"Skiff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... celebrated Alcedo, or Halcyon, of the ancients, who attributed to him many apparently supernatural powers. He was supposed to construct his nest upon the waves, on which it was made to float like a skiff. But as the turbulence of a storm would be likely to cause its destruction, Nature had gifted him with the extraordinary power of stilling the motions of the winds and waves, during the period of incubation. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... the Dutch.[51] When the two English ships continued their effort to trade at Cape Corse and other villages, the "Golden Lyon" followed them from place to place, and on one occasion seized a small skiff which was attempting to land some goods. Discouraged at the treatment accorded to them the English officers finally gave up the attempt to trade on the Gold Coast, and returned home with their ships, after delivering to the Dutch a solemn protest against the injuries ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... you cannot imagine such water; why should it be blue on top, and green when you look down into it? I have a little skiff of my own in which I drift, and I have been happy for hours, studying the bottom; you see every colour of the rainbow, and all as clear as in an aquarium. I have been fishing, too, and have caught a tarpon. That is supposed to be a great adventure, and it really is quite thrilling ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... beautiful harbor, a half mile from the ancient gate of the clock. A few curious idlers along the shore watched it and commented on its perfect lines. And the numerous officials of the port lazily craned their necks at it, and yawningly awaited the arrival of the skiff that was immediately lowered and ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... especially where the rapids caused the water to be in wild commotion. I was told that it would go down stream like an arrow, and so it did. There was no need to row hard, for the current took the fragile skiff along with it so fast that the trees on the banks sped by as if they were running races, and every few minutes brought a change of landscape. It was very delightful; only one sensation of movement could ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... and there in the early dawn of morning could be seen the welcome sight of land. Fortunately they lighted on the only secure entrance through the reefs. The vessel was run ashore and wedged between two rocks, and thereby was preserved from sinking, till by means of a boat and skiff the whole crew of one hundred and fifty, with provisions, tackle and stores, reached the land. At that time the hogs still abounded, and these, with the turtle, birds and fish which they caught, afforded excellent food for the ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II. No. 5, February, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... Desiring to know what destiny God reserved for him, he took counsel with his intendant, Diego Mendez,[11] and two islanders of Jamaica who were familiar with those waters. Mendez started in a canoe, although the sea was already ruffled. From reef to reef and from rock to rock, his narrow skiff tossed by the waves, Diego nevertheless succeeded in reaching the extreme point of Hispaniola which is some forty leagues distant from Jamaica. The two natives returned joyously, anticipating the reward promised them by Columbus. Mendez made his way on foot ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... to think to know that Gavegan would be making his vindictive approach from the westerly regions where lay Headquarters. So, keeping in the deeper shadows close to the building, Larry took the eastern course of the street, remembering in a flash a skiff he had seen tethered to a scow moored to the pier which stretched like a pointer finger from the little Square. As yet he had no plan beyond the necessity of the present moment, which was flight. Could he but make that skiff unseen ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... Skiff after skiff ahead of us was seen to be swallowed up in the cliffs in the most amazing way, and not an opening in the rocky wall to be seen. "You mustn't be afraid," said my sweet little guide, assuringly: "it won't ...
— Harper's Young People, April 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Capri, a pink ethereal sunset that flooded headland and rock, orange orchard and vineyard, in a faint and luminous opal glow. Their vessel anchored outside the quay of the Marina Grande, and signaled for a boat to take them off. A little skiff put out from the beach, and into this they and their luggage were transferred. The transparent crystal water over which they rowed was clear as an aquarium, and alive with gorgeous medusae whose pink ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... and left the shelter of the pend close and went up the street round the factor's corner. He looked behind him there. The ferry-boat from Kilcatrine was in. Young Islay had stepped the first off the skiff and was speaking—not to his father, but to General Turner, whose horse, spattered with foam and white with autumn dust, a boy held at the quay head. The post-runner took a newspaper from his pocket and handed it to the men waiting at the Cross; they ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... spirits of the powers of nature. The mountain-dweller saw them through the panes of his little window. They sailed in hosts before the Ice Maiden as she came out of her palace of ice. Then she seated herself on the trunk of the fir-tree as on a broken skiff, and the water from the glaciers carried her down the river to the ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... little boat drifted up on the sands, and in it lay the fox, covered with blood. While his wounds were being tended in the palace with all the care imaginable, I set out to consult a wizard, who told me that I must enter the skiff and seek for the prince and princess of Lombardy, and that if, in twenty-four hours, I could bring them into the presence of the fox, his life would be saved. On a rock along the beach I found your father with an arrow through his shoulder, ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... 40 boats of various sizes and uses listed in this census. For example, at Jamestown a "barque of 40 tons, a shallop of 4 tons and one skiff" were among ...
— The Bounty of the Chesapeake - Fishing in Colonial Virginia • James Wharton
... A skiff shot out of the gloom. It was a woman who was rowing. The boat grounded stern on. The watcher saw the man step in and settle himself on ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... had in coming. I took a robe from the chaise and covered him, for I liked a horse almost as well as a boat. When I had finished this kindly act, Tom came out of the house with a lantern in his hand. He was followed by my uncle, and they went down to the landing, where my skiff lay. ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... indeed true, that the fire had been lighted as a beacon to the boatmen on their return. They rowed right for the mouth of the cave, and then, shifting their oars, permitted the boat to enter in obedience to the impulse which it had received. The skiff passed the little point or platform of rock on which the fire was blazing, and running about two boats' lengths farther, stopped where the cavern (for it was already arched overhead) ascended from the water by ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... if my skiff might brave The winds that lift the ocean wave, The mountain stream that loops and swerves Through my broad meadow's channelled curves Should waft me on from bound to bound To where the River ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Let's make a dash for Cragan's dock, and borrow his skiff!" suggested Larry, ready to toss fishing poles, and even the fine catch in the dusty weeds bordering the road, so that they might be unimpeded ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... her, and her captain, Faucon, had taken the Pilgrim, and was the green-jacketed man on the quarter-deck. The boat put directly off again, without giving us time to ask any more questions, and we were obliged to wait till night, when we took a little skiff, that lay on the beach, and paddled off. When I stepped aboard, the second mate called me aft, and gave me a large bundle, directed to me, and marked "Ship Alert.'' This was what I had longed for, yet I refrained from opening it until I went ashore. Diving down into the forecastle, I found ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... into praises of her hero, and her tongue was unsealed. "To go at night, with only a poor fishing-skiff and a handful of men, to steal back the little king from the galley of Naples—it was not easy! But how should one think of peril when the Prince was in danger?—They are ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... vessel round, and lay to about a quarter of a mile o' the coast. At dusk I'm to put off in a skiff and row to Pine Bluff, and lay under its shadow till I hear your signal. Then I'm to put to ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... skiff is on the Trent, And the stream is in its strength,— For a surge, from its ocean-fountain sent, Pervades its giant length:[8] Roars the hoarse heygre[9] in its course, Lashing the banks with its wrathful force; And dolefully echoes the wild-fowl's scream, As the sallows ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... of the committee on grounds and buildings, introduced Isaac S. Taylor, who delivered the gold key to the buildings to President Francis and presented diplomas to his staff. An address followed by Director of Exhibits F.J.V. Skiff, who presented commissions to his staff, the chiefs of the various exhibit departments. Next followed addresses in behalf of the city of St. Louis by Hon. Rolla Wells, Mayor; in behalf of the National ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... treading the innumerable ripples with an incessant weltering splash; and until I got my eye above the window-sill I could not comprehend why the watchmen had taken no alarm. One glance, however, was sufficient; and it was only one glance that I durst take from that unsteady skiff. It showed me Hands and his companion locked together in deadly wrestle, each with a hand ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of the Revolutionary War, a Swede named Jeremiah Dobbs, established a ferry here connecting with the northern end of the Palisades (visible on the left across the river). Originally only a dugout or skiff, it was the first ferry north of Manhattan, and was kept up by the Dobbs family for a century. In times past the residents have often tried to change the name of the town to something more "distinguished," but the old name could ...
— The Greatest Highway in the World • Anonymous
... there crested with the pearly froth of coral breakers. I look to the eastward, and behold a summer sea that seems to invite navigation. But where are the messengers of commerce with their white wings? The solitary skiff of the savage "pescador" is making its way through the surf; a lone "polacca" beats up the coast with its half-smuggler crew; a "piragua" swings at anchor in a neighbouring cove: this is all! Far as eye or glass ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... late in the afternoon of this third day, upon his return from a long pull in the borrowed skiff around the group of islands in the upper and unfrequented part of the lake, that he found a note awaiting him. It was from Miss Farnham, and its brevity, no less than its urgency, stirred him apprehensively, bringing a suggestive return of the ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... and swift to west the warning radiance spread; High on St. Michael's mount it shone, it shone on Beachy Head. Far on the deep the Spaniards saw, along each southern shire, Cape beyond cape, in endless rage, those twinkling points of fire: The fisher left his skiff to rock on Tamar's glittering waves; The rugged miners poured to war from Mendip's sunless caves. O'er Longleat's towers, o'er Cranbourne's oaks, the fiery herald flew; He roused the Shepherds of Stonehenge, the rangers of Beaulieu. Right sharp and quick the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 580, Supplemental Number • Various
... tenderly raised his son's body in his arms, and strode out of the hall and down to the shore, where he deposited his precious burden in a skiff which an old one-eyed boatman brought at his call. He would fain have stepped aboard also, but ere he could do so the boatman pushed off and the frail craft was soon lost to sight. The bereaved father then ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... Our light skiff, or bark rather, as it might be truely styled, being a veritable Indian canoe, made of birch bark most cunningly put together, these being so light as to float in shallow water, and to be easily removed, are for this reason preferred by the Indians to more solid ...
— Sketches And Tales Illustrative Of Life In The Backwoods Of New Brunswick • Mrs. F. Beavan
... him down to the old house, returned at night in the boat that belonged to his negro tenant, and, taking his unconscious wife from her bed, rowed down the river and landed her safely, to be carried from the skiff into an upper chamber of the old house, where Jake's wife, Aunt Judy, as Mr. Dimock styled her, nursed the wretched woman through three weeks of fever, and "doctored" her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... deck admiring the guns and the carved and gilt work with which the ship was adorned; for it was the custom, especially in the Spanish navy, in those days to ornament ships of war far more profusely than at present. At length Don Hernan came on deck. He observed the skiff alongside; and his eye falling on Lawrence, he very naturally at first took him to be some poor fisherman habited in the cast-off finery of a gentleman. Lawrence, however, guessed who he was from his uniform, ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... week later Outfield West and Joel March were seated on the ledge where, nearly two months before, they had begun their friendship. The sun beat warmly down and the hill at their backs kept off the east wind. Below them the river was brightly blue, and a skiff dipping its way up stream caught the sunlight on sail and hull until, as it danced from sight around the headland, it looked like a white gull hovering over the water. Above, on the campus, the football field was noisy with voices and the ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... claim'd, new pow'rs are still bestow'd, Till rude resistance lops the spreading god; The daring Greeks deride the martial show, And heap their valleys with the gaudy foe; Th' insulted sea, with humbler thoughts, he gains; A single skiff to speed his flight remains; Th' incumber'd oar scarce leaves the dreaded coast Through purple billows and a floating host. The bold Bavarian, in a luckless hour, Tries the dread summits of Caesarean ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... cooked his food in a primitive fashion, outdoors, over a hole in the soggy earth or upon the rusted red ruin of an old cook stove, and he drank the saffron water of the lake out of a dipper made of a gourd, faring and fending for himself, a master hand at skiff and net, competent with duck gun and fish spear, yet a creature of affliction and loneliness, part savage, almost amphibious, set apart from his fellows, silent ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... for your stupidity in that matter. Take the maid an' be done with it. God be thanked I isn't a widower-man. If I was, I'd bring your chance into peril soon enough," said his father. "'Tis t' be a fair day for fishin' the Skiff-an'-Punt grounds the morrow. Go t' bed. I'll pray that wisdom may overcome your caution ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... ancient Tarsus held, or that Sea-beast 200 Leviathan, which God of all his works Created hugest that swim th' Ocean stream: Him haply slumbring on the Norway foam The Pilot of some small night-founder'd Skiff, Deeming some Island, oft, as Sea-men tell, With fixed Anchor in his skaly rind Moors by his side under the Lee, while Night Invests the Sea, and wished Morn delayes: So stretcht out huge in length the Arch-fiend ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... age at all, child; as yer little skiff hove int' sight, hers set sail. Ye didn't any more than hail ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... rather light skiff, he told me. He used it to go up and down to look at the bridges he was now busily laying. When I asked for its use the next day, he said Yes, if I would send him some ducks; adding that I should ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... had paddles, or something that was a cross between a paddle and an oar; for the wanderers had seen them in the boat in the darkness. They forced the skiff out into the current, headed directly for the opposite shore. They did very well so far; but in a few moments more the full strength of the stream struck them, and the flimsy craft was carried down the stream at a rapid rate. They were farther ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... for, as Jim said in an aside to his friend, "There was no disguising their trail from the enemy if they carried that." But they had plenty of other necessities, including tea and coffee. They were also loaned a few necessary cooking utensils, and thus equipped, they launched out in their skiff ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... their pocket money and bought a light skiff—a flat-bottomed affair which was just the thing for them to paddle about in shallow water, and was "seaworthy." No ordinary amount of rocking could turn the ...
— A Little Miss Nobody - Or, With the Girls of Pinewood Hall • Amy Bell Marlowe
... war on Germany. It is hard to over-estimate the value of this new adhesion to the Allied cause. The standing army is well over six hundred strong, and there is a small but modern fleet, consisting of two revenue cutters, one super skiff, eight canoes (mounted with two pairs of six-inch oars) and one raft (Benamuckee class). The President, in a moving address to the Panaguan Senate, declared, "The world is watching Panagua; it does not watch in vain." Senora Hysterica, the first woman senator, cast the only vote against war. "I cannot," ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 9, 1917 • Various
... firearms, Radisson left the Mohawk Valley with three hunters. By the middle of August, the rind of the birch is in perfect condition for peeling. The first thing the hunters did was to slit off the bark of a thick-girthed birch and with cedar linings make themselves a skiff. Then they prepared to lay up a store of meat for the winter's war-raids. Before ice forms a skim across the still pools, nibbled chips betray where a beaver colony is at work; so the hunters began setting beaver traps. One night as they ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... corner of the hearth, quiet, and a little as it were a one side, she watched the play and the people. She was so delightfully set free for the moment from all her home cares and life anxieties. It was like getting out of the current and rush of the waves into a nook of a bay, where her tossed little skiff could lie still for a bit, and the dangers and difficulties of navigation did not demand her attention. She rested luxuriously and amused herself with seeing and hearing what went on. And to tell the whole truth, Dolly was more than amused; she was interested; and watched and listened keenly. ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... to communicate with our fleet that night, which happened to be a beautiful moonlight one. At the wharf belonging to Cheeves's mill was a small skiff, that had been used by our men in fishing or in gathering oysters. I was there in a minute, called for a volunteer crew, when several young officers, Nichols and Merritt among the number; said they were good oarsmen, and volunteered ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... A skiff went prowling along the Avon River in the unhurried English twilight that releases the sunset with reluctance and defers luxuriously the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... at the tired strangers with sympathy, and vigorously plied his oars. The waves rippled and the rocking skiff glided over the broad expanse of waters which, on the south side, appeared endless. From the way in which the two men spoke to the Master, Simon thought to himself: "A rabbi, and they are his pupils." To the Master's ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... to the oars, he rowed swiftly and strongly, and Sir Philip, pulling up the ladder and closing the gangway, saw the little skiff flying over the water like a bird in the direction of the Gueldmar's landing-place. He wondered again and again what relationship, if any, this half-crazed being bore to the bonde and his daughter. That he knew all about them was pretty evident; but how? Catching sight of the ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... sinks some adverbs in the verbs, he compensates the language with adverbs and adjectives which he separates from the parent stock. Thus a lady whispers pantingly and close, makes hushing signs, and steers her skiff into a ripply cove, a shower falls refreshfully, and a vulture ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... myself known to the good man of the house, was naturally, of my horses and men. Will you be kind enough to fancy my feelings, when I heard that they were miles away, and—the reason why. Three days before the ferry-boat had been carried away and shattered by the floods; nothing but a skiff could cross till a cable was rigged from bank to bank; there was no chance of this being completed before the beginning of the following week. The neighborhood was too dangerous to linger in; there was a provost-marshal guard actually stationed in Sharpsburg: so my men, hearing of the ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... fond of boating. Once he hired a small skiff near the suspension-bridge at Glasgow Green, and proceeded with it up the river. Having gone a good way up, the idea appears to have taken him to endeavour to get the whole way to Hamilton, where, father having retired from business in 1866, ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... away with a quick writhing motion. "No," she groaned, "it is he who has killed me—with two words—bring Helene." She darted to the house with the news of Edward's accident, and then to the beach, where Helene was already before her. The tiny skiff was pushed off, and the two ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... afternoon he lay without food, and without protection from the heat or venomous insects. Then he managed to slip unobserved into the dense swamp, and began to make his way to the fleet. Toward evening he came out on a small stream, near a camp of Confederate soldiers. They had moored to the bank a skiff, and, with equal stealth and daring, he managed to steal this and to paddle down-stream. Hour after hour he paddled on through the fading light, and then through the darkness. At last, utterly worn out, he found ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... never succeed, Pathfinder," eagerly interrupted Jasper. "Mabel is not strong enough to tramp the woods in a night like this. Put her in my skiff, and I will lose my life, or carry her through the rift safely, dark as ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... feuds arose and family quarrels, That discomposed the mechanics of morals, For screws were loose between brother and brother, While sisters fastened their nails on each other; Such wrangles, and jangles, and miff, and tiff, And spar, and jar—and breezes as stiff As ever upset a friendship—or skiff! The plighted lovers who used to walk, Refused to meet, and declined to talk: And wished for two moons to reflect the sun, That they mightn't look together on one: While wedded affection ran so low, That the oldest John Anderson snubbed his Jo ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... a two-man rowboat which possesses as many of the different, and sometimes contradictory, good points of the canoe, skiff, punt, and lifeboat as it is possible to {160} combine in a single craft. It can be rowed, sculled, sailed, or driven by a motor. It is the first aquatic plaything for the boys, and often the last salvation for the men. The way it will ride out a storm that makes a liner labour ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood
... "and I can see his face this minute—so white and wild-looking. 'Take me down this river a way,' says he. I was working then, you'll remember, far down on the line, across from Amsterdam. I told him I was no boatman. 'It's an affair of life and death,' says he. 'Take me on a few miles. Yonder skiff is not locked, but it may be a poor man's boat and I'd be loath to rob him!' (The words might differ some, vrouw, for it's all like a dream.) Well, I took him down—it might be six or eight miles—and then he said he could run the rest of the ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... East. At Noon sounded, but had no ground with 240 fathoms of line; hoisted a Boat out to try if there was any Current, but found none. The weather was such as to admit Mr. Banks to row round the Ship in a Lighterman's Skiff shooting birds. Wind, South-East by East, South-South-East, East; course, North-West by West; distance, 106 miles; latitude 58 degrees 46 minutes South, longitude 78 degrees ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... three goodly hulls in varying stages of progress, inhaled with keen enjoyment the mingled odours of pine chips and Stockholm tar, and then hurried after Dick, who was already busily engaged in unmooring a small skiff, in which to pull off to a handsome five-ton lugger-rigged boat that lay lightly straining at her moorings in ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... exactly opposite the window of his room." He watched it with longing eyes, he sought upon the shining disk and in the spots upon it mountains and forests, wonderful castles and enchanted flowers and fragrant trees. He believed that he saw lakes with shining swans which were drawing boats, a skiff which carried him and his beloved, while about them charming mermaids blew upon their twisted conchs and stretched their arms filled with water ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... just after supper, the negro appeared on the bank, with some chickens in his hand, which was a signal to Frank that he had something to communicate. He immediately set off alone, in a skiff. When he reached the shore, the negro informed him that the rebel lieutenant was expected at the plantation that evening, and that he would bring with him the mail, which was to be carried ...
— Frank on a Gun-Boat • Harry Castlemon
... had been a little awry while Mrs. James neglected her steering to wave her handkerchief to her husband and Mrs. Stephen; but now the light skiff went straight onward again, and they could soon see nothing more of the two figures it contained than Olive's light mantle and ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... towards the latter end of July, and I had been an Etonian nearly three months. During this time I had experienced a fair average of fighting, bullying, fagging, and flogging, and had also acquired some useful accomplishments. I could paddle my skiff up to Surly Hall and back, swim across the river at Upper Hope, and had even begun to get in debt, having some weeks ago "gone tick" with Joe Hyde for a couple of bottles of ginger-beer, with the proviso of returning them when empty, but ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... for four miles more of road. Could we but make this short cut over water! What would I give now for a boat to take us To Webber's Cove! O, if some timely oarsman Would only come and say, 'Fair demoiselles, My skiff lies yonder, rocking on the tide, And eager to convey you to ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... rapidly drawing near when I was to begin my second series of bouts with John Barleycorn. When I was fourteen, my head filled with the tales of the old voyagers, my vision with tropic isles and far sea-rims, I was sailing a small centreboard skiff around San Francisco Bay and on the Oakland Estuary. I wanted to go to sea. I wanted to get away from monotony and the commonplace. I was in the flower of my adolescence, a-thrill with romance and adventure, dreaming of wild ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... over his shoulder, he strode down the walk through the gate and along one of the streets of the village, until he reached the lake-shore, with the air of an emperor. At this spot boats were kept for the use of Judge Temple and his family. The young man threw himself into a light skiff, and, seizing the oars, he sent it across the lake toward the hut of Leather-Stocking, with a pair of vigorous arms. By the time he had rowed a quarter of a mile, his reflections were less bitter; and when he saw the bushes ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... Having previously constructed a skiff for the purpose, Pont Grave and Champlain, with five sailors and two Indians with a canoe, attempted to pass the falls. But after a long and persevering trial, exploring the shores on foot for some miles, they found any further ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... of the unseen world, boomerangs of hard wood, and the battle-axe of Ahmosis. Besides these, there were two boats, one of gold and one of silver, originally intended for the Pharaoh Kamosu—models of the skiff in which his mummy crossed the Nile to reach its last resting-place, and to sail in the wake of the gods on ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... afforded subject for the conversation which we have detailed in our last chapter, the late favourite was far advanced on his solitary journey, without well knowing what was its object, or what was likely to be its end. He had rowed the skiff in which he left the castle, to the side of the lake most distant from the village, with the desire of escaping from the notice of the inhabitants. His pride whispered, that he would be in his discarded ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... speaker paused to stare at a curious sight. On the beach ahead of her stood a brand-new rowboat ready for launching. Near it was assembled an outfit of gear and provisions, divided into two equal piles. Two old men, armed each with a hand-saw, were silently at work upon the skiff. They were sawing it in two, exactly in the middle, and they did not look up until the ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... power begun; His noble stream, inglorious, Mersey roll'd, Nor felt his waves by lab'ring art controll'd: Along his side a few small cots were spread, His finny brood their humble tenants fed; At op'ning dawn with fraudful nets supply'd The padding skiff would brave his specious tide, Ply round the shores, nor tempt the dangerous main, But seek ere night ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 270, Saturday, August 25, 1827. • Various
... land, on account of some vessels of Ternatans, which were coasting from point to point—their enemies and ours, as I have said. These invaders, seeing their prey alone and defenseless, were not willing to lose it; accordingly, some of them went in a little skiff, and seized the woman and the children, carrying them away captive. The poor wretch who had been thus despoiled, reached the shore some distance behind them; and seeing that he could not overtake them, began to shout to them, standing on the beach, and was able ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... and distended both arms of Aulus with his munificence. Soon was the valise well filled and rammed down. Plenty of boys were in readiness to carry it to the boat. Aulus waved them off, looking at some angrily, at others suspiciously. Boarding the skiff, he lowered his treasure with care and caution, staggering a little at the weight, and shaking it gently on deck, with his ear against it: and then, finding all safe and compact, he sat on it; but as tenderly as a pullet on her first eggs. When he was landed, his care was even greater, ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... knew that was not the case, for I often heard him and the old gentleman talking, but in a language I could not understand. His only care appeared to be to watch over the old gentleman's chests, which had been placed in his cabin, and to keep an eye on the little skiff which had brought ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... surface in skiff, and bark canoe, Shot grouse and duck, caught fish and eel, and held their title true; For other people's safety took not a single thought— Ten thousand lives were less to them than fish thus daily caught. The dam revealed its weakness by frequent leaks, but they Turned ...
— Gleams of Sunshine - Optimistic Poems • Joseph Horatio Chant
... Ross felt that he had reached a point high enough up the flooded bank to justify him in the attempt to get across. He jumped into the home-made skiff, and, setting his strength to the clumsy oars, began to pull with ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... one portion were for throwing Schriften overboard, the other for throwing Philip; at last, the point was decided by the captain, who directed the small skiff, hanging astern, to be lowered down, and ordered both Philip and Schriften to get into it. The seamen approved of this arrangement, as it satisfied both parties. Philip made no objection; Schriften screamed and fought, but he was tossed into the boat. There ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the hill beside the Parsonage, gazing forth over the surging sea, he would say: "Look, Rebecca! yonder is an image of life—of that life in which the children of this world are tossed to and fro; in which impure passions rock the frail skiff about, to litter the shore at last with its shattered fragments. He only can defy the storm who builds strong bulwarks around a pure heart—at his feet the waves ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... down to the waiting skiff She stole in the shadow of the cliff; And out of the Bay's mouth ran The schooner with ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... Their little fairy skiff speedily conveyed them to the cave, and with the early morning they resumed their journey. Their route lay, as before, through an attractive country, and the peasants, in picturesque costumes, were engaged in the various labors of rural life: but how changed did all at first ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... for himself. Then Thor went up to a herd of oxen belonging to Hymir, and capturing the largest bull, called Himinbrjot, he wrung off its head, and went with it to the sea-shore. Hymir launched the skiff, and Thor, sitting down in the after-part, rowed with two oars so that Hymir, who rowed in the fore-part, wondered to see how fast the boat went on. At length he said they had arrived at the place where he was accustomed ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various
... and such like cheap high-brows—had raised yawping voices to point out that Paul Revere galloping along the pre-Revolutionary turnpike to spread the alarm passed en route two garages and one electric power house; that Washington crossing the Delaware stood in the bow of his skiff half shrouded in an American flag bearing forty-eight stars upon its field of blue; that Andrew Jackson's riflemen filing out from New Orleans to take station behind their cotton-bale breastworks marched for some distance beneath a network of trolley wires; that Abraham Lincoln signing ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... learned that Noah Martin the fisherman who was also the ferryman between the village and its neighbor on the other side of the river, had been drowned during the early morning in a foolish attempt to row his ferry skiff across the stream. The ice which had blocked the river for two months, had begun to move on the day before, and Martin with his wife and baby—a child about a year old—were on the other side of the ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... ilex tall, And Pales' image rude Hewn out by pruning-hook, for worship stood. The shepherd hung upon the bough His babbling pipes in payment of a vow,— The pipe of reeds in lessening order placed, Knit well with wax from longest unto last. Where proud Velabrum lies, A little skiff across the shallows plies; And oft, to meet her shepherd lover, The village lass is ferried over For a woodland holiday: At night returning o'er the watery way, She brings a tribute from the fruitful farms— A cheese, or white ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus
... line and skiff I had been using and who was the fishing oracle of that region, could hardly believe his eyes. I kept that country inn, and the neighborhood as well, supplied with fish for the ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... thin copper globes filled with liquid fire, which would soar. Leonardo, artist, studied the wings of birds. The Jesuit Francisco Lana, in 1670, working on Bacon's theory sketched an airship made of four copper balls with a skiff attached; this machine was to soar by means of the lighter-than-air globes and to be navigated aloft by ...
— The Age of Invention - A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest, Book, 37 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Holland Thompson
... boating. For the past nine years, I have rowed about, during a good part of the summer, on fresh or salt water. My present fleet on the river Charles consists of three rowboats. 1. A small flat-bottomed skiff of the shape of a flat-iron, kept mainly to lend to boys. 2. A fancy "dory" for two pairs of sculls, in which I sometimes go out with my young folks. 3. My own particular water-sulky, a "skeleton" or "shell" race-boat, twenty-two ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... doubtless remember that the writer, Mr. Allen, had an interview with you and Mr. Skiff, in which he protested on behalf of the National Commission that no time was given the Commission to investigate the character of qualifications of the jurors thus nominated, and that it was placing in the hands of the chiefs of the different departments the ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... morning we hired a large unpainted skiff and by working very hard ourselves in addition to paying full fare we reached camp at about ten o'clock in the morning. Atlin City was also a clump of tents half hidden in the trees on the beach of the lake near the mouth of Pine Creek. The lake was surpassingly ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... was about ten of the clock, or maybe later, for the time slipped by rapidly, we got loose our shallop and our skiff and lowered them into the water, and got most of the women and the children and the sick folk into them and sent them off, poor creatures, across the waste of waters to the islands. Barbara Hatchett went with them, for her firmness and courage served rarely to keep them quiet and inspire ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... said the commodore, who was not conscious of ever having heard the word before; for, in his Sabbaths on the water, where he often worshipped God devoutly in his heart, the language of the professedly pious was never heard; "I can only say she is as pretty a skiff as floats, but I can tell you nothing about resuscitation—indeed, I never heard of ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... colour; the ripe and yellow corn vying in hue with the soft atmosphere, which reflects and gives full effect to its abundance and its richness,—these, with the intervening waters unruffled, save by the lazy skiff, or the light bark canoe urged with the rapidity of thought along its surface by the slight and elegantly ornamented paddle of the Indian; or by the sudden leaping of the large salmon, the unwieldy sturgeon, ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... under, and restore again those Disgraced Favourites of Heavn, to its former Indulgence, yet had not hitherto the Apostles themselves (so deep set is our Natural Pride) any other than hopes of worldly Power, Preferment, Riches and Pomp: For Peter, who it seems ever since he left his Net and his Skiff, Dreamt of nothing but being a great Man, was utterly undone to hear our Saviour explain to em that his Kingdom was not of this World; and ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... her wild green mountains, From valleys where her slumbering fathers lie, From her blue rivers and her welling fountains, And clear cold sky— From her rough coast, and isles, which hungry Ocean Gnaws with his surges—from the fisher's skiff, With white sails swaying to the billow's motion Round rock and cliff— From the free fireside of her unbought farmer, From her free laborer at his loom and wheel. From the brown smithy where, beneath the hammer, Rings the red steel— From each and all, if God hath not forsaken Our land ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... have nothin' to say to 'im, never!' Ad' I'll quarrel 'bout you too; an' when all ov 'em is done fussin' 'bout me comin' back, I'll steal to you in a dark night, an' lay a plan to meet on Lickin' River; an' we'll take a skiff an' muffle oars till we get to the Ohio; an' I knows jus' whar to go in any dark night, an' we 'll be free together. I didn't tell Jim I's gwine to make massa b'leve all my lies to get you; for I tell you, Liz, I ain't got ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... canoe tight to us," Cora said, as the two visitors were about to climb into their frail skiff. "You would be washed out during the storm that's coming. Here, Bess, hold this," handing Bess one end of the awning tie. "Belle, can ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose
... has roused the wave— Vain is all pilot's skill to save, And lo! a deep, black-throated grave Ingulfs the reeling skiff." Anon the flood less fiercely flows, The rifted cloud blue ether shows, The windy buffets cease; Poseidon chafes his heart no more, His voice constrains the billows' roar, And ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... turned she to Damascus' kingdoms large, Nor to the fort built in Asphalte's lake, But jealous of her dear and precious charge, And of her love ashamed, the way did take, To the wide ocean whither skiff or barge From us doth seld or never voyage make, And there to frolic with her love awhile, She chose a waste, a sole and ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... was so interested in looking at his game that he thought it not worth while to look at whoever might be passing in the skiff; so, once more, Dorothy slid out of danger down ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose
... the moment of the explosion a cannonball crashed through the launch. Cushing plunged into the river and swam to shore through a shower of bullets. After crawling through the swamps next day, be found a skiff and paddled off to the fleet. Of the launch's crew of fourteen, only ...
— History of the United States, Volume 4 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... blest (if truth may entertain Coy fancy with a bolder strain) The Helvetian Girl—who daily braves, In her light skiff, the tossing waves, And quits the bosom of the deep Only to climb the rugged steep! —Say whence that modulated shout! From Wood-nymph of Diana's throng? Or does the greeting to a rout Of giddy Bacchanals belong? Jubilant outcry! rock and glade Resounded—but the voice obeyed ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... towed a skiff on the Thames, when the current was so strong that the progress made with the oars was unsatisfactory. Well, if you have, you don't know one bit what this was like. In the first place, the Thames, even by Monkey Island, is still water ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... MERIVALE,—I am motoring down to Hampton, and will gladly meet you there. I shall wire for the skiff ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... Deacon could easily see the Shelburne crew now—big men all, ideal oarsmen to look at. Their faces were set and grim, their eyes straight ahead. So far as they gave indication, their shell might have been alone on the river. Now the Baliol shell had made sternway sufficient for the man in the skiff to seize the rudder. The Shelburne boat was already secured. Astern hovered the referee's boat, the official standing in the bow directing operations. Still astern was a larger craft filled with favoured representatives of the two ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... leaving Lake Cataouache on the left, through cypress-swamp to the Mississippi River, opposite New Orleans. He would have pressed Mr. Tarbox to bear him company; but before he could ask twice, Mr. Tarbox had consented. They went in a cat-rigged skiff, with a stalwart negro rowing or towing whenever the sail ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... to Temple on this day helps to fill up the gap in his journal:—'It gives me acute pain that I have not written more to you since we parted last; but I have been like a skiff in the sea, driven about by a multiplicity of waves. I am now at Mr. Thrale's villa, at Streatham, a delightful spot. Dr. Johnson is here too. I came yesterday to dinner, and this morning Dr. Johnson and I return to London, and ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... miles in a barrel," he said, "and we were out for twenty-four hours in a Danish sailing skiff. You know what the weather's been like in the North Sea. Before that, the last word of writing I saw on German soil was a placard, offering a reward of five thousand marks for my detention, with a disgustingly lifelike photograph at the ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Every skiff a big ship seemeth, Every bush with tall wings clad; Every man his good brain deemeth The only brain that is ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... gulf! My skiff is thin as a nutshell, or even more fragile still. Let the leak but widen a little and all is over for the navigator. A mere nothing separates me from idiocy, from madness, from death. The slightest breach is enough to endanger all this frail, ingenious edifice, which calls itself my ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... A skiff had just entered the narrow channel which connected The Jug, as the bight where the Anguses lived was called, with the wider waters of Eskimo Bay. There could be no doubt, even at that distance, that the tall man standing aft and manipulating ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... pronounced the canoe a "regular macaroni" and laid down a pair of brass buckles, signifying that he would give them for the skiff. ...
— Far Past the Frontier • James A. Braden
... is the love of home and liberty! Sure of being shot if they were discovered, almost equally sure of being drowned if they effected their escape, they, nevertheless, resolved to attempt crossing the Channel in their fragile skiff. Perceiving an English frigate within sight of the coast, they pushed off and endeavoured to reach her. They had not gone a hundred toises from the shore when they were perceived by the custom-house ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... the landing was a huge flat-boat, that was managed by the aid of a stout cable reaching quite across the river; and beside it nestled a small light skiff. In this Therese seated herself, and proceeded to row across the stream, Hector plunging into the water and ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... accompanied the larger boat in their own skiff. It was an unwieldy craft, with but one pair of oars, and as the two young men were not accustomed to rowing together, and as Mr. Raybold was not accustomed to rowing at all and did not like it, Mr. Clyde pulled the boat. But, do what he could, it ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton
... This necessitated the visiting occasionally during the day and night, our videttes and picket posts which were stationed on the roads into the country, and at intersecting points in the fields; and also crossing in a skiff the Mississippi river, to visit the troops stationed to guard a telegraph station on the other side. This station was in the vicinity of a famous duelling ground,—a path not far from the river bank,—to which in former days the young bloods ...
— Reminiscences of two years with the colored troops • Joshua M. Addeman
... immediately perished; but the remaining two succeeded in getting a hold in the cross-trees of the mainmast, which were above water, where they clung for nearly an hour. It was then that the three heroic brothers took a small flat-bottomed skiff, twelve feet long, three feet wide, and fifteen inches deep, the only boat available on the coast, and leaving their weeping wives and children, who formed a part of the watching group of forty or fifty persons on the shore, went ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... the ocean in a small boat, and he had not been sailing long when a little skiff drew near, wherein was an old man with one eye, wearing a broad-brimmed grey hat. This was none other than Odin, who had come to succour his son, and he took the boat in tow and brought Sigi to a war vessel manned with a brave crew, well armed and provided, which he gave ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... by an accomplice and clansman, who had served six months in the castle to enjoy that one night of unlimited vengeance. The owl whooped around us as we hung betwixt heaven and earth; the tide roared against the foot of the rock, and dashed asunder our skiff, yet no man's heart failed him. In the morning there was blood and ashes, where there had been peace ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... current set of my day-dreaming. I never could draw on fancy to the exclusion of the Red-man; but, on the contrary, constantly detected myself re-peopling every wood with the wild forms of the aborigines, and in each distant skiff that darted over the broad stream picturing the fragile canoe, and its plumed ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... king commands a second to be made, while she sinks on her knees and ardently begins praying for her champion's appearance. Her prayer is scarcely ended when the men along the bank become aware of the approach of a snowy swan, drawing a little skiff, in which a handsome young knight in full ...
— Stories of the Wagner Opera • H. A. Guerber
... charge of one complete suit of sails for the Sovereign is 404l. Stirling money; the weight of the sea store, in point of ground tackle and other cordage, is sixty tons, eight hundred and odd pounds. She carries a long-boat of fifty feet, a pinnacle of thirty-six feet, and a skiff of twenty-seven feet long. The weight of her rigging, three and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 528, Saturday, January 7, 1832 • Various
... Naples our traveller first makes for the island of Capri. The greatest curiosity which he here visits and describes in the azure grotto. He and his companion are rowed, each in a small skiff, to a narrow dark aperture upon the rocky coast, and which appears the darker from its contrast with the white surf that is dashing about it. He is told to lie down on his back in the boat, to protect his head from a concussion against the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... to obey, and when it touched the water they swarmed into it, so that, being overloaded, it upset and left its occupants struggling in the water. A number of the men who could swim, immediately jumped overboard and tried to right the skiff, but they failed, and, in the effort to do so, broke the rope that held it. Some clung to it. Others turned ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... bury it; and where did they find it, to allow of their burying it?" questioned the miller. "How did they come by it?—that's the odd thing. I am certain it was not in the skiff, for I searched ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... on Mrs Gildea's veranda. In fact, Biddy, reminiscent of wild sea-excursions along the shore by Castle Gaverick, developed a passion for what she called tame boating on the Leichardt River. She found a suitable skiff in the boat-house—the Government House grounds sloped to the water's edge, and would row herself up and down the river reaches. It was easy to round the point, skirt the Botanical Gardens, and, crossing above the ferry, land below Mrs Gildea's cottage, then climb up the ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... arrive. Meanwhile, Essex, excited beyond all restraint by the volleys of culverin and cannon, slipped anchor, and passing from the body of the fleet, lay close up to the 'War Sprite,' pushing the 'Dreadnought' on one side. Raleigh, seeing him coming, went to meet him in his skiff, and begged him to see that the fly-boats were sent, as the battery was beginning to be more than his ships could bear. The Lord Admiral was following Essex, and Raleigh passed on to him with the same entreaty. ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... My rippling skiff Float swift or slow from cliff to cliff; With dreamful eyes My spirit lies ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... that he should have the bliss of landing a good fish. For myself I was not hopeful, and we went fishless ashore in the hot sun at mid-day, glad to release ourselves from the cramped positions in which we had been enduring the discomforts of that wretched skiff. ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... way Kenneth would have run the skiff past the castle and round behind into the little land-locked bay, where his visitor could have stepped ashore in still water. But, as he afterwards told Scood, there would have been no fun in that. So he steered in among the rocks where the castle front ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... the negro were aboard, the boatman rowed out on the river, shipped his oars and let the skiff drift ...
— The Bradys Beyond Their Depth - The Great Swamp Mystery • Anonymous
... children of the sea and of danger; they share the life of their parents. We have but one life, and we do not flinch from it. We have but one life, our names are written on the same page of the book of Fate, one skiff bears us and our fortunes, and ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... to be said about Mr. Smith. He appears in this chronicle because he owned a boat which became our vehicle on Lake Oquossok, Aquessok, Lakewocket, or Rangeley. Mr. Smith guided us across the carry to the next of the chain of lakes, and embarked us in a crazy skiff. It was blowing fresh, and, not to be wrecked, we coasted close to the gnarled arbor-vitae thickets. Smith sogered along, drawling dull legends ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... that was made for their relief was by a boy thirteen years old, from Herring Cove, who ventured off in a small skiff by himself about eleven o'clock the next day. This youth, with great labor and extreme risk to himself, boldly approached the wreck, and backed in his little boat so near to the fore-top as to take off two of the men, for the boat could not with safety hold any more. And here a trait of generous ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... heard below,—Nineveh, the capital of Sardanapalus, Babylon, Mycenae, Cleone and that famous Troy, on account of which I remember ferrying across there such numbers that for ten whole years my skiff was never high and dry and never caught cold," (that being Charon's fun, according to Lucian's conception, in conveying that all that long time his boat was in the water (hence "catching cold") from being perpetually used: [Greek: "Thelo soi deixai ton tou Achilleos taphon, horas ton ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... Spare a father's tears! Thou, who art love, Look on a mother's anguish! Thou, who art justice, Save! oh, save their children! Thou, who art power, Strengthen my hands to-night. [Rises. Now, may an angel's hand direct my skiff Straight to their camp, till with one blow I strike Their freedom ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... ready to set sail in a light skiff on a rough sea, having laid in a good store of imagination and of courage, of childlike ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... it his duty to go with his daughter, if we all separated in different boats. I thought that would hardly do, sir," pursued Pedgift Junior, with a respectfully sly emphasis on the words. "And, besides, if we had put the old lady into a skiff, with her weight (sixteen stone if she's a pound), we might have had her upside down in the water half her time, which would have occasioned delay, and thrown what you call a damp on the proceedings. Here's the boat, Mr. Armadale. What ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... Third Kalandar's Tale (vol. i. 143) Prince 'Ajib is forbidden to call upon the name of Allah, under pain of upsetting the skiff paddled by the man of brass. Here ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... him as he came panting down to the water's edge. The faces of the coolies about him, as he bargained for a sampan, seemed far away and misty. The voices, as the flat-bottomed little skiff was pushed off in pursuit of the boat which was hurrying Binhart out into the night, seemed remote and thin, as though coming from across foggy water. He was bewildered by a sense of dampness in his right leg. ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... the frigate's gangway for a fare, and holding up a small piece of silver, in a moment the light boat was at the foot of the accommodation-ladder. Ghita now descended; and as soon as her uncle and she were seated, the skiff, for it was little more, whirled away from the ship's side, though two or three more, who had also been left by recreant boatmen for better fares, called out to him to receive ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... he does not perceive them. The chief reason why he does not, is that the evils come from the lusts of his life's love, and are not felt to be evils but enjoyments, to which one does not give thought. Who gives thought to the enjoyments of his love? His thought floats along in them like a skiff carried along by the current of a stream; and he perceives a fragrant air which he inhales with a deep breath. Only in one's external thought does one have a sense of the enjoyments, but even in it he pays no attention to them unless he knows well that they ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg
... volumes? For all their beautiful bindings she had a conviction that the contents would be appallingly dull; and her eyes fled gladly to the more congenial scene outside the windows where the flowers danced gaily in the sunshine and a little skiff floated by on the shimmering river, like some magic boat gliding to ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... his bearers. The disabled physician was accommodated with a seat on the bottom of the scow, two of the Richards boys being displaced in his favour. The Captain reported a prize in the shape of a handsome varnished skiff, which he found drawn up on some skids or rollers at the foot of a great mass of rock, that seemed as if cut all about in regular form, in readiness for quarrying. The finding of the boat just opposite it, the worn appearance of the ground, the absence of moss or ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... sourly ruminating after his solitary meal. A very red sun was pouring its last low beams through the valley at the western extremity of the lake, across its elsewhere sombre waters, and touching with a sudden and blood-red tint the sail of the skiff in which Feltram was returning from his ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... fairly, for he belonged to a boat club at school. It was not very much of a club; but then the club boat was not very much of a boat, being a small, flat-bottomed skiff, which leaked so badly that she could not be kept afloat unless one boy kept constantly at work bailing. However, Harry learned to row in her, and he now found this knowledge very useful. He was anxious to start on the cruise immediately, but his uncle insisted that the crew must first be ...
— Harper's Young People, June 1, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... wretch who has been drowned in its treacherous waters fully attest. More than one prospector, cattleman, or even cattle and horse "rustler" (as in Arizona parlance a cattle and horse-thief is known), with too great self-confidence, has attempted to cross on a log, in a leaky skiff, or in a canvas boat, and ere he was aware of his danger, the current had swept him out of reach of all help. It is a river to know ere you risk yourself ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... up arose the oysterman, and to himself said he, "I guess I'll leave the skiff at home, for fear that folks should see; I read it in the story-book, that, for to kiss his dear, Leander swam the Hellespont, and I will ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... 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 ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... idiot; doesn't he hear?" said Bruce, turning red and pale with excitement as he thought of the money he had at stake, and remembered that the skiff on which all his hopes lay was first in order, and would therefore be most likely to suffer by any momentary confusion. "Come, Brogten, let's stop him somehow before ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... a friend for a lantern signal to be hung in the belfry of the Old North Church to show by which route the British forces were advancing, "one if by land and two if by sea," he stepped into a light skiff with two friends who rowed him from Boston across the Charles River ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy
... painted white. He trotted his horse around it, and finding no owner, hitched the nag to the sloop's bobstay and hauled as though he would take her home; but of course she was too heavy for one horse to move. With my skiff, however, it was different; this he hauled some distance, and concealed behind a dune in a bunch of tall grass. He had made up his mind, I dare say, to bring more horses and drag his bigger prize away, anyhow, and was starting off for the settlement a mile or so away for the reinforcement when I ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... stormy wave That dasht like midnight revellers in;— And such the strange, mysterious din At times throughout those caverns rolled,— And such the fearful wonders told Of restless sprites imprisoned there, That bold were Moslem who would dare At twilight hour to steer his skiff Beneath the Gheber's lonely cliff.[226] On the land side those towers sublime, That seemed above the grasp of Time, Were severed from the haunts of men By a wide, deep, and wizard glen, So fathomless, so full of gloom, No eye could pierce the ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... morn. The rope and stick to which the boat had been made fast towed through the water, as the land-breeze, driving me gently, increased my distance from the land. For some moments I was rather scared; the oars were left on shore, and I had no means of propelling my little skiff. ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... we rushed, dodging the things like a crow in a flock of pestering jays, and we really enjoyed the excitement. It was more fascinating sport than shooting rapids in a careening skiff, and at last we grew so confident in the powers of our car and its commander that we were rather sorry when the last meteor passed, and we found ourselves once more ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... grandeco. Size (of a book) formato. Size glueto. Skate gliti. Skates glitiloj. Skein fadenaro. Skeleton skeleto. Sketch skizi. Sketch skizo. Skewer trapikileto. Skid malakcelo. Skiff boateto. Skilful lerta. Skill lerteco. Skilled lerta. Skim sensxauxmigi. Skimmer sxauxmkulero. Skin hauxto. Skin (animal) felo. Skin senfeligi. Skinner felisto. Skip salteti. Skirmish bataleto. Skirt jupo. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... before it is quite dark," he said. "Take the little skiff. The water will be high two hours before midnight, so you will have no trouble in getting across. When you come back, come here, and tell the porter that I have ordered you to see that my fire is properly kept up. Then go to sleep in the coolest ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... the musters of January 1625 give much more information. Jamestown had a church, a court-of-guard (guardhouse), 3 stores (probably storehouses), a merchant's store, and 33 houses. Ten of the Colony's 40 boats were here, including a skiff, a "shallop" of 4 tons, and a "barque" of 40 tons. There were stores of fish, 24,880 pounds to be exact, corn, peas, and meal. There were four pieces of ordnance, supplies of powder, shot and lead, and, for individual use, "fixt peeces," ...
— The First Seventeen Years: Virginia 1607-1624 • Charles E. Hatch
... old world's night, All have come out to the day's broad light. See, only see! how the masses sally Streaming and swarming through gardens and fields How the broad stream that bathes the valley Is everywhere cut with pleasure boats' keels, And that last skiff, so heavily laden, Almost to sinking, puts off in the stream; Ribbons and jewels of youngster and maiden From the far paths of the mountain gleam. How it hums o'er the fields and clangs from the steeple! This is ...
— Faust • Goethe
... Philip, while Meadows began letting himself down the side of the wharf to the skiff which he knew rode there upon the black water, "'tis enough to make one believe in miracles, my running into you! What were you doing ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens |
