"Aground" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was indeed opening before him a wide door of hope. He had changed into the service of Messrs. Liddell & Gordon; these gentlemen had begun to dabble in the new field of marine telegraphy; and Fleeming was already face to face with his life's work. That impotent sense of his own value, as of a ship aground, which makes one of the agonies of youth, began to fall from him. New problems which he was endowed to solve, vistas of new enquiry which he was fitted to explore, opened before him continually. His gifts had found their avenue and goal. And with this pleasure of ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... she drifted helpless among the American ships and was compelled to haul down her colors. The Finch committed a blunder of seamanship and by failing to keep close enough to the wind, which soon died away, she finally went aground and took no part in the battle. The Preble was driven from her anchorage and ran ashore under the Plattsburg batteries, and the Ticonderoga played no heavier part than to beat off ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... monsters of the deep, which abound among these islands, and that the next moment his body would be severed in half, he uttered a faint cry at the accumulated horror of his death; but the next moment his legs were swung round by the current, and he perceived, to his astonishment, that he was aground upon one of the sand-banks which abounded on the reef, and over which the tide was running with the velocity of a sluice. He floundered, then rose, and found himself in about one foot of water. The ebb-tide was nearly finished; and this was one of the banks which never showed itself above ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... spreading confusion in their ranks, repulsing the attack, and capturing twenty of the animals. Four days later the rebels made the desperate attack on Omdurman, when, as stated, communications were cut, and the Husseinyeh ran aground. In attempting to carry her off and to check the further progress of the rebels the Ismailia was badly hit, and the incident was one of those only too frequent at all stages of the siege, when Gordon wrote: "Every time I hear the gun fire I have a twitch of the heart of gnawing ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... I, lying on the bottom, fell to thought of what the day had brought me. The setting sun touched the single spire of Christ Church, and lit up yellow squares of light in the westward-looking windows of the rare farm-houses on the Jersey shore. Presently I was aground on the south end of Petty's Island, where in after-years lay rotting the "Alliance," the remnant ship of the greatest sea-fight that ever was since Grenville lay in the "Revenge," with the Spanish fleet about him. I came to ground amid the reeds and spatter-docks, where the ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... boon of the ballot alike. When our fathers were driving the great ship of State we were willing to sail as deck or cabin passengers, just as we felt disposed; we had nothing to say; but to-day the boys are about to run the ship aground, and it is high time that the mothers should be asking, "What do you mean to do?" In our own little State the laws have been very much modified in regard to women. My father was the first man to blot out ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... upon a rock, stove a hole in the steamer, and are now undergoing repairs. We are aground on a sandbank and pumping out water. On the left is the Russian bank, on the right the Chinese. If I were back at home now I should have the right to boast: "Though I have not been in China I have seen China only twenty feet off." We are to stay the night in Pokrovskaya. We shall ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... fearing what would happen, were hurriedly embarking their merchandise, in order to come to Manila. Our men began to serve the artillery, but there were so many hostile boats that they covered the water. The Spanish craft ran aground in the confusion and danger, whereupon the Siamese (and chiefly the Japanese) entered the ships. Don Fernando de Silva, with sword and buckler in hand, sold his life dearly, and others did the same. But the enemy killed them except those who fled at the first stroke of the victory, who remained ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XXII, 1625-29 • Various
... Ana," almost entirely dismantled by the violent winds and heavy seas, reached Japon, and its arrival there was through not a little of God's mercy. Although it remained thirteen days aground in a port of the kingdom of Bungo, [36] still it did not go to pieces. On the contrary it was able to refit, and intends to prosecute its ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVII, 1609-1616 • Various
... and owing to the delay in getting together a sufficiently powerful flotilla, it was not till the 15th that they were captured, and the navigation of the lake cleared. The vessels of a lighter draught having all run aground in a vain endeavour to pass up the lake, the troops were embarked in boats to carry them up to Pine Island, ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis
... was fine enough to be a pleasure craft, and he leaped at once to the conclusion that some gay party had landed on an island to have a good time, and, having run the yacht aground, the fresh breeze had blown her off as the tide rose. Entirely satisfied with this solution, the history of the fair craft seemed to be no longer a mystery to him. In the morning he would run her over to Camden and anchor there. The owner would soon appear; and, as he was fairly ...
— Little Bobtail - or The Wreck of the Penobscot. • Oliver Optic
... English pilot had run a Spanish ship aground, as nearly as possible, and only the two anchors kept her from going hard on. The two Englishmen found that the vessel had five feet of water in her, and, in their plain, matter-of-fact way, they set to work. Ugly washes were coming over, but ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... search of the horses yesterday and returned with them today to the place where the ship was aground, a point about fifteen miles in a straight line from the mouth of the river. The horses were so fresh that to hobble them two of the quietest had to be caught to round with them the others up. In the ten days that they had been ashore they had improved more in condition ...
— Journal of Landsborough's Expedition from Carpentaria - In search of Burke and Wills • William Landsborough
... creation of this committee, an act of violence in Rhode Island showed the hostility to the enforcement of the Acts of Trade. The "Gaspee," a royal vessel of war, had interfered legally and illegally with the smuggling trade. On June 9, 1772, while in pursuit a vessel, she ran aground. That night the ship was attacked by armed men, who captured and burned her. The colonial authorities were indifferent: the perpetrators were not tried; they were not prosecuted; they were not even arrested. ...
— Formation of the Union • Albert Bushnell Hart
... and thus escaping the strong current; sometimes she went out and skirted a high "bluff" sand-bar in the middle of the stream, and occasionally followed it up a little too far and touched upon the shoal water at its head—and then the intelligent craft refused to run herself aground, but "smelt" the bar, and straightway the foamy streak that streamed away from her bows vanished, a great foamless wave rolled forward and passed her under way, and in this instant she leaned far over on her side, shied from the bar and fled square away ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... hour-hand of the clock moves round; So slowly that no human eye hath power To see it move! Slowly in shine or shower The painted ship above it, homeward bound, Sails, but seems motionless, as if aground; Yet both arrive at last; and in his tower The slumberous watchman wakes and strikes the hour, A mellow, measured, melancholy sound. Midnight! the outpost of advancing day! The frontier town and citadel of night! The watershed ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... a great fleet of ships, and five thousand soldiers. And Sertorius made ready to fight him by sea, although his ships were not built for strength, but for lightness and swift sailing; but a violent west wind raised such a sea that many of them were run aground and shipwrecked, and he himself, with a few vessels, being kept from putting further out to sea by the fury of the weather, and from landing by the power of his enemies, was tossed about painfully for ten days together, amidst the boisterous and ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... dropped anchor," said the Captain, as the sloop approached a strip of sandy beach stretching like a long finger into the water. "I generally bring the Lucy Ann to at the same place. She can't go out again till high tide to-morrow, for the harbor is shallow and we 'd likely run aground; so ye 'll have the whole morning to spend with your relations, and that 's more than I 'd want to spend with some of mine, I 'm telling ye," and he roared with laughter. "Relations is like victuals," he went on. "Some agrees ...
— The Puritan Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... random, I came to the maritime part of the city, where canals take the place of streets. As yet it was low water, and vessels lay aground in the mud, showing their hulls, and careening over in a way to rejoice a water-color painter. Soon the tide came up, and everything began to be in motion. I would suggest Hamburg to artists following in the track of Canaletto, Guardi, or Joyant; ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... run thing, I reckon, sirs," said Mr. Habbakuk Sheepshanks, who was rather top-heavy that evening, to a numerous party who were assembled round his capacious hearth at the "Ship-aground," "but all's well, they say, that ends well, so we'll even drink the health of the brothers in a glass of the free genuine Cognac." "What is that you ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 547, May 19, 1832 • Various
... Drake with his division of the fleet, and Seymour with the squadron from the Thames, weighed their anchors and stood off after them, while Howard with his division remained off Calais, where, in the morning, the largest of the four galleasses was seen aground on Calais Bar. Lord Howard wasted many precious hours in capturing her before he set off to join Drake and Seymour, who were thundering against the Spanish fleet. The wind had got up during the night, and the Spaniards had drifted ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... former writings I have attributed this kind of derangement to two causes; first, the pressure of ice running aground on yielding banks of mud and sand; and, secondly, the melting of masses of ice and snow of unequal thickness, on which horizontal layers of mud, sand, and other fine and coarse materials had accumulated. The late Mr. Trimmer ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... sailed a few miles further up, and then pitched the tents for the night. By the middle of the next day the yawl was aground, and from the shoalness of the water could not proceed any higher. The water being found partly fresh, Mr. Chaffers took the dingey and went up two or three miles further, where she also grounded, but ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... breaks above them, the thunders roll, The ship gets aground on the hidden shoal, And the turbulent waters dash over the barque, And cries from the doomed ship come. Till nothing is left the tale to tell, But the angry roar of the surging swell; So the grand old vessel goes down in the dark— Wrecked in ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... yonder shed; observe its garden-ground, With the low paling, form'd of wreck, around: There dwells a Fisher: if you view his boat, With bed and barrel—'tis his house afloat; Look at his house, where ropes, nets, blocks, abound, Tar, pitch, and oakum—'tis his boat aground: That space inclosed, but little he regards, Spread o'er with relics of masts, sails, and yards: Fish by the wall, on spit of elder, rest, Of all his food, the cheapest and the best, By his own labour caught, for his own hunger dress'd. Here our reformers come not; none object To paths ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... rudely handled in that rough night off the cape. But now sail after sail hove in sight, all making their way as best they could towards the inlet. This some reached, and got safely in before night. Others, attempting to enter, got aground, and were with difficulty got off again. Some anchored outside, and some lay off and on, waiting for morning, to be piloted past the shoals, and through the narrow channel, to a safe ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... here himself,' observed his lordship. 'Well, you tell Holdaway that I'm aground, not a stiver—not a stiver. I'm running from the beagles—going abroad, tell Holdaway. And he need look for no more wages: glad of 'em myself, if I could get 'em. He can live in the castle if he likes, or go to the devil. O, and here is Mr. Archer; and I recommend ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and musquetry, and causing so much havoc, that, shrieking and yelling, they made for the nearest shore without returning a single shot. We followed her, firing into her as fast as possible. On coming up with her we found her aground, with six dead and one mortally wounded; the remainder of the crew had saved themselves by wading to the shore. After getting this prahu afloat, we brought the other prahu, which we had just before captured (No. 4.), alongside. This ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... getting herself off the beach; she'll soon be off!' but it does not appear to hasten the powers that be, who apparently have decided that, as it will not be high tide till nearly one P. M., she is safely aground ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... main body of the enemy, the lord high admiral drove upon the sands several of the sluggard vessels of the Armada which the fire-ships had failed to drive out to sea. For several hours he engaged the great galliasse under the direct command of Admiral Moncada, which was aground upon the sands. The vessel was captured and Moncada slain, and the English admiral hastened to the assistance ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... you go to the hunting in one day this week?" he responds "Willingly; I have not a most pleasure in the world. There is some game on they cantons." Proceeding from "game" to "gaming" we soon run aground upon the word "jeu," which as we know does duty in French both for a game and a pack of cards. "At what pack will you that we does play?" "To the cards." Of course this is "A quel Jeu voulez vous que nous Jouions?" "Aux cartes;" and further on "This time I have a great deal ...
— English as she is spoke - or, A jest in sober earnest • Jose da Fonseca
... Charlie a third time, with provoking coolness. "You ran her on to the rocks, Dick—which was unseamanlike in the extreme—at least you ran the dear aground on a fallen tree and, sitting down beside it, asked it to become Mrs Darvall, and the amiable creature ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... I never travel the sea more: But it is hard to keep the ship fro the shore, And if it hap to rise a storm, Then thrown in a raft, and so about borne On rocks or brachs[154] for to run, Else to strike aground at Tyburn, That were a mischievous case, For that rock of Tyburn is so perilous a place, Young gallants dare not venture into Kent; But when their money is gone and spent, With their long boots they row on the ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... lantern at night! A mark for all the reds in the country! I was steerin' the first boat; and signallin' the channel to Dave Sinclair in the boat behind, with my hand; this way and so. But the second day Dave ran her aground. Young Lewis wouldn't allow that we knew how to lift a boat off a shoal up North. I let him break all the ropes tryin' to drag her off; then I showed him. Meanwhile, all this time, Grimy Caswell was dressin' himself up like a redskin in my boat; ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... hand, he knew very well if, in his first letter as an accepted lover, he should exhibit any of that caution and prudence which, in the course of his courtship, had proved to be shoals on which he had very nearly run aground, that Roberta's resentment, which had shown itself very marked in this regard, would probably be roused to such an extent that the affair would be brought to a very speedy and abrupt termination. If she had been obliged to forgive him, once, for this line of conduct, he could ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... morning she fell in with another British vessel and hoisted American colors; the British ship had then no right to molest her; but the captain of the slaver feared that she would, and therefore ran his vessel aground, slaves and all. The senior English officer reported that "had Lieutenant Cumberland brought to and boarded the 'Illinois,' notwithstanding the American colors which she hoisted,... the American master ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois
... off, and get catched and brought back agin. Says the old Colonel, her father, 'Deliverance, my dear, I would sooner foller you to your grave, for that would be an eend to your troubles, than to see you go off to that dismal country, that's nothin' but an iceberg aground;' and he howled as loud as an Irishman that tries to wake his wife when she is dead. Awful accounts we have of the country, that's a fact; but if the Province is not so bad as they make it out, the folks are a ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... up to the mantle-piece, and exclaiming, in a tone of vexation, "Run aground again!" took his pipe, snapped it in two, and flung the pieces into the fire! He then stumped back to his room, ...
— False Friends, and The Sailor's Resolve • Unknown
... my chamber now in dispute did ever belong to my lodgings, which do put me into good quiet of mind. So by water with Sir Wm. Pen to White Hall; and, with much ado, was fain to walk over the piles through the bridge, while Sir W. Batten and Sir J. Minnes were aground against the bridge, and could not in a great while get through. At White Hall we hear that the Duke of York is gone a-hunting to-day; and so we returned: they going to the Duke of Albemarle's, where ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... Then, without waking the noisy sleepers, I arose, ate a piece of bread, and set out in my shirt-sleeves, determined to make the most of the time at my disposal. The captain was to pick us up about noon at a woodpile about a mile from here; but if in the mean time the steamer should run aground and he should need his canoe, a three whistle signal would ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... gallop by kicking it vigorously in the sides. He steered for the open country, abandoning the tow-path, and swinging his steed down a rutty lane. Once he looked back, and saw that the barge had run aground on the other side of the canal, and the barge-woman was gesticulating wildly and shouting, "Stop, stop, stop!" "I've heard that song before," said Toad, laughing, as he continued to spur his steed onward ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... there was no one on board; it had apparently drifted from its anchorage. There was not a breath of air; the little bark came floating along on the glassy stream, wheeling about with the eddies. At length it ran aground, almost at the foot of the rock on which I was seated. I descended to the margin of the river, and drawing the bark to shore, admired its light and elegant proportions and the taste with which it was fitted up. The benches were covered with cushions, and its long streamer was of ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... appeared in quick succession as the Giraffe was cutting rapidly through the smooth water. We were going at full speed when, with a shock that threw nearly every one on board off his feet, the steamer was brought up "all standing" and hard and fast aground! The nearest blockader was fearfully close to us, and all seemed lost. We had struck upon "the Lump," a small sandy knoll two or three miles outside the bar with deep water on both sides of it. That knoll was the "rock ahead" during the whole war, of the blockade-runners, for it was impossible ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... bow boat, twenty of the raftsmen came with wild speed down the river, and as there had been no rush to get aboard, little Baptiste knew that the cribs on which the men stood were so hard aground that no lives were in danger. It meant much to him; it meant that he was instantly at liberty to gather in money! money, in sums that loomed to ...
— Old Man Savarin and Other Stories • Edward William Thomson
... a groan. "I don't know! It seemed such a slight thing—all on the surface—and I've gone aground on it because it was on the surface. I see the horror of it just as you do. But I see, a little more clearly, the extent, and the limits, of my wrong. It's not as black ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... a small inlet, which has been found to afford, on the whole, the best facilities for a harbor that can be found on the whole line of the coast. Even this little port, however, is so filled up with sand, that when the water recedes at low tide it leaves the shipping all aground. The inlet would, in fact, probably become filled up entirely were it not for artificial means taken to prevent it. There are locks and gateways built in such a manner as to retain a large body of water until the tide is down, and then these ...
— William the Conqueror - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... (135 miles beyond Benares). The journey occupies from fourteen to twenty days, as, on account of the numerous sand-banks, it is impossible for the vessel to proceed on her course except in the day-time, and even then it is by no means unusual for her to run aground, especially ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... ensued. The leader's thoughts were now in two places at once, and he was not far enough from the shore not to be able to cast a glance towards the Aimable, and to say to his lieutenants, as he saw the vessel drifting near shoal water, "If she keeps on in that course, she will soon be aground." Still, no time was to be lost. The parley with the Indians did not hinder them long, and soon they were on the way towards the village whither the captive had been taken. Just as they entered its precincts and looked upon its inhabitants, clustered in groups among the dome-shaped ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... fleets, an action of importance occurred which disclosed the deep differences between Jones and his Russian allies. The Capitan Pacha attempted to attack the Russian fleet, but one of his ships ran aground, and the others anchored. Jones saw his opportunity and ordered a general attack on the confused Turkish fleet, which cut anchor and fled, with Jones in pursuit. The Wolodimer, Jones's flagship, steered straight for the Capitan Pacha's ship, which ran aground; ...
— Paul Jones • Hutchins Hapgood
... was on the paddle-box bridge watching, as we passed between the town of Tung- Chow Foo (a long wall, as it seemed, stretching for about four miles, with a temple at the nearest end) and the island of Meantau, when I felt a shock,—and, behold! we were aground. Our gunboat, which we towed, not being able to check its speed at a moment's notice, ran foul of us, and we both suffered a little in the scuffle. We got off in about two hours. On the whole, I am rather glad that we have a gunboat with us, for if ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... down the Essequibo was quick and pleasant till we reached the sea-coast: there we had a trying day of it; the wind was dead against us, and the sun remarkably hot; we got twice aground upon a mud- flat, and were twice obliged to get out, up to the middle in mud, to shove the canoe through it. Half-way betwixt the Essequibo and Demerara the tide of flood caught us, and, after the utmost exertions, ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... till again out of range, when he resumed the action, choosing always his own position, which he was well able to do from the comparatively manageable condition of his ship. Finding it impossible to get into action, Porter next attempted to run the Essex aground, where the crew could escape and the vessel be destroyed. She was headed for the beach and approached within musket-shot of it, when a flaw of wind from the land cruelly turned ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... the return trip, during an exceptionally fierce squall, the little 40-ton sloop, heavily laden as she was with military stores, sprang a leak, and to save themselves the crew were forced to run her aground on a gravelly beach under the lee of a projecting headland. The situation at best was most critical, for if the wind should shift but a few points the sloop must inevitably break up; and not only was the one boat available a mere skiff incapable of living in a heavy sea, but even ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... n't be nothin' to the way she 'n' the deacon felt over seein' the minister asked a thing like that right on top o' their own tea! But, lor, you never could stick Luther Law. A minister would n't be able to be able to be a minister if little things like questions you can't answer could run him aground. He jus' waited a minute 'n' then he looked slow 'n' sad, an' lifted up his hand so, 'n' pointed so, an' said, 'Young man, how can you ask such a question, with the starry heaven right ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Neighbors' Affairs • Anne Warner
... reconnect them with each other and with the shore. Smaller branches of the river cease to flow, and form a mere network of stagnant pools and muddy ponds, which fast dry up. The main channel itself is only intermittently navigable; after March boats run aground in it, and are forced to await the return of the inundation for their release. From the middle of April to the middle of June, Egypt is only half alive, awaiting the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... pictures, composed mainly from the fisher-craft of the Isle of Man and the neighborhood of St. Ives, and recording effects of brilliant sunshine lighting up white herring boats lying idly on intensely reflective blue sea, or aground on the harbor mud at low tide. There is a fascination in the choice color ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... has permeated our religious sects, and created several of them. It has given tone to our thinking, and even more to our feeling. I do not say that it has always, or even usually, determined our actions, although the Civil War is proof of its power. Again and again it has gone aground roughly when the ideal met a condition of living—a fact that will provide the explanation for which I seek. But optimism, "boosting," muck- raking (not all of its manifestations are pretty), social service, religious, municipal, democratic reform, indeed the "uplift" generally, ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... it was shallow along this coast. That makes it more dangerous for vessels of any draught, for they're apt to go aground. Fasten the cable to that cleat, Bluff. Make it secure, for we don't want to lose the whole ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen
... that in the end we should be governed by its spirit, living and operative in the energies of an advancing people, is a still better thing; since the levels and shore-lines of politics are no more stationary than those of continents, and the ship of state would in time be left aground far inland, to long in vain for that open sea which is the only pathway to ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... they might land on!—and who now were sternly warned not to make any use of their achievement. Cochrane was not overwhelmed by the achievement itself, though less than eighteen hours since the ship and all its company had been aground on Luna, and now they were landed on a new world twice as far from Earth as ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... get off last night the ship got aground and must wait for high tide. I wrote to your mother yesterday. It is bright and lovely this morning, the mercury at 70—it is hot. I send you a jingle. Several of the men write doggerel and put it up in the smoking ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... wheel to Bobolink, while he is back looking after the motor. Now, Bobolink is a cracker-jack of a fellow to get up all sorts of clever schemes for sprinkling creepers in the night; but he's a little apt to be flighty when it comes to running a boat. There! what did I tell you, Paul; they've run aground, as sure ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... The boat is aground. Mountains of surf dash on the rocky coast, seeking to tear the frail craft to pieces. In the perspective behold the sea of many years, studded with the crafts of those friends of my former good ship Prosperity. ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell
... cuple of days, and I must, tho, with reluctance, aquent you, my dear Papa, that my long stay here, together with my illness, has runn me quite aground, which forct me to borow very near 150l. St. and Mr. Woulf, Banquier, has my note payable the 5th of Aprile to his correspondent at Boulogne. As for the remaining 50, its not so pressing, as I had it ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... that point, and she settled down to a troubled study of the part, only to run hopelessly aground when Desdemona, in her stiff white satin gown, announced her intention of cleaving to the robust blackamoor, in spite of fate and father. That seemed a praiseworthy action, "taken by and large," but we could ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... ran aground. A loud explosion ensued, and I clearly remember seeing the brown man leap out into the fog—which was the last I saw ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... that some of them will get away, Harry. The beggars row so fast that there won't be time to give them more than one broadside as they pass. If the ship is aground, which is likely enough, for the captain pushed up farther than we thought possible, they will be pretty safe when they have ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... the Gull well off, for the Clates is not a nice place if the wind will be shifting to the suthard. With the grating of the keel of the first boat on the beach the men made a start to be lifting the kegs, and carrying them to the boat and wading, for it is not very safe to let a boat go hard aground if there will be a hurry to ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... dispatched towards the latter part of the month. By this time the Irriwaddy, which had been previously deep enough throughout for our largest steamers, sank so suddenly, and as it appears so unexpectedly, that several of the flotilla were left aground in the middle of the stream, with every prospect of having to remain there until the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... aground," I said. "I will find out how much damage has been done. I will bring back what is necessary. The Princess lies ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... barges in abundance, and a considerable number of ships, some laden and some not, which this creature had swallowed. Everything was transacted by torch-light; no sun, no moon, no planet, to make observations from. We were all generally afloat and aground twice a-day; whenever he drank, it became high water with us; and when he evacuated, we found ourselves aground; upon a moderate computation, he took in more water at a single draught than is generally to be found in the Lake of Geneva, though that ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... ten o'clock our pilots halted, apparently to confer about the course; and, after a little hesitation, pulled directly across an open expansion of the river, where the waves were somewhat rough for a canoe, the wind blowing very fresh. Much to our surprise, a few minutes afterwards we ran aground. Backing off our boat, we made repeated trials at various places to cross what appeared to be a point of shifting sand-bars, where we had attempted to shorten the way by a cut-off. Finally, one of our Indians got into the water, and waded about until he found a channel sufficiently ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... is. You have been dealing with these fellows as though they were honest men." He then explained that there is no security against imposition for travellers who pay their passage in advance, in case the boat gets aground, or the captain pleases to detain them an unreasonable time; that the "old stagers" never show their money till the trip is up; and much more useful information for the voyager on ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... could not. You would catch crabs, and you would feather in the air, and you would run into the banks, and go aground on the shallows, and ...
— Littlebourne Lock • F. Bayford Harrison
... rule, he detailed one slight case where he thought my father was at fault,—-a detail so slight that I now forget what it is. In reading the Log kept by the discharged mate, Amerzeen, on the return trip in the Alert, I find that every incident there recorded, from running aground at the start at San Diego Harbor, through the perilous icebergs round the Horn, the St. Elmo's fire, the scurvy of the crew and the small matters like the painting of the vessel, to the final sail up Boston Harbor, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... the boats. Guards, composed of the crew, were soon posted to prevent any interference with the boats, and the officers circulated among the passengers the report that there was no immediate danger; that, fortunately, the sea was smooth; that we were simply aground, and ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... way—some different way—of letting her know it; but he could not conceive that tenderness and desire could ever again be one for him: such a notion as that seemed part of the monstrous sentimental muddle on which his life had gone aground. ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... resist such persuasive words, and Becky soon yielded to the little siren who was luring her out of her safe, small pool into the deeper water that looks so blue and smooth till the venturesome paper boats get into the swift eddies, or run aground upon the rocks ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... John Massey heartily. "Just be careful you don't go aground on the bars. The river is shallow for this time of year, though it can be pretty fierce when the ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... lasted till the afternoon. The Venetians had the wind in their favour, but the morning sun in their eyes. They made the attack, and with great impetuosity, capturing ten Genoese galleys; but they pressed on too wildly, and some of their vessels ran aground. One of their galleys too, being taken, was cleared of her crew and turned against the Venetians. These incidents caused confusion among the assailants; the Genoese, who had begun to give way, took fresh ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... the slave to his master, the blessedness of the master to his slave; but sore to the touch on politics and religion—with their religion quite innocently adjusted to their politics—and promptly going hard aground on any allusion to history, travel, the poets, statistics, architecture, ornithology, art, music, myths, memoirs, Europe, Asia, Africa, homoeopathy, or phrenology. It entertained the players just to see how many things the happy lovers knew nothing ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... "Fast aground till a squall comes along and breaks you up," he said, as if speaking to the vessel. "It's all there was left for either of us to do, for we are death, it seems, to every one that comes ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume XIII, No. 51: November 12, 1892 • Various
... them on the bank and prayed for the success of the undertaking. It was a lovely broad river on which they now embarked, with shining sands showing through the clear water, making shallows like tumbling discs of brilliant metal,—a river in which the canoes might sometimes run aground, but one that deceived the eye pleasantly, with islands all vine covered, so when a boat clove a way between two it was a guess how far the Wisconsin spread away on each side to shores of a fertile land. Oaks, walnuts, whitewood, and thorn trees crowded the banks or fell ...
— Heroes of the Middle West - The French • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... of the vessels sent to stop smuggling was the schooner Gaspee. Having run aground in Narragansett Bay (June, 1772), she was boarded by a party of men in eight boats and burned. The Virginia legislature appointed a "committee of correspondence," to find out the facts regarding the destruction of the Gaspee and "to maintain ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... Columbus had to give up his long and arduous struggle against the unremitting persecution of the elements. His ships, reduced to mere wrecks, could no longer keep the sea, and were ready to sink even in port. He ordered them, therefore, to be run aground, within a bow-shot of the shore, and fastened together, side by side. They soon filled with water to the decks. Thatched cabins were then erected at the prow and stern for the accommodation of the crews, and the wreck was placed in the best possible state of defence. Thus castled in the sea, ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... broad-shouldered, blonde-featured, and generally devoid of fear. Yet the ceaseless strain upon the nerves had already begun to tell. As hardy fishermen, they would not have hesitated to launch their open boats in a storm to go to the rescue of a hapless vessel aground on the grim sand-banks of the Frisian shore. As the conscript crew of the submarine, compelled to keep within the limits of a steel box that almost momentarily threatened to be their tomb, ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... set on fire. The cavalry of the enemy waded into the river, and sabred those who attempted to escape by swimming. In the largest boat was General Wheeler; and, by desperate rowing, it succeeded in getting away from the slaughter. Unhappily it got aground, and all on board of ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... the United States found that bribing the pirate Barbary states did not secure exemption from their outrages, and was constrained at last to use force, he served against Algiers and Tunis. His ship, the "Philadelphia," ran aground on the Tunisian coast, and he was for a time imprisoned. On his release he returned for a time to the merchant service in order to make good the pecuniary loss caused by his captivity. When the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... sir. She's a light craft, and can swim there well enough. If she'd been aground, she'd ha' been ashore in pieces hours ago. But whether she'll ride it out, God only knows, as I ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... o'clock, P.M., of the same day, the Invincible, going at the rate of nine knots an hour, struck violently upon a sand-bank, and before the sails could be furled, she was fast aground in little more than ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... from their tops trickled little steams, plashing into the waves at their feet. Passing through a natural arch in a rock, lofty and narrow, called the Devil's Bridge, and turning a little promontory, they were soon aground on the beach. ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... were never put forth for the darkening of counsel. But each extreme was eager to sustain the unreason of the opposite extreme as the only alternative of its own unreason, and so, what with contrary gusts from North and South, they fell into a place where two seas met and ran the ship aground. The attempts made from 1836 to 1840, by stretching to the utmost the authority of the General Conference and the bishops, for the suppression of "modern abolitionism" in the church (without saying what they meant by the phrase) had ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... were gone from them ashore. Then took they two of the three ships at the outer part of the port, and killed the men, and the other ship escaped; in that also the men were killed except five; they got away because the other ships were aground. They also were aground very disadvantageously, three lay aground on that side of the deep on which the Danish ships were aground, and all the rest upon the other side, so that no one of them could get to the others. But when the water had ebbed many furlongs from the ships, ...
— The Ethnology of the British Colonies and Dependencies • Robert Gordon Latham
... came out of Norfolk and ran down the Cumberland sloop of war; blew the Congress to splinters, and compelled her being blown up to save her from the enemy; the Minnesota was run aground to prevent being rammed. The victor returned to her dock to make ready for a fresh onslaught. The effect was profound; it seemed no exaggeration to suppose that the irresistible conqueror would pass through the United States ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... resolved, if possible, to get to the ship; so I pulled off my clothes, for the weather was hot to extremity, and took the water; but when I came to the ship, my difficulty was still greater to know how to get on board; for as she lay aground, and high out of the water, there was nothing within my reach to lay hold of. I swam round her twice, and the second time I spied a small piece of a rope, which I wondered I did not see at first, hang down by the fore-chains ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... There were twenty-five new men to be guided as they applied what they'd been taught aground about life in space. It was three full Earthdays before the stores intended for the journey to the Moon and the maintenance of a base there really began to move. The tug and the space wagons had to be moored outside and reached only by space ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster
... will demand Should this frail craft be wrecked or run aground, For he doth wish to cast it soon adrift With crew well ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... and all the while one of the natives, who sat in the canoe with us, kept licking the blood from the wound with his tongue. Meantime, a number of women who had been left in the ship had jumped overboard, and were swimming to the shore, after having cut her cable, so that she drifted, and ran aground on the bar near the mouth of the river. The natives had not sense to shake the reefs out of the sails, but had chopped them off along the yards with their tomahawks, leaving the reefed ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... Thorburn (of Virginia), and asking that he be removed from the State, and if retained in service, not to be permitted to command North Carolinians. The Governor, by permission of Gen. Whiting, proceeded down the river to a steamer which had just got in (and was aground) from Europe, laden with supplies for the State; but when attempting to return was stopped by Col. T., who said it was against the rules for any one to pass from the steamer to the city until the expiration of the time ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... drums and a prodigious blowing of horns and trumpets; the which set me a-sweating in despite the cool night wind, as, chin on shoulder, I paddled slowly along, unsure of my going and very fearful lest I run aground. In the midst of which anxieties I heard Sir Richard's voice, calm and gentle and ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... but it may, again, be a sign of chieftainship, and a chief I have no doubt he is. Maybe he was sent adrift by some rival faction; but that can scarcely be, for he would not have survived a long journey; and, again, the canoe would have gone aground." ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... very active, and yet not do much As they forgot they were a party, they began to enjoy themselves As you get used to being a boy, you have to be something else Boys have a great power of helping each other to do nothing Conversation ran aground again Expected nothing that he did not earn Fed the poor boy's vanity, the weakness by which women govern Felt wronged, and worked himself up to pass a wretched evening Girls have a great deal more good sense in such matters than boys Gladly do all the ...
— Widger's Quotations of Charles D. Warner • David Widger |
