"Seaman" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... as the world is round. Blazing bar rooms in Callao—harbours over whose oily surfaces the sampans slipped like water-beetles—the lights of Macao—the docks of London. Scarcely ever a sea picture, pure and simple, for why should an old seaman care to think about the sea, where life is all into the fo'cs'le and out again, where one voyage blends and jumbles with another, where after forty-five years of reefing topsails you can't well remember off which ship it was Jack Rafferty fell overboard, ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... the Lord Protector Somerset at once tried to make England as Protestant as possible during the minority of Edward VI, who was not yet ten years old. This brought every English seaman under suspicion in every Spanish port, where the Holy Office of the Inquisition was a great deal more vigilant and businesslike than the Custom House or Harbor Master. Inquisitors had seized Englishmen in Henry's time. But Charles had stayed their hand. Now that the ruler of England was an open ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... night, but astern the crew of the lifeboat could observe the calcium lights burning. The boat's head was put in that direction, and in a short time the sailor was rescued and rowed back to the ship. Did this seaman accidentally fall from the rigging, or lose his grasp in any manner? No; it is the same old story. Drink was the cause of the accident. He had indulged himself in Madeira wine, which befooled him to such a degree that he deliberately ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... have been known to us at the time, nor thought of again by the friend who spoke about us, but back of his friendly utterance God was. In life we are not infrequently like a passenger on board ship, who chats to those about him, but pays no regard to the wheel, or to the seaman who controls it, still less to the officer who gives the man his instructions; and yet the turning of that wheel, in this direction or in that, involves safety, or wreck. God keeps control—unseen—over the lives of ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.
... boys and lubbers, sir. But I never met a full-grown seaman as denied that there. Sartainly few has seen it; but all of 'em has seen them as has seen it; ships, and land, too; but mostly ships. Hows'ever, I had a messmate once as was sailing past a rock they call Ailsa Craig, and saw a regiment of soldiers a-marching in the sky. Logged it, did the mate; ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... experienced seaman; and I never saw, before or since, more coolness, judgment, and seamanship, than were displayed by him on this trying occasion. In this perilous trial, the most intense anxiety was manifested by the crew, and then was heard the deep-toned voice of Captain ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... skipper, and I suppose you heard something of what was going on. In this case, as it happens, I'm indebted to his prejudices. He's one of the old type—a seaman first of all—and what we call bluff, and you call bounce, has only one effect upon men of his kind. It ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... The seaman's first movement, and not an unnatural one, considering he was at the Havannah and the day not yet broken, was to half draw his cutlass from its scabbard, but the next moment he let it drop back again. The appearance of the person who addressed him was, if not very prepossessing, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... a division commander, that of the other to the comparative independence of detached service, of the partisan officer. In the one, love of the military side of his calling predominated; the other was, before all, the seaman. The union of the ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... aw will not deceive you, thow the mistike his but netral. Awm wanne of the missionary's good works, lidy—is first cornvert, a umble British seaman—countrymen o yours, lidy, and of is lawdship's. This eah is Mr. Renkin, the bust worker in the wust cowst vawnyawd. (Introducing the judge) Mr. Renkin: is lawdship Sr Ahrd Ellam. (He withdraws discreetly into ...
— Captain Brassbound's Conversion • George Bernard Shaw
... all through his talk that the sense of superiority which his scholarship in this little-known language gave him above the ordinary seaman, had influenced his whole personality and been the ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... reckless expeditions alone or accompanied by the well-paid fisher lad. But they do not laugh at my recklessness, and at the club I notice that they regard the old gentleman with a certain amount of respect when he returns again from one of these sailing expeditions, which many a young seaman would refuse to undertake even for the sake of profit, and does not even brag or boast of it, but only slightly smiles at the exclamations of respectful amazement. Thus they honor physical courage, which is nothing more than ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... gone a little way among the trees, when, suddenly, one who was with us cried out that he could see something away on our right, and we clutched everyone his weapon the more determinedly, and went towards it. Yet it proved to be but a seaman's chest, and a space further off, we discovered another. And so, after a little walking, we found the camp; but there was small semblance of a camp about it; for the sail of which the tent had been formed, was all torn and stained, and lay muddy upon the ground. Yet the spring was all we had ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... low cunning—was to sit down naturally on the skylight-seat and then by bending forward I found that, as I expected, I could look down through the upper part of the end-pane. The worst that could happen to me then, if I remained too long in that position, was to be suspected by the seaman aft at the wheel of having gone to sleep there. For the rest my ears would give me sufficient warning of any ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... acts, great feelings, great perils, and the gushes that crowned all of holy triumph when the boats came in with the dripping and saved, and man for a moment looked greater than the sea and the wind and death, this seaman poured hot from his own manly heart into quick and womanly bosoms, that heaved visibly, and glowed with admiring sympathy, ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... colored man, except a regular articled seaman, is fined one hundred dollars for coming into the State; and if he cannot pay it, may be sold at public outcry. This act has been changed to one of increased severity. A free colored person cannot be a witness against a white man. They may therefore ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... cry of hidden birds take up the rule again. This did not often obtain. Mostly he watched out the night, sleeping little, talking none, but revolving in his mind the great deeds to do. By day he was master of the fleet, an admirable seaman who, knowing nothing of ships' business before he embarked, dared not confess so much to himself. Richard must be leader if he was to be undertaker at all. So he led his fleet from his first hour with it, and brought it safely ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... through the bar, and found (as I had hoped) Johnson in the enjoyment of club life. The table had been thrust upon one side; a South Sea merchant was discoursing music from a mouth-organ in one corner; and in the middle of the floor Johnson and a fellow-seaman, their arms clasped about each other's bodies, somewhat heavily danced. The room was both cold and close; a jet of gas, which continually menaced the heads of the performers, shed a coarse illumination; the mouth-organ sounded shrill and dismal; ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... repay the trouble, because of frost and an easterly land-wind, which kept the wreck from land for some time. But now the most of it has come in that is to come at this time, and it may be long to another time, as we must hope, for the seaman's sake, although I, for my part, have never been able to join with any particular devotion in prayers and supplications that we may be free from storms and foul weather; for our Lord has made the sea thus and not otherwise, so that there must ...
— Norse Tales and Sketches • Alexander Lange Kielland
... blew the most terrible hurricane that ever came out of the heavens; and yet all the morning, and indeed until late in the afternoon, there was a gentle and steady breeze from the southwest, while the sun shone brightly, so that the oldest seaman among us could not have foreseen what was ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... with the wind and sometimes against it,—but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor. There is one very sad thing in old friendships, to every mind that is really moving onward. It is this: that one cannot help using his early friends as the seaman uses the log, to mark his progress. Every now and then we throw an old schoolmate over the stern with a string of thought tied to him, and look—I am afraid with a kind of luxurious and sanctimonious compassion—to see ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... chief mate call him Mr. Rigs during the scene on the quarter-deck; as if this Mr. Rigs was a great merchant living in a marble house in Lafayette Place. But I was not very long in finding out, that at sea all officers are Misters, and would take it for an insult if any seaman presumed to omit calling them so. And it is also one of their rights and privileges to be called sir when addressed—Yes, sir; No, sir; Ay, ay, sir; and they are as particular about being sirred as so many knights and baronets; though their titles ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... the wants of their guests. Food and sleep were the things that were the most needed by all these new-comers, and these they had in abundance. Under the beneficial effects of these, they began to regain their strength. The seaman rallied first, as was most natural; and from these Claude learned ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille
... drew a deep groan from Spike, and the eye of every seaman in the boat was turned in melancholy on the object they were so fast leaving behind them. The yawl could not be said to be sailing very rapidly, considering the power of the wind, which was a little gale, for she was much too deep for that; but she left the wreck so ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... a couple of miles out at sea to the south-east of Sidmouth, and a lantern was seen waving in a strange manner to and fro and up and down. The nearer boats at once hurried towards the alarm. The venturesome occupants of the boat—a seaman, a curate, and two schoolboys—had actually seen the monsters passing under their boat. The creatures, it seems, like most deep-sea organisms, were phosphorescent, and they had been floating, five fathoms deep or so, like creatures of moonshine through ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... Duke of Paliano, the vice-admiral. Santa Cruz's place was not easy to fill. Philip chose to succeed him the Duke of Medina Sidonia, a nobleman totally ignorant of sea affairs, giving him for vice-admiral Martinez de Recaldo, a seaman of much experience. All this caused so much delay that the fleet did not sail ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... when some of us sprinkled their floors with a potent decoction poured from watering- pots. Most of them regarded it as a kind of magical rite into which it would not be seemly to inquire. In one house a practical seaman, late home from a cruise, took a less reverent view of the lustration, and uttered hints of what he would do to the perpetrators' heads if their acid touched his carpets again. Probably the best disinfectant applied was the clear strong wind, which ten days after ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine
... uses, and that perhaps was what Mr. Oldjunk meant; his early adventures as a young "luff" were, for economical reasons, worked up into their present literary shape, with the addition of a certain amount of extraneous matter—love-making, and the like. Indeed, so far from uselessness, that veteran seaman and rigid economist, the Earl of St. Vincent, when First Lord of the Admiralty, had given to a specific form of old junk—viz., "shakings"—the honors of a special order, for the preservation thereof, the which forms the staple of a comical anecdote in Basil ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... other material captured, it was plain that a Dutch merchant ship of considerable value had fallen into the pirates' hands. Some operations on shore speedily followed, from which the robbers suffered severely. One British seaman was ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... rushed forward, exclaiming, 'No, captain!' (for thus he called the fellow) 'he has been cruel to us, flogging here and flogging there, but before so brave a man is hanged like a dog, you heave me overboard.' Others among the most violent now interceded: and an old seaman, not saying a single word, came forward with his knife in his hand, and cut the noose asunder. Nichols did not thank him, nor notice him, nor speak: but, looking round at the other ships, in which there was the like insubordination, he went toward his cabin slow and silent. Finding it locked, ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... have asked me to write the story of Ken's Island, and in so far as my ability goes, that I will now do. A plain seaman by profession, one who has had no more education than a Kentish grammar school can give him, I, Jasper Begg, find it very hard to bring to other people's eyes the wonderful things I have seen or to make all this ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... in, and was greatly shocked and alarmed by Clarence's deathly appearance. As he returned to consciousness he looked wildly about him, and clasping little Birdie's hand in his, gazed at her with a tender imploring countenance: yet it was a despairing look—such a one as a shipwrecked seaman gives when, in sight of land, he slowly relaxes his hold upon the sustaining spar that he has no longer the strength to clutch, and sinks for ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... trade any more," said Captain Sam Hanks, as he sat down to supper with his mate, Jack Simmons, in the little cabin of his schooner, Maid of the North. "I won't get a seaman's wages out o' th' cruise, an' I'm sick o' workin' fer nothin'. Now there was a time before th' free traders done th' business t' death that a man could make good money on th' Labrador, but that time's past They pays so much fer th' fur ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... lieutenant stopped a moment, just long enough to say, "Boys, we're all captured!" and then ran into the pilot-house. As Frank stood talking to his men, and encouraging them with the famous words that never fail to nerve an American seaman—"Don't give up the ship!"—a rebel rode out on the bank, in full view of the steamer, ...
— Frank on the Lower Mississippi • Harry Castlemon
... strong steamboat, with a good cabin and convenient state-rooms, but dirty, and smelling of fish from stem to stern. It has seemed to me that the further north I went, the more dirt I found. Our captain was an old Aberdeen seaman, with a stoop in his shoulders, and looked as if he was continually watching for land, an occupation for which the foggy climate of these latitudes gives him full scope. We left Wick between eleven ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... be near land, for my dog smelt game. This occasioned a general laugh; but that did not alter in the least the good opinion I had of my dog. After much conversation pro and con, I boldly told the captain that I placed more confidence in Tray's nose than I did in the eyes of every seaman on board; and therefore boldly proposed laying the sum I had agreed to pay for my passage (viz., one hundred guineas) that we should find game within half an hour. The captain (a good hearty fellow) laughed again, desired Mr. Crawford, the surgeon, who was prepared, to feel my pulse. ...
— Stories to Read or Tell from Fairy Tales and Folklore • Laure Claire Foucher
... these melancholy forebodings Harrison Smith approached an old seaman with the offer of a "good evening" and a ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... that time so situated, as to lay me under apprehensions of an arrest, I cautiously surveyed the man through a lattice which was made for that purpose, before I would venture to come within his reach. He was clothed in a seaman's jacket and trousers, and had such an air of simplicity in his countenance, as divested me of all suspicion. I therefore, without further scruple, trusted myself in his presence, began to exercise the duty of my function, and had actually performed one half of the ceremony, when the ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... resting-place was Berlin, where we stayed two months; and here, according to our experience, the Sunday afternoon recreations differed only in tone from those of Hamburg, being less boisterous in their gaiety than in the former seaman's paradise. We never worked on Sunday in Berlin, nor did any of our artizan friends, although there were very pressing orders in the shape of those unvarying German court douceurs, diamond-circled snuff boxes, and insignia of the Red and Black Eagle. Once, we accompanied ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... With seaman's instinct, Mascola sensed rather than saw the Richard's change of course. If he tried to make the fog he would be cut in two. If he deviated a hair's breadth at that speed he'd turn turtle. There was only one ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... [60] 450 Reminding him of what had passed between them; And adding, with a hope to be forgiven, That it was from the weakness of his heart He had not dared to tell him who he was. This done, he went on shipboard, and is now 455 A Seaman, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... London—cultivating literature in the Temple; his praenomen, I bethink me, is Edmund. And I bethink me, too, that in the course of my peregrinations on this planet I have more than once heard the name of one Captain Richard Burke, a notable seaman, in the service of our great Company. I repeat, my young friend, your name is a good one; may you live ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... Marshall prayed large two hours, most divinely confessing the sins of the members of the assembly in a wonderful, pathetic, and prudent way. After Mr Arrowsmith preached an hour, then a psalm; thereafter Mr Vines prayed near two hours, and Mr Palmer preached an hour, and Mr. Seaman prayed near two hours, then a psalm; after Mr Henderson brought them to a sweet conference of the heat confessed in the assembly, and other seen faults to be remedied, and the conveniency to preach against all sects, especially anabaptists and antinomians. Dr ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... of Florence, Italy, and a pirate like many other sailors of that time. Being known as a daring seaman, he was asked by Francis I., King of France, to take command of a fleet of four vessels and try to find a western passage to rich Cathay. For Francis had become very jealous of the Spaniards, and felt that his country ought ...
— Discoverers and Explorers • Edward R. Shaw
... Columbia, I had a pleasant meeting with Lady Franklin, widow of Sir John Franklin, the Arctic explorer, who sailed in 1845 and was supposed to have perished in 1847. With a woman's devotion, after many years of absence, she was still in quest, hoping, from ship officer or seaman of her Majesty's service, some ray of light would yet penetrate the gloom which surrounded his "taking off" in that terra incognito of the North pole, whose attraction for the adventurer in search of scientific and geographical data in the mental world is akin ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... be easily supposed, while this Was going on, some people were unquiet, That passengers would find it much amiss To lose their lives, as well as spoil their diet; That even the able seaman, deeming his Days nearly o'er, might be disposed to riot, As upon such occasions tars will ask For grog, and sometimes drink ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... are more disposed to remember how it was lost than how it was recovered, religion and trade being the two poles, on such a point," returned the old seaman, with a serious face. "On the whole, my dear sir, I have reason to be satisfied, however; and so long as you, my passengers and my friends, are not inclined to blame me, I shall feel as if I had done at least a part ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... before that time Able Seaman James Nelson had sent his family into the country, mother begging Will to take good care of her dear boy till he could join them, and Kitty throwing kisses as she smiled good-by, with cheeks already the rosier for the comforts "brother" had earned for her. Jimmy would not desert his ship while ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... after this, and we arrived off the Dumaguete buoy the following afternoon. On sighting it, a boat was lowered, in which our "able cable seaman," as we called him, with his crew of native "buoy jumpers," set forth to fasten the cable attached there to a stout rope from the ship. Then the buoy was cut away and taken into the little boat, the cable being heaved aboard by means of the drum, where, after detaching the mushroom ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... the ships Gliding from cape to cape, from isle to isle, Or stemming toward far lands, or hastening home From the Old World. It is thy friendly breeze That bears them, with the riches of the land, And treasure of dear lives, till, in the port, The shouting seaman ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... African forest will obliterate the track left by the passage of an army. If any hold that men are not created so dense and unambitious as has just been represented, let him look nearer home in our own merchant service. The able-bodied seaman goes to sea all his life, but he never gets any nearer navigating the ship—and he a ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... snoring. It was curious, the judgment passed on Victor by his shipmates, drinkers themselves. They shook their heads disapprovingly and muttered: "A man like that oughtn't to drink." Now Victor was the smartest sailor and best-tempered shipmate in the forecastle. He was an all-round splendid type of seaman; his mates recognised his worth, and respected him and liked him. Yet John Barleycorn metamorphosed him into a violent lunatic. And that was the very point these drinkers made. They knew that drink—and drink with a sailor is always excessive—made ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... answer. A dead pause followed the reply. Peechy Prauw sank quietly back, like a man who had unwarily stolen upon the lair of a sleeping lion. The honest burghers cast fearful glances at the deep scar slashed across the visage of the stranger, and moved their chairs a little farther off. The seaman, however, smoked on without moving a muscle, as though he either did not perceive, or did not regard, the unfavorable effect he had ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... cost L70,000, the captain said, and was certainly extremely rapid and comfortable. In the early morning we saw the sardine boats coming in. They carry on the bow an apparatus with a number of jets connected with an acetylene plant, producing at night a most vivid light. The Bocchese is a born seaman, beginning at the age of twelve, and often going on till he is seventy. In the Bocche scarcely a third of the land is fruitful, yet 40,000 people lived in the district, mainly, of course, by the sea. From their childhood ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... enemy's fire did more than startle. At about 11 in the morning two six-inch shells hit the Hardinge near the southern entrance of the lake. The first damaged the funnel and the second burst inboard. Pilot Carew, a gallant old merchant seaman, refused to go below when the firing opened and lost a leg. Nine others were wounded. One or two merchantmen were hit, but no lives were lost. A British gunboat ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... church, and helped philanthropists of other denominations in their work. Father Taylor [the Methodist preacher to the sailors], to whom Dickens gave an English fame, found in him his most important supporter when establishing the Seaman's Mission in Boston. This was told me by Father Taylor himself in his old age. I happened to be in his company once, when he spoke rather sternly about my leaving the Methodist Church; but when I spoke of ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... the Herons before any newspaper report should reach them; and he therefore hurried the seaman up to Strathleckie after a hasty breakfast at the hotel. But at Strathleckie, disappointment awaited him. Everybody was out—except the baby and the servants. The whole party had gone to spend a long day at the house of a friend: they would not be ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... not seeing my captain on board, he began the common pranks with me; and swore he would even break open my chest and take my money. I therefore expected, as my captain was absent, that he would be as good as his word: and he was just proceeding to strike me, when fortunately a British seaman on board, whose heart had not been debauched by a West India climate, interposed and prevented him. But had the cruel man struck me I certainly should have defended myself at the hazard of my life; for what is life to a man thus ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... stately English steamers, beside which the little painted sampans seemed mere toys; past big clumsy rice barges, and trim gigs pulled by sturdy Western sailors. While threading her way through this maze of shipping as dexterously as any seaman, the girl found time to answer Frank's eager questions upon all that he saw, down to the staring eyes on the bow of her boat, which, as she explained, were meant to "help boatee see go straight, allee same man's eye." The mystery of her masculine name, which had puzzled ...
— Harper's Young People, June 1, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... was only in keeping with the spirit of the times that more attention should be paid to work from which practical and economic results were likely to accrue. The meteorologist had always in view the effect of Antarctic climate on the other southern continents, the geologist looked on ice from a seaman's point of view, and the biologist not unwillingly put whales in the forefront of his programme. The accounts which follow on these very practical points show how closely scientific work in the Antarctica is in touch with, and helps on the economic development ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... splendor Survive not the lamp and the lute, The heart's echoes render No song when the spirit is mute, No song but sad dirges, Like the wind through a ruined cell, Or the mournful surges That ring the dead seaman's knell." ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... The widow of Arellanos had told him all she knew of his early history—of the gigantic sailor who had nursed him; but it never occurred to Tiburcio that the great trapper by his side, a coureur de bois of the American wilderness—could ever have been a seaman—much less that one of whom he had heard and read, and who was believed to have been his father. The strange interest which the trapper had exhibited and the questions he had asked were attributed by him to mere ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... six and a half feet high, with a long, lean head and staring cheek bones. His brows grew like bushes, and beneath glowed his evil and sunken eyes. I remember that he had monstrous long arms, which hung almost to his knees, and a great hairy breast which showed through a rent in his seaman's jerkin. In that strange place, with the dripping spell of night about me, and the fire casting weird lights and shadows, he seemed like some devil of the hills awakened by magic from ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... nature is the sea's, that smiles to-night A radiant maiden in the moon's soft light; The unsuspecting seaman sets his sails, Forgetful of the fury of her gales; To-morrow, mad with storms, the ocean roars, And o'er his hapless wreck ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... an experienced seaman having crossed the Atlantic 132 times—very attentive to the ...
— A Journey to America in 1834 • Robert Heywood
... there with his father, and was familiar with the locality. He knew just where to moor his boat to have good luck in fishing; and was acquainted with all the channels, currents, and bars in the bay. He was not only a skilful seaman, but a good pilot, and felt as much at home on the bay as in ...
— Little By Little - or, The Cruise of the Flyaway • William Taylor Adams
... got a man to build this boat to suit my ideas," went on the old seaman. "It's equipped for salt water, if so be you should ever want to ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Rainbow Lake • Laura Lee Hope
... James Starke, Christopher, Jr. Slone, Sam. Salsbury, Sarah Salmon, Hannah Storker, Seth Seamen, Stephen Stedwell, James Stedwell, Gilbert Salmon, John Sweet, Benedic Sabin, Jeremiah, blacksmith Seaman, Moses Stone, Eathael Starke, Aaron Shed, Martha Sabin, Jeremiah, Senr. Shapparoon, Peter Stone, Ebenezer Thomas, John Thomas, Benj. Thomas, Abraham Thomas, Lewis Tripp, John Tripp, Experience Tallcott, Gaius Tripp, ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson
... English ambassador made complaints of this invasion, he was answered by like complaints of the piracies committed by Francis Drake, a bold seaman, who had assaulted the Spaniards in the place where they deemed themselves most secure—in the new world. This man, sprung from mean parents in the county of Devon, having acquired considerable riches by depredations ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... to go first, but as King refused he led the way again, going through the square hole overhead as handily as any seaman swinging himself into the cross-trees. King followed him and I stood on the top step with head and shoulders through the opening surveying the prospect before scrambling ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... descends, And the brains of men thenceforth, In crowded and in still resorts, Teem with unwonted thoughts: As, when a shower of meteors Cross the orbit of the earth, And, lit by fringent air, Blaze near and far, Mortals deem the planets bright Have slipped their sacred bars, And the lone seaman all the night ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... owned by a Chinaman) had been boarded while she lay in the river, and her crew carried off by a party from a Chinese warship in search of a pirate, who they had reason to think was then serving as a seaman on board The Arrow. Sir John Bowring, Plenipotentiary at Hong-Kong, demanded that the men should be instantly sent back. It was true that The Arrow had at the time of the seizure no right to fly the British flag, for her licence to trade under British colours had expired ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... the same with Gemma Frisius' universal map, with his round quartered card, with his globe, with Sebastian Cabot's table, and Ortellius' general map alone, worthily preferred in this case before all Mercator's and Ortellius' other doings: for that Cabot was not only a skilful seaman, but a long traveller, and such a one as entered personally that strait, sent by King Henry VII. to make this aforesaid discovery, as in his own discourse of navigation you may read in his card drawn ...
— Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage • Richard Hakluyt
... later, he was sitting at home working. In the meantime he had been obliged to undertake casual jobs for sailors in the harbor, and now he was soling a pair of sea-boots for a seaman on board a collier. On the other side of the bench sat little Lasse, chattering and aping his movements, and every time Pelle drove a peg home the youngster knocked his rattle against the edge of the table, ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... father's will. Disguised as a man, she follows him to "the wars of Germany," finds him wounded on the battle-field, and nurses him back to health; then they are married. (Cf. Child, 1857 ed., iv, p. 328. The Merchant's Daughter of Bristow, 4abab, 65: Maudlin disguised as a seaman follows her lover to Padua; they are married, and ...
— A Syllabus of Kentucky Folk-Songs • Hubert G. Shearin
... to whom I gave over charge was as fine a specimen of a seaman as well can be imagined, plucky, cool, and determined, and by the way he was a bit of a medico, as well as a sailor; for by his beneficial treatment of his patients we had very few complaints of sickness on board. As our small dispensary was close to my cabin, I used to ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... farmer, but it needed only a glance at the keen grey eyes peering from beneath bushy eyebrows, the determined set of a square lower jaw, to note a man of action, accustomed to command. A quick, alert turn of the head, the lift of shoulders as he walked—arms swinging in seaman-like balance—and the trick of pausing at a windward turn to glance at the weather sky, marked the sailing shipmaster—the man to whom thought and action must be ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... ship were tempest toss'd,— Its rudder gone,—its pilot lost; And no kind ray of light were giv'n, To cheer them, from the vault of heav'n, Save the vivid lightning's flash,— Pealing the deep ton'd thunder crash, Glancing upon the tow'ring wave, Above the seaman's yawning grave;— Glaring into that dark abyss, Where hideous monsters dart and hiss, And ship wreck'd seamen, far from home. Toss amid the briny foam; Till the proud wave, with one stern sweep, Buries ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... not send out their merchant ships for fear of capture. Nor was this all, for the ruin of the commerce of France led the shipowners of St. Malo to fit out many of their ships as privateers and corsairs, and the ruin of her navy sent many a fine seaman aboard them. Skippers of English traders who straggled from their convoy, or sailed ahead of it in order to be first in the market, were often punished for their obstinacy or greediness by these fast-sailing privateers.[1] In ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... under the same conditions, of moving against both Cienfuegos and Havana by the measure of a blockade—were simply special applications of general principles of warfare, universally true, to particular instances in this campaign. They address themselves, it may be said, chiefly to the soldier or seaman, as illustrating his especial business of directing war; and while their value to the civilian cannot be denied,—for whatever really enlightens public opinion in a country like ours facilitates military operations,—nevertheless the function of coast defence, ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... away Scandinavians. These bold sailors planted their settlements even in Greenland nearly two centuries before the Eskimo. England received the numerically dominant element of its population from across the wide expanse of the North Sea, from the bare but seaman-breeding coasts of Germany, Denmark and Norway, rather than from the nearer shores of Gaul. So the Madeira and Cape Verde Isles had to wait for the coming of the nautical Portuguese to supply them ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... will have de breeze," replied Jansen, who was a Dutch seaman of huge proportions, rendered still more preposterous by the multiplicity ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Edward Hallett, in the dead calm of an existence agitated by neither hope nor fear. The calm was broken one evening by the sight of a seaman, drawing water from the spring which had brought his former companions to the island. As he came in sight, the man turned his head, and stood for an instant spell-bound by the unexpected vision of a human ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... answered. As the boat was slowly rubbing by the side of the ship (for Harry was right in his conjecture), he found a rope hanging overboard. With the activity of a seaman he secured the end round the fore-thwart of the boat, while David hauled down the sail—not that that was of any consequence, as the wind had fallen almost to a calm. Again Harry, joined by David, shouted loudly, but ...
— Adrift in a Boat • W.H.G. Kingston
... war-ships that seemed to stand as sentinels to the bay. And then, before the cheers of thousands of friends were hardly out of the ears of those on board, a tragedy happened. Among the ship's company who had crowded into the rigging to wave their farewells was one young seaman, named Charles Bonner, who, [Page 39] more venturesome than the rest, had climbed above the crow's-nest to the top of the main-mast. There, seated on the truck, he had remained cheering, until in a moment of madness he raised himself into a standing ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... the shore, in obedience to the command the sailor had brought, and, with Haydee and the seaman, the count got on board, and ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... not far from where Captain Smith stood on the bridge, giving full orders to his men," said Mellers. "The brave old seaman was crying, but he had stuck heroically to the last. He did not shoot himself. He jumped from the bridge when he had done all he could. I heard his final instructions to his crew, and recall that his last ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... apparent in their outward Behaviour, and some of the most indifferent Actions of their Lives. It is this Air diffusing itself over the whole Man, which helps us to find out a Person at his first Appearance; so that the most careless Observer fancies he can scarce be mistaken in the Carriage of a Seaman or the Gaite ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... descent, he felt as if the better part of him, his firmness of mind and strength of body, had been rent away with the descending rock, as it fell thundering, with clouds of dust and smoke, into the torrents and whirlpools of the vexed gulf beneath. In fact, the seaman swept from the deck of a wrecked vessel, drenched in the waves, and battered against the rocks on the shore, does not differ more from the same mariner, when, at the commencement of the gale, he stood upon the deck of his favourite ship, proud of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 371, May 23, 1829 • Various
... earth and on the sky that makes earth fertile; and man's last act will be, as it was his first, to till the soil. All empires, cities, tumults, civil and religious wars, are transitory in comparison. The slow toil of the farm-laborer, the endurance of the seaman, outlast them all. ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... delight that you can only have on a fore-and-after when there's nothing really serious the matter. Of course, I don't mean to say that the old man couldn't have steered his trick as well as you or I or any other seaman; but I don't believe he had ever been on board the Helen B. before, or had his hand on her wheel till then; and he didn't know her ways. I don't mean to say that what happened was his fault. I don't know whose fault it was. Perhaps nobody ...
— Man Overboard! • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... covered with cocoa-nut and pandanus trees, but not a patch of grass was seen. The character of these islanders is of the most savage kind; their ferocity led to the belief that they are cannibals; one seaman of the expedition was carried off, and all attempts to rescue him were unavailing. Clad in coats of mail, and helmets made of the skin of a horny kind of fish, with weapons of the most frightful character, formed from ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... presence of a man whom I at once knew to be some great captain. He was of middle height, with a high forehead, crisp brown hair, very steady gray eyes, and a hard, fierce mouth, slightly covered by a beard and moustache. He wore a loose, dark, seaman's shirt, belted at the waist, and about his neck was a plaited cord, having attached to it a ring, with which his fingers played as he spoke to me. On his head was a scarlet cap with a gold band, even as the man in ...
— In the Days of Drake • J. S. Fletcher
... his character, and to depict his inevitable and utter breakdown finally; yet at the same time to bring out his dauntless courage, his military ability, his fertility and resourcefulness, his mastery of his men, his capacity as a seaman, which are qualities worthy of admiration. Yet I have not intended to make him an admirable figure. To do that would be to falsify history and disregard the artistic canyons. So I have tried to show him as he was; great and brave, small and mean, skilful ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... whom they rested. I don't know what I answered, or what they rejoined; but I saw hurry on the beach, and men running with ropes from a capstan that was there, and penetrating into a circle of figures that hid him from me. Then, I saw him standing alone, in a seaman's frock and trousers: a rope in his hand, or slung to his wrist: another round his body: and several of the best men holding, at a little distance, to the latter, which he laid out himself, slack upon the shore, ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... Seas with blood, piles his decks with plunder; approves himself the expertest Seaman, the daringest Seafighter: but he gains no lasting victory, lasting victory is not possible for him. Not, had he fleets larger than the combined British Navy all united with him in bucaniering. He, once for all, cannot prosper in his duel. ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... the boats, and carried down not a few of those who were standing on the deck with us. The last I saw of the first officer was a writhing form whirled about in the water; before he sank, he shouted aloud, with a seaman's frank courage, "Say it was all my fault; I accept the responsibility. I ran her too close. I am the only one to blame for it." Then he disappeared in the whirlpool caused by the sinking ship, and ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... chance, to attempt to force her over the reef. She was headed for what looked like a little breakwater on our port bow. As the ballast went overboard we watched the bottom anxiously; the water shoaled rapidly, and the grating of the keel over the coral, with that peculiar tremor most unpleasant to a seaman under any circumstances, told us our danger. As the last of the ballast went overboard she forged ahead, and then brought up. Together we went overboard, and sank to our waists in the black, pasty mud, through which at intervals branches of rotten coral projected, which only served to make the ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... hundreds of Caracalla's victims lay scattered separately over the open square as far as the entrance to the street of Hermes. Here lay an old man with a thick beard, probably a Syrian or a Jew; there, his dress betraying him, a seaman; and farther on-no, she could not be mistaken—the youthful corpse that lay so motionless just beneath the window was that of Myrtilos, a friend of Philip, and, like him, a ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... town house as well,—the old Jay place, on the lower end of Broadway, but it was at the Manse that he loved best to stay, and the Manse which was and always remained his real and beloved home. In 1744 his seaman's restlessness again won over his domestic tranquillity and he was off once more in search of fresh adventures and dangers. Says the Weekly Post Boy, of August 27th, in ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... detailed two of his company to bring the find back to this port, a distance of one hundred and fifteen miles. The only man available with a knowledge of the fore-and-aft rig was Stewart McCord, the second engineer. A seaman by the name of Bjoernsen was sent with him. McCord arrived this noon, after a very heavy voyage of five days, reporting that Bjoernsen had fallen overboard while shaking out the foretopsail. McCord himself showed evidences of the hardships he has passed through, being ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... ye make more mischief than work,' said the old seaman, who had been looking from one to the other of the young men, as if they were performing a comedy for his ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge |
