"Taffrail" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Bloody Bill, as the men invariably called him, was standing at the tiller; but his post for the present was a sinecure, and he whiled away the time by alternately gazing in dreamy abstraction at the compass in the binnacle, and by walking to the taffrail in order to spit into the sea. In one of these turns he came near to where I was standing, and, leaning over the side, looked long and earnestly down ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... the phosphorescent light in the water at night especially so. The wake of the ship was luminous for a long distance, and the crests of the waves shone all around us. Once I was leaning over the taffrail late in the evening, when a shoal of fish passed. There were thousands of them, and each one was a living, moving centre of light. Bottle-nosed whales gambolled around us when we were within a few hundred miles of Labrador, and later on "schools" of porpoises occasionally visited us. ...
— With the Harmony to Labrador - Notes Of A Visit To The Moravian Mission Stations On The North-East - Coast Of Labrador • Benjamin La Trobe
... Hansen—we had thought him asleep—"course there is! That's what ye came here for, isn't it? This is when th' hero stands on th' weather taffrail, graspin' th' tautened backst'y an' hurlin' defiance at th' mighty elements—'Nick Carter,' ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... you have a fine felicity before you: it should be all the better, because you have won it laboriously. For heaven's sake, be reasonable!' He shook his head sadly; then added, with a gesture of sudden passion, looking out over the taffrail, at the heaving gray waters: 'It's finished. I haven't any longer the courage.' 'Ah!' I exclaimed impatiently, 'say once for all, outright, that you are tired of her, that you want to back out of it.' 'No,' he said drearily, 'it isn't that. I can't reproach ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... the middle of July the Gaika with Ogilvie on board entered the Brisbane River. He had risen early, as was his custom, and was now standing on deck. The lascars were still busy washing the deck. He went past them, and leaning over the taffrail watched the banks of low-lying mangroves which grew on either side of the river. The sun had just risen, and transformed the scene. Ogilvie raised his hat, and pushed the hair from his brow. His ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... after the unknown member of the crew, when the other made that flying leap over the side of the boat. Not that he wanted to take a bath just then, but his forward progress had been rapid, and he only saved himself by banging up against the taffrail, which was unusually high for so small a vessel, and holding ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... excuse, rushed to the other side of the vessel, leaned over the taffrail, as if he would fly ashore, and stretched out his hands to his beloved Rosa; and she stretched out her hands to him. They were so near, he could read the expression of her face. It was wild and troubled, as one who did not yet realize ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... the lieutenant; "except that she should be Chilian from her colours. I can't see a soul aboard of her. Ah, yonder! Something shows over the taffrail! Looks like a man's head! It's ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... rattling into the stern, and was pointed out over the taffrail. The big rifle followed it. To the approaching boat their muzzles must have looked a trifle grim, I fancy. Matches and splints were got ready, as well as wads and balls. The muskets were charged, and the bayonets fixed. The schooner was kept moving gradually along at about the same distance from ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... tumbling swell threatened to poop us; the long-boat, which was at this time moored astern, was on a sudden canted so high that it broke the transom of the Commodore's gallery, and would doubtless have risen as high as the taffrail had it not been for this stroke which stove the boat all to pieces; but the poor boat-keeper, though extremely bruised, was saved almost by miracle. About eight the tide slackened, but the wind did not abate; so that at eleven the best bower cable, by which alone we rode, parted. Our ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... the poop, we found the men removing a portion of the superstructure over the stern, and after that they took some of the stronger reeds, and proceeded to work at the weed that stretched away in a line with our taffrail. Yet that they anticipated danger, I perceived; for there stood by them two of the men and the second mate, all armed with muskets, and these three kept a very strict watch upon the weed, knowing, through much experience of its terrors, how that there might be a need for ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... this remark was addressed to Bacri, who stood, leaning over the taffrail, looking anxiously at the vessel ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... leaned upon the taffrail watching the distant coast line of my beloved France, whose soil meseemed I was not like to tread again for years, Yvonne came ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... damned for a gallows-thief by you and better than you, We hold it meet that the English fleet should know that we hold him true." The skipper called to the tall taffrail:—"And what is that to me? Did ever you hear of a Yankee brig that rifled a Seventy-three? Do I loom so large from your quarter-deck that I lift like a ship o' the Line? He has learned to run from a shotted gun and ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... of the vessel, Allan walked straight to the stern, and looked out to sea over the taffrail. No such thing as a boat was in view anywhere on the quiet, moon-brightened waters. Knowing Midwinter's sight to be better than his own, he called out, "Come up here, and see if there's a fisherman within ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... one, but the Irish girl did not suffer from seasickness. She stood leaning over the taffrail chatting to the captain, who thought her one of the most charming passengers he ever had to cross in the Munster; and when they arrived at the opposite side, Mr. Hartrick was waiting for his niece. He often said since that he would never forget his first ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... airs of a king's grand chamberlain. Their seamanship you may guess. All of them spent the better part of the first weeks at sea full length below deck. Of a calm day they lolled disconsolate over the taffrail, with one eye alert for flight down the companionway when the ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... Home, with its smiling board, its cheering fire, The half-choked welcome of the expecting sire, The mother's kiss, and, still if aught remain, Our whispering hearts shall aid the silent strain. Ah, let the dreamer o'er the taffrail lean To muse unheeded, and to weep unseen; Fear not the tropic's dews, the evening's chills, His heart lies warm ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... brought the passengers on deck like bees from a hive, and the two broad promenades resembled, in color and life, the streets of a city. The watch was busy at the inevitable scrubbing, and Rowland, with a swab and bucket, was cleaning the white paint on the starboard taffrail, screened from view by the after deck-house, which shut off a narrow space at the stern. A little girl ran into the inclosure, laughing and screaming, and clung to his legs, while she jumped up and down in an overflow ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... directly above the scene of the explosion. All hands felt the jar; the watch below frantically sprang on deck under the impression that they had collided with another vessel; and the skipper, who happened to be standing near the taffrail, was horrified beyond expression to see an immense cone of water some thirty feet high rise out of the sea just astern of his vessel, to fall next moment with a deafening splash and an accompanying surge which tossed the little vessel as ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... now and then. She was a little schooner of ninety tons or so, and for most of a week she scudded with the grey seas tumbling after her, white-topped, out of the snow and spume. They ranged high above her taffrail curling horribly, but one did not want to look at them. The one man on deck had a line about him, and he looked ahead, watching her screwing round with hove-up bows as she climbed the seas. If he'd let her fall off or claw up, the next one would ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... object was to draw water and extinguish the flames, which were spreading over the vessel; as soon as that was accomplished, our hero went aft to the taffrail, and looked for the cutter which had been sunk. "Gascoigne, jump into the boat with four men—I see the cutter floats a quarter of a mile astern: there may be someone alive yet. I think now I see ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... counter boarded in, and now gazing hopelessly through her cabin windows upon the busy street before her. But still a ship despite her transformation. The faintest line of contour yet left visible spoke of the buoyancy of another element; the balustrade of her roof was unmistakably a taffrail. The rain slipped from her swelling sides with a certain lingering touch of the sea; the soil around her was still treacherous with its suggestions, and even the wind whistled nautically over her chimney. If, in the fury of some ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... that his price is fair, And we know that he weeps for the lack of a Law as he rides off Finisterre. And since he is damned for a gallows-thief by you and better than you, We hold it meet that the English fleet should know that we hold him true." The skipper called to the tall taffrail: — "And what is that to me? Did ever you hear of a Yankee brig that rifled a Seventy-three? Do I loom so large from your quarter-deck that I lift like a ship o' the Line? He has learned to run from a shotted gun and harry such craft as mine. ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... no question on the part of any of the three of Undine's returning with them; and after she had conveyed them to their steamer, and seen their vaguely relieved faces merged in the handkerchief-waving throng along the taffrail, she had returned alone to Paris and made her unsuccessful attempt to enlist the aid of ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton |
