as if in derision. Even at that distance, some of our people declared they recognised him as Jan Johnson, whom all of us knew well enough by sight. The next instant a skiff was launched from her decks, into which he jumped, and pulled as hard as he could towards the shore, to which he was already nearer than ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... away and plainly seen in the now unclouded moonlight, a skiff was approaching. The boys, lying flat on the deck and peering over the rail, and the girl, crouching in the companion-way, could see three persons in the dory. Gus again told Bill ...
— Radio Boys Loyalty - Bill Brown Listens In • Wayne Whipple
... his skiff from the boathouse himself, and was soon pulling swiftly from the shore, while as they got out upon it the vastness and power ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... crew now—big men all, ideal oarsmen to look at. Their faces were set and grim, their eyes straight ahead. So far as they gave indication, their shell might have been alone on the river. Now the Baliol shell had made sternway sufficient for the man in the skiff to seize the rudder. The Shelburne boat was already secured. Astern hovered the referee's boat, the official standing in the bow directing operations. Still astern was a larger craft filled with favoured representatives ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... inlet among the rocks; and the same boat had been at hand during the whole day. Unluckily, before they had come hither, it had been taken round the headland to a place among the rocks at which a government skiff is always moored. The sea was still so quiet that there was hardly a ripple on it, and the boat had been again sent for when first it was supposed that they had at last traced Aaron Trow to his hiding-place. Anxiously now were ...
— Aaron Trow • Anthony Trollope
... The Skiff-boat ner'd: I heard them talk, "Why, this is strange, I trow! Where are those lights so many and fair ...
— Lyrical Ballads, With Other Poems, 1800, Vol. I. • William Wordsworth
... horn he wound, When lo! forth starting at the sound, From underneath an aged oak That slanted from the islet rock, A damsel guider of its way, A little skiff shot to the bay, That round the promontory steep Led its deep line in graceful sweep, Eddying, in almost viewless wave, The weeping willow twig to rave, And kiss, with whispering sound and slow, The beach of pebbles bright ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... midnight, down to the waiting skiff She stole in the shadow of the cliff; And out of the Bay's mouth ran The schooner with ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... away, Kippy! Wait for me! Wait!" and leaving the old house open to the night, he plunged into the darkness, beating through the woods and up and down the road, calling in vain for Kippy, who lay cowering in the bottom of a leaking skiff that was drifting down the river at the mercy ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice
... which are presented to view on every hand in passing down New York Harbor and Bay are very magnificent and imposing. Ships, steamers, long ferry boats, tugs, sloops, sail boats, and every other species of water craft, from the little skiff that bobs up and down over the waves made by the steamboat swell to the man-of-war riding proudly at anchor in the stream, are seen on every hand. The shores, too, present enchanting pictures of rich and romantic beauty. There ...
— Rollo on the Atlantic • Jacob Abbott
... their own ship, shouting, "Victory!" with joyful voices. Just then our ship, having taken in a great quantity of water from all sides, was by the permission of God suddenly swallowed in the waves with all the sailors, except a few who by the help of a skiff captured from the Dutch, or by swimming, made their way to land. The general was one who threw himself into the water with two ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume XI, 1599-1602 • Various
... any of you scout kids goes about sayin' as how Uncle Jimmy went away to the convention, and I ever meet you in your old skiff, by the Big Dipper I'll run you down and cut you in half, that's what I'll do! Do you hear?" he shouted. "If you ever run afoul of the General Grant in the bay or anywheres else, by thunder, I'm Cap'n Savage, I am, and once upon a time I was Major Savage, ...
— Roy Blakeley • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... high-brows—had raised yawping voices to point out that Paul Revere galloping along the pre-Revolutionary turnpike to spread the alarm passed en route two garages and one electric power house; that Washington crossing the Delaware stood in the bow of his skiff half shrouded in an American flag bearing forty-eight stars upon its field of blue; that Andrew Jackson's riflemen filing out from New Orleans to take station behind their cotton-bale breastworks marched for some distance ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... tired and his knees are stiff, His breath comes low in a wheezy whiff. He'll now "lay up," like a worn-out wherry. 'Tis yours to start like a new-launched skiff. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari Volume 98, January 4, 1890 • Various
... gentlemen floating in a skiff upon the clear waters of Lake George. One of them is a successful statesman, an ex-President of the United States, a lawyer versed in all the curious eccentricities of the "lawless science of the law." The other is a learned ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... drying, The girls took the frails under cover: Nor use seemed in trying To get out the boats and go fishing, For, under the cliff, 50 Fierce the black water frothed o'er the blind-rock. No seeing our skiff Arrive about noon from Amalfi, —Our fisher arrive, And pitch down his basket before us, All trembling alive With pink and grey jellies, your sea-fruit; You touch the strange lumps, And mouths gape there, eyes open, all manner Of horns and of humps, 60 Which only the fisher looks grave at, While ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... that to look over one's shoulder in it was a manoeuvre of extreme delicacy, especially where the rapids caused the water to be in wild commotion. I was told that it would go down stream like an arrow, and so it did. There was no need to row hard, for the current took the fragile skiff along with it so fast that the trees on the banks sped by as if they were running races, and every few minutes brought a change of landscape. It was very delightful; only one sensation of movement could have been ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... baptised, O my City. I come to slake my thirst in thy Jordan. I come to launch my little skiff, to do my little work, ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... never succeed, Pathfinder," eagerly interrupted Jasper. "Mabel is not strong enough to tramp the woods in a night like this. Put her in my skiff, and I will lose my life, or carry her through the rift safely, dark ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... cast himself down before the little feet, in their smart high-heeled buckled shoes and clocked stockings, which peeped out at him from under her embroidered camlet petticoat in such a maliciously coquettish manner; he longed to kneel down there in the skiff, at the imminent risk of spoiling his own gay attire, and declare the passion which consumed him; but something—he did not know what it was, and she did not tell him—constrained him, and he sat still, ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... animal; 1 sou and 8 deniers for each four-wheeled vehicle; 5 deniers for a two-wheeled vehicle, and 10 deniers for a vehicle drawn by three, four, or five horses; besides a tax of 10 deniers for each barge, boat or skiff ascending the river; the same tax for each team of horses dragging the boats up; 1 denier for each empty cask going up." Analogous taxes are enforced at Varennes for the benefit of the Duc de Chatelet, seignior ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... cannot imagine such water; why should it be blue on top, and green when you look down into it? I have a little skiff of my own in which I drift, and I have been happy for hours, studying the bottom; you see every colour of the rainbow, and all as clear as in an aquarium. I have been fishing, too, and have caught a tarpon. That is supposed to be a great adventure, and it really is quite thrilling to ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... end of the dock, the boatbuilder and his companion were scrambling aboard a twenty-five-foot boat at anchor in the midst of a small fleet of sail and gasoline craft. The rumble of a motor followed almost instantly, was silenced momentarily while the skiff was being made fast to the mooring, broke out again as the larger boat selected a serpentine path through the circumjacent vessels and slipped ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... other, "that is not a treasure ship. That is some fisherman's skiff, with the day's catch ...
— The AEsop for Children - With pictures by Milo Winter • AEsop
... its nearness and in the distance, when a blue gleam from its surface, among the green meadows and woods, seems like an open eye in Earth's countenance. Pleasant it is, too, to behold a little flat-bottomed skiff gliding over its bosom, which yields lazily to the stroke of the paddle, and allows the boat to go against its current almost as freely as with it. Pleasant, too, to watch an angler, as he strays along the brink, sometimes sheltering himself ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... dutiful husband arrived at the landing, he found his tender wife, standing near the boat, clasping her child's hand in her own, and our friend was obliged to see that his jewels were safely seated in the boat. After he had rowed the skiff out as far as Ulrica thought was proper, he with many misgivings threw out ...
— The Home in the Valley • Emilie F. Carlen
... Our light skiff, or bark rather, as it might be truely styled, being a veritable Indian canoe, made of birch bark most cunningly put together, these being so light as to float in shallow water, and to be easily removed, are for this reason preferred by the Indians to more solid materials, who carry them on ...
— Sketches And Tales Illustrative Of Life In The Backwoods Of New Brunswick • Mrs. F. Beavan
... fresh, the morn was fair, The stag had left his dewy lair; To cheering horn and baying tongue, Killarney's echoes sweetly rung. With sweeping oar and bending mast, The eager chase was following fast; When one light skiff a maiden steer'd Beneath the deep wave disappeared: Wild shouts of terror wildly ring, A boatman brave, with gallant spring And dauntless arm, the lady bore; But he who saved—was ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... embrace, the gay Young group of grassy islands born of him, And crowding nigh, or in the distance dim, Lifts the white throng of sails, that bear or bring The commerce of the world;—with tawny limb, And belt and beads in sunlight glistening, The savage urged his skiff like ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant
... master, but he found it dull. He had so few parishioners that it is said he used to go down to the seashore and skiff stones in order to gather a congregation. For he thought if the people would not come to hear sermons they would come at least to stare at the mad clergyman, and for years he was remembered as the "mad clergyman." And now because he found his freedom dull, and for various other ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... if the mast groan with the African storms, to have recourse to piteous prayers, and to make a bargain with my vows, that my Cyprian and Syrian merchandize may not add to the wealth of the insatiable sea. Then the gale and the twin Pollux will carry me safe in the protection of a skiff with two oars, through the tumultuous ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... the sea spray. More widely, the banks of ice of varying height which skirt many parts of the Antarctic shores. Piedmont. Coastwise stretches of the ancient ice sheet which once covered the Antarctic Continent, remaining either on the land, or wholly or partially afloat. Pram. A Norwegian skiff, with a spoon bow. Primus. A portable stove for cooking. Ramp. A great embankment of morainic material with ice beneath, once part of the glacier, on the lowest slopes of Erebus at the landward end of C. Evans. Saennegras. ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... very fairly, for he belonged to a boat club at school. It was not very much of a club; but then the club boat was not very much of a boat, being a small, flat-bottomed skiff, which leaked so badly that she could not be kept afloat unless one boy kept constantly at work bailing. However, Harry learned to row in her, and he now found this knowledge very useful. He was anxious to start on the cruise immediately, ...
— Harper's Young People, June 1, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... statistics, the musters of January 1625 give much more information. Jamestown had a church, a court-of-guard (guardhouse), 3 stores (probably storehouses), a merchant's store, and 33 houses. Ten of the Colony's 40 boats were here, including a skiff, a "shallop" of 4 tons, and a "barque" of 40 tons. There were stores of fish, 24,880 pounds to be exact, corn, peas, and meal. There were four pieces of ordnance, supplies of powder, shot and lead, and, for individual use, "fixt peeces," snaphances, ...
— The First Seventeen Years: Virginia 1607-1624 • Charles E. Hatch
... cold northeaster blowing, and it was spitting snow as I went back to the docks to see if I could get a boat for Milwaukee. A steamer in the offing was getting ready to go, and I hired a man with a skiff to put me and my carpet-bag aboard. We went into Milwaukee in a howling blizzard, and I was glad to find a warm bar in the tavern nearest the dock; and a room in which to house up while I carried on my search. I now had found out that the stage lines and real-estate offices were the best ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... liberty! Sure of being shot if they were discovered, almost equally sure of being drowned if they effected their escape, they, nevertheless, resolved to attempt crossing the Channel in their fragile skiff. Perceiving an English frigate within sight of the coast, they pushed off and endeavoured to reach her. They had not gone a hundred toises from the shore when they were perceived by the custom-house officers, who set out in pursuit of them, and brought them back again. The news of this adventure ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... and Austin and the WHOLE of our servants went with them to an evening entertainment; the more bold returning by lantern-light. Yesterday, Sunday, Belle and I were off by about half past eight, left our horses at a public house, and went on board the CURACOA in the wardroom skiff; were entertained in the wardroom; thence on deck to the service, which was a great treat; three fiddles and a harmonium and excellent choir, and the great ship's company joining: on shore in Haggard's big boat to lunch with the party. Thence all together to Vailima, ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... visit what he called "my library." Across the magnificence of the hall we went in stately procession, he first, with that kind of walk by which a surveyor of taxes could have at once assessed his income, and I, the humblest of the bookman tribe, following in the rear, trembling like a skiff in the wake of an ocean liner. "There," he said, with his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, "what do you think of that?" And that was without question a very large and ornate and costly mahogany bookcase with glass doors. Before I ...
— Books and Bookmen • Ian Maclaren
... being constructed in Whitehall as he spoke, but D'Artagnan had the London executioner fast bound under lock and key in a cellar, and Athos had a light skiff waiting at Greenwich. Not only this, but at midnight these four wonderful men, thanks to Athos, who spoke excellent English, were also at work at the scaffold—having bribed the carpenter in charge to let them assist—and at the same time boring a hole in the wall. The scaffold, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... that his crazy old motor boat lay at anchor. This was a sign that Hank was at home. Lest it be wondered that such a character could have owned a motor boat, it may be explained here that the engine of Hank's old oyster skiff had been given him by a summer resident who despaired of making it work. Hank, however, who was quite handy with tools, had fixed it up and managed to make it drive his patched old craft at quite a fair speed—sometimes. When it broke down, as ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... and Raybold accompanied the larger boat in their own skiff. It was an unwieldy craft, with but one pair of oars, and as the two young men were not accustomed to rowing together, and as Mr. Raybold was not accustomed to rowing at all and did not like it, Mr. Clyde pulled the boat. But, do what he could, ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton
... lest that circumstance might attract the notice of the Tartars, whom we feared to meet with. At day light we noticed traces of horses having been on the spot, and the recent fragments of a ruined skiff, from which we were led to conclude, that some persons must have been here; but some other circumstances gave us reason to believe that the Tartars were ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... accompanied can brave The terrors of this gloomy lake; And so a skiff you needs must take, And try alone the icy wave; Being in that most trying strait The absolute master of ...
— The Purgatory of St. Patrick • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... The skiff had nearly reached the houseboat. Madge and Phyllis were allowing the "Water Witch" to drift in. Their friends on board had seen them and were signaling for ...
— Madge Morton's Secret • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... without delay on the quest: "There is my skiff; it will take us quickly to the rock; one night you shall wait in the boat on the shore, then shall you lead home ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... if my skiff might brave The winds that lift the ocean wave, The mountain stream that loops and swerves Through my broad meadow's channelled curves Should waft me on from bound to bound To where the River weds the Sound, The Sound should give me to the Sea, That to ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Ben the horse to dispose of to some safe purchaser, after he had driven him down to the old house, returned at night in the boat that belonged to his negro tenant, and, taking his unconscious wife from her bed, rowed down the river and landed her safely, to be carried from the skiff into an upper chamber of the old house, where Jake's wife, Aunt Judy, as Mr. Dimock styled her, nursed the wretched woman through three weeks of fever, and "doctored" her with herbs ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... Mayeta I followed a narrow footpath to a rough mountain road, which in turn led me through the forests towards Lake George. In an isolated dell I found the home of one Levi Smith, who piloted me through the woods to the lake, and ferried me in a skiff across to Hague, when I dined at the hotel, and resumed my journey along the shores to Sabbath Day Point, where at four o'clock P. M. a steamer on its trip from Ticonderoga to the south end of the lake stopped and ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... a coward's slave, Endless contests bore Alcides brave, Through the thorny path of suffering led; Slew the Hydra, crushed the lion's might, Threw himself, to bring his friend to light, Living, in the skiff that bears the dead. All the torments, every toil of earth Juno's hatred on him could impose, Well he bore them, from his fated birth To life's grandly mournful close. Till the god, the earthly part forsaken, ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... board. Lawrence walked about the deck admiring the guns and the carved and gilt work with which the ship was adorned; for it was the custom, especially in the Spanish navy, in those days to ornament ships of war far more profusely than at present. At length Don Hernan came on deck. He observed the skiff alongside; and his eye falling on Lawrence, he very naturally at first took him to be some poor fisherman habited in the cast-off finery of a gentleman. Lawrence, however, guessed who he was from his uniform, and, shuffling along the deck, made him one of his profoundest ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... and gifts, and urges His weak skiff over the wind-vext plain, Till the gray of the sky in the gray sea merges, And nights reel round, and waver, and wane. He sits once more in his own domain. No more the remote sea-walls immure.— But ah, for ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... bestow'd, Till rude resistance lops the spreading god; The daring Greeks deride the martial show, And heap their valleys with the gaudy foe; Th' insulted sea, with humbler thoughts, he gains; A single skiff to speed his flight remains; Th' incumber'd oar scarce leaves the dreaded coast Through purple billows and a floating host. The bold Bavarian, in a luckless hour, Tries the dread summits of Caesarean pow'r, With unexpected legions bursts away, ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... graded as far as Suffolk. We followed the line of it as far as a place known as Peter Jones, where we left it and passed through "Bull Field," to the company's mill, which is but a short distance from the basin of the Canal, at which place we were to take a skiff for the Lake. On arriving at the basin we found Mr. James Woodward, grandfather of Hersey Woodward, Esq., of Suffolk, Va. He was inspector of lumber for the "Dismal Swamp Land Company," and was on his way to the Lake. The drivers of the skiff, Tony Nelson and ...
— The Dismal Swamp and Lake Drummond, Early recollections - Vivid portrayal of Amusing Scenes • Robert Arnold
... incessant weltering splash; and until I got my eye above the window-sill I could not comprehend why the watchmen had taken no alarm. One glance, however, was sufficient; and it was only one glance that I durst take from that unsteady skiff. It showed me Hands and his companion locked together in deadly wrestle, each with a hand ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... black wood plated with gold, daggers to defend the deceased from the dangers of the unseen world, boomerangs of hard wood, and the battle-axe of Ahmosis. Besides these, there were two boats, one of gold and one of silver, originally intended for the Pharaoh Kamosu—models of the skiff in which his mummy crossed the Nile to reach its last resting-place, and to sail in the wake of the gods on ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... could be seen the welcome sight of land. Fortunately they lighted on the only secure entrance through the reefs. The vessel was run ashore and wedged between two rocks, and thereby was preserved from sinking, till by means of a boat and skiff the whole crew of one hundred and fifty, with provisions, tackle and stores, reached the land. At that time the hogs still abounded, and these, with the turtle, birds and fish which they caught, afforded ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II. No. 5, February, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... hunting with 'Tino and Gordon along the shore, leaving the father of Francoise and Suzanne lying on the deck with sick headache, Joseph fishing in the flatboat's little skiff, and the women and children on the bank, gazed at from a little distance by the sitting figures of the two strange men and the woman. Then the hunters returned, supper was prepared, and both messes ate on shore. Gordon and Mario ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... little more to be said about Mr. Smith. He appears in this chronicle because he owned a boat which became our vehicle on Lake Oquossok, Aquessok, Lakewocket, or Rangeley. Mr. Smith guided us across the carry to the next of the chain of lakes, and embarked us in a crazy skiff. It was blowing fresh, and, not to be wrecked, we coasted close to the gnarled arbor-vitae thickets. Smith sogered along, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... the main-top-sail aback, by which our progress would have been so delayed, that no hope would have been left us of running her aground, and there being several sloops in sight, one having sent a small skiff on board, took away 2 Ladies and 3 other passengers, and put them on board the sloop, at the same time promising to return and take away a hundred or more of the people: she finding much difficulty in getting back ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... skiff is attached to the topside of the Nautilus's hull and is set in a cavity expressly designed to receive it. It's completely decked over, absolutely watertight, and held solidly in place by bolts. This ladder leads to a manhole cut into the Nautilus's hull and corresponding to a comparable ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... The cap'n'll pay well. That's square. We can't afford to try the other now, at any rate. Is the skiff here?" ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... I'm like a Skiff on the Ocean tost, Now high, now low, with each Billow born, With her Rudder broke, and her Anchor lost, Deserted and all forlorn. While thus I lie rolling and tossing all Night, That Polly lies sporting on Seas of Delight! Revenge, ...
— The Beggar's Opera • John Gay
... later the cutter, manned and provisioned, with the skiff in tow, hoisted her foresail and sheered off from the after gangway. The India-rubber Man, as Senior Officer of the expedition, took the helm and banished the Young Doctor into the bows, where, to judge by the ecstatic shouts of merriment that floated aft, his peculiar form of wit was much ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... that city chap who used to go with us boys. He looked all right, but my, nothin' suited him. He laughed at our dug-bait, and fishin' rods, and our old-fashioned skiff and things, and talked about his pa's yacht and motor-cars and his ma's diamonds, until we were sick of ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne
... the edge of the low cliff overlooking the Lost Sea of Korus I saw Thurid pushing out upon the bosom of the shimmering water in a small skiff—one of those strangely wrought craft of unthinkable age which the Holy Therns, with their organization of priests and lesser therns, were wont to distribute along the banks of the Iss, that the long journey of their victims might ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... The shepherd hung upon the bough His babbling pipes in payment of a vow,— The pipe of reeds in lessening order placed, Knit well with wax from longest unto last. Where proud Velabrum lies, A little skiff across the shallows plies; And oft, to meet her shepherd lover, The village lass is ferried over For a woodland holiday: At night returning o'er the watery way, She brings a tribute from the fruitful farms— A cheese, or white lamb, carried in ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus
... on the criminal and gave him his canteen; and then, as soon as the Egyptian had drunk his fill, he gave up the ghost with all the pleasure in life. But that's a trifle we couldn't laugh at then. Napoleon embarked in a cockleshell, a little skiff that was nothing at all, though 'twas called 'Fortune'; and in a twinkling, under the nose of England, who was blockading him with ships of the line, frigates, and anything that could hoist a sail, he crossed over, and there he was in France. For he always had the power, mind ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... was closely pursued by Douglas, with a party of horse, who followed him as far as Dunbar, where the English had still a friend in the governor, Patrick, Earl of Mans. The earl received Edward in his forlorn condition, and furnished him with a fishing skiff, or small ship, in which he escaped to England, having entirely lost his fine army, and a great ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... the execution of the drawings; in fact it often occurred when I set off in my little skiff, (especially in the outset) that seven or eight species were procured in the course of the excursion, which compelled me to make drawings of all when I came home tired in the evening; forwarding them to ensure, as far as possible, their colours before they became extinct—a sort of forced ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... of prose fiction—the reason is that bad novels ought not to be read, and that good novels never demand any appreciable mental application on the part of the reader. It is only the bad parts of Meredith's novels that are difficult. A good novel rushes you forward like a skiff down a stream, and you arrive at the end, perhaps breathless, but unexhausted. The best novels involve the least strain. Now in the cultivation of the mind one of the most important factors is precisely the feeling ...
— How to Live on 24 Hours a Day • Arnold Bennett
... Trinity at 6 A.M. in one big yawl and three skiffs. In my skiff were eight persons, besides a negro oarsman named "Tucker." We had to take it in turns to row with this worthy, and I soon discovered to my cost the inconvenience of sitting in close proximity with a perspiring darkie. This negro was a very powerful man, very vain, and ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... In a skiff with a few Indians, Champlain tried to pass the rapids of St. Louis; but oars, paddles, and poles alike proved vain against the foaming surges, and he was forced to return, but not till the Indians had drawn ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... twilight, I could just see the white gates of the Eight-Mile Lock. Raising my voice, I sang out in a long-drawn, sonorous monotone the familiar cry of "Lock! lock! lock!" and, bending to the sculls, sent my little skiff flying down stream. The sturdy figure of old James Pegg, the lock-keeper, whom I had known for many years, instantly appeared on the bridge. One of the great gates slowly swung open, and, shipping my sculls, ...
— A Master of Mysteries • L. T. Meade
... the speaker became aware of an outrigger skiff rapidly approaching them. The rower of course had his back turned, and evidently not expecting anything ahead, was steering himself "over his toes," as the term is—that is by some landmark behind the ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... besieged by Holofernes. Tabara, an insignificant place, occupies the site of Tiberias, which gave its name to the lake more generally known by that of Genesareth, or the Sea of Galilee; but industry has now deserted its borders, and the fisherman with his skiff and his nets no longer animates the surface of its waters. Nazareth still retains some portion of its former consequence. Six miles farther south stands the hill of Tabor, sometimes denominated Itabyrius, presenting a pyramid of verdure crowned with olives and sycamores. From the top of this mountain, ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... for your stupidity in that matter. Take the maid an' be done with it. God be thanked I isn't a widower-man. If I was, I'd bring your chance into peril soon enough," said his father. "'Tis t' be a fair day for fishin' the Skiff-an'-Punt grounds the morrow. Go t' bed. I'll pray that wisdom may overcome ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... deliberately in his skiff, and looking in the direction in which Mrs. Abel pointed discovered, coming out of the horizon, a boat, rising and falling upon the swell. It carried no sail, and after careful scrutiny Abel's sharp eyes could discern no man at the oars. This, then, was the ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... the negro were aboard, the boatman rowed out on the river, shipped his oars and let the skiff drift with ...
— The Bradys Beyond Their Depth - The Great Swamp Mystery • Anonymous
... your sister, and that thrice-accursed Bedford, did not, on the 7th of August 1821, go for a sail on the piece of water at Lowfield, and the skiff was not, in the deadly, sudden, jealous strife between him and me, accidentally upset? But I know how it is: it is this brat, and the memories ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 434 - Volume 17, New Series, April 24, 1852 • Various
... deer, and once more fired off my gun, which was again answered from the boat, which was a little above me. I moved on as fast as I could, but soon came to water; and not knowing how deep it was, I halted, and hollered till they came to me with a skiff. I now got to the boat without further difficulty. But the briers had worked on me at such a rate that I felt like I wanted sewing up all over. I took a pretty stiff horn, which soon made me feel much better. But I was so tired that I could scarcely ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... not slow to obey, and when it touched the water they swarmed into it, so that, being overloaded, it upset and left its occupants struggling in the water. A number of the men who could swim, immediately jumped overboard and tried to right the skiff, but they failed, and, in the effort to do so, broke the rope that held it. Some clung to it. Others turned and ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... pocket and pushed him down the stair, then dragged him along the lower deck. They passed a line of sleeping deck-hands too stupid to observe them. Dragging astern of the boat, high between the two long diverging lines of the rolling wake, there rode a river skiff at the end of its ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... that the hamlet was thrown into a fever of excitement by the establishment of a boatyard and, the actual construction of a bateau; but a Democratic Congress turned its back on the proposed improvement. No boat bigger than a skiff ever ascended Salt River, though there was a wild report, evidently a hoax, that a party of picnickers had seen one night a ghostly steamer, loaded and manned, puffing up the stream. An old Scotchman, Hugh Robinson, when he heard ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... family quarrels, That discomposed the mechanics of morals, For screws were loose between brother and brother, While sisters fastened their nails on each other; Such wrangles, and jangles, and miff, and tiff, And spar, and jar—and breezes as stiff As ever upset a friendship—or skiff! The plighted lovers who used to walk, Refused to meet, and declined to talk: And wished for two moons to reflect the sun, That they mightn't look together on one: While wedded affection ran so low, That the oldest John Anderson snubbed his Jo - And ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... the morning, for it saved him a trot all the way to Oberwinter. He promised to send word in the course of the night to the relay above, and the whole affair was arranged in live minutes. The carriage was housed and left under the care of Francois on the main land, a night sack thrown into a skiff, and in ten minutes we were afloat on the Rhine. Our little bark whirled about in the eddies, and soon touched the upper point ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... launch, rowboat, canoe, gondola, punt, yacht, yawl, scull, cock, dugout, smack, pirogue, trawler, sloop, praam, coracle, pontoon, bateau, wherry, pinnace, scow, banca, transport, dory, galley, cruiser, ship, barge, bark, brig, bucentaur, skiff, caique, drogher, schooner, cockleshell, vessel, tug, towboat, tow, cog, wangan, ferry-boat, dinghey, argosy, oomiac, junk, longboat, catboat, felucca, cutter, frigate, xebec, tartan, una boat, moses, raft, catamaran, sampan, lifeboat, caravel, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... submarine. boat, pinnace, launch; life boat, long boat, jolly boat, bum boat, fly boat, cock boat, ferry boat, canal boat; swamp boat, ark, bully, battery, bateau [Can.], broadhorn^, dory, droger^, drogher; dugout, durham boat, flatboat, galiot^; shallop^, gig, funny, skiff, dingy, scow, cockleshell, wherry, coble^, punt, cog, kedge, lerret^; eight oar, four oar, pair oar; randan^; outrigger; float, raft, pontoon; prame^; iceboat, ice canoe, ice yacht. catamaran, hydroplane, hovercraft, coracle, gondola, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... kept time with the song, and his portentous voice thundered out the refrain with an energy which shook the little skiff from stem to stern. By the time that "Boney" was safely consigned to his grave in sunny France, they were nearing the flats on which the steamer Huntress lay, quietly awaiting ...
— Captain January • Laura E. Richards
... room for one's imagination to wander. Now a river like this suggests an infinity of possibilities, drifting on and on and on into undiscovered regions, by ever-varying shores. I feel to-night as if I should like to step into that little boat yonder,' pointing to a light skiff bobbing gently up and down with the tide, at the bottom of a flight of steps, 'and let the stream take ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... The little skiff moved slowly on its course, as if guided by an idle or unskilful hand, and the oars were dipped so lightly and leisurely, that they scarce dimpled the waves, or moved the boat beyond the natural motion of the tide. The earliest blush of morn was spreading along the eastern ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... Just across the wonderful river lay the historical Nauvoo, fair and beautiful as a poet's dream, though the wooded slopes retained but shreds of their autumn-dyed raiment. Mrs. Lively was pleased, the doctor was enthusiastic. They forgot that "over the river" is always beautiful. They crossed in a skiff at a rapturous rate, but when they had made the landing the disenchantment began. A two-horse wagon was waiting for passengers, and in this our friends embarked. The driver had heard they were coming, and knew the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... The skiff passed the little point or platform of rock on which the fire was blazing, and running about two boats' length farther, stopped where the cavern (for it was already arched overhead) ascended from the water by five or six broad ledges of ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... late in the afternoon of this third day, upon his return from a long pull in the borrowed skiff around the group of islands in the upper and unfrequented part of the lake, that he found a note awaiting him. It was from Miss Farnham, and its brevity, no less than its urgency, stirred him apprehensively, bringing a suggestive return of the furtive fierceness ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... Thompson had taken command of her, and her captain, Faucon, had taken the Pilgrim, and was the green-jacketed man on the quarter-deck. The boat put directly off again, without giving us time to ask any more questions, and we were obliged to wait till night, when we took a little skiff, that lay on the beach, and paddled off. When I stepped aboard, the second mate called me aft, and gave me a large bundle, directed to me, and marked "Ship Alert.'' This was what I had longed for, yet I refrained from opening it until I went ashore. Diving down into the forecastle, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... the river, which, notwithstanding its breadth, was so covered with boats of all kinds that the water was invisible along the whole stretch of the city; all manner of craft, from the bark with raised poop and prow and richly painted and gilded cabin to the light papyrus skiff,—everything had been called into use. Even the boats used to ferry cattle and to carry freight, and the reed rafts kept up by skins, which generally carried loads of clay vessels, had not been disdained. The waters of the Nile, ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... Briarios or Typhon, whom the Den By ancient Tarsus held, or that Sea-beast 200 Leviathan, which God of all his works Created hugest that swim th' Ocean stream: Him haply slumbring on the Norway foam The Pilot of some small night-founder'd Skiff, Deeming some Island, oft, as Sea-men tell, With fixed Anchor in his skaly rind Moors by his side under the Lee, while Night Invests the Sea, and wished Morn delayes: So stretcht out huge in length the Arch-fiend ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... them of breaking bushes and the loud voices of Cossacks approaching along the bank on horseback and on foot. 'Are you bringing the skiff?' shouted Lukashka. ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... which, condescendingly relaxing her speed, had suffered our boat, tossing like a feather on the steamer's mighty swell, to come in palpitating, timid fashion under the shadow of her paddle-box, where the strong arms of men stationed on the portable ladder let down from her side had caught our skiff by the prow and held the inconstant thing for one instant firmly enough to suffer us to spring to their precarious stairway and so secure our passage to Ardrishalg. Thence, after two hours' sail by ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... promise of handsome rewards, the police, too, did their utmost, but all was in vain; the missing man had disappeared as though the earth had opened and swallowed him. Absolutely the only thing out of the ordinary that the police could discover was that a fisherman's skiff was missing one night, and was found the next morning a couple of miles down the coast, floating idly about. But the painter was drifting astern, and it might easily have happened that it had been carelessly fastened, and the rope had slipped ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... of air to break the wave That rolls below the Athenian's grave, That tomb[55] which, gleaming o'er the cliff, First greets the homeward-veering skiff High o'er the land he saved in vain; When shall such ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... substantially to his little savings. By profession he was one of those men who eke out a precarious livelihood by rowing dreamily about the water-front in skiffs. He was doing so now: and, as he sat meditatively in his skiff, having done his best to give the liner a good send off by paddling round her in circles, the pleading face of a twenty-dollar bill peered up at him. Mr. Swenson was not the man to resist the appeal. He uttered a ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... motion, entirely fatigued, borne swiftly along in strong arms, under the low, waving boughs in the dim forest darkness, she was drowsed again with slumber, from which she woke only on being placed in the bottom of a skiff to turn over into a deeper dream than before. Flor nodded triumphantly to her companion, in the beginning, keeping pace beside him with short runs,—there could be no fear of babble about that of which one knew nothing,—and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... the Norway foam, The pilot of some small night-founder'd skiff Deeming some island, oft, as ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... what have we here! we must not pass it by; A Telescope upon its frame, and pointed to the sky: Long is it as a Barber's Poll, or Mast of little Boat, Some little Pleasure-Skiff, that doth ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... boat had left the ship, no Margaret had come aboard her. But some six hours before they had watched the Spanish vessel, San Antonio, that had been berthed above them, pass down the river. Moreover, two watermen in a skiff, who brought them fresh meat, had told them that while they were delivering three sheep and some fowls to the San Antonio, just before she sailed, they had seen two tall women helped up her ladder, and heard one of them say in English, ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... it were a one side, she watched the play and the people. She was so delightfully set free for the moment from all her home cares and life anxieties. It was like getting out of the current and rush of the waves into a nook of a bay, where her tossed little skiff could lie still for a bit, and the dangers and difficulties of navigation did not demand her attention. She rested luxuriously and amused herself with seeing and hearing what went on. And to tell the whole truth, Dolly was more than amused; she was interested; and watched and listened keenly. ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... not a dream, which he did in about half a second, he began to yell, too, and to say: "How did you get there? Fire, fire, fire! What are you on? Fire! Are you in a tree, or what? Fire, fire! Are you in a flat-boat? Fire, fire, fire! If I had a skiff—fire!" ...
— The Flight of Pony Baker - A Boy's Town Story • W. D. Howells
... Daniel, "draw your skiff up beside the Greyhound, and I'll tell you a story of how I was once run away with ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... on the scoundrel and handed his flask to him; and the Egyptian turned up his eyes then and there with all the pleasure in life. But there is not much fun for us about this little affair. Napoleon steps aboard of a little cockleshell, a mere nothing of a skiff, called the Fortune, and in the twinkling of an eye, and in the teeth of the English, who were blockading the place with vessels of the line and cruisers and everything that carries canvas, he lands in France for he always had the faculty of taking ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... was saying in Louisiana French, "there is no spot comparable, for comfortable seclusion, to the old orange grove under the levee on the Point; twenty minutes in a skiff, five minutes for preliminaries—you would not want more, the ground has been measured off five hundred ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... [Greek: kyriakos], kyrk, church; presbyter, priest; sacristanus, sexton; frango, fregi, break, breach; fagus, [Greek: phega], beech, f changed into b, and g into ch, which are letters near akin; frigesco, freeze, frigesco, fresh, sc into sh, as above in bishop, fish, so in scapha, skiff, skip, and refrigesco, refresh; but viresco, fresh; phlebotamus, fleam; bovina, beef; vitulina, veal; scutifer, squire; poenitentia, penance; sanctuarium, sanctuary, sentry; quaesitio, chase; perquisitio, purchase; anguilla, eel; insula, isle, ile, island, iland; insuletta, islet, ilet, ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... oars just in time as the shell grazed the stern of a heavy skiff, which a boy, who was rowing, had stopped just in the course of ...
— The Boy Scouts Patrol • Ralph Victor
... Judas's averted and wily face, through mere animal greediness to the first dawnings of surprise, and on to the manly awe and gratitude of Andrew's majestic figure, and the self-abhorrent humility of Peter, as he shrank down into the bottom of the skiff, and with convulsive palms and bursting brow seemed to press out from his inmost heart the words, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!" Truly, pictures are the books of the unlearned, and of the mis-learned too. Glorious Raffaelle! ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... the steamer. The dignity of official position requires that he should remain on shore for the space of one hour after the dropping of the anchor. He then musters his forces, marches them down to his war-skiff, from the stern of which waves the Danish flag, and, placing an oar in the hands of each man, he gives the order to advance and board the steamer. On his arrival alongside he touches his cap to the passengers in ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... an' Benty Willis—you remember Benty, Bill—him an' Benty Willis was out in the Nymph—that's this here very boat. They had 'er anchored up a ways here, right off Cerry's Hill, an' they was out in the skiff floppin' ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... labouring. When he saw what had been done to the brethren he heaved heavy sighs and was deeply grieved; and he followed the murderers by their track, and found them in the harbour, sweating to carry their boat in the harbour to the water, but unable to do so. For God so fastened their skiff to the land that by no means could they remove it. So being unable to resist the will of the All-Powerful, they beseech as suppliants pardon of the man of God, then present. Mindful of his Master as He prayed for the ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous
... had rowed out to the war ships during the bombardment. They called to the commander of the flagship as they pushed their skiff alongside: ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... (from Turk. Kaik), a light skiff or rowing-boat used by the Turks, having from one to twelve rowers; also a Levantine ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... the excursion,—as soon as he knew that the boat was signalling for help and that Miss Lawson was sending up rockets,—rushed for a row boat, grabbed an oar (two would have hampered him), and paddled madly out into the lake. He struck right out into the dark with the crazy skiff almost sinking beneath his feet. But they got him. They rescued him. They watched him, almost dead with exhaustion, make his way to the steamer, where he was hauled up with ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... augmented by the appearance of the doctor and his bearers. The disabled physician was accommodated with a seat on the bottom of the scow, two of the Richards boys being displaced in his favour. The Captain reported a prize in the shape of a handsome varnished skiff, which he found drawn up on some skids or rollers at the foot of a great mass of rock, that seemed as if cut all about in regular form, in readiness for quarrying. The finding of the boat just opposite it, the worn appearance of the ground, the absence of moss or any other growth on the severed ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... a small, flat island in the marsh, where we found an Iroquois camp, in which we proposed to pass the night, as we had no camping-equipage in our skiff. The men were absent, hunting, and there was nobody in charge of the wigwam but an ugly, undersized squaw, with her two ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... gentleman went out in a small pleasure-boat which is kept for the accommodation of the guests. They had not been gone very long when a sudden thunder-gust came on, accompanied by a violent wind, and the owner of the skiff, feeling some alarm for the safety of the party, went down to the landing just in time to see the boat make a few mad plunges with the waves, and then capsize at the distance of nearly half a mile ...
— Rosamond - or, The Youthful Error • Mary J. Holmes
... think of coming to the surface to float and sail in the sunlight. The collectors of sticks and shells are more highly privileged. They can remain on the level of the water indefinitely, with no other support than their skiff, can rest in unsubmersible flotillas and can even shift their place ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... Irishman," he cried loftily. "I canna get Robbie Burns' graun' words oot o' my heid: 'The Scotsmen staun' an' Irish fa'—let him on wi' me,'" and on this wave of martial spirit Geordie took another plunge at right angles from our previous course, bearing me after him like a skiff tied to ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... confine our inquiries to a far later epoch than the Pharaohs'. Step aside, and let the old history sweep past, like the turbid and eddying current of the mysterious Nile; forbearing to launch our skiff earlier than at the beginning of ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... nothing to do but turn back. Tom had a small rowboat and a sailing skiff on the lake, but his boathouse was some distance away, and even if he could get one of his craft out, the ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-cycle • Victor Appleton
... been winding steadily down to the sea. And presently they caught sight of the boat, riding at anchor near the landing place, with a little skiff drawn up on the sand. Of course you know that the boat was a scallop-shell, with sails of gossamer; but Sara had been expecting an ordinary boat, and she was perfectly delighted. Of course it was large enough to hold Sara, as well as the rest of the party; but just ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... again the clear-cut tones of his voice as he advised her. Then she drew back, frightened, into the sombre library, conscience-stricken that she should have yielded to this temptation then, when Clarence—She dared not follow the thought, but she saw the light skiff at the mercy of the angry river ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... barnlike room for a hiding-place. Walls, floor, ceiling were bare. Near the door opening on the lake was a rustic bench, impossible as a refuge. Only in one corner, where empty boxes and a disused skiff formed a barricade, could he hope for concealment. He glided thither, and on the floor between the dusty wall of broad boards and the jumbled partition, he found a man stretched ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... the crick We could see the old mill stick Its red gable up, as if It jest knowed we'd stol'd the skiff! See the winders in the sun Blink like they wuz wonderun' What the miller ort to do With sich ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley
... afternoon, while tacking slowly down the bay, I met the Marquis. He was pulling himself in a small skiff, and when he saw me he made haste to come alongside and hitch on. At first I wondered whether it would not be against his father's wishes that he should enter into conversation with such a worldly person as myself. But he evidently saw ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... with half a dozen children packed in amidships a crew of lumbermen, in a sharp-nosed bateau, picking up stray logs along the banks; a couple of boatloads of young people returning merrily from a holiday visit; a party of berry-pickers in a flat-bottomed skiff; all the life of the country-side was in evidence on the river. We felt quite as if we had been "in the swim" of society, when at length we reached the point where the Riviere des Aunes came tumbling down a hundred-foot ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... thee, after so huge an aversion.' Quoth he, 'Hearkening and obedience! Know that we have a festival-called New Year's day,[FN348] when all the people fare forth and take boat and go a-pleasuring on the river. So I went out with my comrades, and saw a skiff, wherein were ten damsels like moons and amongst them, the Lady Budur lute in hand. She preluded in eleven modes, then, returning to the first, sang ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... A skiff went prowling along the Avon River in the unhurried English twilight that releases the sunset with reluctance and defers luxuriously the roll call of ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... boat would be full of water and mud, and of course we had our best clothes on. Did it ever occur to you how much water a dog could carry in his hair? A dog is worse than a sponge. An ordinary dog, with luck, can fill a skiff with water at two jumps. Not, however, with us in the boat to bail out the water. The woodcock's tail sticks up like a sore thumb. We are thus particular to describe the woodcock, so if you ever see one you can go right away from him. Woodcock and mosquitoes are in "cahoots." While the ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... its surface in skiff, and bark canoe, Shot grouse and duck, caught fish and eel, and held their title true; For other people's safety took not a single thought— Ten thousand lives were less to them than fish thus daily ...
— Gleams of Sunshine - Optimistic Poems • Joseph Horatio Chant
... the Russians, Mahmetkul, being wounded, was obliged to quit the fight, and the mirzas carried him in a skiff to the other bank of the Irtysh. At this news, consternation spread throughout the hostile army. Deprived of its leader it despaired of victory. The Ostiak princes take flight. They are followed by the Tartars. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... the dead, are held! The Esquire reach'd the shore, where sand and sedge is O'er melancholy hills, by paths of eld; Treeless and houseless was the prospect round, Rock-strewn and boisterous the lake before; A Charon-shape in a skiff a-ground— The pilgrim turned, ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... or light or coast guard about Au Fer—at low tide not even a skiff could find the ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... honor to report that Capt. Wm. Bailey returned to this city this morning bringing three prisoners, and their skiff. They were first seen near James Point, and afterwards were taken on board the schooner "Thos. H. Northern," Capt. Wells; from which schooner Bailey took them along with Capt. Wells, and brought them to this office. I had a conversation with each ...
— Between the Lines - Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After • Henry Bascom Smith
... collapse. A howl of terror would apprise the world at large that he was about to drown. Whereat some passing boatman would pick him up and hold him for ransom, or else some one from The Place must jump into skiff or canoe and hie with all speed to the rescue. The same thing would be ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... Boswell to Temple on this day helps to fill up the gap in his journal:—'It gives me acute pain that I have not written more to you since we parted last; but I have been like a skiff in the sea, driven about by a multiplicity of waves. I am now at Mr. Thrale's villa, at Streatham, a delightful spot. Dr. Johnson is here too. I came yesterday to dinner, and this morning Dr. Johnson and I return to London, and I go with Mr. Beauclerk ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... light skiff directly for Bliss Island. It was not more than a mile off shore, and was a beautiful place. At the landing they saw several girls whom they knew were sophomores, for among them ...
— Ruth Fielding At College - or The Missing Examination Papers • Alice B. Emerson
... celebrated Alcedo, or Halcyon, of the ancients, who attributed to him many apparently supernatural powers. He was supposed to construct his nest upon the waves, on which it was made to float like a skiff. But as the turbulence of a storm would be likely to cause its destruction, Nature had gifted him with the extraordinary power of stilling the motions of the winds and waves, during the period of incubation. Hence the serene weather that accompanies the summer ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... had need of rapid motion; she was late, and wanted all her wits about her when she got in. She passed the islands, the station, and hotel, and was about to take the ferry, when she saw a skiff with a young man standing up in it, and holding to ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... walls oppos'd Unlevell'd in the ruin, high above Its roof the billows mounted, and its towers Totter'd, beneath the watery gulf oppress'd. Nor land nor sea their ancient bounds maintain'd, For all around was sea, sea without shore. This seeks a mountain's top, that gains a skiff, And plies his oars where late he plough'd the plains. O'er fields of corn one sails, or 'bove the roofs Of towns immerg'd;—another in the elm Seizes th' intangled fish. Perchance in meads The anchor oft is thrown, and ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... the discharge of the last gun, the battery on the Island had been quitted by the officer in command, who, descending to the beach, preceded by two of his men, stepped into a light skiff that lay chained to the gnarled root of a tree overhanging the current, and close under the battery. A few sturdy strokes of the oars soon brought the boat into the centre of the stream, when the stout, broad built, figure, and carbuncled face of an officer in the uniform of the —— regiment, ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... of the fellow seemed to preclude the possibility of escaping him upon the open beach. There was but a single alternative—the rude skiff—and with a celerity which equaled his, I pushed the thing into the sea and as it floated gave a final shove and clambered in over ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... painted white. He trotted his horse around it, and finding no owner, hitched the nag to the sloop's bobstay and hauled as though he would take her home; but of course she was too heavy for one horse to move. With my skiff, however, it was different; this he hauled some distance, and concealed behind a dune in a bunch of tall grass. He had made up his mind, I dare say, to bring more horses and drag his bigger prize away, anyhow, and was starting off for the settlement a mile or so away for the reinforcement when ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... 24 degrees 53 minutes East. At Noon sounded, but had no ground with 240 fathoms of line; hoisted a Boat out to try if there was any Current, but found none. The weather was such as to admit Mr. Banks to row round the Ship in a Lighterman's Skiff shooting birds. Wind, South-East by East, South-South-East, East; course, North-West by West; distance, 106 miles; latitude 58 degrees 46 minutes South, longitude 78 degrees 42 ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... and without protection from the heat or venomous insects. Then he managed to slip unobserved into the dense swamp, and began to make his way to the fleet. Toward evening he came out on a small stream, near a camp of Confederate soldiers. They had moored to the bank a skiff, and, with equal stealth and daring, he managed to steal this and to paddle down-stream. Hour after hour he paddled on through the fading light, and then through the darkness. At last, utterly worn out, ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... the longships sprang up a following wind; So swift o'er AEgir's acre those mighty sailors ran, And speedier than all other ploughed down the furrows wan. And they came to the land of the Goth-folk on the even of a day; And lo by the inmost skerry a skiff with a sail of grey That as they neared the foreshore ran Volsung's ship aboard, And there was come white-hand Signy ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... matrimonial skiff Strikes snags in love's meandering stream, I lift our shallop from the rocks, And float as in a placid dream. And well I know our marriage bliss While life shall last will never cease; For I shall always let thee do, In generous love, just what I please. Peace comes, and discord flies away, ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... The skiff-boat neared: I heard them talk, 'Why, this is strange, I trow! Where are those lights so many and fair, 525 ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... which at night might be taken for spirits of the powers of nature. The mountain-dweller saw them through the panes of his little window. They sailed in hosts before the Ice Maiden as she came out of her palace of ice. Then she seated herself on the trunk of the fir-tree as on a broken skiff, and the water from the glaciers carried her down the river ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... am motoring down to Hampton, and will gladly meet you there. I shall wire for the skiff and lunch. Au revoir." ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... foot of the great Axenberg, where a ledge of rock distinguished to the present day as Tell's platform, presented itself as the only possible landing-place for leagues around. Here he seized his cross-bow, and escaped by a daring leap, leaving the skiff to wrestle its way in the billows. The vogt also escaped the storm, but only to meet a fate more signal from Tell's bow in the narrow pass near Kussnacht. The tidings of his death enhanced the courage of the people, but also alarmed the vigilance of their rulers, and greatly increased the dangers ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 554, Saturday, June 30, 1832 • Various
... early fall, Sheila had become a splendid oarswoman. In a skiff belonging to little John-Ed which was drawn up on the sands not far from the cabin she had paddled out through the narrow neck of the tiny cove's entrance and pulled bravely through the surf and out upon the sea beyond. She had learned more ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... star wove silver webs across the ways Carved by the wind, a half-breathed sigh, That spoke in ripples. "O Heart's Delight," I cried, "The skiff comes for me now across the water." And, as I bent to kiss her, Love's fair daughter, She barely breathed, "Good-night," And some musician blended Chopin with her phrase: "Good-bye, ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... domestic cattle. In course of time the old ones would be worn out or wrecked; the best sorts would be chosen for each particular use, and further improved upon; and so the primordial boat be developed into the scow, the skiff, the sloop, and other species of water-craft—the very diversification, as well as the successive improvements, entailing the disappearance of intermediate forms, less adapted to any one particular purpose; wherefore these go slowly out of use, and become extinct species: this is Natural ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... be captain to me—he had a mind to draw alongside that there place they call St. Malo, and cut out a frigate of Doggy Trang he believed to be there, and he sent me and some more by night to take the bearings of the harbor. We was in a skiff, and a gale came on and beat us about all night and split our sails and drove us ashore in the very teeth of a crew o' Frenchies. There was a tight little scrimmage, I promise you, but they were two to one, and grappled ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... the first day did not suffice to carry them clear of the reeds, in fact, at night when they landed to camp, they could scarcely find room to pitch their tents. On the second day, an accident happened to the skiff they were towing; she struck on a log, and immediately sank with all the valuable cargo she carried. Two days were spent in recovering the things, as the boat had gone down in twelve feet of water, and during the time they were so employed, ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... and she soon sunk. At the moment of the explosion a cannonball crashed through the launch. Cushing plunged into the river and swam to shore through a shower of bullets. After crawling through the swamps next day, be found a skiff and paddled off to the fleet. Of the launch's crew of ...
— History of the United States, Volume 4 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... pause of a few minutes, the cardinal was turning away in extreme disappointment, when a small skiff, rowed by a female hand, shot round an angle of the lake and swiftly approached them. A glance from Patch would have told Wolsey, had he required any such information, that this was the forester's granddaughter. Her beauty quite ravished him, and drew from him an exclamation of wonder and ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... small blunt skiff—manned by two rowers came by under the wall, with the thudding and ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... voyage, we had to land, while the boatman and some other persons drew our skiff round some rapids, which we could not otherwise have passed; another time, the boat went through a lock. We, meanwhile, stepped ashore to examine the ruins of the old nunnery of Godstowe, where ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various |
