"Oar" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Horan, pointing to a stalwart bluejacket who had just dropped at his oar as the boat pushed off the beach. 'It's murder! That's what it is. Sheer murder! Why the blazes can't the ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... slip noiselessly into the water. It was not unlike the mink in form, but several times larger. It swam with a swift movement of its forefeet, while its hind legs, stretched out behind with the tail, twisted powerfully, like a big sculling oar. Its method, indeed, combined the advantages of that of the quadruped and that of the fish. The trout saw at once that here was a foe to be dreaded, and he lay quite still against a stone, trusting to escape the ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... pointed out by his chum. Both saw a small rowboat sweep out from under some brushwood. In it stood the wild man, using an oar as a ...
— Dave Porter and the Runaways - Last Days at Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... put your oar in! I've had wonderful patience so far. [He puts his boot through a drawing] Art! This is what comes of it! ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... tangled dew, 'Tis not the silver-fretted sand, It is my own dear Lady true With golden hair and lily hand! O noble pilot, steer for Troy, Good sailor, ply the labouring oar, This is the Queen of life and joy Whom we ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde
... coal coast coarse float foam goat gloam groan hoarse load loan loaf oak oar oats roast road roam shoal soap soar ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... these the various changes produced in the forms of mankind by their early modes of exertion, or by the diseases occasioned by their habits of life, both of which become hereditary, and that through many generations. Those who labour at the anvil, the oar, or the loom, as well as those who carry sedan chairs or who have been educated to dance upon the rope, are distinguishable by the shape of their limbs; and the diseases occasioned by intoxication deform the countenance with leprous eruptions, or the body with tumid viscera, ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... objective program music were always so true to life and to the real nature of music! It is in free three-part form, the first part of a calm nature in which we are rocked on gently undulating waves; a more rhythmic second part where, as Kullak says, the bass seems to suggest the monotonous steadiness of oar-strokes; an interlude, marked "dolce sfogato," introduced by some delightful modulations, as if in a quiet nook the poet were dreaming of the beauties of love and nature; an impassioned return to the chief subject, together with a partial presentation of ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... imprudence. To this class may be reduced the Grecian Prodigals, who were detained in the service of their creditors, till the fruits of their labour were equivalent to their debts; the delinquents, who were sentenced to the oar; and the German enthusiasts, as mentioned by Tacitus, who were so immoderately charmed with gaming, as, when every thing else was gone, to have staked their liberty and their very selves. "The loser," says he, "goes into a voluntary servitude, ...
— An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African • Thomas Clarkson
... were unlike anything to which we are accustomed. They began with a formal betrothal. In a log hut sat the bride's family, the mother spinning at one of the wooden erections so closely resembling an oar. The father and his friends were meantime gathered round a table drinking small beer (Kalja) from large wooden pots, or rather buckets, called haarikka. Each man helped himself out of the haarikka by dipping into that vessel the usual ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... piece of driftwood to the raft as a steering oar, found two other such pieces to serve as unattached oars, and helped Nicko finish with loading the supplies. "All ...
— Before Egypt • E. K. Jarvis
... sprang into his boat and in a rage commanded the boatman to pursue the insolent servant of the usurer. But he of the sheepskin wig threw down the cane, took an oar himself, and his men helped him so well ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... of grey Fingon, whose offspring has given Such heroes to earth and such martyrs to heaven, Unite with the race of renown'd Rorri More, To launch the long galley and stretch to the oar. ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... returned Dickie noticed he carried a heavy oar which he had fashioned into a rude crutch, a number of small strips of wood and a ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... that I don't even get time to enjoy my meals," grumbled Jimmy, one sunny spring afternoon. "Swinging an oar a la Ben Hur would be just a little restful exercise after the way we've ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... are generally attached by strings of silk. Impressions of this seal are also made in ink direct upon the substance on which the brief is written." Mr. Edwards calls attention to the classic form of the boat and oar, showing direct derivation from an antique original. The seal is also made in the fashion of a Roman signet. A new one is made for every pope, and Mr. Edwards thus narrates the ceremonies connected therewith:—"When a pope dies, the Cardinal Chamberlain, ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... on the sponging ground for nearly a week before the water was clear enough for work. Dick spent most of his time sculling his dingy and soon learned to throw his weight on the big sculling oar to the best advantage without going overboard very often. One day while Pedro sat in the bow, they saw a 400-pound loggerhead turtle lying asleep on the water. Pedro motioned to Dick to scull up to the turtle and when the dingy was within three feet of the creature he jumped on its ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... separately good, but becomes so through fulfillment of relations. Each thing or person is surrounded by many others. To them it must fit itself. Being but a part, its goodness is found in serving that whole with which it is connected. That is a good oar which suits well the hands of the rower, the row-lock of the boat, and the resisting water. The white fur of the polar bear, the tawny hide of the lion, the camel's hump, giraffe's neck, and the light feet of the antelope, are all alike good because ...
— The Nature of Goodness • George Herbert Palmer
... without saying a word.... You have been so beset with people all the afternoon that I never got a chance to put my oar in. Dear Reverend Mother, everything has gone off so well. No clergyman will ever preach again about Providence spreading a table in the wilderness without my coming back in memory to to-day. May we walk ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... letting fly an oar at him, the yoke and rudder quickly following. His vengeance was let loose, and he poured forth a stream of quarter-deck language at the top of his voice. His phrases were dazzling in ingenuity, and amid much laughter and applause he urged his hearers to keep at a ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... Other circumstances reconciled me in some measure to the confinement. The allowance for copy-money furnished a little fund for the menus plaisirs of the circulating library and the theatre; and this was no trifling incentive to labor. When actually at the oar, no man could pull it harder than I, and I remember writing upwards of 120 folio pages with no interval either for food or rest. Again, the hours of attendance on the office were lightened by the power ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... moment one of the men raised an oar, which was blown round by a sudden blast, and its end struck another of the crew on the temple, rendering him almost insensible. He had to be put out at once, and another volunteer was called for. Like a flash of light, ...
— The Thorogood Family • R.M. Ballantyne
... shall tumble into the sea, but the horse will fall down by thy side, and thou shalt bury him in the place from which thou tookest the bow and arrows. This being done the sea will rise and cover the mountain, and on it thou wilt perceive the figure of a metal man seated in a boat, having an oar in each hand. Step on board and let him conduct thee; but if thou wouldest behold thy kingdom again, see that thou takest not the name ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... Provost Marshal and his Officers, etc. with Two Ministers,[3] who took great pains to prepare them for the last Article of their Lives. Being allowed to walk on Foot through the Town, to Scarlets Wharff,[4] where, the Silver Oar being carried before them, they went by Water to the place of Execution, being Crowded and thronged on all sides with Multitudes of Spectators. The Ministers then Spoke to the Malefactors, ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... passed small native boats, some of them with sails and loaded with goods, most of them rowed by one or more oars. It was to be noticed that when there was only one oar it was being worked vigorously by a woman, while a man sat comfortably in the stern and steered. These people were evidently going from the crowded villages in which they lived to work ...
— Wanderings in the Orient • Albert M. Reese
... preferring any fate to a fiery death on the "Bear," and these had to be dealt with promptly. Three, with their fighting fury still red-hot in them, had most wastefully to be killed out of mischief's way; five, who had pitched their weapons into the sea, were chained to oar looms, in place of slaves who were dead; and there remained only Dason to have a ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... afterward, its whole duty done. On board, men were moving about, hanging lanterns, making taut here, setting free there, all with an air of utter peace and repose such as is found only on placid waterways beneath a setting sun. Occasionally an oar dipped in the still water, a hint of action, modified, softened into repose. Along one of the quaint streets of the irregular town, winding where it would, climbing where it climbed, hurried an angular figure,—that of a woman of about fifty ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... which must have been quite near us. He had often rowed a boat on dangerous rivers and on the sea; had been nearly lost one dark night in a high spring-tide on the sandbanks of the River Mersey; had been washed out to sea through the failure of an oar at Barmouth; had narrowly escaped being swamped with his boat off the East Coast; and a few years before had a hair-breadth escape from drowning by being drawn under the wooden framework protecting the piles for a future ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... you from disembarking." As we did not seem inclined to obey his order, our Spaniard, who was the constructing engineer of the ships of the Dey, armed himself with a pole, and commenced battering us with blows. But immediately a Genoese seaman, mounted on a neighbouring vessel, armed himself with an oar, and struck our assailant both with edge and point. During this animated combat we managed to land without any opposition. We had conceived a singular idea of the manner in which the police act on the ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... London merchants armed their ships in the river. From the seaports everywhere came armed brigantines and sloops. The fishermen of the West left their boats and nets to their wives, and the fishing was none the worse, for the women handled oar and sail and line and went to the whiting-grounds, while their husbands had gone to fight for their King. Genius kindled into discovery at the call of the country. Mr. Fletcher of Rye (be his name remembered) invented a boat the like of which was never seen before, which would work to windward, ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude
... Lopez de Sossa was captain. In Malaca, more of the mestizos of Yndia, sons of Portuguese, were shipped, to the number of three hundred men. These with the mestizos brought from Yndia, made somewhere about five hundred men in the said galleon. A galley of twenty-four benches accompanied it, each oar being manned with three men. They carried lead. The galley was old and was given to them in Malaca by the captain of Malaca, named Arias de Saldeva, who is captain of the fortress. The captain of the sea ...
— The Philippine Islands 1493-1898, Vol. 4 of 55 - 1576-1582 • Edited by E. H. Blair and J. A. Robertson
... understands nor knows again, when they are spoken by others. For those who say that the sense is truly informed and moulded when there is presented one image round and another broken, but nevertheless permit us not to pronounce that the tower is round and the oar broken, confirm their own sensations and imaginations, but they will not acknowledge and confess that the things without are so affected. But as the Cyrenaics must say that they are imprinted with the figure of a horse or of a wall, but refuse to speak of the horse or the wall; so also ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... over the sun, the mushy-ice comes bubblin' up an' up till from bank to bank an' bind to bind it's drapin' the river like a first snowfall?' 'Unh, hunh! more'n once when I took a doze at the steering-oar. But it allus come out the nighest side-channel, an' not bubblin' up an' up.' 'But with niver a wink at ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... while the blaze of innumerable lights, which flash and glitter through the leafy skreen of the casement-covered hill, reminds me of the fabled splendours of Aladdin's cave. An almost perfect silence prevails, interrupted only at intervals by the faint splash of some distant oar, or the notes of thousands of nightingales, which swarm in every rose-garden and orange grove, pouring forth "their amorous descant through the ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... ordered a boat to be lowered, to carry me on board the Harmony, letting Dick accompany me. Dick, who pulled the stroke-oar, gave way with a will, for he felt as eager as I was about the matter. We were soon alongside, and without waiting for the mate, who commanded the boat, I scrambled on board, followed by Dick. There, to my great delight, I saw Mr Falconer. He did not recognise me, as ...
— Charley Laurel - A Story of Adventure by Sea and Land • W. H. G. Kingston
... justice to his dinner, and takes no part in the conversation, which is chiefly carried on by Mr Rimbolt, sometimes with his wife, sometimes with Raby. At length, however, the first cravings of appetite being subdued, he shows a readiness to put in his oar. ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... his comrade, 'It was a lucky day when we first put an oar in the lake for them, heretics ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... and promised. He was rowing along with the easy grace of one used to the oar. He had been born and brought up in sound of the gulf's waves; its never-ceasing murmur had been his first lullaby. He knew it and loved it in every mood, in every varying tint and smile, in every change of wind and tide. There was no better skipper ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... oar, by gurgling steam, Shall waft thee down the wood-brow'd stream, And the red channel's broadening gleam Dilate thy gaze, And thou shalt conjure up a theme For ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... finery, the foreign loungers, and even the unfailing beggar by the portal of St. Mark's. In his "Miracle of the True Cross," he introduces gondoliers, taking care to bring out all the beauty of their lithe, comely figures as they stand to ply the oar, and does not reject even such an episode as a serving-maid standing in a doorway watching a negro who is about to plunge into the canal. He treats this bit of the picture with all the charm and much of that delicate feeling for simple effects ...
— The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance - Third Edition • Bernhard Berenson
... kept supreme And separate the prerogative of God!) That seaman idle who is borne abroad To the far haven by the favouring stream. Not he alone that to contrarious seas Opposes, all night long, the unwearied oar, Not he alone, by high success endeared, Shall reach the Port; but, winged, with some light breeze Shall they, with upright keels, pass in before Whom easy Taste, the ...
— New Poems • Robert Louis Stevenson
... curving of the rays of light caused by their entering the earth's atmosphere, which is a denser medium than the very light ether of the outer sky. The effect of refraction is seen when an oar is thrust into the water and looks as if it were bent. Refraction always causes a celestial object to appear higher than it really is. This refraction is greatest at the horizon and diminishes toward ...
— Lectures in Navigation • Ernest Gallaudet Draper
... backs and pulling their hardest till the stout ash blades nearly doubled in two with the strain, while the big, rolling sea raced after us, trying to catch us up; when, all of a sudden, the man holding the stroke oar on the after thwart uttered an exclamation which made the ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... careless disposition, and to following without regularity the impulse of the moment. When the weather was calm, I frequently went immediately after I rose from dinner, and alone got into the boat. The receiver had taught me to row with one oar; I rowed out into the middle of the lake. The moment I withdrew from the bank, I felt a secret joy which almost made me leap, and of which it is impossible for me to tell or even comprehend the cause, if it were not ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... stream; at another, the tide bears him onward as a boat is borne by the rapids, towards a thing he had not dreamed of, nor even vaguely wished to reach. At such hours, resistance seems useless. We seize an oar, it breaks in the flood; we snatch at an overhanging bough, it snaps or slips our grasp; we utter cries for help, those on the bank pass by not hearing, or cast to us a rope the current bears out of reach. ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the die for the open sky When the great sun beats abroad, For the foam-fleck and the narrow deck, The life of oar and sword. ...
— A Legend of Old Persia and Other Poems • A. B. S. Tennyson
... this fellow, in the long run, Bluewater! I do believe if I were to take him to Lambeth Palace, or even to St. James's, he'd thrust his oar into the archbishop's ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... large sail-boat, and, as the water near the shore is not deep, he has to use a small boat to reach it. When Carlo sees him take down the oar from its place in the yard, he runs up, and takes it in his mouth, as much as to say, "Let me carry that for you, master." Then he trots down the hill with the oar, feeling very proud that he ...
— The Nursery, No. 106, October, 1875. Vol. XVIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... found that they had now coasted the headland, and saw the whales spouting at a distance. He therefore placed himself in his fishing-boat, called his associates to their several employments, plied his oar and harpoon with incredible courage and dexterity; and, by dividing his time between the chace and fishery, suspended the miseries of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... did not lose countenance, but went on hammering at his boat as if he cared not at all, till observing that one of the soldiers was looking hard at Edmund, he called out, "I say, Ned, what's the use of loitering there, listening to what's no concern of yours? Fetch the oar out of yon shed. I never lit on such a lazy comrade ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... mimasc[a] to 'horn,'[1] flaming red in his hand; over him, a bossed, plaited shield, [2]curved, with an engraved edge of silvered bronze,[2] [3]with applied ornaments of red gold thereon,[3] and a boss of red gold; a lengthy sword, as long as the oar[4] of a huge currach [5]on a wild, stormy night,[5] [6]resting on the two thighs[6] of the great haughty warrior that is ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... interest Hilmer... Perhaps she could help things along in some way ... with a chance remark to Mrs. Hilmer. Would it be better to cast the seed more directly?... If she could only manage to run across Hilmer—she wouldn't want to seem to be putting in her oar... Would it be very dreadful if she were to think up some excuse and go beard ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... larking,' he said authoritatively, stepping into the boat, and bringing it up with such absence of effort that when a few minutes after he had brought it to the landing-place, and the freight was seated, Robert had no sooner taken the other oar than he exclaimed at the force of the stream with which Owen had dealt so easily, ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sanguine hopes had been entertained, were found to be unfit for large masts or yards, being shakey or rotten at thirty or forty feet from the butt; the wood was so brittle that it would not make a good oar, and so porous that the water soaked through the planks of a boat which had been built of it. Mr. King also lamented their ignorance of the proper mode of preparing the flax plant, which rendered it useless ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... scarlet, and on the masts he set sails of linen, red, white, and blue. Then he stepped on board, and called on Ukko to protect and help him, and on the winds to aid him on his way, and off the magic boat flew towards Pohjola, never needing an oar to help it. ...
— Finnish Legends for English Children • R. Eivind
... saw plainly that the sea went so high that the boat could not escape, and that we should be inevitably drowned. As to making sail, we had none, nor, if we had, could we have done anything with it; so we worked at the oar towards the land, though with heavy hearts, like men going to execution; for we all knew that when the boat came near the shore, she would be dashed in a thousand pieces by the beach of the sea. However, we committed our souls to God in the most earnest manner; and the wind driving us towards ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... which was standing into the harbor; and after examining her papers in the due exercise of his right as a belligerent, his boats hooked on to her, thus using a neutral to tow them into the enemy's port, so that his men reached their scene of exertion unfatigued by the oar, and for a great part of the way protected by such respect as the Spanish batteries might show to a neutral coerced into aiding a hostile undertaking. "Having approached within about three quarters of a mile of the nearest battery," says the British naval historian James, "and ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... peace. And now with shrewd haste a boat was lowered, and we were set in it with a pair of oars, and the old pirate bidding us farewell in his tongue, clapt on all sail and stood out before the wind, leaving us there to shift for ourselves. Don Sanchez took one oar, and I t'other,—Dawson lying in the bottom and not able to move a hand to save his life,—and Moll held the tiller, and so we pulled with all our force, crying out now and then for fear we should not be seen, till by God's providence we came alongside ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... Attica, (50) and the exercise of magistracies which take them into regions beyond the frontier, they and their attendants have insensibly acquired the art of navigation. (51) A man who is perpetually voyaging is forced to handle the oar, he and his domestics alike, and to learn the terms familiar in seamanship. Hence a stock of skilful mariners is produced, bred upon a wide experience of voyaging and practice. They have learnt their business, some ...
— The Polity of the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians • Xenophon
... of water craft, the vessel propelled by pole, paddle or oar must have preceded the use of sails. The former required more strength and the latter more skill. But no matter what science and art may do to make sailing more secure and comfortable, the boy, particularly if he be country bred, and so forced to be more self- ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... hours later the boat's one blue-shirted, barefoot Sicilian sailor in red worsted cap had with one oar at the stern just turned her drifting form into the glassy calm by the railway-station, tossed her anchor ashore, and was still busy with small matters of boat-keeping, while his five passengers clambered to ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... may live: I saw him beat the surges under him, And ride upon their backs; he trod the water, Whose enmity he flung aside, and breasted The surge most swoln that met him: his bold head 'Bove the contentious waves he kept, and oar'd Himself with his good arms in lusty stroke To th' shore, that o'er his[398-18] wave-worn basis bow'd, As[398-19] stooping to relieve him: I not doubt ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... it, uttered an expression of disappointment. We lifted him up, however, and showed that they were in the other canoe. When satisfied, he submitted to have his wounds more completely and scientifically bound up than I had been able to do. Meantime Jack had taken the steering-oar, while Timbo and I seized the paddles. A few hurried words from Timbo explained to Stanley what had happened, and without further delay we shoved off from the bank, and began to make the best of our way down the stream. Natty had ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... upon the lake. The boat in which I now found myself was a large, roomy craft, capable of carrying about three tons of freight; it had a single tall mast carrying a large square lug-sail, and also possessed of powerful sweeps, which were worked by the men in standing positions, the rise of the oar after each stroke making the oarsman sink back upon the thwarts only to resume again his upright attitude for the next dip of the ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... upper heaven, and nearer the great dome of the Saluti signalled whitely; below them, all the islands near and far floated in twilit blueness on the flat lagoon. There was by times, a long sea swell, and no sound but the tread of the oar behind like a woman's silken motion. It drew with it films of recollection in which his mood suspended like gossamer, a mood capable of going on independently of his idea of himself as a man cut off from those experiences, intimations of which ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin
... each side, thrust their poles into the channel, and grasping successively the wooden bars, work their way toward the stern, thus pushing on the vessel in that direction. At other times, by the brisk and vigorous use of the oar, they catch and dash through the most favorable lines of current. In this exhausting struggle, however, it is needful to have frequent pauses for rest, and in the most difficult passages there are certain positions fixed for this purpose, which the Canadians call pipes."—H. Murray's ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... tolled the lonely midnight hour When a proud band, by daring impulse led, Approached the river with a cautious tread, With kindling eye and with an eager air, Unmoored the boats that waited for them there; In silence left the calm and peaceful shore, In sullen silence plied the hasty oar, In silence passed adown the quiet stream, While ever and anon a pale moonbeam, Sad and reproachful, cast a hasty glance On polished ...
— Canadian Wild Flowers • Helen M. Johnson
... out of the water as he could, and taking a look, fell back exhausted, clinging desperately to the oar. ...
— The Wizard of the Sea - A Trip Under the Ocean • Roy Rockwood
... long distances overland to reach water, and travelers have come suddenly upon alligators crawling amid prairies or woods, in the most unexpected manner. The alligator as a rule is very wary, but at times sleeps quite soundly. I saw one struck twice with an oar before ...
— Southern Stories - Retold from St. Nicholas • Various
... The oar indeed and home with sails Flax-tissued, swelled with favoring gales, Staunch to the wave, from spear-storm free, Have to this shore escorted me, Nor so far blame I destiny. But may the all-seeing Father send In fitting time propitious end; So our dread Mother's mighty ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... like the rowlocks. "Il faut chanter quand meme," he explained, "pour encourager les autres." Jo then started "Frere Jacques." Jan and Dr. Ob took it up till the Frenchman burst in with an entirely different time and key. Then one of the oar girls began a queer little melody on four notes only, and all the four women joined, one end of the boat answering the other. They sang through their noses, and high up in the falsetto. By shutting one's eyes one could imagine a great ox waggon drawn uphill by four bullocks and ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... her own course," said the old man. "Miss Amory is a dev'lish wide-awake girl, sir, and must play her own cards; and I'm doosid glad you are out of it—doosid glad, begad. Who's this smoking? Oh, it's Mr. Strong again. He wants to put in his oar, I suppose. I tell you, don't meddle in the ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... suns, and systems, exhibit few beauties to the great mass of inattentive spectators; and the observance of them, by day and by night, excites no correspondent emotions. All is a blank! Plunged into an abyss of cares and anxieties, chained to the oar of constant, unvarying labour; and solicitous only "to buy and sell, and get gain," to them "the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... can handle an oar?" Frere went on. "There, curse you, I don't want fifty! Three'll do. Come on ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... at the side of the "Gaspee" warning off the assailants, he presented a good mark; and Joseph Bucklin, who pulled an oar in the leading boat, turned to a comrade and said, "Ephe, lend me your gun, and I can kill that fellow." The gun was accordingly handed him, and he fired. Dudingston fell to the deck. Just as the shot was fired, the leader ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... them. The boatswain leaning over the bow grabbed the child, and with one sweep of his strong arm took her into the boat. The bow oarsman caught Harold by the wrist. The way of the boat took him for a moment under water; but the next man; pulling his oar across the boat, stooped over and caught him by the collar, and clung fast. A few seconds more and he was hauled abroad. A wild cheer from all on the Scoriac came, ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... about his dealings with his host, and Flosi says he will pull an oar with him, so that his marriage bargain might be struck, and buy the ship of him afterwards. The Easterling was glad at that. Flosi offered him land at Borgarhaven, and now the Easterling holds on with his suit to his host when Flosi was by, and Flosi threw ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... songcraft, and the blossomed garth of rhyme; Tales of the framing of all things and the entering in of time From the halls of the outer heaven; so near they knew the door. Wherefore uprose a sea-king, and his hands that loved the oar Now dealt with the rippling harp-gold, and he sang of the shaping of earth, And how the stars were lighted, and where the winds had birth, And the gleam of the first of summers on the yet untrodden ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung • William Morris
... Dean, I will give you a fair Account of what I wou'd have attempted at least, and to open all my Heart to you, that was one of the main Subjects I called at your Tomb to talk to you on, to see if we could get any of these Crawlers on the Earth to attempt it, by oar artfully suggesting it to him. In short, my Project was, by procuring greater and more numerous Subscriptions, and by extending and enlarging the Plan of the Dublin Society, to have promoted more than ever the general Good ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous
... Oswald's blood: the alternative they adopted was perhaps not more merciful—although a common doom in those times. They selected a crazy worm-eaten boat, and sent the criminal to sea, without sail, oar, or rudder, with a loaf of bread and cruse of water, the wind blowing freshly from off ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... the taffrail, in order to make certain of the state of things. Just as I reached the stern, Sennit was encouraging the men to "give way" with the oar. I saw that he had six of his people with him, and no doubt six of his best men—the boldest and most active being always the most forward on such occasions. There was no time to be lost; and I turned to look for Marble. He was at my elbow, having ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... told him to steer straight for the negro. He grumbled not a little. Of course, if I wanted to run aground, it was none of his affair—etc., etc. Then I stationed the sturdiest of the two deck-hands on the port bow with a long oar, while I took the starboard with another. Very slowly and cautiously we made in, pointing straight for a thick growth of mangrove bushes. Samson stood ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... words right, but her voice wuz melogious, and as I listened my soul parodied the words to suit my needs. Yes, I felt that I must "bend to the oar" of my purpose, I must not "heed the rollin' waves" of weariness and anxiety, must leave "the poor old stranded wreck" of my domestic happiness and ...
— Samantha at Coney Island - and a Thousand Other Islands • Marietta Holley
... and always such glorious anticipations for the morrow. Sometimes, in their eager pursuit after game, they would paddle up and down the creek, watching out on either side for ducks. On these occasions, Lizzie would hold the steering oar, while her father made vigorous use of the propelling ones; but one day his "Lady of the Lake," (as he called her), in her excitement, at the prospect over the bluffs, of flying ducks, rose to her feet; and, reeling, tipping, over she went, which was the finale of the ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless
... along the flowery bank, While many a bending seagrape[1] drank The sprinkle of the feathery oar That winged me ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... monarch call'd his seamen good, they muster'd on the shore, Waved in the gale the snow-white sail, and dash'd the sparkling oar; But by the flood that maiden stood—loud rose her piteous cry— "Oh! go not forth, my dear, dear sire—oh, go not forth ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... searching about on the pan for a piece of transparent ice which I could use as a burning-glass. I thought that I could make smoke enough to be seen from the land if only I could get some sort of a light. All at once I seemed to see the glitter of an oar, but I gave up the idea because I remembered that it was not water which lay between me and the land, but slob ice, and even if people had seen me, I did not imagine that they could force a boat through. The next time that I went back to my flag-waving, however, the glitter ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... of the oar brought them in among the tall, shielding posts, close alongside the steps of the Venezia. As the hotel porter handed the young ladies from the gondola, the Colonel paused to have a word with the gondolier. The man was ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... horrible eating house at Argenteuil, and which possessed only one bedroom, where I have certainly spent some of the maddest nights of my life. We cared for nothing except for amusing ourselves and rowing, for we all worshiped the oar, with one exception. I remember such singular adventures, such unlikely tricks invented by those five rascals, that no one would believe them at present. People do not live like that any longer, even ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... said, 'I told her not to go, but she is so self-willed.' And then he jumped into a boat and, taking the oars, went gliding out after you as swiftly as the wind. I never saw mortal arm make a boat fly as he did that little skiff. And I saw him strike the monster with his oar just as his huge jaws were opened to devour you. Dear! dear; but I was frightened, and woke up all ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur
... dropped the oar and took up the sword, who laid aside the gown for the sash and shoulder-strap, who, first in the bloodless triumphs of the regatta and in "capital training" for the great race of life where literary and professional fame are ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... shall haunt the shore When Thames in summer wreaths is drest, And oft suspend the dashing oar, 15 To bid ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... the Danske pirates off Tuttee; Saw the Chrim burn "Musko"; speaks with bated breath Of his sale to the great Turk, when peril of death Chained him to oar their galleys on the sea Until, as gunner, in Persia they set him free To fight their foes. Of Prester John he saith Astounding things. But Queen Elizabeth He worships, and his dear Lord on Calvary. Quaint is the phrase, ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... came out, and his bold sailor's heart cheered and encouraged his wretched, despairing companions. All that night, and for the greater part of the following day, he stood in the stern-sheets, grasping the bending steer-oar as the boat swayed and surged along before the gale, and constantly watching lest she should broach to and smother in the roaring seas; the others lay in the bottom, feebly baling out the water, encouraged, urged, and driven to that exertion by the ...
— "The Gallant, Good Riou", and Jack Renton - 1901 • Louis Becke
... upon the yellow sand, Between the sun and moon upon the shore; And sweet it was to dream of Father-land, Of child and wife, and slave; but evermore Most weary seemed the sea, weary the oar, Weary the wandering fields of barren foam. Then some one said, "We will return no more;" And all at once they sang, "Our island home Is far beyond the wave; we will ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... boats when this skilful manoeuvre was executed that the dripping bow oar of the pursuers was flourished almost in Jack's face as the sampan flew round. He seized it, but did not attempt to snatch it from the oarsman's clutch. He had no time for that, but he made splendid use ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... I's hardened. Ay! I see ye lewvk. I stell't,(3) it's true; bud, brethren, I'll repay. I'll pay back ten-foad iverything I tewk, An' folks may say whate'er they like to say. It were a kiss, An' t' lass has promised iv oar ingle-newk ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... nature without the quickening breath of Rhythm. It cadences the dash of the wave, chimes in the flash of the oar, patters in the drops of rain, whispers in the murmurings of the forest leaves, leaps in the dash of the torrent, wails through the sighing of the restless winds, and booms in the claps ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... to General Whipple, one of Washington's aids. Prince is the negro seen on horseback in the engraving of Washington crossing the Delaware, and again pulling the stroke oar in the ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... uttered, put superstitious fears to flight at once. The men threw off their jackets; the boat was lowered, and in a few minutes was pulling about and searching in all directions. Our hero was one of the first to leap into her, and he pulled the bow oar. For some time they rowed about in vain. The night was intensely dark, and the cry was not repeated, so that they had nothing to guide them in their movements. A lantern was fixed in the ship half way up the mizzen rigging, but the lantern in the boat was ...
— Lost in the Forest - Wandering Will's Adventures in South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... been picked up by a schooner and taken into that port. The officer in charge of the boat reported that in the early morning he had sighted a schooner standing toward them, and had hoisted a black silk handkerchief belonging to one of the crew on an oar as a signal of distress, but the people in the schooner, evidently thinking them pirates who had come out of some one of the inlets of the coast, turned tail and scudded away from them. A second schooner, coming along soon after, was more ...
— The Monitor and the Merrimac - Both sides of the story • J. L. Worden et al.
... Johnians practise their tub in the following manner: They select eight of the most serviceable freshmen and put these into a boat, and to each one of them they give an oar; and having told them to look at the backs of the men before them they make them bend forward as far as they can and at the same moment, and having put the end of the oar into the water pull it back again in to them about the bottom of the ribs; and if any of them does not do this ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler
... to such a dignified-looking personage so familiarly, not to say curtly; for I thought that this Mr. Boffin, in spite of his well-known name out of Dickens, must be at the least a senator of these strange people. However, he got up and said, "All right, old oar-wearer, whatever you like; this is not one of my busy days; and though" (with a condescending bow to me) "my pleasure of a talk with this learned guest is put off, I admit that he ought to see your worthy kinsman ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... thy father's heart! Now go—and at yon gates relate thy story— Say Brutus claims to be the chief in glory, 'Twas his fell sword that pierced his father's heart! Go—Now thou'rt told what staid me on this shore, Grim ferryman, push off, and swiftly ply thine oar. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... the yacht, in the company of a man in whom I was naturally interested. I was passionately fond of the sea, and had already learned from the Berwick sea-going folk how to handle small craft, and the management of a three-oar vessel like this was an easy matter to me, as I soon let Sir Gilbert know. Once outside the river mouth, with a nice light breeze blowing off the land, we set squaresail, mainsail, and foresail and stood directly out to sea on as grand a day and under as fair ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... straining oar and chamois chase Had formed his limbs to strength and grace: On wave and wind the boy would toss, Was great, nor knew ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... beautiful, and the most unselfish person I ever saw. She was perpetually trying to lighten my labor. She insisted on taking an oar and trying to row. She bore up most uncomplainingly against our hardships. In fact, she acted like a regular brick. Of course, before I had talked with her half an hour I was head over ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... around the pond. "When more water being introduced into the boiler or pot and steam was generated, she was again ready to start on another expedition." The boat was a yawl about eighteen feet in length and six feet beam. She was started at the buoy with a small oar when the propeller was used. The boiler was a ten or twelve gallon iron pot. This boat with a portion of the machinery was abandoned by Fitch, and left to decay on the muddy shore. Shortly after this he died in Kentucky in ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... Trireme.—The genesis of the trireme was the old PENTECONTER ("fifty-oar ship") which, in its prime features, was simply a long, narrow, open hull, with slightly raised prow and stern cabins, pulling twenty-five oars to a side. There are a few penteconters still in existence, though the great naval powers have long since scorned them. It ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... lodged in the stern of the boat, another splintered the end of an oar, and then the rifleman's nerves must have got the better of him. The succeeding shots fell wide, and I whooped like a madman as I drove the boat on to the green tongue of land. Springing out hastily ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... going for a row," answered the girl, "but I have just discovered that one of the oar locks is broken, so I am not going for a row," and she laughed, showing her ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout - or, The Speediest Car on the Road • Victor Appleton
... our affairs—putting in his oar, so to speak—with some pat word or sentence. The conversation, the other evening, had turned on the subject of watches, when one of the gentlemen present, the manager of a large watch-making establishment, told us a rather interesting fact. The component parts of a watch are produced by different ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... always threw a good deal of enthusiasm into anything he attempted to do, was barely saved from going overboard several times, and when once left alone with the side oar, succeeded in dipping the blade under a piece of hidden rock and was thrown by the swift motion of the boat high in the air, alighting somewhat breathless on the mass of tarpaulined freight in front of him, luckily without serious injury. The oar, ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Yukon • Ralph Victor
... the hunter, and tugged at his oar, for the levers clanked too loud for this work. They crept along to another berth a little way off, and tied up in the shadow of the bank; and they had scarcely settled themselves when they heard again the beat of engines. The launch was returning, ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... I careless play'd, Or plied the quiv'ring oar, on conquest bent:— Again, beneath the tall elms' silent shade, I woo'd the fair, and won ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... a Genoese boy in those days was packed full of adventures. Most of the boys went to sea as soon as they were old enough to hold an oar or to pull a rope, and they had to be ready at any moment to drop the oar or rope and seize a sword or a pike to repel pirates or other enemies. There was always the chance of a sudden chase or a secret attack on a Christian boat by savage Mussulmen, and so bitter was the endless war of the ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland
... mutiny broke. We in the sternsheets stood together against them. It was all a madness. We were starved sore, but we were mad for water. It was over the water it began. For, see you, it was our custom to lick the dew from the oar-blades, the gunwales, the thwarts, and the inside planking. And each man of us had developed property in the dew-collecting surfaces. Thus, the tiller and the rudder-head and half of the plank of the starboard stern-sheet had become the property of the ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... somewhat flushed in the general rosiness that seemed to penetrate and suffuse every object. The fishermen, who were drawing in their nets, gayly singing, seemed to be floating on a violet-and-gold-colored flooring that broke into a thousand gems at every dash of the oar or motion of the boat. The old stone statue of Saint Antonio looked down in the rosy air, itself tinged and brightened by the magical colors which floated round it. And the girls and men of Sorrento gathered in gossiping knots on the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various |
