"Oar" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... or Trinovantum. fourmeth] appeareth. geraflour] gillyflower. are] oar. small] slender. kellis] ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... kinds of fish are swifter. The alligator, by means of his webbed feet, and particularly his flat tail—which acts on the principle of a stern-oar to a boat, and a rudder as well—can pass through the water as swiftly as most of the finny tribe. It is not by hunting it down, however, but by stratagem, that the alligator secures a fish ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... air-bubbles like little bladders tangled under their hairy feet; and we often wished that we also might be shod in the same way to enable us to skate on the lake in summer as well as in icy winter. Not less wonderful were the boatmen, swimming on their backs, pulling themselves along with a pair of oar-like legs. ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... and with the fat of my dogs, I could make smoke enough to be seen if only I could get a light. I had found a piece which I thought would do, and had gone back to wave my flag, which I did every two minutes, when I suddenly thought I saw again the glitter of an oar. It did not seem possible, however, for it must be remembered it was not water which lay between me and the land, but slob ice, which a mile or two inside me was very heavy. Even if people had seen me, I did not think they could get ...
— Adrift on an Ice-Pan • Wilfred T. Grenfell
... add to these the various changes produced in the forms of mankind, by their early modes of exertion; or by the diseases occasioned by their habits of life; both of which became hereditary, and that through many generations. Those who labour at the anvil, the oar, or the loom, as well as those who carry sedan-chairs, or who have been educated to dance upon the rope, are distinguishable by the shape of their limbs; and the diseases occasioned by intoxication deform the countenance with leprous eruptions, or the body with tumid viscera, or ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... assistance to Marmora, which was then besieged by the Moors. These galleys struck on a shoal, when the Moors seized all the people on board, making captives of the Christians and setting at liberty all the Moors, who were chained to the oar; as for the Gypsy galley-slaves whom they found amongst these last, they did not make them slaves, but received them as people friendly to them, and at their devotion; which matter ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... to his great annoyance, his oar stuck fast in the oar-lock, and he straightway did that very unsailorly thing known as ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... could get hold of an oar or two, or lower down a grating, and hold on by that till ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... putting in an oar," the young man hastened to say. "The plan was entirely Mr. Spence's. I am simply working out some ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... a laboring oar, that toils in the surf of the ocean, Bent, but not broken, by age was the form of the notary public; Shocks of yellow hair, like the silken floss of the maize, hung Over his shoulders; his forehead was high; and glasses with horn bows Sat astride on his nose, with a look ...
— The Children's Own Longfellow • Henry W. Longfellow
... her oar, taking most unguardedly a privilege of relationship. "Of course, you are the best judge of how you feel yourself, Aunt Caroline, but we are told there are some steps to ascend when we get there—and you know ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... steering oar and was trying to hold the longboat into the wind. He had stood there since sundown, huge and untiring, legs braced and the bucking wood cradled in his arms. More than human he seemed, there under the icicle loom of the stern-post, his gray hair and ...
— The Valor of Cappen Varra • Poul William Anderson
... very dismal indeed; for we all saw plainly that the sea went so high that the boat could not escape, and that we should be inevitably drowned. As to making sail, we had none, nor, if we had, could we have done anything with it; so we worked at the oar toward the land, though with heavy hearts, like men going to execution; for we all knew that when the boat came near the shore, she would be dashed in a thousand pieces by the breach of the sea. However, we committed our souls to God in the most earnest ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... had slipped off his shoes while still at his oar, working off first one shoe and then the other with his foot. It was so late in the evening that not a single man in the crew was in the regulation bathing-suit, all were more or less dressed. Eric's chum, a chap nicknamed the "Eel" because of his curious way ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... mist grew thin, The folk on Gloucester shore Saw a little figure floating in Secure, on a broken oar! ...
— The Sisters' Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... river, and with the aid of the family rockaway the entire party were at the boat-house before the sun had passed much beyond the meridian. Burt, from his intimate knowledge of the channel, acted as pilot, and was jubilant over the fact that Amy consented to take an oar with him and receive a lesson in rowing. Mrs. Marvin held the tiller-ropes, and the doctor was to use a pair of oars when requested to do so. Webb and Leonard took charge of the larger boat, of which Johnnie, as hostess, was ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... away the fact that he had done things. They were large, broad; the knuckles heavy; the palms calloused by something rougher than oar and tennis-racket. The microscopic traces of black grease did not for months quite come out of the cracks in his skin. And two of his well-kept but thick nails had ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... the most fascinating thing in the world to watch these daring Argonauts rush the rapids, to speculate whether or not they would get through. The stroke of an oar, a few feet to right or left, meant unspeakable calamity. Poor souls! Their faces of utter despair as they landed dripping from the water and saw their precious goods disappearing in the angry foam would have moved ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... for that very reason are called preparations: because they have to be made ready beforehand [aparejados] many days, and even years. Accordingly, not only should the arms be ready, but the soldiers experienced in and accustomed to them; the galley not only finished, but the rower skilful at the oar; the food collected; and even the money, which is the sinew of war, ready and assigned for the expenses of war—in order that the enemy, who spies on all our actions, may see how well prepared and equipped we are, and be restrained and intimidated. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume VIII (of 55), 1591-1593 • Emma Helen Blair
... a few months ago on the Thames with the oar The 'Varsities met in a contest of strength, 7 to 2 were the odds that the Dark Blues would score A win, which they did—by a lucky half-length: And last week, when the thousands assembled at Lord's To see Cambridge win by an innings—at Cricket's Great luck they're ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 11, 1891 • Various
... boys had no alternative but to obey their cousin's demand. Jack took the second oar, while Valentine steered. Raymond was ready enough now for hard work, and pulled away with all his might, evidently wishing to escape as fast as possible from the neighbourhood of ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... I'll get 'em!" declared the old salt. "Come on," he called to Mr. Bunn. "You look like you could handle an oar," and he started toward a dory that was drawn up on ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope
... walked aft to the taffrail, in order to make certain of the state of things. Just as I reached the stern, Sennit was encouraging the men to "give way" with the oar. I saw that he had six of his people with him, and no doubt six of his best men—the boldest and most active being always the most forward on such occasions. There was no time to be lost; and I turned to look for Marble. ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... side with my children and got in the boat there were no seamen in it. Then came a few men, but there were oars with no one to use them. The boat had been filled with passengers, and there was nothing else for me to do but to take an oar. ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... Spaniard, who was the constructing engineer of the ships of the Dey, armed himself with a pole, and commenced battering us with blows. But immediately a Genoese seaman, mounted on a neighbouring vessel, armed himself with an oar, and struck our assailant both with edge and point. During this animated combat we managed to land without any opposition. We had conceived a singular idea of the manner in which the police act on the coast ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... Oswald's blood: the alternative they adopted was perhaps not more merciful—although a common doom in those times. They selected a crazy worm-eaten boat, and sent the criminal to sea, without sail, oar, or rudder, with a loaf of bread and cruse of water, the wind blowing freshly ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... he did not soon recover. One of his oars had slipped overboard without his notice, and the other might have gone after it, if his companion had not reminded him where he was, and what he ought to do. Paddling the boat around with one oar, he recovered the other; but he had no clear idea of the purpose for which such implements were intended, and he permitted the boat to drift with the tide, while he gave himself up to the consideration of the difficult and trying question which the conduct ...
— Work and Win - or, Noddy Newman on a Cruise • Oliver Optic
... ships are coming out of the east, and the waves glide away at their wake in widening glassy hues. How they speed! How they speed, without oar or sail! ...
— Hypolympia - Or, The Gods in the Island, an Ironic Fantasy • Edmund Gosse
... other way, intensely brilliant points of light appear and disappear. Behind a boat rowed against the current two widening lines of wavelets, in the shape of an elongated V, stretch apart and glitter, and every dip of the oars and the slippery oar-blades themselves, as they rise out of the water, reflect the sunshine. The boat appears but to touch the surface, instead of sinking into it, for the water is transparent, and the eye can see ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... the tiller, allowing the raft to rise and fall on the waves. The wind being aft, and the sail square, all he had to do was to keep his oar in the centre. ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... hours we tossed about, while the chief held the steering-oar and his men paddled through a welter of jeweled color that threatened momentarily to toss us on the rocks. If we smashed on them we were dead men, for even had we been able to climb them the high tide would have drowned us against the wall of ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... trying to his spirits, that he felt a long walk necessary to his composure; and as there is a great deal in the influence of harmonious associations, he chose, for the scene of this walk, his old neighbourhood, down among the mast, oar, and block makers, ship-biscuit bakers, coal-whippers, pitch-kettles, sailors, canals, docks, swing-bridges, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... said Douglas. "Row as if your lives depended on each stroke of the oar; for ere five minutes the skiff will be out ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... acquainted with the use of domestic animals, farming implements, carts, and yokes; they were also possessed of boats, the rudder, oars, but were unacquainted with the movement of vessels by sails. These conclusions seem to be established by the facts that words equivalent to boat, rudder, oar, are common to the languages of the offshoots of the stock, though located very widely asunder; but those for mast and sails are of special invention, and differ ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... girls against three rough men. In spite of all this, they decided in the end to go on. Pushing the boat into the sea they rowed out a few fathoms, then set the sail and bore away before the brisk breeze. The fact that the oar-locks, which were mere wooden pegs, were worn smooth and shiny, told that the boat had not ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... but in the face of such sudden and unlooked-for danger her courage failed her. The pretty rose-bloom died away from her face, and her beautiful blue eyes expanded wide with terror. She caught her breath with a sob, and, seizing the oar with two soft, childish hands, made a desperate attempt to turn the boat. The current resisted her weak effort, snapping the oar in twain like a slender twig and whirling ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... the farther shore Half pants, half whistles, in her draught; The cadence of a creaking oar Falls drowsily; a corded raft Creeps slowly in the noonday gleam, And wheresoe'er a shadow sleeps The men lie by, or half a-dream, Stand leaning at ...
— Lyrics of Earth • Archibald Lampman
... At long intervals, the warning cry of a belated gondolier was just audible, as he turned the corner of a distant canal, and called to invisible boats which might be approaching him in the darkness. Now and then, the nearer dip of an oar in the water told of the viewless passage of other gondolas bringing guests back to the hotel. Excepting these rare sounds, the mysterious night-silence of Venice was literally the silence ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... pirates were hanged there. It was the first convenient place for inbound ships to dispose of this dirty, deep-sea cargo. Doubtless hereabout the lanes and building-tops were crowded with an idle throng as on a holiday, and wherries to the bankside and the play paused with suspended oar for a sight of the happy festival. Did Hamlet wait upon this ghastly prologue? Shakespeare himself, unplayed script in hand, mused how tragedy and farce go hand in hand. In those golden days with which our comedy concerns itself, a gibbet ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... sight so gladsome to the eyes of friends? is it not that the gallant ship sails so swiftly? And why is it that, for all their crowding, the ship's company [9] cause each other no distress? Simply that there, as you may see them, they sit in order; in order bend to the oar; in order recover the stroke; in order step on board; in order disembark. But disorder is, it seems to me, precisely as though a man who is a husbandman should stow away [10] together in one place wheat and barley and pulse, and by and by when he has need of barley meal, or wheaten flour, ...
— The Economist • Xenophon
... stalwart spirit of those men who were made absolute pioneers by the ash heap of 1906. Some of these have gone to their last accounting, but for those who are still serving, and still tugging at the oar, there remains but to guard the heritage which they bequeathed - to bring upon the results of their work a ...
— The Spirit of 1906 • George W. Brooks
... as of Our Mannor of East Greenwich, in Kent, in free and common Soccage, and not in Capite, or by Knights Service, yielding and paying yearly to Us, Our Heirs and Successors, for the same, the fourth Part of all Goods and Silver Oar, which within the Limits hereby Granted, shall from Time to Time, happen to be found, over and besides the Yearly Rent of Twenty Marks and the fourth part of the Gold and Silver Oar, in and by the said recited Letters Patents reserved ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... only for a few months in St Andrews in 1547, when the castle capitulated to the foreign fleet, and he and his companions were flung into the French galleys. There for nineteen months he toiled at the oar under the lash, and through the cold of two winters, and the heat of the intervening summer, had leisure to count the cost of the choice so recently made. It is a tribute to his constancy that men chiefly remember ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... retreating; until, at length, we got into an angry controversy, which the cook, who was in the bow of the boat, attempted to end by cutting the anchor-rope. As he was drawing his knife to execute this purpose, I swiftly lifted an oar, and, with a single blow, laid him senseless in the bottom of the canoe. By this time the schooner was within pistol-shot; and, as she passed with a three-knot breeze, the captain, who had witnessed the scene, threw a grappling-iron into our skiff, ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... West Coast. Presently she made her appearance, a sprightly young woman about 26, and we all started in their canoe for their home at Skidegate, where I had been invited. En route while passing a pipe from the chief to his wife, my oar caught in the water, giving the canoe a sudden lurch which would have been quite alarming to most feminine nerves, but not to the Princess for she laughed so heartily over the mishap, that I saw a smile spread over the big face of the old chief. An hour brought us to the broad ...
— Official report of the exploration of the Queen Charlotte Islands - for the government of British Columbia • Newton H. Chittenden
... pow'rs are 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 pow'r, With unexpected legions bursts away, And sees defenceless realms receive his sway;— Short sway! ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... ridge, 'Mid groves of cork, and cistus, and wild fig, His motley household came.—Not last nor least, Battista, who upon the moonlight-sea Of Venice had so ably, zealously Served, and at parting, thrown his oar away To follow through the world; who without stain Had worn so long that honourable badge[63], The gondolier's, in a Patrician House Arguing unlimited trust.—Not last nor least, Thou, though declining in thy beauty and ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... considerable multitude of spectators. After a time he descended upon a common, where he left the cat nearly dead with cold, ascended, and continued his voyage. He says, in the narrative which he has left, that he descended by means of the one oar which was left to him, the other having fallen over; but, as he states that, in order to rise again, he threw over the remainder of his ballast, it is natural to believe that the descent of the balloon was caused by the loss of gas, because, if he descended ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion
... that Drake would find a way to bring the ship to them. As soon as the raft was built, a mast was stepped in her, on which a biscuit sack was hoisted for a sail. A young tree, working in a crutch, served them as a steering oar. The four men went aboard, a line was laid out to the bar, and the curious raft was hauled off into the sea. The last of the storm of the night before was still roaring up aloft. A high sea was running, and the wind blew strong from the west. ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... tell him to insist on being relieved immediately. Of course, Skinner, Matt will get busy right away, looking for the right skipper to relieve Captain Curtis—and about that time the president emeritus will shove in his oar and ball things up. Every doggoned skipper Matt recommends for the job is going to have his application vetoed by ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... Paul Desjardins, from de parish of St. Germain, He was long way on de fronte side, so he's fallin' overboar' Couldn't swim at all de man say, but dat's more ma frien', I can say, Any how he's look lak drownin', so we'll t'row him two t'ree oar. ...
— The Habitant and Other French-Canadian Poems • William Henry Drummond
... moonlight between the grey-blue sea and lucid hills. Stars stand on all the peaks, and twinkle, or keep gliding, as the boat moves, down the craggy sides. Stars are mirrored on the marble of the sea, until one knows not whether the oar has struck sparks from a star image or has scattered ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... negro peacefully sleeping in the stern, with head pillowed on his arm. Herman awoke him with a German oath, and the way the fellow sprang up, his eyes popping open, was evidence of the treatment he was accustomed to. A hasty application of an oar brought the boat's nose to the bank, and I was thrust in unceremoniously, the three others following, each man shipping an oar into the rowlocks. Herman alone remained on shore, scattering the embers ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... oar put out, in an attempt to steer the boat into the cove. But in a moment it was swept away, and she drove on ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... At the age of fourteen he became a sailor, knocking about the world in the roughest manner, half the time practically a pirate. In an all-day's sea fight, once, his ship took fire and he had to leap overboard; but being a strong swimmer he swam, aided by an oar, eight ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... hollowed longitudinally. On either side is nailed a palo de balzas, viz., a beam of a very porous kind of wood. One Indian sits forward, another more backward, each having a short wooden shovel-shaped oar, with which they strike the water right and left, and thus scull the boat onward. The passengers must crouch or kneel down in the middle, and dare not stir, for the least irregularity in the motion would upset the boat. We landed safely, and amused ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... stadia, and its length not more than seven thousand one hundred and thirty-two stadia. In some parts 12 it is moorland, in others there are wooded plains, and sometimes it rises into mountain peaks. The island is surrounded by a sluggish sea, which neither gives readily to the stroke of the oar nor runs high under the blasts of the wind. I suppose this is because other lands are so far removed from it as to cause no disturbance of the sea, which indeed is of greater width here than anywhere else. Moreover Strabo, a famous writer of the ...
— The Origin and Deeds of the Goths • Jordanes
... and perhaps in the end set you free in a land where brave fellows are not given to be torn to pieces by wild beasts at the word of any kind. But if you fail me or betray me, then either I will kill you, or sell you to those who deal in slaves, to work at the oar, or in ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... or desk, or oar, With knife or needle, voice or pen, As thou in Nazareth of yore, Shall ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... he took a locket from his bosom; and I heard him speak, Will, and he said: "Here's the picture of my fair and true lady; drink to her, SeA-ors, all." Then he spoke to me, Will, and called me, right up through the oar-weed and the sea: "We have had a fair quarrel, SeA-or; it is time to be friends once more. My wife and your brother have forgiven me; so ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... so that she might destroy it when found, and with stinkpots at her mastheads and boarding-nets hung round her. Of course he was to escape in the end, but so narrowly that all possible sail had to be crowded on to his little ship, and the whole crew set to work the big oar at the stern, while every soul on board shivered and shook as men should when pirates are ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... which they profess to acquaint us. Food, which is the same as far as sight and touch are concerned, tastes differently to different individuals; fire, which is the same to the eye, communicates a sensation of pain at one time, of pleasure at another; the oar appears crooked in the water, while the touch assures us it is as straight as before it was immersed.[158] Again, in dreams, in intoxication, in madness, impressions are made upon the mind, vivid enough to incite to reflection and action, yet utterly at variance ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... showed herself at the hut window, at the hut door. When Fanny turned back to whistle again she saw her standing up in the boat, which, freed, was drifting out towards them—saw her scatter the ice with her oar—and the boat, pushed upstream, came drifting down towards them in a curve to hit the bank at their feet. The girl stepped out, smiling, happy, pretty, undimmed by the habit of trade. The man got in and sat down, the ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... now, from slumber rous'd, Ernestus spied A river, branching from the ocean tide; The mighty stream roll'd on its darksome flood Thro' mossy cavern and thro' tangled wood; Thence in soft mazes drew its humid train, To feed the verdure of a lonely plain. He furl'd the sail, and grasp'd the labouring oar, And sped to Dalecarlia's welcome shore. The oar, light-stretching, breaks the sparkling tide. And scatters the ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker
... swan to man if it didn't seem to come right out of my pinkey! Scart! Waal, it did give me something of a jump, an' that I won't deny. If Sile had a-bin there he'd kerwollopsed. I riz right up with an oar in my hand, ready to slam it over ther head uf any dad-bum thing that wiggled round the pinkey. Jest then I heard that sound ag'in, an' I made out it come from the point of rocks that makes off inter ther harber. I looked that ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish
... threatened to capsize the boat. When it seemed that the crisis was really come the largest and strongest man in the party, in a state of intense fear, said, "Let us pray." "No, no, my man," shouted the bluff old boatman; "let the little man pray. You take an oar." The greatest curse that can befall a young man is ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... is sweet to hear At midnight on the blue and moonlit deep The song and oar of Adria's gondolier, By distance mellow'd, o'er the waters sweep; 'T is sweet to see the evening star appear; 'T is sweet to listen, as the night-winds creep From leaf to leaf; 't is sweet to view on high The rainbow, based on ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... see no sign of any habitation, no gleam of light from the shore to cheer us. In vain we strained our ears for the plash of the oar, or welcome sound of the human voice, or bark of some household dog, that might assure us we were not doomed to pass the night ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... our boatmen quit their mooring, And all hands must ply the oar; Baggage from the quay is lowering, We're impatient—push from shore. 'Have a care! that case holds liquor— Stop the boat—I'm sick—oh Lord!' 'Sick, ma'am, damme, you'll be sicker Ere you've been an hour on board.' Thus are screaming Men and women, Gemmen, ladies, servants, Jacks; ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... rowed a boat on dangerous rivers and on the sea; had been nearly lost one dark night in a high spring-tide on the sandbanks of the River Mersey; had been washed out to sea through the failure of an oar at Barmouth; had narrowly escaped being swamped with his boat off the East Coast; and a few years before had a hair-breadth escape from drowning by being drawn under the wooden framework protecting the piles for a future famous bridge over the River Thames near the heart of ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... below bridge; not by any means because he liked it, but to cure a weakness in his liver, for which the faculty had particularly recommended it - may be explained as rowed by three men, two pulling an oar each, and ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... elsewhere. The sea, like the wind, treated Yport as the mouth of a funnel, and a hundred cross currents were piling up such waves as no boat could pass, though the Yport women were skilful as any man with oar ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... objects relating to boats and ships have been unearthed at Jamestown: small anchors, chains, oar locks, ship bolts and spikes, and tools used by shipwrights and ...
— New Discoveries at Jamestown - Site of the First Successful English Settlement in America • John L. Cotter
... which of us isn't an omnibus hack, With galls on his withers and sores on his back,— Buckled to circumstance, driven by fate, And chain'd on the pole of a oar that we hate— Yon ponderous Past which we drag fast or slow On the coarse-mended Present, this dull road we go, Hard-curb'd on the tongue and no bearing-rein slack, Ah! who of us isn't that ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... woman an' a baby layin' dead in oar camp now," he concluded. "Died last night. The pilgrims is tryin' to make coffins fer 'em out'n ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... smothered her torch, for there was no light among the reeds when I looked back. We crossed the river slowly, listening between oar-strokes for the paddle-dips of approaching canoes. There was no sound but the lashing of water against the pebbled shore and we lay in a little bay ready to dash across the fleet's course, when the ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... came to a great lake. Close to the shore lay twelve little boats, and in each boat stood a handsome prince, one hand upon an oar, the other ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... good luck they found a small boat floating keep uppermost, for it had been overturned by the number of people who crowded into it. This boat they righted with much toil and discovered within it a drowned lady, also an oar caught beneath the seat. After this their dreadful journey was easy, at least by comparison. For now all the gloom had rolled away, the sun shone out and a fresh and pleasant wind blew from the sea ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... boat is good enough when you are looking for buried treasure. We set out, with Mr. Daddles and Jimmy rowing. A breeze had sprung up and the bay was a little choppy, so we splashed and bumped along at no great speed. Mr. Daddles did not pay much attention to the management of his long oar, but got into a discussion with Jimmy about what they would buy with their share of the treasure. Jimmy said his first choice would be a sailing yacht. Next, after that, he thought he should buy a steam-yacht. Mr. Daddles said he should ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... three miles or so away, and black despair took hold of them. Now the resourceful Thompson, without apologies, undressed, and removing the white shirt that he had worn at the dance, bade a sailor to tie it to an oar and wave it to ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... all his life had been prone to cowardice on water, but he clung to the kicking steering-oar with set face and determined jaw. His thousand dozen were there in the boat before his eyes, safely secured beneath the correspondents' baggage, and somehow, before his eyes were the little cottage and the ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... Traill and her whims? She is a dissatisfied lass at the best, and her love affairs are beyond my sorting. Serves you right, Christina Binnie! You might know, if anybody might, that they who put their oar into another's boat are sure to get their fingers ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... half of a man, which is a correct way of expressing his status in society. Why, my dear sir, you might as well expect to pull across the Atlantic Ocean in a water-logged skiff, with only one oar, and make a successful voyage of it, as to pull across the ocean of life without the help of a good woman. And I have my suspicions of the morals, as well as my contempt for the taste of a man, who can wander through this country and see as ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor
... this malicious sally, followed by the retailing of various anti-American anecdotes that made up in sting what they lacked in delicacy. These showed no signs of abatement until, slightly nettled, Selwyn put in an oar. ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... heavy, but his bare brown arms worked the single oar over the stern like tireless little machines, and his body swung rhythmically from side to side to add ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... sowing and of their birth. Then, bitterly weeping, they drew back all of them together to the evil bank, that waits for every man who fears not God. Charon the demon, with eyes of glowing coal, beckoning them, collects them all; he beats with his oar ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... of time," said he. "Tain't quite high tide yet. You'll have time to get ashore before she moves. Hullo, Wade! Whar's that oar?" ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille
... very early, for they had to walk the two miles which separated Ballymoy from the lake shore. Mrs. Beecher, the girls, the two other boys, and the baskets of provisions followed a little later on the Rectory car, packed beyond all possibility of comfort. The Canon himself pulled an oar untiringly, but without the faintest semblance of style, and the party rippled with joy when they discovered that Hyacinth ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... coal coast coarse float foam goat gloam groan hoarse load loan loaf oak oar oats roast road roam shoal ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... and insensate man who is smitten with love for this devil of a Blanche. And there is this Frenchman, too, with his mysterious influence over you. Yet, you actually ask me such a question! If you do not tell me how things stand, I shall have to put in my oar and do something. Are you ashamed to be frank with me? ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... disturbed, frowning face, the quivering hand that held the lean cigar. All the strangeness and the mystery of the mysterious world were here concentrated. Numbly and dully he heard the soft, rhythmic splashing of the dipping oar, the turning cry of "Premie!" Then, sharper, "Sciar, Signori, sciar!" as they nearly jostled another gondola, swinging round sharply into a ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... coarse canvas drawers, their whole backs and legs naked, doubly chained about their middles and legs in couples, and made fast to their seats, and all commanded by a cruel seaman. Their rising forward and falling back at their oar is a miserable spectacle, and the noise of their chains with the roaring of the beaten waters has something of the strange and fearful to one unaccustomed to it. They are chastised on the least disorder, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... of the hatch joints. Each boat had three compartments, the middle one being about four feet long, about one-fifth the length of the boat, which was twenty-two feet over the top. Two places were left for the rowers, before and abaft the middle compartment, while the steersman with his long oar thrust behind was to sit on the deck of the after-cabin, all the decks being flush with the gunwale, except that of the forward cabin the deck of which was carried back in a straighter line than the sheer of the boat and thus formed a nose to help throw ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... broadside, at the rate of eight miles an hour. Joskins being the only one who was rowing. George, on recovering his seat, tried to help him, but, on dipping his oar into the water, it immediately, to his intense surprise, disappeared under the boat, and ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... one by one on deck. After they were all up, I sent one of the boat's crew up, and then went alongside and hooked on the boat, which was quickly run up. There was no other mishap than the breaking of an oar in coming alongside. We had on board about three hundred invalid soldiers and sailors from the ...
— Notes by the Way in A Sailor's Life • Arthur E. Knights
... held the steady oars quivered suddenly, then gripped them as in a vise; the man's face flushed; he bent to the right oar, the craft whirled half way on her keel; the other oar fell—swiftly and powerfully the boat shot ahead up ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... The Stroke Oar of this Food Bazaar had been in the Business for 20 years, and she had earned her Harp three times over. The Prune Joke never touched her, and she had herself trained so as not to hear any sarcastic Cracks about the Oleo. She prided herself on the Atmosphere of Culture ...
— People You Know • George Ade
... they broke into his larder and cellar and held riot. When the old miser could bear it no longer he started up and belabored his servants right and left; but one of them struck the old man with an oar and ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... oar into the canal just under the Bridge of Sighs, and at half its length it was arrested by a hollow substance which he told me was the marble roof of the Pozzi, whose unfathomable tiers of dungeons stretched one under another beneath this dreadful water gallery. It was not here, however, that ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... clefts in as sudden a squall as ever overtook a sailor at sea. And then, you know, there is no sea-room. If the wind get the better of them, they are on the shore in a few minutes, whichever way the wind may blow. He saw them worn out at the oar, toiling in rowing, for the wind was contrary unto them. So the time for loneliness and prayer was over, and the time to go down out of his secret chamber and help his brethren was come. He did not need to turn and say good-bye ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... a' we caught us no fish, and whiles we talked we'd stopped rowing, until the boat drifted into the weeds and long grass that filled one end of the loch. We were caught as fine as ye please, and when we tried to push her free we lost an oar. Noo, we could not row hame wi'oot that oar, so I reached oot wi' my rod and tried to pull it in. I had nae sort of luck there, either, and broke the rod and fell head first into the ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... the water, took his gun, his game-bag, and a landing-net—one never knows what may come in one's way, a bird or a fish—and went toward the bed of rushes, rowing and steering with one and the same oar. Being an experienced marsh-sportsman, he soon found the one opening in the reeds through which it was possible to penetrate, and recognized by the vegetation ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... water. He pulled the snorkel from his mouth and let it hang. As luck would have it, the shadow saw him first. He stood up, oar in hands, poised for a swing ...
— The Wailing Octopus • Harold Leland Goodwin
... a sentence or two, the occasion for the utterance of the second of the two passages which I have taken for my text. When our Lord had finished His previous address and exhortations, Peter characteristically pushed his oar in with the question, 'Do these commandments refer to us, the Apostles, or to all,' the whole body of disciples? Our Lord admits the distinction, recognises in His answer that the 'us,' the Twelve, were nearer Christ than the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... stores; and a very slight framework along the sides for containing the bags of biscuit and our spare clothes. A bamboo mast nineteen feet long, a tanned duck sail, answering also the purpose of an awning, a spreat, one boat-hook, fourteen paddles, and a steer-oar, completed each boat's equipment. ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... was an oar and a jackknife. Upon this oar I spent much time, carving minute letters and cutting a notch for each week that passed. There were many notches. I sharpened the knife on a flat piece of rock, and no barber was ever more careful of his favourite razor than was I of that knife. Nor did ever a miser ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... the moon shines on the stream, And as soft music breathes around, The feathering oar returns the gleam, And dips ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... bound when the boss cracks a joke, no matter how punk it is; and then Holmes put his oar in. ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... and men were seen hastening aloft, and standing out upon the foremast yards. This, however, had offered no interruption to the exertions of the boatmen, who still kept plying with a vigour that set even the sail-less vessel in motion, as the foaming water, thrown from their bending oar-blades, dashed angrily against her prow. Soon afterwards both the boat and her prize disappeared on the opposite side of the schooner, which, now lying with her broadside immediately on a line with the shore, completely hid them from the further ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... the speed of its current. Touch forms its island. Taste constitutes its current. Scent is its mire. Sound is its waters. That particular part of it which leads towards heaven is attended with great difficulties. Body is the boat by which one must cross that river. Forgiveness is the oar by which it is to be propelled. Truth is the ballast that is to steady that boat. The practice of righteousness is the string that is to be attached to the mast for dragging that boat along difficult waters. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... moment he again became uneasy. He fancied that right up to the skerry came a whale, which said that he, Eilert, must now make haste; and when he stood on its back he stuck the shaft of an oar down its nostril, to prevent it from shooting beneath the sea again. He perceived that in this way the whale could be steered accordingly as he turned the oar to the right or left; and now they coasted the whole land of Finmark at such a rate that the ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... decoys bobbing and tugging at their anchor-cords outside the point. Before he had fished up a dozen on the blade of his oar a heavier squall struck the lagoon, blowing the boat out into the river. He had managed to paddle back and had secured another brace of decoys, when a violent gale caught him broadside, ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... in the stern, where Graham promised to show him how to steer. Phil was an apt scholar, and delighted to be of use. Joe addressed Graham as "Captain," and complimented him on the fine feathering of his oar. The lad was a good oarsman, and made the boat ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... broke all over her, flinging the boat on deck upon the saloon skylight and pouring inches deep over the coaming into the well. Vane was hurled from the tiller. His wet face was smeared with blood, from a cut on his forehead, but he seized a big oar to shove the sloop off, when she swung upright, moved, and struck again. The following sea hove her up; there was a third, less violent, crash; and as Vane dropped the oar and grasped the helm, she suddenly ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... back to Kilronan, and beat up my crew from the public-houses near the bay. With their usual carelessness they had not seen to the leak in the curagh, nor to an oar that was losing the brace that holds it to the toll-pin, and we moved off across the sound at an absurd pace with a ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... north or south. He had come to the parting of the ways. His whole life hung in the balance. Floating in that frail skiff on the uneasy swell, he realized that everything depended on the direction in which he swung the prow. His future lay in his oar-blades. ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... lady-like air, and a posy in her belt, while Kat would lounge in the window-seat, and read aloud, or amuse them with nonsense; or, if they went out on the pond, Kittie would wear her gloves and ply her oar with an eye to grace, while Kat would, perhaps, be encased in a sun-bonnet, or be bareheaded and row as if on a contract to outdo the champion club in existence. In their work was the same little mark of distinction, and so now-a-days it ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... a word.... You have been so beset with people all the afternoon that I never got a chance to put my oar in. Dear Reverend Mother, everything has gone off so well. No clergyman will ever preach again about Providence spreading a table in the wilderness without my coming back in memory to to-day. May we walk back together? I am a mass of ants, and mosquito-bitten ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves |
