"Oarsman" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The man in the stern had his back to me, and no face among the other five did I know. They were fast getting away, but the splashes came thick and close and presently one ball found its mark. The man at the stern hurriedly changed places with an oarsman; and as the relieved rower took his new seat he turned slowly upon his face as if in mortal pain, and I saw that the fresh hand at the oar was the brother of Major Harper. Just as I made the discovery "Boom!" said my small dust-cloud across the river, and "hurry-hurry-hurry-hurry-hurry-hurry-hurry—" ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... Sometimes the young oarsman kept in the middle of the great stream, and sometimes it seemed pleasanter to be near the shore. The midsummer flowers were coming into blossom, and the grass and trees had long since lost the brilliance of their greenness, and wore a look of maturity ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... companion of my exile took much comfort. When we intended only a short row,—some trifle of ten or twelve miles,—we always pulled for ourselves; but on long tours, where the faculties of observation would have been impaired by the fatigue of action, we employed as our oarsman a black man whom I shall call Sol Cutter,—not knowing on which side of the lines he may be ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... o' their way," muttered he to his fellow oarsman, "only twenty minutes longer! By that time yonder breeze 'll be down on us; and then we'll ha' some chance. There be no doubt but they're gainin' on us now. But the breeze be a gainin' on them,—equally, if not faster. O if we only ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... commissioner being one of them. But Rollo did not pay any particular attention to this circumstance. He did not even observe that it was the same man that had come on board with him. Rollo could not talk to the oarsman on the way, but on landing he gave him a little money,—about what he thought was proper,—and then went up into the road with a view to go home. The commissioner, in order not to awaken any suspicions in Rollo's mind that he was following him, turned away as soon as he landed, ...
— Rollo on the Rhine • Jacob Abbott
... steady, practised stroke, denoting the accomplished oarsman, with which he had urged the little boat through the water, had given way to an idle and purposeless drift. He longed to cast himself down before the little feet, in their smart high-heeled buckled shoes and ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... minutes the racing boats travelled as if drawn by invisible threads of equal length. Then first one and then another dropped a little. The bow of one of the outside boats broke an oar, and before the oarsman could get the spare one into the crutch the boat slipped to the tail of the race. The spare oar shipped, however, she maintained her position, and her crew continued pulling against ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... working in his allotment, obtained leave from him to use the skiff, and climbing down the flight of steep steps cut in the rock, reached the cove where the boat was beached on the shingle. He had been an expert oarsman from his college days, and understood Neapolitan waters, so in a short time he and Lorna were skimming gently over the surface of the blue sea, keeping well away from rocks and out of currents, but ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... is built on a low cliff at the water's edge. It looks across the blue waters of the bay to a headland crowned with cocoa-palms, and beyond the headland to the Indian Ocean. The cool trades sweep across that veranda. We idly watched a lone white oarsman pulling strongly against the wind through the tide rips, evidently bent on exercise. We speculated on the incredible folly of wanting exercise; and forgot him. An hour later a huge saffron yellow squall rose from China 'cross the ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... God could be so present with him as to give him power to conquer when evil assailed him. It was not a life of his own, but a new life from God—not a self-acting life by which he was to be taken over the sea of temptation like one in a boat rowed by a strong oarsman, but a power he must use for himself, and one that would grow by use, gaining more and more strength, until it subdued and subordinated every natural desire to the rule of heavenly principles, and yet it was a life that, if not cherished and made ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... boat races, for we have no other college to race against," said the senior. "The students sometimes get up contests between themselves, though. Dick Dawson used to be our best oarsman, but last June a fellow named ...
— The Rover Boys at College • Edward Stratemeyer
... time Bobtail had been clinging to the bow of the barge, recovering his breath. The sailor assisted him into the boat, and he dropped down into the fore-sheets, breathing heavily from exhaustion. The stroke-oarsman picked up his oar, and the two men pulled with all their might for the yacht, while the other boat went around to the landing-place on Blank Island to bring ...
— Little Bobtail - or The Wreck of the Penobscot. • Oliver Optic
... other glass-bottom boats out that afternoon, and they were scattered just off shore to Sugarloaf Rock and beyond. Not far from the towering Rock were two or three rowboats, each manned by an oarsman, and carrying a man ...
— Owen Clancy's Happy Trail - or, The Motor Wizard in California • Burt L. Standish
... managed the works, and with a judgement and a temper which, in spite of keen competition and languid years, had kept their prosperity from dwindling. He had received the better part of his education at Harvard College, where, however, he had gained renown rather as a gymnast and an oarsman than as a gleaner of more dispersed knowledge. Later on he had learned that the finer intelligence too could vault and pull and strain—might even, breaking the record, treat itself to rare exploits. He had thus ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... Malcolm dropped a warning word from time to time, he dared not put too much pressure on the lad, for he recognised intuitively how body and mind were developing under an athlete's training. Cedric's fame as an oarsman soon reached the ears of authority, and at the time of his visit to Lincoln's Inn it was already a foregone conclusion that his name would be entered for ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... The oarsman was nothing loath. Either he was not the bravest in the party, or else he had the keenest appreciation of the odds against an exposed position. In a very few minutes the dory was a mere gray wraith on the water, but ...
— Radio Boys Loyalty - Bill Brown Listens In • Wayne Whipple
... crucified one, whom you worship. If I should lose an arm I could restore it with a few drops of this. It is useless for you to contend with me. Yield yourself, and, as you appear to be a strong fellow, I will make you first oarsman in one of ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... are as thick as plums in a Christmas pudding. Yet two Indians, standing erect, one in the bow and one in the stern of the canoe, pole you up the stream against these terrible odds as easily and surely as a Harvard oarsman might row you across Seneca Lake. Then they ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... alliterations and rhymes. Poetry began when man, swaying his body, first sang or moaned to give expression to his joy or sorrow. Its earliest forms are the songs which accompany the simplest emotions. When rowers were in a boat the swinging oars became rhythmic, and the oarsman's chant naturally followed. When the savage overcame his enemy, he danced his war dance, and sang his war song around his campfire at night, tone and words and gestures all fitting into harmony with the movement of his body. ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... comment in a conservative, etiquette-bound old town like Hijiyama. Through my pupils, most of them boys and eager to practise their English, I heard of many startling things she did. They talked of her fearlessness; with what skill she could trim a sail; how she had raced with the crack oarsman of the Naval College; and how the aforesaid cadet was now in disgrace because he had condescended to compete with a girl. Much of the talk was of the girl's wonderful talent in putting on paper Japanese women and babies in a way so true that Chinda, a withered ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... sound; will be perhaps somewhat monotonous, because kept pretty much in one key, or in one average degree of pitch. It will perhaps be necessary to make the utterance for the time somewhat artificial. The voice is in the artificial stage, as is the work of an oarsman, for example, in learning the parts of the stroke, or that of a golfer in learning the "swing," although in the case of some students, when the vocal conditions are good and the tone is well balanced, very little of the artificial process is necessary. In that case ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... prohibition of shooting on the water or banks is also producing the usual effect on the other birds and beasts. They are rapidly becoming tame, and the oarsman has the singular pleasure of floating down among all kinds of birds which do not regard him as an enemy. Young swallows sit fearlessly on the dead willow boughs to be fed by their parents; the reed-buntings and sedge-warblers scarcely move when the oar dips near the sedge on which ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish
... width is required in a boat in order to work oars well. The oarsman must sit upon the seat, and extend the oar off upon one side of the boat, and there must be a certain distance between the part which he takes hold of, and the row-lock, in order to work to advantage. ...
— Marco Paul's Voyages and Travels; Vermont • Jacob Abbott
... opened one of the dormer windows and held the lantern out of it. Below the steep roof a boat was dashed by the swell, and Colonel Menard and his oarsman were trying to hold it off from the eaves. A lantern was ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... too late. The boat struck the bank full tilt. The dreamer, the joyous oarsman, lay on his back at the bottom of the boat, ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... head round toward the batteries, and nearly threw her on shore, her stem touching for a moment. The combined powers of her own engine and that of the Albatross, her consort, were then brought into play as an oarsman uses the oars to turn his boat, pulling one and backing the other; that of the Albatross was backed, while that of the Hartford went ahead strong. In this way their heads were pointed up stream and they went through clear; but ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... although he desisted from this kind of malice, it was not long before Brogten was generally shunned by his former schoolfellows. He developed into such a thorough blackguard that, had it not been for his merits as an oarsman and a cricketer, even the countenance of Bruce and Lord Fitzurse would have been insufficient to prevent him from being deserted by all the undergraduates of Saint Werner's, except that small and wretched ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... for believing that our athletes will emulate your ball players," concluded the Mayor, "are manifold. In the first place, we have adopted your American ideas of trading, and we have managed to scrape up material enough to beat you! best oarsman," here his Honor turned toward Ned Hanlan, the ex-champion sculler, who had quietly entered the room and taken a seat near Mr. Spalding, the reference securing a cheer for the modest little athlete from the members of our party, "and," continued the Mayor, after the applause had ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... age—a little older. I was more in love than she. And if he had been asked the question I just asked you, he could have answered it. He could have said: 'I have been a leader in a group in which I was, an athlete, an oarsman, and the most superb physical specimen of my race'—brought up, too, he might have added, in the same traditions that I had had. Well, that wasn't enough, Mr. Wayne, and that was a good deal. If my father had only made me wait, only given ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... this time heard from Bernard, as I heard him called on, as a good oarsman, to go in the first boat, and we saw Angela's bonnet. We—that is Wilfred, Nag, and the Bishop—are all safe here, with eight or nine others. Will will do well, I trust. He quite owes his life to Nag. This is how it was: We had not long been out of the Mersey before an impenetrable fog came down ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... seemed to him he knew how he should have to breast it and how he feared that when he rose to the surface she would have disappeared. Nevertheless he was going to plunge when a boat turned into the current from above and came swiftly toward them, guided by an oarsman who was sitting so that they couldn't see his face. He brought the boat to the bank where Longmore stood; the latter stepped in, and with a few strokes they touched the opposite shore. Longmore got out and, though he was sure ...
— Madame de Mauves • Henry James
... condition did not permit him, when a child, to go and dabble in the Seine. Whilst his schoolfellows ran and threw themselves into the river, he lay abed between a couple of warm blankets. Laurent had become an intrepid swimmer, and an indefatigable oarsman. Camille had preserved that terror for deep water which is inherent in women and children. He tapped the end of the boat with his foot to make ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... among the courtiers, free and turbulent when back again in their ships, they were all teaching and learning at once, and counted even shipwreck as good training. One would think, the Bishop remarks, that each oarsman was himself the arch-pirate.[1] These were the men who so largely went to the making of the "Anglo-Saxon," and Sidonius might doubtless still utter the same comment could he observe their descendants in England to-day. Every Englishman believes in his heart, however ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... in each boat, it was light work for the oarsman; and as rowing was something Maurice could do, and as the girls liked to take their turn, it often happened that Mr. Whittredge had nothing to do ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard
... figure of the painter looking earnestly at the boat. I thought he was regarding it chiefly from an artistic point of view, but I became aware before long that that would not have been consistent with the character of Charles Percivale. He had been, I learned afterwards, a crack oarsman at Oxford, and had belonged to the University boat, so that he had some almost class-sympathy with the doings ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... passion sanctioned by a paramount sense of moral justice; having for its object a power which is no longer sole nor principal, but secondary and ministerial; a power added to a power; a breeze which springs up unthought-of to assist the strenuous oarsman;—even this faith is subjugated in order to be exalted; and—instead of operating as a temptation to relax or to be remiss, as an encouragement to indolence or cowardice; instead of being a false stay, a necessary and definite dependence which may fail—it passes into a ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... tide-rip, which, combined with the heavy, lumpy sea, made it almost impossible to keep the 'Dudley Docker' from swamping. As it was we shipped several bad seas over the stern as well as abeam and over the bows, although we were 'on a wind.' Lees, who owned himself to be a rotten oarsman, made good here by strenuous baling, in which he was well seconded by Cheetham. Greenstreet, a splendid fellow, relieved me at the tiller and helped generally. He and Macklin were my right and left bowers as stroke-oars throughout. McLeod and Cheetham were two good sailors and ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... this mode of getting from the interior to the sea-coast, by which they earned their subsistence on the way and about ten dollars in money. The tradition in Waldorf is, that young Astor worked his passage down the Rhine, and earned his passage-money to England as an oarsman on one of these rafts. Hard as the labor was, the oarsmen had a merry time of it, cheering their toil with jest and song by night and day. On the fourteenth day after leaving home, our youth found himself at a Dutch seaport, with a larger sum of money than he had ever ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... top, around which was bent a new section of birch bark, thus forming a rude semicircular reflector. Three candles placed within the circle completed the jack. With moss and boughs seats were arranged,—one in the bow for the marksman, and one in the stern for the oarsman. A meal of frogs and squirrels was a good preparation, and, when darkness came, all were keenly alive to the opportunity it brought. Though by no means an expert in the use of the gun,—adding the superlative degree of enthusiasm to only the positive degree of ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... Lawrence is not so wide above Quebec as it is at other places along its course, and in a quarter of an hour, the oarsman had reached his destination. As the keel of his boat grated on the sands, a man stepped forward to meet him. The officer sprang out and slapped him on ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... a small boat managed by one oarsman, began to visit the cottages in the neighborhood of his villa. Dressed in a tunic and a great wig, in his hand a staff on which a measure was cut out, the prince looked like an engineer studying the Nile ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... still running up, and it was as much as the single oarsman could do, in that heavy boat, to hold his own against ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... her on foot through a dense forest, for more than a hundred miles, following a blind Indian war-path which she had been trained to follow through other forests by her tutors, in other days. This war-path led them to the lake shore, where they obtained a boat, with a skillful oarsman, to land them on the shore of that lovely bay which Dora had so often seen in her dreams, whilst sleeping in the Indian chief's wigwam. When they arrived at the birthplace and youthful home of Dora, she could only find the place by the remains of part of the ...
— The Forest King - Wild Hunter of the Adaca • Hervey Keyes
... 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 Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... over the side, to which the boatman attached his valise, the young officer going up the line hand over hand as though he was used to that sort of thing. The oarsman secured his five-dollar bill, and Christy hauled up his valise. He felt that he had saved himself from the dishonor of failing to obey his orders, and he looked about him for some one who would be able to explain to him how ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... weeds shot the light skiff. The water splashed for a moment under the spasmodic strokes of the oarsman, and then the little boat streaked out into the river like a thing of life. Marjory sat in the stern and kept her eyes upon the bank they were leaving. Jack Barnes drove every vestige of his strength into ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... whom the Memoir notes as among the chief influences of those days was Leslie Stephen's pupil Romer, the Admirable Crichton of that moment—oarsman, cricketer, and Trinity Hall's hope in the Mathematical Tripos. The future Lord Justice of Appeal was then reading for the Tripos, in which he was to be Senior Wrangler; and, according to Cambridge custom, took a certain amount of coaching as part ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... but the little rowboat aggravatingly kept on its way, the oarsman having his back towards them. Then he turned his course a little, keeping in the channel where the water ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... the two 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 of the chance afforded him. He gave it a tremendous push, and released it. The rower, caught by surprise, was flung over the opposite gunwale, and the skiff was nearly upset. As the sampan darted away on her new course, the ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... scheme of life as a well-made reel fits the butt of a good rod. He was a steady oarsman, a lucky fisherman, with a real genius for the use of the landing-net, and a cheerful companion, who did not insist upon giving his views about artificial flies and advice about casting, on every occasion. By the end of June he found himself in ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... on that line!" cried the steward to the tub oarsman. And as the man obeyed, the steward tightened the turn on the rope, and the boat shot ahead like ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... taste. It would be considered monstrous to remove a boy who was a capital bowler from the cricket-field, and make him go in for fives or racquets; or, to use an Eton illustration, to take a 'wet bob' who was a promising oarsman and might row in the school eight at Henley, and turn him into the playing-fields to become an inferior ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... the middle, the thalamites of the lower,—one hundred and seventy swart, nervous-eyed men, sat on their benches, and let their hands close tight upon those oars which trailed now in the drifting water, but which soon and eagerly should spring to life. At the belt of every oarsman dangled a sword, for boarders' work was more than likely. Thirty spare rowers rested impatiently on the centre deck, ready to leap wherever needed. On the forecastle commanded the proreus, Ameinias's lieutenant, and with him the keleustes, the oar master ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... takes his oarsman's seat with temples heated by anger, with trembling hands—no—he is Gracieuse's brother; all would be lost if Ramuntcho fought with him; because of her he will bend ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... the same objection that I have to the majority of the society young men of the present day. If I make inquiries about you, what do I find? That you are a noted oarsman—that you have no profession—that your honors at college consisted in being captain of the ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... have said, was strong. He was noted among his fellows as a splendid oarsman. The squall, therefore, did not disconcert him, though it checked his speed greatly. After one or two lulls the wind increased to a gale, and in half an hour the youth found, with some anxiety, that he was making no ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... crests behind. One minute he looked down into the face of Burgess, holding the steering oar in place, the next the stern was high above him and he felt that he was reclining on the back of his neck. But always the shoulders of the rowers moved steadily in the short, deep strokes of the rough water oarsman, and the beach, with the white light and red-roofed house of the keeper, the group beside it, and Captain Zeb's horse and chaise, grew ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... adaptation by which conditions affect an organism is simple and well known. It is that which callouses the palm of the oarsman, strengthens the waist of the wrestler, fits the back to its burden. It inexorably compels the organism to adapt itself to its conditions, to like them, and so to ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... Atlantic. Holmes had seen such things too, and said that they were like the wounds of the angels during the wars in heaven as described in Paradise Lost, gashes deep in the celestial bodies but closing instantly. In those years Dr. Holmes was himself an enthusiastic oarsman and that night whom should we encounter alone in his little skiff but the Autocrat himself, out for his pleasure; he was plainly recognisable, though in most informal athletic dress, and as we sped past him a few rods away, Eliot from the stroke shouted ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... showed writing to interpret the song. For while the son of Hythin, the King of Tellemark, was at his boyish play, a giant, assuming the usual appearance of men, had carried him off, and using him as an oarsman (having taken his skiff over to the neighbouring shore), was then sailing past Fridleif while he was occupied reconnoitering. But the king would not suffer him to use the service of the captive youth, and longed to rob the spoiler of his prey. The youth warned ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... passions with his congregation. Not at all; and therein consisted his chief peculiarity. He would say the most terrific things to his crew, in a tone so strangely compounded of fun and fury, and the fury seemed so calculated merely as a spice to the fun, that no oarsman could hear such queer invocations without pulling for dear life, and yet pulling for the mere joke of the thing. Besides he all the time looked so easy and indolent himself, so loungingly managed his steering-oar, and so broadly gaped ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... satisfactorily adjusted, the men all ran for their ponies. They had been doing a wrestler's heavy work all the morning, but did not seem to be tired. I saw once in some crank physical culture periodical that a cowboy's life was physically ill-balanced, like an oarsman's, in that it exercised only certain muscles of the body. The writer should be turned loose in ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... David Loring, is my guest at present," she said. "It happens that she has crossed the river to Wittisham and is paying a visit to Prettyman. I should be obliged, Mark, if you would row across and fetch her back, as by some misunderstanding, my servant has not waited for her. You are an oarsman, I know." ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... of ice; but on the fifth of April, a freshet broke it up and the voyager started from Hudson, accompanied by several representatives of the New York papers, who occupied a boat which was in charge of the famous oarsman, Wallace Ross assisted by George Whistler. The voyage was not of unusual interest, outside of the difficulty of forging ahead through the ice floes and considerable suffering from the cold. On that account and from ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... children they had several of the crew who had come along to relieve any oarsman who might give under the great strain; the more sent in this load the less remaining for the next, and among these Abner had picked upon a certain husky fellow who seemed able to do ...
— Darry the Life Saver - The Heroes of the Coast • Frank V. Webster
... student in Edinburgh (since fully qualified), and well suited to the enterprise, being of a scientific turn of mind, as well as practical and energetic,—a first-rate rider, an oarsman, and a good sailor, whilst he had spent his vacations ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... this for the maiden! She had been rowed on the waters of Lake Malcolm; but the oar, handled ever so lightly by Harry, always betrayed effort on the part of the oarsman. Now, for the first time, Nell felt herself borne along with a gliding movement, like that of a balloon through the air. The water was smooth as a lake, and Nell reclined in the stern of the boat, enjoying its gentle rocking. Occasionally the effect ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne
... the prize this time also, and named Redman as his stroke oarsman. Richard took Bailey for the same station, and they continued to select alternately till each had taken his twelve oarsmen. The coxswain of the Alice had a decided advantage over his rival, for ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... with a diversity of timber and foliage. In unison did the rowers ply their sculls, yet it was though of itself that the skiff shot forward, bird-like, over the glassy surface of the water; while at intervals the broad-shouldered young oarsman who was seated third from the bow would raise, as from a nightingale's throat, the opening staves of a boat song, and then be joined by five or six more, until the melody had come to pour forth in a volume as free and boundless as Russia herself. And Pietukh, too, would give himself a shake, ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... party they were, and the salt water was rapidly drying from the garments of the colored oarsman, as he pulled strongly and skillfully out into the bay and around toward a deep cove to the ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various
... more than scenery to interest us here, for, moving quickly towards the Slide, was a boat with three people in it. They were evidently intending to attempt that treacherous passage, which culminated in a series of eddies, a menace to even the best oarsman ship. They certainly were not aware of their danger, for there came over the water the sound of a man's laughing voice, and the two women in the boat were in unconcerned attitudes. Roscoe shouted to them, and motioned them back, but they ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... stretching like a gander's, and it looked as if his head would come off. The dentist threw his shoulders into it like a crack oarsman—there was a crack, a rip, a tear, and, like a young tree leaving the ground, two huge, ugly old teeth left Dad's jaw on the ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... shall be bow oarsman; that is, you shall pull the foremost oar. You may get in first, and take that boat-hook forward. Stop, no more of ...
— The Boat Club - or, The Bunkers of Rippleton • Oliver Optic
... Great gods! Friend, with thy great eye, round like the hole through which the oarsman passes his sweep, you have the air of a galley doubling a ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... to give us as much of a chase as possible," remarked Tom, as he glanced over his shoulder. "If I remember rightly, Baxter was always a pretty fair oarsman." ...
— The Rover Boys in the Jungle • Arthur M. Winfield
... old fellow a wide berth. But it wouldn't do: discipline is discipline; and after a free use of the colt and a good deal of hazing, the boat's crew came aft, the cutter was lowered, and the men, with their oars up and eyes upon the ghost, were waiting the order to shove off, the bow oarsman having provided himself with a boarding-pike to 'fend off,' as he said, if the old ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... and dropped into the waiting dinghy. Safely there, he glanced tentatively upward; but seeing that the tall man above was still standing at the rail and was smiling down upon him, looked tactfully away again. And Varney heard him say to the oarsman in a snappy, impatient voice: "Pull for all you know, dere! I got ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... perfection as possible. A woodcock visited Aldington in one of the very severe winters but managed to elude all pursuers. It has been said, and also contradicted, that the woodcock when rising from the ground uses its long bill as a lever to assist its starting, just as an oarsman pushes off from the bank with a boat-hook or oar; I myself have seen one rising from a bare and marshy place, and the position of its bill certainly gave me the impression that the idea was ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... the hut of the farmer, the skiff of the oarsman, the parlor of the host of the inn; tried wagons, stages, and buck-board conveyances; we have disputed no bill, been subjected to no extortion, and, save the death of the 'hairy fools,' known no sorrow. We have sat by the grave of old John Brown, seen the glorious view from his simple ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... finer handling of the oars than Eric had ever seen before—and he was something of an oarsman himself—the boat from the lighthouse-tender neared the Rock. It was held immediately under the crane and a rope was lowered with a loop on the end of it. The inspector swung himself into this and went shooting up in the air, like some oilskin-covered sea-gull. He took it as a matter of course, ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... officer of the boat, who had at last succeeded in beating off the towing sailors, and was now, with face turned aft, assisting the bowsman at his oar, suddenly called to Captain Delano, to see what the black was about; while a Portuguese oarsman shouted to him to give heed to ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... took the oars he felt a sudden chill. He tried to shake it off, but in vain. He began to have a growing consciousness of impending evil. Before he had taken ten strokes—and he was a swift oarsman—he was aware of a mysterious presence between him and ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... she turned and waved her hand with a merry laugh, then ran, fleet-footed as a deer, to the edge of the lake, and unfastening one of the little boats, was in it and rowing out upon the lake as dextrously as a professional oarsman, before those watching her could ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... at Sydney was enormous, they say never surpassed, and only equalled once at the burial of some celebrated oarsman who died on the way from England. They had arranged a great reception for him, and they gave it to his corpse. The enthusiasm of the Meetings is ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... So spake he, and they set yet the fiercer on the Argives. And Aias no longer abode their onset, for he was driven back by the darts, but he withdrew a little,—thinking that now he should die,—on to the oarsman's bench of seven feet long, and he left the decks of the trim ship. There then he stood on the watch, and with his spear he ever drave the Trojans from the ships, whosoever brought unwearied fire, and ever he shouted terribly, calling ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... exclaimed the oarsman to our Finnish-speaking friends; "I thought I could get you to Muhos to-night, but until that fog lifts we can go no farther, it is not safe. I can do no more. ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... of a Trireme.—So much for the "Invincible" herself, but obviously she is a helpless thing without an efficient crew. The life of an oarsman is far from luxurious, but the pay seems to be enough to induce a goodly number of THETES (the poorest class of the Athenian citizens) to accept service, and the rest can be supplied by hired metics or any kind ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... against his broad breast, and into his white, anxious face, almost blinding and strangling him. His boat was a small one—too small for the seas of the lower Columbia—but it was trim and light, and steered easily. Besides, the old mountaineer was a skilled oarsman, albeit this accomplishment was not a part of the education of American hunters and trappers, as it was of the French voyageurs. Keeping his little craft head to the wind, he took each wave squarely ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... had been made, that her wardrobe had been removed from her apartment, and that it was carried to those of Colonel Burr, and that they had been turned back in the harbor by a sentry-boat, when striving with a solitary oarsman to reach a British man-of-war, in the lower harbor of the bay of New York. There was never any proof of this, however, and I imagine it was only a gossiping story of ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... original jest itself, bottled in high spirits, and in a fair state of preservation. As clearly as can be deciphered, the legend is something about "an Indian," "an oarsman," and "feathering ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 27, 1891 • Various
... watching the approaching boat, Dickory doing the same, but keeping himself out of the general view. The boat came alongside and the oarsman handed up a note, which was presently brought to Kate by Big Sam, young Dickory Charter having in the meantime slipped below with ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... a pilot," by burning a blue light on the bridge, and bears down on the pilot schooner. The moon reveals enormous figures, with a heavy dot beneath, on the mainsail of the schooner. Over the rail goes the yawl, followed by the oarsman and pilot, whose turn it is to go ashore. The pilot carries a lantern, which in the egg-shaped yawl dances on the white wave crests up and down like a fire-fly. The yawl is soon under the steamer's lee, and a line from the big ship pulls the little boat ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... referred was one to take place on the following Saturday. Silas Peters was considered the best single-shell oarsman on the lower side of the lake, and he had challenged Jerry as a representative from the ...
— The Young Oarsmen of Lakeview • Ralph Bonehill
... gasped the oarsman, resting the oar handles under the crook of his knees, and bending down as if he was preparing to butt at the passengers in the stern-sheets. "Blow up or blow down, I'm spint, ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... gazing down the declivity, a small boat cut across their line of vision and came up to the slip with a sweep which only the expert oarsman can achieve. ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... Instead of pulling downstream with might and main, and depending on a steersman with a sweep-oar to keep us clear of obstructions—the method usually adopted on large rivers, and by the earlier parties on the Colorado—by our method the single oarsman reversed his boat so that it was turned with the stern downstream, giving the oarsman a view of what was ahead; then by pulling upstream the boat was held in check. We allowed ourselves to be carried in a direct line with the rocks ahead, ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... seafarer, seafaring man; dock walloper [Slang]; tar, jack tar, salt, able seaman, A. B.; man-of-war's man, bluejacket, galiongee^, galionji^, marine, jolly, midshipman, middy; skipper; shipman^, boatman, ferryman, waterman^, lighterman^, bargeman, longshoreman; bargee^, gondolier; oar, oarsman; rower; boatswain, cockswain^; coxswain; steersman, pilot; crew. aerial navigator, aeronaut, balloonist, Icarus; aeroplanist^, airman, aviator, birdman, man-bird, wizard of the air, aviatrix, flier, pilot, test pilot, glider pilot, bush pilot, navigator, flight attendant, steward, stewardess, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... while being rowed at full speed, with the current, on one of our principal rivers, was run into to the stone abutment of a bridge. The bow struck squarely on to obstacle, and such was the momentum of the mass that the oarsman was thrown directly through the flaring bow of the cockpit into the river. Witnesses of the accident who were familiar with wooden shells declared that the boat was ruined; but, after a careful examination, only the bow-tip was found to be twisted in a spiral form, and the washboard broken ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... is all that it can do; and even that it does very clumsily. The front part of the body, sticking out of the case, acts as a rudder. Three or four times over, it rises abruptly, bends, comes down again and strikes the water. These paddle strokes, repeated at intervals, carry the unskilled oarsman to fresh latitudes. It becomes a voyage on the right seas when the crossing ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... filled and the plashing of her way spoke Hope beneath her bulwark as she caught the wind. Then her dread that the Devil's craft ahead would make sail too, and overreach them after all, and the blessing in her heart for her hopeful oarsman, whose view was that the officer in charge would not spare his convicts any work he could inflict. "He'll see to it they arn their breaffastis, missis. He ain't going to unlock their wristis off of the ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... Percy was an enthusiastic oarsman, and many an afternoon Jeffreys and he, flying from the crowd, had spent on the grand old Thames. Jeffreys enjoyed it as much as he, and no one, seeing the boy and his tutor together in their pair-oar, would have imagined that the broader of the two ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... had failed to help them. A sturdy New Hampshire farmer wounded his foot with an axe and was supposed to have split a nerve in it. The wound healed perfectly but he never was able to do a whole day's work afterward. An oarsman in the international regatta of 1869 who was a man of enormous physical strength, deranged his nerves in some way and shot himself rather than endure the kind of life ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... handsome, finely built man of about thirty-two. He is a West Pointer, is a good oarsman, a crack shot, and a good fellow all around. No finicking about him, no nerves. Just a sane, healthy, ...
— Her Own Way - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... young oarsman, Into the crypt of the night we float: Fair, faint moonbeams wash and wander, Wash and wander about the boat. Not a fetter is here to bind us, Love and memory lose their spell; Friends that we have left ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... indirectly—not at the point of the disorder itself, but of its often unsuspected cause. Purity, like health, like happiness, like so many of the higher aims of our life, has to be attained altruistically. Seek them too directly, and they elude our grasp. Like the oarsman, we have often to turn our back upon our destination in order to arrive at ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... though besieged he dares To storm th' assailants: and as lay the ships Joined rank to rank, bids drop upon their sides Lamps drenched with reeking tar. Nor slow the fire To seize the hempen cables and the decks Oozing with melting pitch; the oarsman's bench All in one moment, and the topmost yards Burst into flame: half merged the vessels lay While swam the foemen, all in arms, the wave; Nor fell the blaze upon the ships alone, But seized with writhing tongues the neighbouring homes, And fanned to ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... one of my novels that shortly after having been begun were laid aside for a few months. Starting impetuously like a sanguine oarsman setting forth in the early morning I came very soon to a fork in the stream and found it necessary to pause and reflect seriously upon the direction I would take. Either presented to me equal fascinations, at least on the surface, and for that very reason ...
— Notes on My Books • Joseph Conrad
... missed busy launches by a yard, never pausing in his stroke, never looking over his shoulder, never speaking. They proceeded in this way some three miles until they were out of the harbor proper and opposite a small, sandy island. Here the oarsman paused and waited for further orders. Stubbs glanced at his big silver watch and thought a moment. It was still a good three hours before dark. Beyond the island a fair-sized yacht lay at anchor. Stubbs took from his bag a pair of field glasses and leveled them upon ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... gagged and bound. As the light still flickered over the surprised oarsmen, an answering shot evidenced better aim. The man in the back of the bobbing vessel groaned as he fell forward upon the prostrate body of the pinioned millionaire. One oarsman disappeared over the side of the boat, to glide into the unfathomable darkness, with ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... none the better for it. Most of the fellows, though, had forgotten themselves. They no longer flinched, or feared. They had got beyond that. They were just set on clinging to that mound and keeping the Huns at bay until their officer gave the word to retire. Their spirit was the spirit of the oarsman, the runner, or the footballer, who has strained himself to the utmost, who if he stopped to wonder whether he could go on or not would collapse; but who, because he does not stop to wonder, goes on miraculously long after he should, by all ...
— A Student in Arms - Second Series • Donald Hankey
... and you'll infect others. You must take some quinine." With these words Parrington climbed into his gig, the sailors gave way with the oars, and the boat rushed through the water and disappeared into the darkness, where the bow oarsman was silhouetted against the pale yellow light of the boat's ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... they beat Leander, looking fresh as paint, leading by a length and taking the championship out of England, you would never have guessed by the flicker of an eyelash that it wasn't the most happy conclusion of a good week's sport for every oarsman present. ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... der Harras, and their suite. My bow And quiver lay astern beside the helm; And just as we had reached the corner, near The little Axen,[*] Heaven ordain'd it so, That from the Gotthardt's gorge, a hurricane Swept down upon us with such headlong force, That every oarsman's heart within him sank, And all on board look'd for a watery grave. Then heard I one of the attendant train, Turning to Gessler, in this wise accost him: "You see our danger, and your own, my lord, And that ...
— Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... to pull us over, without deigning to tell them whether they would be paid. The periagua is a strange rough boat, but the crew were still stranger: I doubt if six uglier little men ever got into a boat together. They pulled, however, very well and cheerfully. The stroke-oarsman gabbled Indian, and uttered strange cries, much after the fashion of a pig-driver driving his pigs. We started with a light breeze against us, but yet reached the Capella de Cucao before it was late. The country on each side of the lake was one unbroken forest. In ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... they glided, bravely propelled by their nine-year-old oarsman, but when the bow of their skiff grated upon the bottom they were still ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... were about to embark, he attempted to go over to Tim's party. Barney resented the attempt, and another fight ensued. Then he was kicked into the boat, for his chief could not spare so able an oarsman. ...
— All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake - A Sequel to "The Boat Club" • Oliver Optic
... thy loved one's side, though hour by hour "The path runs on; though Summer's parching star "Burn all the fields, or blackest tempests lower, "Or monitory rainbows threaten far. "If he would hasten o'er the purple sea, "Thyself the helmsman or the oarsman be. "Endure, unmurmuring, each unwelcome toil, "Nor fear thy unaccustomed hands to spoil. "If to the hills he goes with huntsman's snare, "Let thine own back the nets and burden bear. "Swords would he have? Fence lightly when you meet; "Expose thy body and compel ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus
... boat turned her nose once more down the wind, and all but the oarsman watched the shore grow. Under the influence of this expansion doubt and direful apprehension was leaving the minds of the men. The management of the boat was still most absorbing, but it could not prevent a quiet cheerfulness. In ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... towards Olaf Gueldmar's private pier. As the perspiration bedewed his brow, he felt that Heaven had dealt with him somewhat too liberally in the way of fat—he was provided too amply with it ever to excel as an oarsman. The sun was burning hot, the water was smooth as oil, and very weighty—it seemed to resist every stroke of his clumsily wielded blades. Altogether it was hard, uncongenial work,—and, being rendered somewhat flabby and nerveless by his previous evening's carouse with Macfarlane's ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... 1st, 1904—"Glorious First of June" as Jimmy Collingwood called it—that Foe first made Jimmy's acquaintance. Young Collingwood was a neighbour of mine, down in the country; an artless, irresponsible, engaging youth, of powerful build and as pretty an oarsman and as neat a waterman as you could watch. Eton and B.N.C. Oxford were his nursing mothers. His friends (including the dons) at this latter house of learning knew him as the Malefactor; it being a tradition that he poisoned an aunt or a grandparent annually, towards ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and answering Roared in each echo. And all we, gazing there, Gazed seeing not; 'twas more than eyes could bear. Then straight upon the team wild terror fell. Howbeit, the Prince, cool-eyed and knowing well Each changing mood a horse has, gripped the reins Hard in both hands; then as an oarsman strains Up from his bench, so strained he on the thong, Back in the chariot swinging. But the young Wild steeds bit hard the curb, and fled afar; Nor rein nor guiding hand nor morticed car Stayed them at all. ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides |
