"Skiff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... now in the outer harbour and not far from the Watergate which led into the inner castle-haven. Presently an officer of the guard put off in a skiff and came on board the vessel. He held a little conversation with the two boatmen, observed that the castle was—much in want of full, took a survey of the turf with which the ship was apparently laden, and then lounged into the little cabin. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... paused to stare at a curious sight. On the beach ahead of her stood a brand-new rowboat ready for launching. Near it was assembled an outfit of gear and provisions, divided into two equal piles. Two old men, armed each with a hand-saw, were silently at work upon the skiff. They were sawing it in two, exactly in the middle, and they did not look up until the Countess ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... dodging the things like a crow in a flock of pestering jays, and we really enjoyed the excitement. It was more fascinating sport than shooting rapids in a careening skiff, and at last we grew so confident in the powers of our car and its commander that we were rather sorry when the last meteor passed, and we found ourselves once more in ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... whirled about only a few feet from the dory. From the shadowed crevices in the rocks, men leaped forward and hurled themselves to the beach. About the skiff bright jets of flame cut the fog. Came the sharp report of an ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... slackened, and hastily caught a rope which was thrown to him. Just at that moment a wave as high as a man rose between the steamer and the boat and separated them, and Doughby still maintaining his hold on the rope, he was dragged out of his skiff and tossed like a feather against the steamer's side, where he hung half in and half out of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... 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, ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... 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 a schooner ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... the Lord," said Philip, while Meadows began letting himself down the side of the wharf to the skiff which he knew rode there upon the black water, "'tis enough to make one believe in miracles, my running into you! What were you ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... for a fare, and holding up a small piece of silver, in a moment the light boat was at the foot of the accommodation-ladder. Ghita now descended; and as soon as her uncle and she were seated, the skiff, for it was little more, whirled away from the ship's side, though two or three more, who had also been left by recreant boatmen for better fares, called out to him to ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... "draw your skiff up beside the Greyhound, and I'll tell you a story of how I was once run ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... Those tombs, O Hermes, are no great sights. Rather point out to me those renowned cities, of which I have heard below,—Nineveh, the capital of Sardanapalus, Babylon, Mycenae, Cleone and that famous Troy, on account of which I remember ferrying across there such numbers that for ten whole years my skiff was never high and dry and never caught cold," (that being Charon's fun, according to Lucian's conception, in conveying that all that long time his boat was in the water (hence "catching cold") from being perpetually used: [Greek: "Thelo soi deixai ton tou Achilleos ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... youth is ready to set sail in a light skiff on a rough sea, having laid in a good store of imagination and of courage, of childlike ...
— Jacqueline, v3 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... the mere question of going north or south. He had come to the parting of the ways. His whole life hung in the balance. Floating in that frail skiff on the uneasy swell, he realized that everything depended on the direction in which he swung the prow. His ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... obtained a wide circulation, and, excelling in point of illustration every production that had yet appeared in America, gained for the author universal commendation. In January 1810, his second volume appeared, and in a month after he proceeded to Pittsburg, and from thence, in a small skiff, made a solitary voyage down the Ohio, a distance of nearly six hundred miles. During this lonely and venturous journey he experienced relaxation in the composition of a poem, which afterwards appeared under the title of "The ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... 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
... how he arrived to find men discussing ways of reaching the woman in the swift current, while her grip was loosening and her cries were becoming fainter. Then the old spirit in John Barclay, that had saved the county-seat for Sycamore Ridge, came out for the last time. His skiff was tied to a tree on the bank close at hand. A boy was sent running to the nearest house for a clothes-line. When he returned, John was in the skiff, with the oars in hand. He passed an end of the line to the men, and without a word in answer to their protests, began to pull out against the ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... same thing. The best yacht-builders in Ocean County generally fail in modelling a sneak- box, while many second-rate mechanics along the shore, who could not possibly construct a yacht that would sail well, can make a perfect sneak-box, or gunning-skiff. All this may be accounted for by recognizing the fact that the water-lines of the sneak-box are peculiar, and differ materially from those of row-boats, sailboats, and yachts. Having a spoon-shaped bottom and bow, the sneak-box moves ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... Byle plodded his way to his skiff, pushed the light craft from the sandy beach, ensconced his gaunt person on the rowing bench, seized the oars, and pulled ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... suffered so much, that a soldier took pity 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 Napoleon of the People • Honore de Balzac
... all," he 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
... back, there was going to be a change. She repeated that to herself with determination. Between whiles she rambled about in the littered clearing, prowled along the beaches, and paddled now and then far outside the bay in a flat-bottomed skiff, restless, full of plans. So far as she saw, she would have to face some city alone, but she viewed that prospect with a total absence of the helpless feeling which harassed her so when she first took train for her brother's camp. She ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... the fog and into the glare of the fire shot a phantom skiff, beaching itself straight and swift at his feet, and so suddenly that he had to withdraw them like a flash to avoid the crunch of the sharp bows across the sand. 'Always let the other man speak first,' he thought; 'this boomerang of a boat has a ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... was straight ahead, and the sea increasing every moment. They were not, of course, exposed to the full swell of the ocean; but the wide sea-channel was full of short, fierce waves that struck the little skiff repeated rapid blows, and dashed the spray over both ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... were spoken, and they got into the boat, he, my brothers, and a friend, while the Fram glided ahead with her heavy motion, and the bonds that united us were severed. It was sad and strange to see this last relic of home in that little skiff on the wide blue surface, Anker's cutter behind, and Laurvik farther in the distance. I almost think a tear glittered on that fine old face as he stood erect in the boat and shouted a farewell to us and to the Fram. Do you think he does not love the vessel? That he believes ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... Lake Cataouache on the left, through cypress-swamp to the Mississippi River, opposite New Orleans. He would have pressed Mr. Tarbox to bear him company; but before he could ask twice, Mr. Tarbox had consented. They went in a cat-rigged skiff, with a stalwart negro rowing or towing whenever the sail ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... confirmed, and he was sure he knew the culprits. Taking the hoop, he returned to his boathouse with all possible speed, and leaping into his skiff, paddled up the river, his eyes scanning the marsh lines on either bank of the channel. Arriving at the bridge, he learned by inquiry from the tender stationed there that he had not seen the Lillian coming up stream within the past ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... 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 upon ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... his clothes, cut in the native fashion, were poor and not very clean; yet he was more white than Aleut, and no one seeing him could doubt his parentage. The seamen had left their posts, and were watching with such absorption that they failed to see a skiff with a single oarsman swing past the stern of The Grande Dame and make fast to the landing. Still unobserved, the man mounted the ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... thundering down on the White Star, so that for a brief moment all thought that she was gone; and almost as she shook herself free, just such another tremendous wave struck the Myrtle, and rolled her over like a walnut-shell skiff, a child's plaything. As the White Star rose on successive waves, her crew twice afterwards saw the Myrtle heave up her side for a second ere she went to the bottom, but of her seven hands no man was ever seen again. Head-reaching into the wind, the White Star gradually made her perilous ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... break of day, we shall be in view of Amboyna." In effect, at the time mentioned, the next morning, they saw that island. The pilot being unwilling to cast anchor, Father Xavier, with some of the passengers, were put into a skiff, and the ship pursued its course. When the skiff was almost ready to land, two light vessels of pirates, which usually cruised on that coast, appeared on the sudden, and pursued them swiftly. Not hoping any succour ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... watermen, ten in a little boat. As we were in the middle of the river, a larger boat full of people drove directly upon us on purpose. I believe they were drunk. We called to them, to no purpose; they beat directly against the middle of our little skiff—but, thank you, did not do us the least harm—no thanks to them. Lady Malpas was in Lord Strafford's garden, and gave us for gone. In short, Neptune never would have had so beautiful a prize ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... 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, Love's youth, Youth's ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... attention to their overtures, and all being now ready, the great multitude, drawn from all parts of Greece, set sail for Epidamnus. When they reached Actium, at the mouth of the Ambracian Gulf, they were met by a herald, sent out from Corcyra in a skiff, to forbid their approach. This was a mere manoeuvre, to throw the guilt of commencing hostilities on the Corinthians; and meanwhile the Corcyraeans manned their ships, to the number of eighty, and put out to meet the enemy's fleet. In the sea-fight which followed the ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... golden hues of morn. The rope and stick to which the boat had been made fast towed through the water, as the land-breeze, driving me gently, increased my distance from the land. For some moments I was rather scared; the oars were left on shore, and I had no means of propelling my little skiff. ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... it was much like our cedar "shells" used at regattas,—a narrow skiff about twenty-three feet in length by eighteen inches in width. At the centre there was a small round hole just large enough for one to sit with his legs under the seal-skin deck, which was bound tightly to a hoop encircling the hole. Indeed, the whole outside of this singular craft ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... I know, must sail in a skiff, And reach a ship ere it reaches the sea; But it is a wonderful matter if The woman who sits here is ...
— Harry • Fanny Wheeler Hart
... and now slippery with rain. One of the canoes was lost here by being driven out into the strong current, where the force of the water was so great that it could not be held by the men; the frail skiff drifted down the rapids and disappeared. They now had two canoes and two periogues left, and the loads were divided among these craft. This increased the difficulties of navigation, and Captain Lewis crossed over to the south side of the ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... forms of three goodly hulls in varying stages of progress, inhaled with keen enjoyment the mingled odours of pine chips and Stockholm tar, and then hurried after Dick, who was already busily engaged in unmooring a small skiff, in which to pull off to a handsome five-ton lugger-rigged boat that lay lightly straining at her moorings in ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... orbs, an oldster bow'd by burthening years, How 'scaped the skiff an hundred storms; how 'scaped the thread ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... reached the landing place, she saw that the gunwale of the old boat was stove, and her heart sank within her. There were several persons at the landing, and she told them what she feared. One of them took a skiff and rowed out to the yacht. Paul and John were both in the cabin, and when the messenger came alongside, the captain called them on deck. Seeing Mrs. Duncan on the shore, they got into their ...
— Little By Little - or, The Cruise of the Flyaway • William Taylor Adams
... "if 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 ...
— Roy Blakeley • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... sat upon a common kitchen chair in the skiff with a big, patched umbrella to keep the sun off, and was fishing with a pole that he had evidently cut in the ...
— Ruth Fielding Down East - Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point • Alice B. Emerson
... the current, they walk about from one bank of verdure to the other and do not 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 by ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... should not communicate his own glorie"—he stepped sedately down to the trim green skiff and was rowed ashore by a boy who, for aught that either knew, might three months before have jostled him at some ill-favoured lunch counter. For in America, dreams of gold—not, alas, golden dreams—do prevalently come true; and of all the butterfly happenings in this pleasant land ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... sunset, we reached the dark, rapid waters of the Rock River. The ferry which we had travelled so far out of our way to take advantage of, proved to be merely a small boat or skiff, the larger one having been swept off into the stream, and carried down in the breaking-up of the ice, the ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... made with the man, and with a few strokes from his muscular arms the little skiff was soon whirling out into the deep waters of the bay. Then he rested on his oars and floated down ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey
... time the captain reached the side of the boat, Eben had his small skiff tied to the deck-rail. He was standing up, a tall, gaunt, ungainly youth, freckled faced, and sandy haired. He wore a dark-brown sweater, and a pair of overalls, baggy at the knees. He did not speak as his father approached, but mechanically ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... crossed from Toronto to the wharf at the mouth of the Niagara River in an ordinary double-scull, lap-strake pleasure-skiff, by the writer and another Argonaut—Herbert Bartlett—one unruly morning in the summer of 1872. Though a risky row, and not previously attempted, it was not regarded as a remarkable ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... up the motor at a local garage, he strolled down to the river, where he found his dainty little skiff, Sea Foam, ready and waiting for him. It was just big enough to contain two, and its upholstery of cream leather gave it the light effect which ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... poetry belongs To such a name—deep, pure and beautiful, As its trout-peopled wave!—on Windermere Our skiff pursued its way amid the calm Which fill'd the heart with holiest communings. On Windermere—what scenes entranced the eye That wander'd o'er them! either undefined Or traced upon the outline of the sky. Afar the lovely panorama glow'd, Until the mountains, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 575 - 10 Nov 1832 • Various
... were in full view of the vast multitudes on London Bridge. A boat containing five men put off to collect the tallow which floated on the water, but it got surrounded by tallow which had caught fire, and the whole of its occupants were either burned to death or drowned. Later in the night a small skiff rowed by a single man was drawn by the tide into the vortex of the fire. Another boat ran out and saved the man, but a second boat which was pulled off by a single rower for the same purpose was drawn too near the fire, and its brave occupant perished. ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... raised their oars just in time as the shell grazed the stern of a heavy skiff, which a boy, who was rowing, had stopped just in ...
— The Boy Scouts Patrol • Ralph Victor
... face. There is no 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
... to Damascus' kingdoms large, Nor to the fort built in Asphalte's lake, But jealous of her dear and precious charge, And of her love ashamed, the way did take, To the wide ocean whither skiff or barge From us doth seld or never voyage make, And there to frolic with her love awhile, She chose a waste, a sole ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... the native name, or rather the native genetic term, for all canoes, of which there are many different kinds, as tete, pekatu, kopapa, and others answering in variety to our several descriptions of boats, as a 'gig,' a 'whaleboat,' a 'skiff,' a 'dingy,' etc." ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... was made for their relief was by a boy thirteen years old, from Herring Cove, who ventured off in a small skiff by himself about eleven o'clock the next day. This youth, with great labor and extreme risk to himself, boldly approached the wreck, and backed in his little boat so near to the fore-top as to take off two of the men, ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... 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, which had two ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... narrow 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
... me, he may go. He needn't think I'll take 'im back; I won't have nothin' to say to 'im, never!' Ad' I'll quarrel 'bout you too; an' when all ov 'em is done fussin' 'bout me comin' back, I'll steal to you in a dark night, an' lay a plan to meet on Lickin' River; an' we'll take a skiff an' muffle oars till we get to the Ohio; an' I knows jus' whar to go in any dark night, an' we 'll be free together. I didn't tell Jim I's gwine to make massa b'leve all my lies to get you; for I tell you, Liz, I ain't ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... the captain drank his beer and thumped off for the water front, satisfied that the village would hear nothing from Mr. Donovan. Nevertheless, it was shameful to let a hundred go that easy; twenty would have served. He was about to hail the skiff when he was accosted by the quiet little man he had recently observed sitting alone in the corner ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... easy," said Betty to herself, writing the name "Robinson Crusoe" after the last act, as the crew of little pickaninnies, seated in an old skiff which had been dragged up from the mill stream for that purpose, took up a piece of patch-work and began to sew. Betty was the only ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... east and swift to west the ghastly war-flame spread; High on St. Michael's Mount it shone: it shone on Beachy Head. Far on the deep the Spaniard saw, along each southern shire, Cape beyond cape, in endless range, those twinkling points of fire; The fisher left his skiff to rock on Tamar's glittering waves, The rugged miners poured to war from Mendip's sunless caves. O'er Longleat's towers, o'er Cranbourne's oaks, the fiery herald flew; He roused the shepherds of Stonehenge, ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... man was therefore free to look at her; a contemplation which showed him that she was agitated and trying to conceal it. He wondered why she was agitated, not foreseeing that he was destined to discover, later, that her nature was like a skiff in a stormy sea. Even after her sister had passed out of the room she sat there with her eyes turned away, as if there had been a spell upon her which forbade her to raise them. Miss Olive Chancellor, it may be confided to the reader, to whom in ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... and seating herself on a pile of cushions heaped in the centre, pushed out into the stream. There was no hardihood in this, she had been accustomed to action and exercise all her life, and could propel her little skiff with the skill and grace of any ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... an accomplice and clansman, who had served six months in the castle to enjoy that one night of unlimited vengeance. The owl whooped around us as we hung betwixt heaven and earth; the tide roared against the foot of the rock, and dashed asunder our skiff, yet no man's heart failed him. In the morning there was blood and ashes, where there had been peace and joy at ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... sound reached them of breaking bushes and the loud voices of Cossacks approaching along the bank on horseback and on foot. 'Are you bringing the skiff?' ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... soul in me is like a toy skiff, tossing in the ripples of a duck pond an' mayhap stranding on a reed or lily. An' then," he added, with kindling eye and voice, "she is a great ship, her sails league long an' high, her masthead raking the stars, her hull in ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... made on the Mississippi, the Ohio, the St. Lawrence, or the Hudson, on steamers in whose cabins our little boat would have lost itself. We had a full but not crowded company of passengers, overflowing into a skiff at our stern, in which a father and mother, with three women friends, preferred the high excitement of being towed to Bishopsthorpe, where it seemed that the man of the party knew the gardener. With each curve of the river and with each remove we got the city in more and more charming retrospective, ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... is this? 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
... ten o'clock received a note from Borasdine announcing his readiness to go to the steamer. Anossoff, Chase, and half a dozen others assembled to see us off, and after waking the echoes and watchmen on the pier, we secured a skiff and reached the Ingodah. The rain was over, and stars were peeping through occasional loop-holes in ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... chairman of the committee on grounds and buildings, introduced Isaac S. Taylor, who delivered the gold key to the buildings to President Francis and presented diplomas to his staff. An address followed by Director of Exhibits F.J.V. Skiff, who presented commissions to his staff, the chiefs of the various exhibit departments. Next followed addresses in behalf of the city of St. Louis by Hon. Rolla Wells, Mayor; in behalf of the National Commission by Hon. Thomas H. Carter, its President; in behalf of the United States ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... upon my forehead light:— From off the oars, perchance, as feather'd spray, They drop, while some fair skiff bends on her way Across the Heav'nly Stream[157] ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... before his death that a striking instance of this occurred. The first vessel that was built in Russia was a small skiff, which was planned and built almost entirely by Peter's own hands. This skiff was built at Moscow, where it remained for twenty or thirty years, an object all this time, in Peter's mind, of special affection and regard. At length, when the naval power of the empire was ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott
... occurred relative to the disposition that should be made of them, and they, meanwhile, effected their escape from their jailors by way of one of the prison windows, from which they managed to displace a bar, and by a skiff, in the darkness of night, crossed the Tennessee River a little below Chattanooga. From this point the party made their way back to my camp, traveling only at night, hiding in the woods by day, and for food depending on loyal citizens ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... passage per skiff at twelve o'clock. If there was one drawback, it was the fact that the oar-locks of the boat had been mislaid. After consuming an hour in not finding them, Frank Hatch became discouraged at seeing us lay around the ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... a little skiff, two more of his companions following him, and they rowed us out to one of the fishing-boats, made fast the one we had come in with the painter, cast off the buoy-rope, and began to hoist a sail, with the result that a soft pattering ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... reached the sea at last. The National Guard of Boulogne began firing on them. The prince, Count Persigny, Colonel Voisin, and Galvani, an Italian, were put into a boat. As they pushed off, a fire of musketry shattered the little skiff, and threw them into the water. Colonel Voisin's arm was broken at the elbow, and Galvani was hit in the body. The prince and Persigny came up to the surface at some distance from the land. Colonel Voisin and Galvani, being nearer to the shore, were ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... small skiff beached among the cottonwoods that grew along the water's edge and his eyes lighted up instantly. He had a ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... 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! ...
— The Beggar's Opera • John Gay
... son, and told it over the whole village. Some people wondered, but the most part laughed at it as a good joke; and Civil and his mother were never known to be angry but on that day. Dame Civil advised her son never to fish with Sour again; and Civil got an old skiff which one of the fishermen was going to break up for firewood, and cobbled it ...
— Granny's Wonderful Chair • Frances Browne
... 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 track-boat ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... water's edge, one hundred and ninety-two from the top of the bank, which was forty-three feet in perpendicular height above the water. The situations of projected bodies ascertained were as follows: Part of the body of a man, thrown nearly horizontally into a skiff at the water's edge, one hundred and sixteen feet. The body of the captain thrown nearly to the top of the bank, two hundred feet. The body of a man thrown through the roof of a house, at the distance of one hundred and twelve feet, and fifty-nine feet above the water's ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... the 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 ...
— Between the Lines - Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After • Henry Bascom Smith
... the Revolutionary War, a Swede named Jeremiah Dobbs, established a ferry here connecting with the northern end of the Palisades (visible on the left across the river). Originally only a dugout or skiff, it was the first ferry north of Manhattan, and was kept up by the Dobbs family for a century. In times past the residents have often tried to change the name of the town to something more "distinguished," but the old name could ...
— The Greatest Highway in the World • Anonymous
... 'midst the hazel stems was seen The turbid stream, with all that past; The lime-white deck, the gliding mast; Or skiff with gazers darting by, Who rais'd their hands in extasy. Impending cliffs hung overhead; The rock-path sounded to the tread, Where twisted roots, in many a fold, Through moss, ...
— The Banks of Wye • Robert Bloomfield
... Therefore, forth journeying, to that hill he went, Highest among the wave-girt, heathy hills, That still sustains his name, and saw the flood At widest stretched, and that green Isle {111} hard by, And northern Thomond. From its coasts her sons Rushed countless forth in skiff and coracle Smiting blue wave to white, till Sheenan's sound Ceased, in their clamour lost. That hour from God Power fell on Patrick; and in spirit he saw, Invisible to flesh, the western coasts, And the ocean way, and, far beyond, that land The Future's heritage, and prophesied Of Brendan who ere ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere
... edifice its 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, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... around the stumps, and when they got in the 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 ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... first arrival in Paris, she was crowned by angels, and received from the burghers the most magnificent and costly presents. At her death, she was so detested by the nation, that in order to convey her body privately to St. Denis, it was embarked in a little skiff at Port-Landri, with directions to the waterman to deliver it to ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... raised his son's body in his arms, and strode out of the hall and down to the shore, where he deposited his precious burden in a skiff which an old one-eyed boatman brought at his call. He would fain have stepped aboard also, but ere he could do so the boatman pushed off and the frail craft was soon lost to sight. The bereaved father then slowly wended his way home, taking comfort from the ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... river stood Mr. Hammond in good stead that morning, as soon as I understood that he was looking for a place where his men could land easily. It was only to sweep round a small bluff that jutted into the river, and carry the skiff into the mouth of Nat's Creek, where the bank sloped gradually down to the water from a level bit of meadow-land that extended back some rods before the hills began to rise. Mr. Hammond ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... object of her visit down to the ford. She appeared to be alone on her side of the river. At the landing opposite, however, were two men; and presently Lucy recognized Joel Creech and his father. A second glance showed Indians with burros, evidently waiting for the boat. Joel Creech jumped into a skiff and shoved off. The elder man, judging by his motions, seemed to be trying to prevent his son from leaving the shore. But Joel began to row up-stream, keeping close to the shore. Lucy watched him. No doubt ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... of my horses and men. Will you be kind enough to fancy my feelings, when I heard that they were miles away, and—the reason why. Three days before the ferry-boat had been carried away and shattered by the floods; nothing but a skiff could cross till a cable was rigged from bank to bank; there was no chance of this being completed before the beginning of the following week. The neighborhood was too dangerous to linger in; there was a provost-marshal guard actually stationed in Sharpsburg: ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... Freethinker was given. He could no longer rise with the lark, and roam over the bills of his ancestral home. To him the birds, as they warbled, spoke of joys never to return. The broad river told him of the days when the little skiff floated on its waters with Eleanora; and even his friends only too bitterly reminded him of the tournaments of wit where Hobbes, Brown, and Gildon, jousted each other in the presence of his wife. His life was one scene of misery. He saw no chance of amendment. In a fit of despair, he loaded his ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... cradles, in his soft 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 wild ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant
... and never had the landlord of the Gethin Castle been more closely attached to his guest and son-in-law elect than at this time, when Richard Yorke proposed to himself to part them; as though a gilded summer skiff should thrust itself between two laden coal-barges, and ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... cast into the ground by Duncan and Pierre, was brought with infinite trouble a distance of fifty miles in a little skiff, navigated along the shores of the Ontario by the adventurous Pierre, and from the nearest landing-place transported on the shoulders of himself and Duncan to their homestead:—a day of great labour but great joy it was when they deposited their precious freight in safety ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... to sight, the harbor water black and illimitable, the world all soggy and muffled. There was a great noise of breakers upon the seaward rocks. A high sea running without (they said); but yet my uncle had manned a trap-skiff at dawn (said they) to put a stranger across to Topmast Point. A gentleman 'twas (said they)—a gray little man with a red mole at the tip of his nose, who had lain the night patiently enough at Skipper Eli Flack's, but ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... ships, from which he had now been for three weeks separated, and desiring to communicate with General Banks. The ordinary methods of signalling having failed to attain these objects, the admiral's secretary, Mr. Gabaudan, volunteered to pass Port Hudson in a skiff by night. The boat was covered with twigs, arranged to resemble one of the floating trees ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... the pier. Instantly a boat was sent out, and the little freight steamer lay by and put out her skiff. ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... the waiting skiff She stole in the shadow of the cliff; And out of the Bay's mouth ran The schooner with maid ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... 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 feel the ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... pell-mell and some hurried to the barn for the only means of rescue—an old disused skiff and a leaky, discarded canoe. Others gazed in wistful silence ...
— Pee-Wee Harris Adrift • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... skiff drew alongside, being propelled by one oar—a method much in vogue with Havana harbormen—and when Monsieur came aboard we saw at once evidences of disappointment. His arms hung listlessly, and his large ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... Quebec. For a time its defenders were uncertain whether Carleton himself, absent at Montreal, had not fallen into the hands of the enemy. A miraculous escape he indeed had. Leaving Montreal on a dark night, when the Americans were already within the town, Carleton went in a skiff down the river, both shores of which were already occupied by the enemy for fifty miles below Montreal. At the narrows at Berthier their blazing camp fires sent light far out over the surface of the water. Carleton's party could hear the sentry's shout of "All's Well," and the ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... sky with anxious look, and even slacked a little; but Borgrevinck yelled at the speeding beast, though going yet as none but he could go, and struck him once, twice, and thrice, and harder yet. So the pulk was whirled along like a skiff in a steamer's wake; but there was blood in the Storbuk's eye now; and Borgrevinck was hard put to balance the sled. The miles flashed by like roods till Sveggum's bridge appeared. The storm-wind now was blowing, but there was the Troll. Whence came he now, none knew, but ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... up the canon to the spot where we were to take a big skiff, and cross the Whi-Whi to our camping-ground, Ruth Devlin, who was walking with me, said: "A large party of tourists arrived at Viking yesterday, and have gone to the summer hotel; so I expect you will be gay up here for some time to come. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... light skiff from the Galleon of Venice to the commander-in-chief demanding orders and help ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... January 4th, 1808. His parentage was humble, and, in consequence, his facilities for obtaining an education very limited. When about thirteen years old, his father moved with his family to Troy, New York, where young Stillman was hired by Richard P. Hart to run a skiff ferry, the wages being ten dollars per month, 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 ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... impetuosity of their flight, they shake, as it were, the plants and flowers on the border of the lake, who thus pay their morning salute to the sun of Africa. A small barque, however, advances (vide picture), and from this frail skiff suddenly appears the flash of a gun. In a moment the whole air is in motion; grebes with their beautiful plumage, flamingoes with flaming wings, wild swans, and ducks, and teals, by thousands ...
— Notes in North Africa - Being a Guide to the Sportsman and Tourist in Algeria and Tunisia • W. G. Windham
... 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... went down on the one hand, the full moon rose up on the other, like the opposite side of an enormous scale. The river, too, was presently brimming with the flood tide. It was so still one could have carried a lighted candle from shore to shore. In a little skiff, we floated and paddled up under the shadow of Mount Vernon and into the mouth of a large creek that flanks it on the left. In the profound hush of things, every sound on either shore was distinctly heard. A large bed of ducks were feeding over on the Maryland side, a ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... the clock, leaving our skiff in among rushes farr out of the way from those that passed that way and doe us injury. We retired into the wood, where we made a fire some 200 paces from the river. There we roasted some meat and boyled meale; after, we rested ourselves a while ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson
... commander of the privateer that our boat was a remarkably fine one; far better and more serviceable than any one in their possession, and THEREFORE it would be right and proper for us the captain and crew of the pilot-boat to return to our own vessel in a skiff belonging to the privateer, and leave our boat for ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... Standing in this hotel of modern Boston, we must 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 the ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... day or two of the penning of this epistle, Tom realised one of the objects of his young Oxford ambition, and succeeded in embarking in a skiff by himself. He had been such a proficient in all the Rugby games that he started off in the full confidence that, if he could only have a turn or two alone, he should satisfy not only himself but everybody else that he was a ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... first the fabric of this power begun; His noble stream, inglorious, Mersey roll'd, Nor felt his waves by lab'ring art controll'd: Along his side a few small cots were spread, His finny brood their humble tenants fed; At op'ning dawn with fraudful nets supply'd The padding skiff would brave his specious tide, Ply round the shores, nor tempt the dangerous main, But seek ere ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 270, Saturday, August 25, 1827. • Various
... to come on board, Rob,' the old man said, as he now rowed his punt up to the stern of the skiff. ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... sings Its good-night lyric to the lake; A skiff glides by on slender wings With scarce a ripple in its wake; And pleasure-boats, their canvas furled, Float idly in an ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... Cloudy; P.M. found the Variation by several Azimuth to be 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 ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... he had been up busy gardening, or reading, or writing. At a quarter to nine he breakfasted. Very shortly after breakfast an ex-champion sculler the admirable Bill East, would arrive from Richmond, and he and Sir Charles would row in a racing skiff a measured mile or more of the river. One summer at least he changed from rowing kit to boots and breeches after his rowing, and rode till luncheon. At four o'clock there would be a second bout with East, and thereafter, having changed from his rowing kit into flannels ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... 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 lay Chain'd on the burning Lake, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... in an instant into a sheet of foam; the masts bent like wands, and looked as if they would instantly go by the board. The helm was ordered to be put up; but before she could answer it—stiff as she generally was—over she went, as if she had been a mere skiff, till her yard-arms almost touched the water. It appeared as if she would never right herself again. Then many a stout heart quailed, and many a brave man gave himself up for lost; but, dreadful as was the ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... appeared, would not come in from the sea, but would presently be off to Wayfarer's Tickle, to the north, where she would harbour for the night. The lanterns were shining cheerily in the dark of the wharf; and my father was speeding the men who were to take the great skiff out for the spring freight—barrels of flour and pork and the like—and roundly berating them, every one, in a way which surprised them into unwonted activity. Perceiving that my father's temper and this mad bustle were to be kept clear of by wise lads, I slipped ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... heavily upon a crooked stick that served for his support. Sometimes they walked the village streets together. At other times they came down upon the border of the lake for a sail upon its waters in a skiff which Cooper had rigged with a lug-sail in recollection of early Mediterranean days. Here the stranger was more at home, for the man was Ned Myers, an old sailor who had been Cooper's messmate on board the Sterling ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... Middy's gittin' the skiff ready to take ye out. Scoot there, and light a fire in the hut! Here be the key to ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... eyes, he sought upon the shining disk and in the spots upon it mountains and forests, wonderful castles and enchanted flowers and fragrant trees. He believed that he saw lakes with shining swans which were drawing boats, a skiff which carried him and his beloved, while about them charming mermaids blew upon their twisted conchs and stretched their arms filled with water lilies ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... being a ferry hard by the mouth of the Tunnel, I recrossed the river in the primitive fashion of an open boat, which the conflict of wind and tide, together with the swash and swell of the passing steamers, tossed high and low rather tumultuously. This inquietude of our frail skiff (which, indeed, bobbed up and down like a cork) so much alarmed an old lady, the only other passenger, that the boatmen essayed to comfort her. "Never fear, mother!" grumbled one of them, "we'll make the river ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... did I behold? Following in Madam's wake, like a skiff towed at the stern of a rushing side-wheel steamer, a dapper little old man, a withered little old man, a gayly smiling little old man, whose countenance was somehow strangely familiar to me. I considered him a moment, and the scene in the Rue St. Lazare, with the coupe ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... the latter end of July, and I had been an Etonian nearly three months. During this time I had experienced a fair average of fighting, bullying, fagging, and flogging, and had also acquired some useful accomplishments. I could paddle my skiff up to Surly Hall and back, swim across the river at Upper Hope, and had even begun to get in debt, having some weeks ago "gone tick" with Joe Hyde for a couple of bottles of ginger-beer, with the proviso of returning them when empty, but which, it must be ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... 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, carvel^, caravel; felucca, caique^, canoe, birch bark ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... must have got off the road," announced the stranger. Then he peered out across the river: "Say! Ain't that a skiff coming ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... painted natives of the wilderness, one old chief dressed in black bearskin gesticulating protest against the cross till Cartier explained by signs that the whites would come again. Two savages were invited on board. By accident or design, as they stepped on deck, their skiff was upset and set adrift. The astonished natives found themselves in the white men's power, but food and gay clothing allayed fear. They willingly consented to accompany Cartier to France. Somewhere north of Gaspe the smoke of the French fishing fleet was seen ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... Julia, and turned her head away from the river sorrowfully. But only for a moment, for she felt Mrs. Dodd start and press her arm; and lo! Edward's skiff was shooting swiftly across from their side of the river. He was pulling Just within himself, in beautiful forum, and with far more elasticity than the other two had got left. As line passed his mother and sister, ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... citizen comfort, and yet comes in contact with the highest; its narrow circle, which becomes still more contracted, touches upon the great world through the natural and civil course of things; this little skiff floats on the agitated waves of English life, and in weal or woe it has to expect injury or help from the vast ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... sexton; frango, fregi, break, breach; fagus, [Greek: phega], beech, f changed into b, and g into ch, which are letters near akin; frigesco, freeze, frigesco, fresh, sc into sh, as above in bishop, fish, so in scapha, skiff, skip, and refrigesco, refresh; but viresco, fresh; phlebotamus, fleam; bovina, beef; vitulina, veal; scutifer, squire; poenitentia, penance; sanctuarium, sanctuary, sentry; quaesitio, chase; perquisitio, purchase; anguilla, eel; insula, isle, ile, island, iland; ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... Drouant and Perroux, had been compelled to leave on shore a portion of their possessions, and all their sails and fresh water. They entreated me to lend them my assistance, and had arranged that a skiff should be placed at my command. I communicated this letter to my friends, and declared that I would not return on board without endeavouring to satisfy the wishes of my countrymen; it was a question of saving the lives of the crews of two vessels, and hesitation was impossible. They used every ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... M., where, after some little encouragement, the stage-driver attached his horses to the stage, and we started slowly through the mountains, breaking the track. On reaching the Baths, the North River was unfordable, but I was ferried across in a skiff, with all my bundles (I picked up two more in Staunton and one at Goshen) and packages, and took a stage detained on the opposite bank for Lexington, where I arrived in good time. I found all as well as usual, and disappointed at not seeing ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... We now entered our skiff again and went on down the great river till we came to a place nearly opposite Mineral Point, when we gave our boat to a poor settler, and with guns and bundles on our backs took a straight shoot for home on foot. The second day about dark we came in the edge of the town and were seen by a lot of ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... repeats it.] "A Henry cinq cedera (his crown of course); de Saint-Cloud partira; en nauf (that's an old French word for skiff, vessel, felucca, corvette, anything you ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... seeking for my priests—my priests in their linen robes, with great harps, carrying along a mystic skiff ornamented with paterae of silver. No more feasts on the lakes! no more illuminations in my Delta! no more cups of milk at Philae! For a long time Apis has ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... every beau, To shine in dress and swell the solemn show. Thus clad, in careless order mixed by chance, In haste they both along the streets advance: 'Till near the brink of Charles's beauteous stream, They stop, and think the lingering boat to blame. Soon as the empty skiff salutes the shore, In with impetuous haste they clustering pour, The men the head, the stern the ladies grace, And neighing horses fill the middle space. Sunk deep, the boat floats slow the waves along, And scarce contains the thickly crowded throng; A gen'ral ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... wall behind the castle, leading into the open air, he had escaped down a narrow stone stairway which, protected by a little roof, ran down to a few boats on the Elbe. At least, Herse reported that at midnight the Squire in a skiff without rudder or oars had arrived at a village on the Elbe, to the great astonishment of the inhabitants who were assembled on account of the fire at Tronka Castle and that he had gone on toward Erlabrunn in ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... in one of his Indian voyages, he was stationed during the night, accompanied by but a single comrade, in a small open boat, near one of the minor mouths of the Ganges; and he had just fallen asleep on the beams, when he was suddenly awakened by a violent motion, as if his skiff were capsizing. Starting up, he saw in the imperfect light a huge tiger, that had swam, apparently, from the neighbouring jungle, in the act of boarding the boat. So much was he taken aback, that though a loaded musket lay beside him, it was one ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... southwest a matter of a hundred leagues, where on March 6, 1521, they fetched two islands inhabited by many people of little truth; and they did not take precautions against them until they saw that they were taking away the skiff of the flag-ship, and they cut the rope with which it was made fast, and took it ashore without their being able to prevent it. They gave this island the name of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... as to 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 ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... towels, tried to wash off the blood, and left towels and basin in the well. He knows he must be gone! It is certain death to linger. He takes his boat and rows away toward the dark coast and the twinkling lights; it is for dear life, now! What powerful strokes send the small skiff rushing over the water! ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... nearly past the anchorage when a crash, succeeded by a grating sound, warned him of danger. A curse, followed by an ejaculation of surprise and pleasure, enlightened him as to the nature of the collision: he was in contact with one of the anchored vessels. "Odin is good!" cried a voice; "ha! a skiff drifted from a wrecked vessel! and all eyes but mine sleeping!" The speaker threw over a small anchor and grappled the boat. Jean was prepared; without a moment's hesitation he cut the anchor-rope: his craft drifted onwards, leaving ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous
... church, not more than twenty yards off, and with a low brick wall between, flows the River Witham. On the hither bank a fisherman was washing his boat; and another skiff, with her sail lazily half-twisted, lay on the opposite strand. The stream, at this point, is about of such width, that, if the tall tower were to tumble over flat on its face, its top-stone might perhaps reach to the middle of the channel. On the farther ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... waters, and without a coast. A mountain of tremendous height there stands Betwixt the Athenian and Boeotian lands: Parnassus is its name, whose forky rise Mounts through the clouds, and mates the lofty skies. High on the summit of this dubious cliff, Deucalion, wafting, moored his little skiff: He, with his wife, were only left behind Of perished man; they two were human kind: The most upright of mortal men was he,— The most serene and holy ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... 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
... ashes. The flagship held out longer, but the soldiers did not wait for the Dutch to board, for some of them escaped from the galleon by swimming. Thirteen or fourteen of them were drowned, among them Christobal de Fegueredo. Some jumped into a small skiff belonging to the galleon, for they had taken all the boats from the city, so that they had none in which to come thence. The galleon was left with a few men, who were no longer firing and were silent. At this juncture, the general left by a port, as best he could. Reaching shore, he ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVII, 1609-1616 • Various
... Arguses," and it was rumored that he had an army behind him and an empire before him. It was a great day—his arrival—to poor Nolan. Burr had not been at the fort an hour before he sent for him. That evening he asked Nolan to take him out in his skiff, to show him a canebrake or a cottonwood tree, as he said—really to seduce him; and by the time the sail was over, Nolan was enlisted body and soul. From that time, though he did not yet know it, he lived as A ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... seat, looking absently across the water. Presently she saw the little skiff shoot out from the shore, under the impetus of Tom's muscular arms, while Elsie leaned back in the stern, wrapped in a pale blue shawl, and reminding Elizabeth of the old German ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... as he gave this home-thrust. How a woman could turn from that magnificent, devout reformer to any lean, irascible politician! Her foot was on the edge of the little skiff. She pushed it into the water. While he sat in the boat there that night, with the moonlight white about them, while he told her that he loved her, he had been planning this good match for her! There was no such thing as love, then, in the world? Or truth? But there ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... out his friends thus politely. Got into his skiff, the full moon shining brightly, By the light of whose beam, He soon spied on the stream A dame, whose complexion was fair as new cream, Pretty pink silken hose Cover'd ankles and toes, In other respects ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... time; they were beginning 'to fear that old Morin's nerve had weakened at the eleventh hour, when they beheld a skiff approaching the shore. It glided closer, entered the shade of the bathhouse, ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... has roused the wave— Vain is all pilot's skill to save, And lo! a deep, black-throated grave Ingulfs the reeling skiff." Anon the flood less fiercely flows, The rifted cloud blue ether shows, The windy buffets cease; Poseidon chafes his heart no more, His voice constrains the billows' roar, And ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... in all the coasts of the land. They tell that she feared not to slumber alone, in the dead of night, In accursed places; beheld, unblenched, the ribbon of light {1i} Spin from temple to temple; guided the perilous skiff, Abhorred not the paths of the mountain and trod the verge of the cliff; From end to end of the island, thought not the distance long, But forth from king to king carried the tale of her wrong. To king after king, as they sat in ...
— Ballads • Robert Louis Stevenson |
