"Ferryman" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with people who came off in families, or in gangs, or two by two, or alone. They plucked blades of grass, went down to the water, remounted the path, and all having attained the same spot, stood still awaiting the ferryman. The clumsy punt plied incessantly from bank to bank, discharging its passengers on to the island. The arm of the river (named the Dead Arm) upon which this refreshment wharf lay, appeared asleep, so feeble was the current. Fleets of yawls, of skiffs, of canoes, of podoscaphs (a light boat propelled ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... until you came to the 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 most part marshy ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... out of the highroad, a quarter of a mile this side of Gavrillac, led down to that ferry. By this lane some twenty minutes later came Andre-Louis with dragging feet. He avoided the little cottage of the ferryman, whose window was alight, and in the dark crept down to the boat, intending if possible to put himself across. He felt for the chain by which the boat was moored, and ran his fingers along this to the point where it was fastened. Here to his dismay ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... in the graves by the North American Indians. The Laplanders lay beside the corpse flint, steel, and tinder, to supply light for the dark journey. A coin was placed in the mouth of the dead by the Greeks to pay Charon, the ferryman of the Styx, and for a similar purpose in the hand of a deceased Irishman. The Greenlanders bury with a child a dog, for they say a dog will find his way anywhere. In the grave of the Viking warrior were buried ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... walked away again he had found his answer to the idea that had grown so importunate. Since a proof of his will was wanted it was indeed very exactly in wait for him—it lurked there on the other side of the Canal. A ferryman at the little pier had from time to time accosted him; but it was a part of the play of his nervousness to turn his back on that facility. He would go over, but he walked, very quickly, round and round, crossing finally by the Rialto. The rooms, in the event, were unoccupied; the ancient padrona ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... 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 preach ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... 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, ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... 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 ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 4: Quaint and Curious Advertisements • Henry M. Brooks
... 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 ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... 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 ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth
... 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 ...
— Troublesome Comforts - A Story for Children • Geraldine Glasgow
... 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 ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice
... 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
... inquired about 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 ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... 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 as well as at the stern. ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews
... Sequasha and his mate had left their ivory in charge of some of their slaves, who, in the absence of their masters, were now having a gay time of it, and getting drunk every day with the produce of the sacked villages. The head slave came and begged for the musket of the delinquent ferryman, which was returned. He thought his master did perfectly right to kill Mpangwe, when asked to do it for the fee of ten tusks, and he even justified it thus: "If a man invites you to eat, ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... cried as loud as they could, as if they had some announcement to make. Perhaps they talked of him who, as a little boy, had taken away their eggs and their young; of the peasant's son, who had to wear an iron garter, and of the noble young lady, who ended by being a ferryman's wife. ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... passed since the bear hunt. The emigrants had crossed the river, and selected their future homes in the groves that bordered the prairie, some miles distant from the ferry. Glenn, when landed on the south side of the Missouri, took up his abode for a short time with Jasper Roughgrove, the ferryman, while some half dozen men, whose services his gold secured, were building him a novel habitation. And the location was as singular as the construction of his house. It was on a peak that jutted over the river, some three hundred feet high, whence he had a view eight or ten miles down the ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... 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 ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... 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
... "I be 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 ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown
... advantage of the lamp which burned in the cabin of the ferryman to read the billet of Mme. Bonacieux once again, and satisfy himself that he had not been mistaken, that the appointment was at St. Cloud and not elsewhere, before the D'Estrees's pavilion and not in another street. Everything conspired to prove ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... shots of your prime, You men of the act and the dream: And please you to fatten a weed That perishes, pledged to decay, 'Tis dearth in your season of need, Down the slopes of the shoreward way; - Nigh on the misty stream, Where Ferryman under his hood, With a call to be ready to pay The small coin, whitens red blood. But the young ethereal seed Shall bring you the bread no buyer Can have for his craving supreme; To my quenchless quick shall speed The soul at her wrestle rude With devil, with angel ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... symbolic draughtsman once more strikes into his proper vein. Three cuts conclude the first part. In the first the gates close, black against the glory struggling from within. The second shows us Ignorance—alas! poor Arminian!—hailing, in a sad twilight, the ferryman Vain-Hope; and in the third we behold him, bound hand and foot, and black already with the hue of his eternal fate, carried high over the mountain-tops of the world by two angels of the anger of the Lord. "Carried to Another Place," the artist enigmatically ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... amongst our idle prate, Tis current newes through the Elizian State, That Venus and her Sonne were lately seene Here in Elizium, whence they oft haue beene Banisht by our Edict, and yet still merry, Were here in publique row'd o'r at the Ferry, Where as 'tis said, the Ferryman and she Had much discourse, she was so full of glee, 140 Codrus much wondring ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... night when he slept in the straw hut of a ferryman by the river, Siddhartha had a dream: Govinda was standing in front of him, dressed in the yellow robe of an ascetic. Sad was how Govinda looked like, sadly he asked: Why have you forsaken me? At this, he ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... and on till they came to a great river, and saw on its farther side a city, Montfelis by name; and here was no bridge, but only a horn hanging on a cypress tree for those to blow who would call the ferryman. ...
— Fleur and Blanchefleur • Mrs. Leighton
... Kavah directed 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, built by Zohak. In the Pahlavi language it was called ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... present at all the conferences held at Lacheneur's house. The proof of this is as clear as daylight. Being obliged to cross the Oiselle to reach the Reche, and fearing the ferryman would notice his frequent nocturnal voyages, the baron had an old boat repaired which he had not ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... 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 what micht ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... 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 ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... 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 ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... drowns—Sir Wilfrid!" cries a hind: "The ferryman is weak: He cannot stem the stream and wind: ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... deserves quotation, whether drawn by his own hand or that of another. The Champion for May 24, 1740, contains a vision of the Infernal Regions, where Charon, the ghostly boatman, is busy ferrying souls across the River Styx. The ferryman bids his attendant Mercury see that all his passengers embark carrying nothing with them; and the narrator describes how, after various Shades had qualified for their passage, "A tall Man came next, who stripp'd off an old Grey ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... said William, as they took their seats at the breakfast table, "because I had purchased this light wagon and horse for you to ride to church in, and I came down in it. I reached the river last night, but could not cross. The old ferryman had gone to bed, and would not rise. Well, after breakfast, dear mother, I shall have the pleasure of driving you to church in your own ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... bank they'll cross, sure pop. It won't do, Messenger. If that fellow attempts the fords we'll catch him, sure; if he swims we may get him in the water. The Lord knows I want him badly, but I dare not invite trouble by placing vedettes across the stream.... There's a ferryman over there I'm worried about, too. He'd probably come across if Allen hailed him from the woods.... And Allen was thick with him. They used to fish together. Nobody knows what they hatched out between them. It worries me, ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... marse is quite well, Uncle Moses, and will be home on the first of the month with his new wife," said Sylvan, who could not miss the fun of telling this rare bit of news to the aged ferryman. ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... The ferryman then taking hold of the most steady of the horses by a rope, led him into the water, and paddled the canoe a little from the brink; upon which a general attack commenced upon the other horses, who, finding themselves pelted and kicked on all sides, unanimously ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park
... I went on to the reprobate's grave and stood at the foot of it, looking at the sky, gorgeous with the descent of the sun. To my English eyes, accustomed to giant trees, broad lawns, and stately mansions, the landscape was wild and inhospitable. The ferryman was already tugging at the rope on his way back (I had told him that I did not intend to return that way), and presently I saw him make the painter fast to the south bank; put on his coat; and trudge homeward. I turned to the grave at my feet. Those ...
— The Miraculous Revenge - Little Blue Book #215 • Bernard Shaw
... where we cooled off by lying on the grass in the shade of the village blacksmith's shop, which is, as well, the ferry-house, with the bell hung between two tall posts at the top of the bank, its rope dangling down for public use. The smith-ferryman came out with his wife—a burly, good-natured couple—and joined us in our lounging, for it is not every day that river travelers put in at this dreamy, far-away port. The wife had camped with her husband, when he was boss of a railway construction gang, and both of them frankly ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... them to a place where the three infernal rivers, Acheron, Cocytus, and Styx, met in one deep, black, and boiling flood. Here there kept guard the grim ferryman Charon, an infernal deity of fearful aspect. A long gray beard fell all tangled and neglected from his chin; his filthy and ragged garments were knotted over his shoulders; his eyes glittered with baleful light. He sat on a great black ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... one 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 ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... river bank. He had not walked far 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, ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... in his single person the varied offices of ferryman, rat-catcher, jobbing gardener, amateur barber, mender of sails and of nets, brought the heavy, flat-bottomed boat alongside the jetty. Shipping the long sweeps, he coughed behind his hand with somewhat sepulchral politeness to give warning ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet |
