"Forecastle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... never been a great reader,—at all events no account of the many "lamentable shipwrecks on the Barbary coast" had ever fallen into his hands,—and he knew nothing of the terrible reputation of its people. Neither had Bill obtained any knowledge of it from books; but, for all that,—thanks to many a forecastle yarn,—the old sailor was well informed both about the character of the coast on which they had suffered shipwreck, and its inhabitants. Bill had the best of reasons for dreading the denizens of ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... of young officers and seamen had leaped upon the top-gallant forecastle, and into the weather rigging, to obtain a view of the little boat, which, like a waif on the ocean, was drifting down towards the coast of Norway. It contained only a single person, who was either a dwarf or a boy, for he was small in stature. He ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic
... deck; the top one being taken out when the hammock was hung up, without which there was not length for it, so then the foot-clews took the place of the top drawer. For specimens he had a very small cabin under the forecastle." ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... balance is amusing if not aesthetic. Everything, in fact, suffers a "sea change," if not into something "rich and strange," often into something expensive. The first time a passenger ventures on the forecastle or up the rigging—the peculiar realms of the sailor—Jack chalks him, which means that he must pay his footing, by sending a bottle of whisky for'ard. It is seldom that a stranger long escapes "spotting" under these circumstances. As a curiosity I may mention ...
— Six Letters From the Colonies • Robert Seaton
... the imagination, their appeal to the universal love of a story is perennial. We devour them when we are boys, and if we do not often return to them when we are men, that is perhaps only because we have read them before, and "know the ending." They are good yarns for the forecastle and the camp-fire; and the scholar in his study, though he may put the Deerslayer or the Last of the Mohicans away on the top shelf, will take it down now and again, and sit up half ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... brig right astern of us with all her canvas set and chasing us at her best. She came up fast while the winds were light, but now it is hard to tell whether she gains or not. We can see the people on the forecastle with the glass. The race is exciting. I am sorry to know that we shall soon have to quit the vessel and go ashore if she ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... was now thrown higher, and its thickness at the bottom increased to about four feet. Besides this, a bed of snow, three feet deep, was subsequently laid on the deck over my cabin, and also on the forecastle over the sick-bay, to assist in retaining the warmth in those parts of the ship; an office which it seemed to perform very effectually. It was impossible, however, as the cold increased, to keep up a tolerably comfortable temperature in the cabin if the fire was suffered to go ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... The hold is not big enough, and a good deal of the cargo has overflowed onto the deck. The stern is reserved for passengers, but from the bridge forward to the topgallant forecastle, there is a heap of cases covered with tarpaulins to protect them from ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... was quite to my liking. The whole schooner had been overhauled; six berths had been made astern out of what had been the after-part of the main hold; and this set of cabins was only joined to the galley and forecastle by a sparred passage on the port side. It had been originally meant that the captain, Mr. Arrow, Hunter, Joyce, the doctor, and the squire were to occupy these six berths. Now Redruth and I were to get two of them and Mr. Arrow and the captain were to sleep ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Philoctetes knew that Neoptolemus was about to depart, he besought him with many prayers that he would take him also on his ship; for the voyage, he said, would not be of more than a single day. "Put me," he said, "where thou wilt, in forecastle, or hold, or stern, and set me on shore even as it may seem best to thee. Only take me from this place." And the sailors also made entreaty to the Prince that he would do so; and he, after a while, made as if he consented ...
— Stories from the Greek Tragedians • Alfred Church
... all four crossed the gangway to the deck of the Girondin. At close quarters she seemed quite a big boat. In the bows was a small forecastle, containing quarters for the crew of five men as well as the oil tanks and certain stores. Then amidships was a long expanse of holds, while aft were the officers' cabins and tiny mess-room, galley, navigating ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... the window; the doors were soon forced, and the Spanish brigadier fell while retreating to the quarter-deck. Nelson pushed on, and found Berry in possession of the poop, and the Spanish ensign hauling down. He passed on to the forecastle, where he met two or three Spanish officers, and received their swords. The English were now in full possession of every part of the ship, when a fire of pistols and musketry opened upon them from the admiral's stern-gallery ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... quarter-deck to the homestead, while a boy of fourteen took the hereditary place before the mast, confronting the salt spray and the gale, which had blustered against his sire and grand-sire. The boy also, in due time, passed from the forecastle to the cabin, spent a tempestuous manhood, and returned from his world-wanderings, to grow old, and die, and mingle his dust with the natal earth." Not all, however, for the last of the line of sailors, Captain Nathaniel Hathorne, who married Elizabeth ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... quarter, and worked his way forward to the first rower's bench. Steadying himself for a moment as he hung by one arm from the gunwale, he dropped with his two feet upon the aftermost oar, and stepped out thence from oar to oar until he reached the one nearest to the forecastle. Then, still balancing himself with outstretched arms, he turned and walked aft by the same way to where Olaf and many of the ship's company had stood watching him. All thought it a ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... surly, his words were evidently well meant. Ere he had scarce finished his little speech he had turned and was limping off toward the forecastle with the very apparent intention of ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... in which the party was embarked, the batteau was a keel-vessel fifty-five feet in length, carrying a large square sail, and manned by twenty-two oars. In the bow and stern, ten-foot decks formed forecastle and cabin; and in the middle part were lockers, whose tops could be raised to form a line of breastworks along either gunwale, in case of attack from Indians. The "periogues" were open boats, manned by six and ...
— Lewis and Clark - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark • William R. Lighton
... Adelantado their emotion subsided. Upon approaching closer to the ship the sound of flutes, fifes, and drums was heard, charming their senses by sweet music, and awakening their astonishment and admiration. When they had been over the whole ship, from stern to prow, and had carefully visited the forecastle, the tiller, and the hold, the brother and sister looked at one another in silence; their astonishment being so profound that they had nothing to say. While they were engaged in visiting the ship, the Adelantado ordered ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... shaken out of my hammock by a fearful crashing or a staggering over the ship. Before I knew where I was—being awoke so suddenly—I heard the boatswain sing out, 'All hands on deck to the pumps.' I was not long in jumping into my boots I can tell yon, and all in the forecastle ran upstairs pell-mell. When we got there, we could not see much, for the night was dark, but there was light enough to see a half-dressed crowd come rushing madly up from the steerage passenger berths, and you didn't want ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... close-reefed. Here and there on the forecastle were groups of lazy-looking seamen; and a man walked the quarter-deck, glancing anxiously aloft. The sea was as smooth as a mirror, and that dreadful stillness was in the air which so often preludes ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Drew offered to let him work his passage to that place as one of the crew of the Nancy Bell. Without much hesitation the poor Swede accepted both these offers, and as soon as he had recovered from the effects of his experience on the ice raft was provided with a bunk in the forecastle. ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe
... would play on board these floating castles, and the music never seemed more sweet than when it floated out over the still waters. Sometimes, too, after the band had ceased, the sailors would gather on the forecastle and sing their songs, as only sailors can sing, winning round after round of applause from their appreciative audience ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... chance with the men. The icy gusts roared through the rigging; the cold spray smote him and froze on him; green seas came over and forced him to hold on wheresoever he might. Sometimes the clumsy old brig would drown everybody out of the forecastle, and the little sailor had to curl up in his oilskins on the streaming floor of the after-cabin. Sometimes the ship would have to "turn" every yard of the way from Thames to Tyne, or from Thames to Blyth. Then the cabin-boy had to stamp and shiver with the rest until the ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... was one evening in rough weather. All hands were on deck—except the boatswain and myself. For he had sprained his foot and couldn't walk, and I was feeling rather low, and was lying in my berth. Well, he was sitting there in the forecastle, reading one of ...
— The Lady From The Sea • Henrik Ibsen
... indeed, great. There is nothing in literature more remarkable than the impression produced by Dana's portraiture of the homely inner life of a little brig's forecastle. ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... breadth, 26 ft.; its depth, 14 ft.; and it has a displacement of about 500 tons. The armament will consist of three long 5 in. guns in center pivot carriages, and a small number of revolvers. One of the former will be placed at the stern on the quarter deck, and the two others on the forecastle. Some of the revolvers will be on the quarter deck and some on the forecastle, care being taken to arrange the guns so as to obtain the widest possible range, thus enabling the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 601, July 9, 1887 • Various
... the wrong ship, but nothing availed, he passed round, firing into the Bonhomme Richard's head, stern, and broadside, and by one of his volleys killed several of my best men and mortally wounded a good officer on the forecastle. My situation was really deplorable. The Bonhomme Richard received various shots under water from the Alliance; the leak gained on the pumps; and the fire increased much on board both ships. Some officers persuaded me to strike, of whose ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... little Jacob had never seen the goose; but the cook had had a great deal of trouble to keep the boys from hearing it, and he had had to make it a secret with the sailors and sometimes he had the sailors take it down into the forecastle while little Jacob and little Sol were playing about. The forecastle is the place where the sailors sleep, and the little boys never went there. But little Sol rather suspected that there was something that the cook was hiding from them, although ...
— The Sandman: His Sea Stories • William J. Hopkins
... Charles Dibdin, who was born in 1745, stands pre-eminent. Sir Cyprian Bridge, in his introduction to Mr. Stone's collection of Sea Songs, tells us that it is doubtful whether Dibdin's songs "were ever very popular on the forecastle." The really popular songs, he thinks, were of a much more simple type, and were termed "Fore-bitters," from the fact that the man who sang them took his place on the fore-bitts, "a stout construction of timber near the foremast, through which many of the principal ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... looked very red in the east near the horizon; and there were many black clouds both to the south and north of it. About a quarter of an hour after the sun was up there was a squall to the windward of us; when on a sudden one of our men on the forecastle called out that he saw something astern, but could not tell what: I looked out for it and immediately saw a spout beginning to work within a quarter of a mile of us, exactly in the wind. We presently put right before it. It came very swiftly, ...
— A Continuation of a Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier
... winter has been so mild. We had very favorable weather till Monday the twelfth; but since then till Saturday evening we had rough weather, with a gale that lasted ninety hours, and put us in real danger. The forecastle was always under water, and the waves broke twice over the quarter-deck. From the twenty-seventh of April to the evening of the fourth of May we had fogs, great cold, and an amazing quantity of icebergs. On the thirtieth, when luckily the fog ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... which we see to-day. It was about ninety feet long by twenty feet broad, and had a single deck. This was Columbus's principal ship or flagship. The second caravel, the Pinta, was much swifter, built high at the prow and stern, and furnished with a forecastle for the crew and a cabin for the officers, but without a deck in the center. The third and smallest caravel, called the Nina, the Spanish word for baby, was built much like the Pinta. Ninety persons made ...
— Introductory American History • Henry Eldridge Bourne and Elbert Jay Benton
... doubts on this point. She had almost lost all hope of her protege, and she did not think that a voyage in the forecastle of a ship would be likely to improve ...
— Work and Win - or, Noddy Newman on a Cruise • Oliver Optic
... that the captain did not order the oars to be put out and lashed in that position, for it was a recognized plan for preventing a ship from being boarded by an enemy, who could thus only approach her at the lofty poop and forecastle. ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... the surgeon, "that he thought there would be some in sight the next morning about sunrise. So the passenger got up early the next morning and took his seat on the deck, watching every where for whales, while the sailors on the forecastle, who had told the story to one another, were ...
— Rollo on the Atlantic • Jacob Abbott
... in wishing the church were well rid of it. In fact, it has happened to the present writer to hear the Thirty-nine Articles summarily disposed of by one of the most zealous members of the American branch of that communion, in a verb of one syllable, more familiar to the ears of the forecastle than to those of ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... deck of the vessel was washed away, but the forecastle and poop remained more or less intact. The ship, after settling on the rock, had broken her back, and the great timbers, where the copper sheathing and planks had been torn away, stood up like ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... Seamen's Act, 1894, and the amending Acts of the two following years, mitigate the old-fashioned severity of punishments for refusal of duty, assaults on the high seas, and other nautical offences. The forecastle and the accommodation thereof become subject to the fiat of the Government inspector, as are factories on shore. Regular payment of wages is stipulated for, overcrowding amongst passengers is forbidden. Complete powers are given ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... turned to me, in a violent passion, and exclaimed, "This man, sir, is 400 miles out in his reckoning—and where would you and the ship be, do you think, if I were washed overboard!" this argument was too cogent to be combated, and so I interfered no more. He ordered the mate to go to the forecastle, and refused to admit him to the cabin during the remainder of the passage. The mate was much irritated at this treatment, and, after a violent altercation, one day rushed to his chest and brought up ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... is a long flat-bottomed boat, carrying from twenty to thirty-five tons. It is constructed with a forecastle and a cabin; but the rest is open, and there is no deck. It has two masts, which the sailors can strike, and sails like those of schooners. It is rowed, ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... no doubt as to the latter point, for the deck had been blown up, probably by gunpowder, near the main-hatch, leaving a great hole, through which the hold could be seen almost as far as the bulkhead of the forecastle. ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne
... when Scott appeared hastily on the scenes he found that the deck was very dark and obstructed by numerous half-clad people, all of whom were as ignorant as he was. Making his way forward he discovered that the fire had been under the forecastle, and had been easily extinguished when the hose was brought to bear on it. In these days steel ships and electric light tend to lessen the fear of fire, but in a wooden vessel the possible consequences are too serious not to ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... men. What a difference there must have been between him and the vulgar, bullying man that Sam Bowsprit once sailed with, who was a wolf when there was no danger, and a sheep when there was; but it is always so with your bullies, whether in the cabin or the forecastle. To return to my story: in two or three days the gale spent its fury, and we reached our port in safety. One day while in port, in rummaging my chest, I discovered at the bottom a little package neatly tied up, which, ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... that it was not possible while standing at the wheel to see the forecastle. Aloft, all the heavens were hidden in a canopy of sickly gray; beneath, the sea showed the same color. Its glassy surface exhibited not a ripple. A small space only surrounded the vessel, and beyond all things ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... looked, they saw that the Antelope had become an object of singular attention and interest to those on board of the steamer. Men were on the forecastle, others on the main deck, the officers were on the quarter-deck, and all were earnestly scrutinizing the Antelope. One of them was looking at her through his glass. The Antelope, as she lay at ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille
... 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 who must give time on his sounding-board for the rowing, and never fail,—not though the ships around reeled down to watery grave. And finally on the poop by ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... Overhead, Grandmaison and his men were no longer singing. They were moving about. Something bumped against the side of the vessel, near the bow, obviously a boat, and voices came up from below the level of the deck. Then the lighter shuddered under a great blow upon the planks of the forecastle port. The cries in the hold redoubled. Panting, cursing, wailing men hurtled against Leroy, and almost crushed him for a moment under their weight as the vessel heaved to starboard. Came a succession of blows, not only on the port in the bow, but also on that ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... the Santa Filomena, and were accordingly some time in getting our bearings. Nevertheless we could find no trace of the monk, who seemed to have vanished into thin air, or to have gone overboard during the fight. He was not to be found either in cockpit or cabin, forecastle or lazaretto, and at last we stared blankly in each other's faces and wondered what ...
— In the Days of Drake • J. S. Fletcher
... walked half-way down the quarter-deck steps a little before the sudden nightfall of the day before, had then fallen and lain for a minute (dead, Abel Keeling had supposed, watching him from his place by the gun-truck), and had then got up again and tottered forward to the forecastle, his tall figure swaying and his long arms waving. Abel Keeling had not seen him since. Most likely, he had died in the forecastle during the night. If he had not been dead he would have come aft again ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... men down in the forecastle also shouted, ran up on deck, and then, with cries of alarm, ran below again, and then, but quietly this time, joined their comrades, who were crouching as closely together as possible forward of the bitts. There was a roar ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... and at a very little distance from us. We owed our safety to the interposition of Providence, a good look-out, and the very brisk manner in which the ship was managed; for, as we were standing to the north, the people on the lee-gangway and forecastle saw breakers under the lee-bow, which we escaped ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... hopes of success; for not only was she an unusually fast vessel, but she carried an exceptionally heavy armament for a ship of her class, namely, twenty-four long 24-pounders on her main-deck, and fourteen long 8-pounders on her quarter-deck and forecastle; while, to crown all, her crew consisted of two hundred and ninety-two men—every one of whom had voluntarily entered. Furthermore, of those two hundred and ninety-two men, no less than one hundred and sixty-five had been aboard the Colossus, ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... little ship, being a perfect model of an Elizabethan ship, built up high at bow and stern, "for," as Sebastian explained, "majesty and terror of the enemy", and with deck and orlop, waist and poop, hold and masts—all complete with forecastle and cabin, masts and spars, port-holes and guns, sails, anchor, and carved figure-head. The woodwork was painted in white and green and red, and at bow and stern ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... no forms and hear no voices but their own, and one is taken suddenly from among them, and they miss him at every turn. It is like losing a limb. There are no new faces or new scenes to fill up the gap. There is always an empty berth in the forecastle, and one man wanting when the small night watch is mustered. There is one less to take the wheel, and one less to lay out with you upon the yard. You miss his form, and the sound of his voice, for habit had made them ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... forward; but in an instant, they had snatched themselves free, and returned to Mark, speaking softly in their own tongue, and with a good deal of gesticulation, till Mark ended Bob's perplexity by pointing to the lower deck, when they walked obediently after the midshipman right away to the forecastle hatch, and went below. ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... day, in the morning, the wind increased, and we had all hands at work to strike our topmasts, and make everything snug and close, that the ship might ride as easy as possible. By noon the sea went very high indeed, and our ship rode forecastle in, shipped several seas, and we thought once or twice our anchor had come home; upon which our master ordered out the sheet-anchor, so that we rode with two anchors ahead, and the cables veered out to ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... without hopes that I might be able to steal on board of myself—perhaps after nightfall, when the men had "knocked off" work, and were below in the forecastle. In that case, I need not tell any of them of my design. In the darkness, I believed I might manage to crouch past the watch or clamber over the side and get down below. Once in the hold, I had no fear but that I should be able to secrete myself among so many barrels and boxes as they ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... now, sheltered by a strip of paneled wall between the two doorways. The staterooms on one side must come next, and after them the galley, with the forecastle beyond, and even beyond this, perhaps, some kind ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... trifle larger than myself. My chest would have to be left outside. I strongly suspected that my lungs would have to be left outside also; for the life of me I could not see where the air was to come from. With a mental reservation in favour of investigating the forecastle, I went ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the same size. All had discharged their cargoes, and were waiting for a change of wind to drop down the river. There was nothing unusual to be observed on any of the ships. The men were for the most part down in the forecastle, for the weather was too severe for them to lounge about on deck. He talked the matter over with Beorn, and they agreed that it was most probable that the men would embark from Calais rather than Rouen. It was a far shorter and less perilous voyage, and moreover, as Frenchmen they ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... Captain Lumley immediately gave orders to lash the Frenchman's bowsprit to his main-mast, and this was accomplished by the first lieutenant, Alfred, and the seamen, without any serious loss, for the fog was still so thick that the Frenchmen on their forecastle could not perceive what was doing at their ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... little dependence upon him. From his narrative we gather that this literary and gentlemanly common-sailor is quite a young man. His life, therefore, since he emerged from boyhood, has been spent in a ship's forecastle, amongst the wildest and most ignorant class of mariners. Yet his tone is refined and well-bred; he writes like one accustomed to good European society, who has read books and collected stores of information, other than could be perused or gathered in the places and amongst the rude associates ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... the anchor was dropped. The tide is felt as high as Three Rivers and it is possible for a ship to go that far by floating up with it. The second night after leaving Quebec we were startled by a loud knocking on the companion of the forecastle and an imperative shout to tumble up. An east wind had come and every minute was valuable. The anchor was lifted and sails set, and before the sun appeared we were sweeping past Three Rivers. Interest was kept up by the villages and fields we passed, and it was the ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar
... lieutenant himself walked over to the forecastle hatch, and, hailing the gunner, ordered him to get up another ladder, so that the men could be run up on deck if the pirates should undertake to come aboard. At that moment the boatswain at the wheel called out that the villains were going to shoot again, ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... confusion. The words were scarcely uttered, when, and before the helm was up, the ill-fated ship struck, and, after a few tremendous shocks against the sunken reef, she parted about midship. Ropes and stays were cut away—all rushed forward, as if instinctively, and had barely reached the forecastle, when the stern and quarter-deck broke asunder with a violent crash, and sunk to rise no more. Two of the seamen miserably perished—the rest, including officers, passengers, and crew, held on about the head and ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... to explore the ship, and this she did, her rifle ready for instant use should she meet with any human menace aboard the Kincaid. She was not long in discovering the cause of the apparently deserted condition of the steamer, for in the forecastle she found the sailors, who had evidently been left to guard the ship, deep in ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... while we get sail upon the boat," said Vane cheerily. "The saloon's at your disposal—my partner and I have the forecastle. You will notice that there are blankets yonder, and as we'll have smooth water most of the way you should get some sleep. Perhaps you'd better keep the stove burning; and if you should like some coffee in the early morning you'll find it in the ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... rest of the Fleet, leaning over the forecastle rails and smoking its evening pipe, did see, and was ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... the preparations were complete. The Santa Maria was to lead the way with the Admiral on board; she was but one hundred tons' burden, with a high poop and a forecastle. It had been difficult enough to find a crew; men were shy about venturing with this stranger from Genoa on unknown seas, and it was a motley party that finally took service under Columbus. The second ship, the Pinta, was but half the size of the flagship; ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... play to watch the men sitting here and there on deck, or talking idly around the forecastle, while Captain Whidden and the chief mate conferred together aft. I was so much taken with it all that I had no eyes for my own people who were there to see me off, until straight out from the crowded wharf ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... Pinzons, and entirely manned by natives of the province of Huelva. The third vessel was much larger, and did not belong to Palos. She was called a "nao," or ship, and was of about one hundred tons burden, completely decked, with a high poop and forecastle. Her length has been variously estimated. Two of her masts had square sails, the mizzen being lateen-rigged. The foremast had a square foresail, the mainmast a mainsail and maintopsail, and there was a spritsail on the bowsprit. The courses were enlarged, in fair weather, by lacing strips ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... stroke of four bells was just sounding when, having just reached the forecastle, he suddenly saw a bright light astern, followed by a loud roar, which he knew alone could proceed from the Malay proa. She had blown up. He heard Langton's voice ordering a boat to be lowered, and was on the point of running aft when he felt the deck beneath his feet tremble. A roar far ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston
... us in the forecastle; I and Mr. Delamotte having the first, and Messrs. Wesley the other. Theirs was made pretty large, so that we could all meet together to read or pray in it. This part of the ship was assigned to us by Mr. Oglethorpe, as being most convenient ...
— The Moravians in Georgia - 1735-1740 • Adelaide L. Fries
... the Biscay squadron, a very mighty and puissant ship, commanded by Brittandona. The San Philip carried three tier of ordnance on a side, and eleven pieces in each tier, besides eight pieces in her forecastle chase, and others from her stern-ports. After the Revenge was thus entangled by the huge San Philip, four others laid her on board, two to larboard and two to starboard. The fight thus began at three in the afternoon, and continued very terribly ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... into the boat and brought to the Duke, where he was ordered to the forecastle in the bilboes (leg irons sliding upon a long, iron bar). But he jumped overboard—despising the chance of being gobbled up by a shark—and started to swim to his own ship. He was brought back, flogged, and put in irons; and he evidently found a week of this ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... so far from being degraded by being placed in the second cabin, that part of the ship became the scene of as much pleasure and refinement, during the voyage, as the cabin itself. The Hutchinson Family, celebrated vocalists—fellow-passengers—often came to my rude forecastle deck, and sung their sweetest songs, enlivening the place with eloquent music, as well as spirited conversation, during the voyage. In two days after leaving Boston, one part of the ship was about as free to me as another. My fellow-passengers not only visited me, but invited ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... soon sufficed to send him soundly to sleep, in spite of the painful uncertainty of his position and of his sorrowful thought of his mother, who would in the morning be inquiring for him in vain. It was nearly midday before he woke. Looking round he saw that he had the forecastle to himself. His clothes were lying on a chest close by, and in a few minutes he was on deck. A sense of disappointment stole over him. He had, while he was dressing, entertained the hope that on going on deck he should see an English cruiser in pursuit; but the ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... was fitting out at Boston, one small annoyance ruffled the auspicious undertaking. Three different crews were signed before a full complement could be persuaded to tarry in the forecastle. The trouble was caused by a fortune-teller of Lynn, Moll Pitcher by name, who predicted disaster for the ship. Now every honest sailor knows that certain superstitions are gospel fact, such as the bad luck brought by a cross-eyed Finn, a black cat, or going ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine
... little likely to reach it, for lung disease, the great foe of the Maori, had set in; and he was in a pitiable condition when Mr. Marsden, by chance, remarked his brown face on the forecastle, and inquired into his history, which was confirmed by the master of the Ann, and was really only a specimen of a sailor's vague promises, and incapacity to understand that a dark skin ought to be treated with the same justice as a white one. Duaterra was a man of much intelligence, and even under ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... a certain romance in figure-heads. To me they seem a frigid, unintelligent device, not to say idolatrous. I have known a crew to set so much store by one that they kept a tinsel locket and pair of ear-rings in the forecastle and duly adorned their darling when in port. But this is materialism. The true personality of a ship resides in no prefiguring lump of wood with a sightless smile to which all seas come alike and all weathers. Lay your open palm ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Automatic Sounding Machine was situated on the port side of the forecastle head. It was suitable for depths up to six thousand fathoms, being fitted with a grooved wheel so as to be driven by a rope belt from a steam-winch or other engine. The wire was wound in by means of a small horizontal steam-engine ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... himself by the side of the helmsman, and was asking questions in regard to the reef, the depth of water in the harbor, and other questions of interest only to nautical persons. The rest of the watch had gathered in a group on the forecastle. It was unfortunate that so many of the refractory spirits had been chosen into the same watch; but there were Tom Kettle, Frank Thompson, and Samuel Nason, all three of whom had once been expelled from the club for misconduct, ...
— Little By Little - or, The Cruise of the Flyaway • William Taylor Adams
... off. Our vessel was no longer lying alongside of the brig, but across its bows, so that the bowsprit of the latter crossed its deck. We could not, therefore, reach it, since the Spaniards had possession of the forecastle of their own vessel. At this critical moment we received unexpected aid in the shape of a shower of grape shot from our schooner, which swept away many of the negroes, besides wounding a large number of them, whilst at the same time a new party of combatants sprang ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... exchanging kindly partings and sending messages to friends, if any should survive to be their bearer. Meanwhile, the boats having been swamped or carried away, and the carpenter's tools washed overboard, the crew had retreated to the top-gallant forecastle; but, as the passengers saw and heard nothing of them, they supposed that the officers and crew had deserted the ship, and that they were left ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... hurried across the rowers' thwarts amidships to the lofty forecastle where his crew slept. "Turn out," he called to them, "and take your oars and boat-hooks! The time is almost come when we shall be free. I hear the roar of open water. I hear the ...
— The Treasure • Selma Lagerlof
... thousand years or so, he would awake, in his little room with the ink-stained table, and take up his writing where he had left off the day before. Or maybe that was a dream, too, and the awakening would be the changing of the watches, when he would drop down out of his bunk in the lurching forecastle and go up on deck, under the tropic stars, and take the wheel and feel the cool tradewind ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... Jacopo sought his own gondola, which he extricated from the floating mass, and urged into the stream. A few sweeps of the oar, and he lay at the side of La Bella Sorrentina. The padrone paced the deck, enjoying the cool of the evening with Italian indolence, while his people, grouped on the forecastle, sang, or rather chanted, a song of those seas. The greetings were blunt and brief, as is usual among men of that class. But the padrone appeared to expect the visit, for he led his guest far from the ears of his crew, to the other ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... a cold night, and the wind was peppered with sleet; a depressing proem to our unknown voyage. We swung at anchor there until Mr. Morland came aboard with his friends, and we left on the turn of the tide about midnight. I did not see Mr. Morland arrive, as I was busy in the forecastle with a man who had met with a trivial accident. It was Lane who informed me that the "butterflies were come" and we might spread our wings. Lane I had encountered for a few minutes in the afternoon, when he smilingly ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... before that he had gone ashore day after day for a fortnight at Adelaide; and a wee woman five years older, and a cycle wiser, had invariably been waiting with new mysteries in her house.... Moreover, on the Truxton, he had nothing to do with the forecastle galley—there was a Chinese for that—and Captain Carreras, fancying him from the beginning, had quartered him aft, where, except on days like this, when Mother Earth's pneumatic cushion seemed limp and flattened, there was a breeze to hammock in, and plenty of candles ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... was born to command. People said old Captain Rheid acted as if he were always on shipboard. His wife said once in the bitterness of her spirit that he always marched the quarter-deck and kept his boys in the forecastle. ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin
... whether this wealth be won by reading or by experience makes no great difference. Coleridge attended Davy's chemical lectures to acquire new metaphors, and it is of no consequence whether one comes to literature from a library, a machine-shop, or a forecastle, provided he has learned to work with thoroughness the soil he knows. After all is said and done, however, books remain the chief quarries. Johnson declared, putting the thing perhaps too mechanically, "The greater part of an author's ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... when James Wait joined the ship—late for the muster of the crew—to the moment when he left us in the open sea, shrouded in sailcloth, through the open port, I had much to do with him. He was in my watch. A negro in a British forecastle is a lonely being. He has no chums. Yet James Wait, afraid of death and making her his accomplice, was an impostor of some character—mastering our compassion, scornful of our sentimentalism, triumphing over ...
— Notes on My Books • Joseph Conrad
... and stick; I possessed absolutely nothing—much less a mattress or hammock. Such things a skipper does not find for his crew, and of course there was none for me. I was not even allowed a "bunk" to sleep in, for the forecastle was crowded and most of the bunks carried double. Those that were occupied by only one chanced to have for their tenants the most morose and ill-natured of the crew, and I was not permitted to share with them. Even still more ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... the naughty shipwrights up, with the kettles in their hands, And bound them round the forecastle to wait the King's commands. But 'Since ye have made your beds,' said the King, 'ye needs must lie thereon. For the sake of your wives and little ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... of our crew were on deck, and the skipper and the second mate took up their positions one on either side of me, the man who had first called my attention to the strange ship, joining some other seamen near the forecastle. No one spoke, but, from the expression in their eyes and ghastly pallor of their cheeks, it was very easy to see that one and all were dominated by the same feelings of terror and suspicion. Nearer and nearer ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... companions hastened up the plank. They were welcomed on board with the shaking of hands; place was made for them about the basin; a sticky demijohn of molasses was added to the feast in honour of company, and an accordion brought from the forecastle and significantly laid ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... prominent. His roaming attacks on the French were probably used more for effect, and had, we hope, only a superficial meaning. But be that as it may, it detracts from the dignity of an officer occupying, as he did, a distinguished position to use language and phrases such as are common in the forecastle or on the quarterdeck of a sailing merchantman in the early days before the introduction of steamers. Here are a few quite amusing outbursts which do not produce the impression of coming from a person ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... all awash from the break of her topgallant-forecastle to the lift of her high poop-deck, the green seas running under her bridge and about her superstructure, swayed a great mass of iron and steel of full five thousand tons! Ship without a soul! A wisp of a flag, upside ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... smooth brown head was indeed to be seen threading its way between the noisy groups. They agreed that it was time they heard from the shield-maiden. For her to take advantage of her womanhood, and turn the forecastle into a woman's-house, and forbid their approach, was something ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... to the forecastle, from where he descried what appeared to be a large square-rigged vessel standing directly for them, with her port-tacks aboard. This seemed strange to the captain, as he knew of no vessel which had left Rio, except one several days previous, and ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... the breeze freshening over the lower coast. The Saucy Sally was a half-decked cutter (built for a pleasure-boat in Guernsey), and a tight thing, as Ingram had said. I did not go into the cabin, which occupied all the forecastle, but wrapping myself in my cloak, lay down along the stern-sheets, and feigned to be asleep, for I was so excited by the prospect of meeting Madeline, that I could no longer join in the conversation of the crew. In about half an hour ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... and attendant (Celeste), she was just about to try the planks prepared by four seamen, and the steward had just taken little Nino in his arms, pledged to save him or die, 'when a sea struck the forecastle, and the foremast fell, carrying with it the deck and all upon it. The steward and Angelino were washed upon the beach, both dead, though warm, some twenty minutes after. Celeste and Ossoli were caught for a moment by the rigging, but the next wave swallowed them up. Margaret sank at ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 438 - Volume 17, New Series, May 22, 1852 • Various
... went off duty, Larry found the sea no rougher than on countless other runs he had made along the Atlantic coast. The wind had freshened to a strong gale, but he reached the forecastle ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... rum," said Mr. Lister, faintly; "the doctors tell me that it is the only thing that keeps me up—o' course, the chaps down there "—he indicated the forecastle again with a jerk of his head—"accuse me ...
— Captains All and Others • W.W. Jacobs
... waist below a little knot of shaggy seamen were crowding to the larboard bulwarks, looking out to sea; on the forecastle there was another similar assembly, all staring intently ahead and towards the land. They were off Cape Roca at the time, and when Captain Leigh saw by how much they had lessened their distance from shore since last he had conned the ship, he swore ferociously at ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... of the nine shots that were fired as we went on board the steamer, of the hurrahs shouted after us from the quay by a few dozen sailors, or the waving of the star-spangled banners that fluttered over the poop and forecastle—of all the honour and glory, in short, attending our departure. I was busy drawing a comparison between my first and this, my last, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... Under the forecastle are stalls for fifteen ponies, the maximum the space would hold; the narrow irregular space in front is packed tight ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... the ship in which Albuquerque was embarked struck during the night on a rock off Cape Timia in the kingdom of Aru on the coast of Sumatra. Being completely separated a midships, the people who had taken refuge on the poop and forecastle were unable to communicate with each other, and the night was so exceedingly dark that no assistance could be sent from the other vessels. When day-light appeared next morning, Albuquerque was seen holding a girl in his ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... calculated for the taste of the Indians. The party was to embark on board of three boats: the first was a keel boat fifty-five feet long, drawing three feet water, carrying one large squaresail and twenty-two oars, a deck of ten feet in the bow, and stern formed a forecastle and cabin, while the middle was covered by lockers, which might be raised so as to form a breast-work in case of attack. This was accompanied by two perioques or open boats, one of six and the other of seven oars. ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... Salle. I've learnt enough about you to know that you have been adrift nearly two weeks, and as dinner's ready we must have you into the cabin. I am sorry that but one berth is vacant, and your friends will have to take their chance in the forecastle." ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... had formed they kept a secret among their number, in order to insure a greater prospect of success. * * * For the convenience of the officers of the ship a closet, called the "round house", had been constructed under the forecastle, the door of which was kept locked. This room was seldom used, there being other conveniences in the ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... will comprise all those stationed in the tops, and those appointed to attend to the rigging, sails, steerage, and signals. The Master is to be stationed on the quarter-deck, and to be assisted by the Boatswain, whose station will be on the forecastle. The Boatswain will be charged with all his divisional duties in the event of his death or absence. (For ARMS, see ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... end of their muskets, being very faithfully seconded by their men; they secured all the rest that were upon the main and quarter-decks, and began to fasten the hatches, to keep them down that were below, when the other boat and their men, entering the forechains, secured the forecastle of the ship, and the scuttle which went down into the cook-room, making three men they found there prisoners. When this was done, and all safe upon deck, the captain ordered the mate, with three men, to ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... was the handsomest ship I had ever set eyes on. A long low black schooner, with a narrow beading of white at deck level, and masts that tapered off into fishing-rods. She was pierced for six guns a-side, and a great tarpaulin cover on the forecastle and another astern hinted at something heavier there. Her lines and finish were so graceful that I felt sure she was French built, for English builders ever consider strength before beauty. A very fast boat, I judged, but ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... officers of the navy are comprised as follows: Yeomen, armorers, boatswains, gunners, carpenters, sailmakers, and armorer's mates, master-at-arms, ship's corporals, coxswains, quarter masters, quarter gunners, captains of forecastle, tops, afterguard, and hold, coopers, painters, stewards, ship's officers, surgeons, assistant surgeons and paymasters, stewards, nurses, cooks, masters of the band, musicians, first and second class, seamen, ordinary seamen, landsmen, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... is open, and newspapers and letters in rich profusion meet our gaze; with a quick sleight the captain distributes them, sends a half dozen to their owners in the forecastle by the steward, and then ensues a silence broken only by the snapping of seals, and the rattling of paper. Suddenly Mr. Stewart uttered an exclamation of surprise, and looking up from my letter, I noticed the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... At 2.0 the Imperieuse came to an anchor in five fathoms, and, veering to half a cable, kept fast the spring, firing upon the Calcutta with our broadside, and at the same time upon the Aquillon and Ville de Varsovie, two line-of-battle ships, each of seventy-four guns, with our forecastle and bow guns, both these ships being aground stern on, in an opposite direction. After some time we had the satisfaction of observing several ships sent to our assistance, namely, the Emerald, the Unicorn, the Indefatigable, the Valiant, the Revenge, the Pallas, ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... a good-lookin' drowsy sort of a place, and kinder mixed up lookin' from the aft forecastle, where I stood; but at last the little foot bridge that connected us with the shore wuz took up, the old boat gin a loud yell to skair the children and young folks back from the water's edge, and the boat riders from fallin' off the boat, and we sot out ...
— Samantha at Coney Island - and a Thousand Other Islands • Marietta Holley
... his foot where the fin was rubbing a little. "What would be a logical hiding place? If I were the captain, I'd probably hide the statue under false flooring or something. Anyway, I'd hide it aft, in officer's country, and not near the forecastle ...
— The Wailing Octopus • Harold Leland Goodwin
... trembling hands were upon my throat. First he dragged me to my feet, then he threw me upon my knees, and at last, with that grim brutality which characterizes him, he directed me to go and get a mop and bucket from the forecastle and remove the dark red stains from the chair and deck. This he actually forced me to do, gloating over my horror as I removed for him the traces of his cowardly crime. Then, with his hand upon my shoulder, he said, 'Girl! Recollect that ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... come in, and Captain Nichols, having scraped acquaintance with the timekeeper, would succeed in getting the pair of them a job as stevedores. When it was an English boat, they would dodge into the forecastle and get a hearty breakfast from the crew. They took the risk of running against one of the ship's officers and being hustled down the gangway with the toe of a boot ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... sees nothing at all. It was gone a moment. Then the admiral saw it moving up and down. "It may be an indication of land," admitted Rodrigo Sanchez; but Columbus was certain, and his orders were prompt and imperative: a strict watch to be kept upon the forecastle, and for him who should first see land a silken jacket and the reward promised by the ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... of Kutchuk Ali protested his innocence, and exhibited the apparently naked character of his vessel. She appeared suspiciously full of corn for a boat homeward bound. There was an awkward smell about the closely-boarded forecastle which resembled that of unwashed negroes. Abd-el-Kader drew a steel ramrod from a soldier's rifle, and probed ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... been added to until she was enabled to carry enough coal to give her a tremendous cruising radius. It was in order to economize on fuel she was rigged for the carrying of sail when she encountered a good slant of wind. Her forecastle, originally the dark, wet hole common to whalers, had been built up till it was a commodious chamber fitted with bunks at the sides and a swinging table in the center, which could be hoisted up out of the way when ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... line. During the ceremony, the frigate doubled Cape Barbas, hastening to its destruction. Captain Lachaumareys very good humouredly presided at this species of baptism, whilst his dear Richefort promenaded the forecastle, and looked with indifference upon a shore bristling with dangers. However that may be, all passed on well; nay, it may be even said that the farce was well played off. But the route which we pursued soon made us forget the short-lived happiness we had experienced. ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... discovered swimming towards the shore. On approaching him, he turned round in the direction of the Eden; and, when within twenty yards of the ship, he all at once disappeared, and was not seen afterwards. On inquiry, it was found that the native prisoner who had been confined in irons on the forecastle, for his participation in the affray I have so lately described, had contrived to effect his escape. To accomplish this, he had put his hand down the scuttle over the coppers, and taken from thence the iron that turns the handles of the dischargers. With the point of this he had contrived ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... herself with a sharp exclamation, and turning from watching the blue-jackets and their boat I saw that she was staring at the yawl. From its forecastle a black column of smoke suddenly shot up, followed by a great lick ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... sleep, Ayrton did not hesitate to venture onto the "Speedy's" deck, which the extinguished lanterns now left in total darkness. He hoisted himself onto the cutwater, and by the bowsprit arrived at the forecastle. Then, gliding among the convicts stretched here and there, he made the round of the ship, and found that the "Speedy" carried four guns, which would throw shot of from eight to ten pounds in weight. He found also, on touching them that these guns were breech-loaders. They were therefore, ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... heaving the lead they found water at 80 fathoms; on which they spliced all their four cables on end, and rode at anchor for the space of forty hours; when one of die crew, terrified at the dreadful working of the ship occasioned by the winds and waves, cut the cable at the forecastle, and the ship now drove about as before. On the 4th December, four large waves broke in succession over their ill-fated vessel, and filled it so full of water that it seemed just ready to sink. By exerting their ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... known that he was the protege of the owner. He was supposed by some to be a relation, or, at any rate, a near connection, and so was treated with unusual respect. All the sailors had a kind word for him, and many were the praises which he received in the forecastle. ...
— Brave and Bold • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... which I crossed the harbour twice daily, passed quite close to the 'Impregnable,' and thus gave me ample opportunity to scan her vast dimensions, and to gaze in wonder at her tall masts. But best of all was to see the sailor-boys on the forecastle, in the rigging, and manning the boats which were fastened to her lower booms. At the sight of all this my little life seemed to be thrilled, and oh, how I longed to become a sailor boy! I would give all the gold ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... carrying out, hooking, and unhooking the tackles, several times buried in the seas, until the mate ordered us in from fear of our being washed off. The anchors were then to be taken up on the rail, which kept all hands on the forecastle for an hour, though every now and then the seas broke over it, washing the rigging off to leeward, filling the lee scuppers breast-high, and washing ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... weather, we should not sail till the morning tide, when the wind would probably be more gentle. We resolved not to go ashore again, but lie here in readiness. Dr Johnson and I had each a bed in the cabbin. Col sat at the fire in the forecastle, with the captain, and Joseph, and the rest. I eat some dry oatmeal, of which I found a barrel in the cabbin. I had not done this since I was a boy. Dr Johnson owned that he too was fond of it when a boy; a circumstance which I was highly pleased to hear from him, as it ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... the fragments of boats were seen floating, their crews swimming and scrambling, as many as escaped the shot, to the shore; another broadside annihilated them. The enemy was not slack in returning this warm salute, for almost before the shot escaped from our guns, a man standing on the forecastle bits, hauling on the topsail buntlines, received a musket bullet in his left arm, which broke the bone, and commenced the labours in the cockpit. The action became general as soon as the ships had ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 377, June 27, 1829 • Various
... one of the best places in the world for the circulation of news. It is a little village in itself, and what happens in the captain's cabin, though there may be a desire to keep it secret, is soon known in the forecastle, or "fo'kesel," as the sailors pronounce it. Consequently it was not long before it was known that Bob was being sent on the voyage to reform him for certain roguish tricks to which he was addicted. This was known to the majority of the crew before ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster
... precious they should be regarded! What account can you give for your spare moments? What can you show for them? Look and see. This boy can tell you how very much can be laid up by improving them; and there are many, very many other boys, I am afraid, in jail and in the house of correction, in the forecastle of a whaleship, in the gambling-house, in the tippling-shop, who, if you should ask them when they began their sinful course, might answer, "In my spare moments." "In my spare moments I gambled for marbles." "In my spare moments I began to swear and drink." "It was in my spare moments that I began ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... mast, to which I had not been accustomed, I was beat so unmercifully, that I was debating in my mind, whether I should kill the captain and then jump overboard, or submit to my hard fate; but one night as I lay groaning on the forecastle after a punishment I had received from the captain, which incapacitated me from further duty, an astonishing circumstance occurred which was the occasion, not only of my embracing the Mahomedan religion, but of making use of those expressions ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... as to the course they were to take, for they could not tell whether those of the crew off duty would retire to sleep in the little forecastle or would lie down on deck. Then, too, they were ignorant as to the number of men who had come on board with the captive. The overseer had mentioned the day before that he was going, and it was probable that three or four others would accompany him. Therefore they had to reckon ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... now midnight, deep, awful midnight; the few remaining passengers had left the deck and retreated into a bed which they shared in common with the salt water. The Captain stood, like one bewildered, beside the helm, while I lay stretched along the forecastle, watching, as well as I could, the tremendous rushing of the waves. It was during a partial hush of the storm, when the wind, as if out of breath, was still, that a shifting light attached to some moving body, came ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various
... ordered all possible steam, altered the course, and brought her right astern, when they began shelling us. The first shot struck the water abreast of the forecastle on the starboard side, about thirty feet off. The second dropped just under the bridge; third, abreast of No. 5 hatch, quite close alongside; fourth, under the stern, sending up a volume of water forty feet high; fifth and sixth and last shells all fell short. The firing then ceased, ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... taken by surprise—the whole, with the exception of the sentries, being asleep at their quarters—and great was the havoc made amongst them by the Chileno cutlasses whilst they were recovering themselves. Retreating to the forecastle, they there made a gallant stand, and it was not until the third charge that the position was carried. The fight was for a short time renewed on the quarter-deck, where the Spanish marines ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... and steady. Our one hope now was to follow it up close, and to carry it within gunshot of the brig, for if she caught it before we were within range she would certainly escape. All hands were piped to quarters, and the long eighteen-pounder on the forecastle was loaded with a full service charge; on this piece we relied to cripple the chase. We were now rapidly raising her, and I was sent aloft on the fore topsail yard, with a good glass to watch her movements. Her hull was in sight and she was still becalmed, ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... fun and excitement, both in cabin and forecastle. The conventional hair was put across the field of the telescope for the unsophisticated 'really to see the line,' and many firmly believed they did see it, and discussed its appearance at some length. Jim Allen, one of our tallest sailors, and coxswain of the gig, dressed in blue, with long ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... and household of the cacique Quibian. It was the intention of Columbus to carry them to Spain, trusting that as long as they remained in the power of the Spaniards, their tribe would be deterred from further hostilities. They were shut up at night in the forecastle of the caravel, the hatchway of which was secured by a strong chain and padlock. As several of the crew slept upon the hatch, and it was so high as to be considered out of reach of the prisoners, they neglected to fasten the chain. The Indians discovered their ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... on a new principle. Some apprehension was expressed that the discharge might, owing to her high free-board, possibly do some serious damage to her hull—a fear which happened to be only too well founded; for though fired at an elevation of 97, the first shot carried away the davits, forecastle, bridge, life-boats, gunwale companion and larboard marling-spike, the water pouring in, literally in volumes, through the shrouds, and rapidly extinguishing the fires. Further progress being difficult under the circumstances, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 12, 1890 • Various
... made. And by "sailor" is meant, not the average efficient and hopeless creature who is found to-day in the forecastle of deepwater ships, but the man who will take a fabric compounded of wood and iron and rope and canvas and compel it to obey his will on the surface of the sea. Barring captains and mates of big ships, the small- boat sailor is the ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London
... night, yet there was "clearing of decks, lacing of nettings, making of bulwarks, fitting of waistcloths, arming of tops, tallowing of pikes, slinging of yards, doubling of sheets and tacks." Amyas took charge of the poop, Cary of the forecastle, and Yeo, as gunner, of the main-deck, while Drew, as master, settled himself in the waist; and all was ready, and more than ready, before the great ship was ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... to find it on land! How apparently impossible at sea! There was the forecastle (full of men) at one end of the vessel. There was the sail room (full of sails) at the other. There was the ladies' cabin (used as the ladies' dressing-room; inaccessible, in that capacity, to every ...
— Miss or Mrs.? • Wilkie Collins
... in the air, but the native was determined to have revenge for the rap from the iron pin. A knife flashed in the moonlight, and I staggered as the blade touched my forehead like a tongue of flame. A dark figure dashed along the deck toward the forecastle, and brushing the blood from my eyes ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... around the Nest call him; though many of them must change their practices, or it will shortly become so absurd to apply the term "honest" to them, that no one will have the hardihood to use it. Newcome came slowly towards the forecastle, on which we were standing; and my uncle determined to get into conversation with him, as a means of further proving the virtue of our disguises, as well as possibly of opening the way to some communications that might facilitate ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... that was not the least of his charm, compelled him to humour her. Once she sat for a whole hour in a dark cellar that smelt of tallow where a couple of men were engaged in making those enormous candles that people in Ireland light on Christmas Day; and once Radway was forced to follow her into the forecastle of a Breton schooner reeking of garlic, where she practised the French that Considine had ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... anchor on the forecastle, it is hove up close to the forefoot, and by means of a ground chain (secured to a balancing or gravity band on the anchor), which is joined to a catting chain rove through a cat davit, the anchor ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... where that river is broad and shallow, and a steamer anchored in the channel, grim and motionless, gave forth a grunt of warning from time to time, while a boy with mittened hands rang the bell hung high on the forecastle with a dull monotony. The wind blowing from the south-east drove before it the endless fog which hummed through the rigging, and hung there in little icicles that pointed to leeward. On the bridge of the steamer, looking like a huge woollen barrel surmounted by a comforter ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... the water, good woman; for the spray flew so that you couldnt tell which was sea or which was cloud. So there we kept her afore it for the matter of two glasses. The first lieutenant he cund the ship himself, and there was four quarter masters at the wheel, besides the master with six forecastle men in the gun-room at the relieving tackles. But then she behaved herself so well! Oh! she was a sweet ship, mistress! That one frigate was well worth more, to live in, than the best house in the island. If I was king of England Id have her hauled up above Lonon bridge, ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... not an unusually large one in those days, the leading trucks attached to the fore-rigging were about half way between the main deck and the foretop. It was a work of difficulty and danger to descend from the deck-load to the forecastle; but to reach the foretop required only a hop, skip, and a jump. The locomotive qualities of this craft, misnamed the Dolphin, were little superior to those of a well constructed raft; and with a fresh ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... Gunnar a good sword; Gunnar now drew it, and had not yet put on his helm. He leapt at once on the forecastle of Vandil's ship, and gave one man his death-blow. Karli ran his ship alongside the other side of Gunnar's ship, and hurled a spear athwart the deck, and aimed at him about the waist. Gunnar sees this, and turned him about so quickly, that no eye could ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... another, and introducing, are touches of breeding; it being altogether beyond his comprehension that both have especial uses, and are only to be resorted to on especial occasions. Still, the worthy master, who had begun life on the forecastle, without any previous knowledge of usages, and who had imbibed the notion that "manners make the man," taken in the narrow sense of the axiom, was a devotee of what he fancied to be good breeding, and one of his especial duties, ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper |
