"Oar" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... by the aid of her long and cumbrous sweeps to clear the head of the Island. The American, now discovered to be full of troops, had by this time succeeded in getting out of the range of a fire, which although well directed had proved harmless, and, using every exertion of oar and sail, bade fair, favored as she was by the breeze which reached not the canvass of her enemy, ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... boat shoots from underneath the moon Into the shadowy distance; only still You hear the dipping oar— ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... Bohun, laughed. 'He is A.1. at his oar, but very deficient as a gardener,' he said. 'Your kindness in keeping him, my dear aunt, is ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... he could no longer do his college justice by water, and his parish by land, nor escape the charge of pluralism, preaching at Witney and rowing at Oxford. He fluctuated, sighed, kept his Witney, and laid down his oar. Then Edward was solemnly weighed in his jersey and flannel trousers, and proving only eleven stone eight, whereas he had been ungenerously suspected of twelve stone,* was elected to the vacant oar by acclamation. He ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... our descent. Near the summit the traces of the path are not distinct, and I said to Mr. S., after a while, that we had lost it. He said, he thought that was of no consequence, we could find oar way down. I thought however it was, as the ground was full of springs that were bridged over in the pathway. He accordingly went to look for it, and I stood still because so tired that I did not like to waste any labor. Soon he called to me that he had found it, and I followed ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... into the boat, which was anything but a beauty in her shape and appointments. Paul pushed her off the beach upon which she had grounded, and as she receded from the shore, leaped on board of her. Placing an oar at the stern, he sculled her out a short distance from the land, and then shook out the sail. The first flaw of wind that struck it heeled the boat over so far that Thomas leaped with desperate haste ...
— Little By Little - or, The Cruise of the Flyaway • William Taylor Adams
... space all around them was brilliant with the reflection. High above, the flames were leaping up towards the sky, and the dull sing-song of their roar set the very air vibrating. Guiseppe, still dripping, seized an oar. ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... falsehood, and, as Cheever says, "shook her head" in her resentment; which, as he further says, put them all into great torments. Parris represents that in every motion of her head they were tortured. Marshal Herrick, as usual, put in his oar, and volunteered charges against her. She bore herself well through the shocking scene, and did not shrink, at its close, from expressing her unbelief of the whole thing: "I do not know whether there be any witches or no." When she was removed from the place of examination, the accusers all ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... Which fell from heaven, in mine own land to dwell. So shall his pain have rest, and all be well. Thou hast heard my speech, O King. No death from thee May share Orestes between rocks and sea: Poseidon for my love doth make the sore Waves gentle, and set free his labouring oar. ...
— The Iphigenia in Tauris • Euripides
... could find one, seized a harpoon; and in his excitement Tom Meeks even picked up an oar, as if ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... end. It is clinker-built, about 27 feet long, by 6 feet beam, with a depth of about 2 feet 6 inches; sharp at both ends and clean-sided as a mackerel. Each boat carried five oarsmen, who wielded oars of from nine to sixteen feet in length, while the mate steers with a prodigious oar ten feet long. The bow oarsman is the harpooner, but when he has made fast to the whale he goes aft and takes the mate's place at the steering oar, while the latter goes forward with the lances to deal the final murderous strokes. This curious and dangerous ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... red bonnets, a pair of 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, and without the least humanity; yet are they ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... BUILDER. Don't put your oar in! I've had wonderful patience so far. [He puts his boot through a drawing] Art! This is what comes of it! ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... at duty's call— My labouring oar explored thy reaches; They said I was no good at all And coaches noting me would bawl Things about "angleworms and breeches;" But oh! the shouts of heartfelt glee That rang on thine astonished marges As we bore (rolling woundily) Full in the wake of Brasenose ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 28th, 1920 • Various
... before I got into the air, that was scented, not disagreeably, by the chips and shavings of the long-shore boat-builders, and mast, oar, and block makers. All that water-side region of the upper and lower Pool below Bridge was unknown ground to me; and when I struck down by the river, I found that the spot I wanted was not where I had supposed it to be, and was anything but easy to find. It was called Mill Pond ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... continuously day by day of nothing else. His mind was as caught as a galley slave, as unable to escape from tugging at this oar. All his universe was a magnetic field which oriented everything, whether he would have it so or not, to this one ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... Boat Race is not a thing to be undertaken lightly. To begin with, it involves great muscular exertion; but this is not unpleasant, and, as I shall presently show, is not dangerous. Further, it ties the aspirant to his oar for at least ten weeks, which is perhaps its greatest disadvantage; and it involves intense application and a pretty good temper under remarks from the "coach" that are sometimes almost more than caustic. But against these drawbacks are to be set the pleasure ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... to get the mail. I reached the log-but in which the pilots lived, and saw them start with their boat across the bar, board the steamer, and then return. Ashlock was at his old post at the steering-oar, with two ladies, who soon came to the landing, having passed through a very heavy surf, and I was presented to one as Mrs. Ashlock, and the other as her sister, a very pretty little Minorcan girl of about ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... water at him from over the side of the boat, and he returned by cleverly sprinkling a few drops on her from the blade of his oar. ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells
... disappearance. Their sea sled was fast and Matthews was adept at handling it. To their dismay they saw the distance between Matthews and the other boat widening. The pace of Matthews' boat slowed; it stopped altogether. They saw Matthews tinkering with the motor. Then they saw him take up the oar and begin ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... replied, once more swinging into his short, efficient stroke. It was, however, less sure than usual; an oar missed its hold and skittered impotently over the water, drenching Woolfolk with a brief, cold spray. Again the bow of the tender dipped into the point of land they were rounding, and John Woolfolk spoke more ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer
... times their fishing-lines they plied, With an old Triton at the oar, Salt as the sea-wind, tough and dried As a lean cusk from Labrador. Strange tales he told of wreck and storm,— Had seen the sea-snake's awful form, And heard the ghosts on Haley's Isle complain, Speak him off shore, and beg ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... of structure abounds on the pampas. The long leg of this spider is no thicker than a bristle from a pig's back, but at the extremity it is flattened and broad, giving it a striking resemblance to an oar. These spiders are only found in herbage overhanging the borders of streams: they are very numerous, and, having a pugnacious temper, are incessantly quarrelling; and it frequently happens that in these encounters, or where they are pursuing each other through the leaves, they drop into ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... the Muses Venice The Poets Parker Cleaveland The Harvest Moon To the River Rhone The Three Silences of Molinos The Two Rivers Boston St. John's, Cambridge Moods Woodstock Park The Four Princesses at Wilna Holidays Wapentake The Broken Oar The ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... in her dreariness cried out, "One effort more!" But that is done with for ever. She is patient now; she believes at last; she labours no longer at the oar, but she is borne upon the moving tide; she is on her way to the deep ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... slowly rowed homeward, and so did his thoughts work upon him that half way across the bay to Harpswell he slackened his oar without knowing it, and the boat lay drifting on the purple and gold-tinted mirror, like a speck between two eternities. Under such circumstances, even heads that have worn the clerical wig for years at times get ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Ward was protected from this shower of bullets by a post, which for some purpose had been fastened to the gunwale. He therefore retained his position at the helm, which was an oar, striving to guide the boat to the other side of the river. As the assailants had no canoes, they could not attempt to board, but for more than an hour they ran along the banks yelling and keeping up an almost constant fire. At length the boat was swept to the other side of the stream, when ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... me a turn at it," Skinner said. "I cannot offer to take an oar, for although my arm is going on very well the doctor says it may be months before I can venture to use it in anything like hard work. We get up jolly horse races here once a week in the evening. The natives enter their animals. Of course we have no chance with them on our ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... in the Isle of Wight; but though there were various demonstrations and a few skirmishes, there was no general engagement. The French could not get into the Solent: the English would not come out in force, so long as the lack of a sufficient breeze gave the fighting advantage to the enemy's oar-driven galleys. Finally, plague broke out in the French fleet which retired about the middle of August. Its dispersion allowed of the relief of Boulogne; which was becoming somewhat straitened, being blockaded on the land side ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... magnificent Triton. Malcolm sung an Erse song, the chorus of which was 'Hatyin foam foam eri', with words of his own. The tune resembled 'Owr the muir amang the heather', the boatmen and Mr M'Queen chorused, and all went well. At length Malcolm himself took an oar, and rowed vigorously. We sailed along the coast of Scalpa, a rugged island, about four miles in length. Dr Johnson proposed that he and I should buy it, and found a good school, and an episcopal church (Malcolm said, he would come to it), and have a printing-press, where ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... spread the blanket over him. We found our skiff too small to accommodate another passenger, so we determined to leave it behind and take the large boat, which we accordingly did; and we put our new-comer to the oar with Redpath, whilst ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... that the civilized great toe, confined and cramped from childhood upwards, is seen to a great disadvantage, and that in uncivilized and barefooted people it retains a great amount of mobility, and even some sort of opposability. The Chinese boatmen are said to be able to pull an oar; the artisans of Bengal to weave, and the Carajas to steal fishhooks, by its help; though, after all, it must be recollected that the structure of its joints and the arrangement of its bones, necessarily render ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... should not be abroad when first you come to look for him, but keeping snug in his little home, then you may see him come forth amazed at the quivering of the shingles, and oar himself and look at you, and then dart up-stream, like a little grey streak; and then you must try to mark him in, and follow very daintily. So after that, in a sandy place, you steal up behind his tail to him, so that he cannot set eyes on you, for his head is up-stream always, ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... work, may bring out hand-craft. The gun, the bat, the rein, the rod, the oar, all manly sports, are good training for the hand. Walking insures fresh air, but it does not train the body or mind like games and sports which are played out of doors. A man of great fame as an explorer and as a student of nature (he who discovered, in the West, bones of horses with two, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... took in my voyage was so great, that the things I threw down were divided and preserved as our people would relicks of the most celebrated saints. And a gentlewoman, mistaking the oar for my person, was so affected with my supposed destruction, that she ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... can be true," observed Mrs. Frazer; "for the squirrel, when swimming, uses his tail as an oar or rudder to help the motion, the tail lying flat on the surface of the water; nor do these creatures need a boat, for God, who made them, has given them the power of ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill
... Corder suggested that the command should be "Left half turn," but Reardon contended for "Half left," and at the proper moment the corporal gave that order. Naturally there ensued at the tent another debate, everyone putting in his oar, until by the book the Old One proved that while for a company in column the command should have been "Column half left," for a squad "Left half turn" was correct. A mixing business, this learning how to fight ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... past, his first thought was for his wife. He caught sight of a shapeless something at the further side of the whirlpool, and with all his strength beat round towards it. It was Olive, clinging to an oar. ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... The level glance, Unbroken, shoots along the seas! Which tempt from shore The painted oar; And ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... river. From the seaports everywhere came armed brigantines and sloops. The fishermen of the West left their boats and nets to their wives, and the fishing was none the worse, for the women handled oar and sail and line and went to the whiting-grounds, while their husbands had gone to fight for their King. Genius kindled into discovery at the call of the country. Mr. Fletcher of Rye (be his name remembered) invented ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude
... be, there can be no doubt that we now know with tolerable accuracy the limits of the land raised above the water at that period in the present United States. Let us see, then, what we inclose between oar two lines. We have Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, the greater part of New England, the whole of New York, a narrow strip along the north of Ohio, a great part of Indiana and Illinois, and nearly the whole of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... instructions, told him to steer straight for the negro. He grumbled not a little. Of course, if I wanted to run aground, it was none of his affair—etc., etc. Then I stationed the sturdiest of the two deck-hands on the port bow with a long oar, while I took the starboard with another. Very slowly and cautiously we made in, pointing straight for a thick growth of mangrove bushes. Samson ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... in my studies, and I expect to be stroke oar of the college boat club. Besides this, I have been elected catcher of the college baseball club. I am thought to excel in athletic sports, and really enjoy my college life very much. Please send me the check by return of mail. ...
— Walter Sherwood's Probation • Horatio Alger
... a few yards astern, and swam after the boat, with great glaring eyes; the loose sail was not drawing, but the wind moved the boat onward. However, Mackintosh gained slowly, and Hazel held up an oar like a spear, and shouted to him that he must promise solemnly to forego all violence, or he should ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... condensed moisture round the neck had frozen. These two statements point to his having reached a considerable altitude, which is intelligible enough. It is, however, difficult to believe his further assertion that by the use of his single oar he succeeded in working himself down to within a few hundred feet of the earth. The descent of the balloon must, in point of fact, have been due to a copious outrush of gas at his former altitude. Had his oar ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... Madame Goesler. "One dash from a peccant oar would destroy the whole symmetry of my dress. Look. That green young lady has already ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... he ran in his life tore Geoff, with a face blanched and drawn, to seize the Vicarage boat, and push her to the water's edge, putting forth all the strength of his young body to do so single-handed. To jump on board and take up an oar was the work of half a minute, and Geoff was pushing off without a thought of anybody else when ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... about her," she told him. "I know, now, what you meant when you were trying to tell me about her smile. She looked at me like that just as I was leaving, and my throat's tight with it yet. She's such a darling! Don't be too much annoyed if I put my oar in once in a while, just to see that ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... the contents of our hamper with great goût, the boatman occasionally pulling an oar as the wind was scant. But we had sufficiently receded from the shore to command a view of the basin in which Marseilles stands, and the amphitheatre of hills surrounding it, studded with the country-houses of the citizens; small cottages, called bastides, thousands of ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... We could get hold of an oar or two, or lower down a grating, and hold on by that ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... galley-slave must have felt when, during a lower-deck mutiny, he broke from his oar and sprang at the throat of the cruel overseer, the embodiment and source of the agony, starvation, toil, brutality, and hopeless woe that had thrust him below the level of the beasts (fortunate beasts) ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... exhaling a mysterious freshness that was spreading to the mountains and trees. All the landscape appeared to be acquiring the fragility of crystal. The silent air was trembling with exaggerated resonance, repeating the fall of an oar in the boats that, small as flies, were slipping along under the sky arching above the gulf, and prolonging the feminine and invisible voices passing through the ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... the bushes near the warehouse the two Indians produced a pump and then for two hours took turns in drawing the water from the half submerged boats. Just before noon, Moosetooth taking his place in the stern of the rear boat with a small steering oar, La Biche loosened the craft and Norman and Roy were on their first voyage in the historic flatboat of ...
— On the Edge of the Arctic - An Aeroplane in Snowland • Harry Lincoln Sayler
... on mde (see note on him ... oden, p. 147 [[Beowulf 2810-11]]). "No more sympathetic picture has been drawn by an Anglo-Saxon poet than where the wanderer in exile falls asleep at his oar and dreams again of his dead lord and the old hall and revelry and joy and gifts,—then wakes to look once more upon the waste of ocean, snow and hail falling all around him, and sea-birds dipping in the ...
— Anglo-Saxon Grammar and Exercise Book - with Inflections, Syntax, Selections for Reading, and Glossary • C. Alphonso Smith
... again! home again! bend to the oar! Merry is the life of the gay voyageur He rides on the river with his paddle in his hand, And his boat is his shelter on the water and the land. The clam in his shell and the water turtle too, And the brave ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... he may live: I saw him beat the surges under him, And ride upon their backs: he trod the water, Whose enmity he flung aside, and breasted The surge most swoln that met him: his bold head 'Bove the contentious waves he kept, and oar'd Himself with his good arms in lusty stroke To th' shore, that o'er his wave-worn basis bowed, As stooping to relieve him. I not doubt He ...
— The Tempest • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... uttering at intervals that peculiar wild cry that in solitary haunts sounds so intensely mournful. Errington gazed about him in doubt for some minutes, then suddenly his face brightened. He sat down again in the boat and resumed his oar. ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... short exordium and grand finale. The Jorram, or boat-song, some specimens of which attracted the attention of Dr Johnson,[21] was a variety of the same class. In this, every measure was used which could be made to time with an oar, or to mimic a wave, either in motion or sound. Dr Johnson discovered in it the proceleusmatic song of the ancients; it certainly corresponds in real ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... with an iron sceptre, it is that ye may enjoy the rights of your nature; it is to the end that ye may be substantively freemen, in mind as well as in body; that ye may not be slaves, eternally chained to the oar of misery; it is that ye may at length be governed by men who are citizens, who may cherish their own semblances, who way protect mortals like themselves, who may actually consult the interests of those from whom they ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... the boat. She jumped for it, but it was too late. Nearly capsizing, her heart beat as the boat rocked back into safety and she tried to scull after the runaway with the remaining oar. Her inexperience and the clumsiness of the boat baffled her. The floating oar rose and fell, gently increasing its distance, and splash as she might she could not ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... water and surround him. The men are armed only with their oars. The canoes can move much faster than the tiger, and one shoots quickly past him, and the men in the bow push his head under water with their oar-blades. Before the tiger has risen again the canoe is out of reach. The tiger snorts and growls and puffs madly, but in a moment another canoe is upon him and another oar thrusts him down deeper than before. This time he ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... work in; interpose, interject, intercalate, interpolate, interline, interleave, intersperse, interweave, interlard, interdigitate, sandwich in, fit in, squeeze in; let in, dovetail, splice, mortise; insinuate, smuggle; infiltrate, ingrain. interfere, put in an oar, thrust one's nose in; intrude, obtrude; have a finger in the pie; introduce the thin end of the wedge; thrust in &c (insert) 300. Adj. interjacent^, intercurrent^, intervenient^, intervening &c v., intermediate, intermediary, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... with his people. He never would tolerate the slightest interference on their part with the rights of property. Some of them were in the habit of presuming on the laird's permission, and helping themselves—no leave asked—to an oar, or a rope, or any implement which they chanced to stand in need of, belonging to the home farm. They indeed brought back these articles when done with; but Mr. Hope-Scott ever insisted they should be asked for, and would not accept the excuse that the things were taken without leave ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... keenly felt than in age. How lightly I should endure poverty if it brought poverty's ennobling companion, Labour,—denied to me! Well, well; I must go back to the old rock: on this ocean there is no sail, not even an oar, for me." ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... miserable than the situation of our hero at this season, floating in a little boat on the open seas, without oar, without sail, and at the mercy of the first wave to overwhelm him? nay, this was indeed the fair side of his fortune, as it was a much more eligible fate than that alternative which threatened him with almost unavoidable certainty, viz., starving with hunger, the ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... liked best of all to trudge along the sands with the guard on dark nights, lantern in hand, watching for ships in distress. The captain of the crew, who was an old seaman, taught him the use of the compass and quadrant, and other matters of navigation, while the rest showed him how to pull an oar, steer, and swim, until he could manage a boat as well as any ...
— Harper's Young People, September 7, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... modify seriously the fortunes of many others. Arnold having one day pulled out on the open lake, in his venturesome manner, Pellew gave chase in another boat. The Americans being hard pressed and capture probable, Arnold unbuckled his stock and himself took an oar. So nearly caught was he, that he had to escape into the bushes, leaving behind him stock and buckle; and these, as late as sixty years after, remained in the possession of Pellew's brother. Had he thus been deprived of the opportunity that Saratoga ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... was a short one, and the result a foregone conclusion. There was no hope of Clif's escaping from the pursuing boat, with its crew of fresh and eager oarsmen. The latter closed in upon him with a leap and a bound, and soon were within oar's length of him. ...
— A Prisoner of Morro - In the Hands of the Enemy • Upton Sinclair
... pirates of Parga that dwell by the waves, And teach the pale Franks what it is to be slaves, Shall leave on the beach the long galley and oar, And track to his covert ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... stern, the deck in front lower than the sides, and on this four creatures, resembling nothing on earth so much as the demons in the Black Crook, minus most of the covering. They stand two on each side, but not in a line, and each works a long oar scull-fashion, accompanying each stroke with shouts such as we never heard before; the last one steers as well as sculls with his oar, and thus we go propelled by these yelling devils, who apparently ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... doubt? And little ones eat your earnings? Ach so! Then you shall not be asked to go with us. Ronsard, I am ready! I can pull an oar and manage a sail, and I am not afraid of death by drowning! For Gloria's sake, let me go ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... boat, reading a very famous book, which all children know and love; and the name of which I'll tell you by and by. So busily was I reading, that I never minded the tide; and presently discovered that I was floating out to sea, with neither sail nor oar. At first I was very much frightened; for there was no one in sight on land or sea, and I didn't know where I might drift to. But the water was calm, the sky clear, and the wind blew balmily; so I waited for what ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... are applicable to the purpose of the taxidermist, though some of the oar-weeds can be used, and many of the red sea-weeds (Rhodosperms) can be floated out in water and carelessly arranged on paper, if wanted for fitting-up purposes, or more carefully arranged if for a collection. After washing, these small plants adhere by their ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... I strive no more To learn the secret of their fate; Till sounds for me the muffled oar, I can but hope ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... remainder of her days. My aunt is recovered, and as well as ever, and highly pleased at thoughts of going, and has generously given up the interest of her little money (which was formerly paid my father for her board) wholely and solely to my sister's use. Reckoning this, we have, Daddy and I, for oar two selves and an old maid-servant to look after him when I am out, which will be necessary, L170, or L180 rather, a year, out of which we can spare L50 or L60 at least for Mary while she stays at Islington, where she roust and shall stay during ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... bight of rope from the ship, and I clambered back on deck. Captain Coffin told me to go below and change my dripping clothes, and then I could go in the boat with him and pull the after oar. You may lay to it that I flew down those cabin stairs, for if there was anything in the world I longed for, it was to get a chance ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... leaves brush against her face. Here, too, were sweet-scented rushes, of which she gathered an armful for Rose, who loved them; and in this place she made the acquaintance of a magnificent blue dragon-fly, which alighted on her oar as she lifted it from the water, and showed no disposition to depart. His azure mail glittered in the sunlight; his gauzy wings, as he furled and unfurled them deliberately, were like cobwebs powdered with snow. He evidently ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... home, her economies were not obtrusive, and there was always a cheerful flutter in the folds of her crape. It was the consciousness of all this that puzzled Mallet whenever he felt tempted to put in his oar. He had money and he had time, but he never could decide just how to place these gifts gracefully at Cecilia's service. He no longer felt like marrying her: in these eight years that fancy had died a natural death. And yet ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... no time for ceremony, Harry sprang into the boat, and, seizing an idle oar, pushed out into ...
— Facing the World • Horatio Alger
... oar he began to row with all his strength. Cato had the bow oar. The next wave came, and its sweep, communicating itself to the water, rolled on, dashing against the ship and moving under it, rising up high, lifting the boat with it, and bearing it along. But the boat was now ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... to be helped out of my ingratitude and discontent at finding the cage-door shut, and myself chained to the oar; for as things are left, I could not get it off my hands without giving up my mother's interests and my aunt's. Besides, my poor uncle left me an entreaty to keep things up creditably like himself, and do justice by the bank. It is as if, poor man, it was an idol ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the shallows into the middle of the stream, where the current took them slowly and steadily toward home. For the most part they drifted, though Alden took care to keep the boat well out from shore, and now and then, with the stroke of an oar dipped up ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... strained as if tugging a stubborn oar. In the interval of silence that followed all bent attentive ears, but no call came from the sea. The sleek oars dipped into the waves without a sound, and swung noiselessly in the worn rowlocks. The man at the prow remained rigid as a statue, and ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... the current of the stream which is setting silently, smoothly, powerfully, towards the roaring whirlpool. But now they are urged by those whose example they have thus far followed, to go no farther. "Beware," they cry, "the tide is strong; do like us; drop the anchor, ply the oar." Ah, but now their influence fails. It was strong enough to persuade the thoughtless into danger; but now it is perfectly impotent to keep them from ruin. They have none of the strength or prudence by which others have been ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... It is pursued in the following manner: The hunter requires a boat or canoe, page 261, a good rifle, and a lamp. The lamp, with a screen or reflector behind it, is placed at the bow of the boat. One hunter takes the oar, and, with noiseless paddle, propels or sculls the boat from the stem. The armed hunter crouches behind the light, with the muzzle of his rifle projecting beyond the screen sufficiently to easily show the forward sight on ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... oar in the boat, which the negroes used as a scull. Jack made a poor fist with this, but there was no need of rowing. Kate, catching a projecting limb from the thick bushes on the margin, sent the little, ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... thus freely discussed in the stern of the boat, sat in his place at the bow-oar, pulling a steady stroke and casting serious looks right and left at the banks of the river as they went along. He was a dark fine-looking stalwart man, of what may be called mixed nationality, for the blood of Scotchmen, French Canadians, and Indians flowed in his ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... that, "with fancy rabbits, when both the parents are perfectly formed, have model ears, and are handsomely marked, their progeny do not invariably turn out the same." When one parent, or even both, are oar-laps, that is, have their ears sticking out at right angles, or when one parent or both are half-lops, that is, have only one ear dependent, there is nearly as good a chance of the progeny having both ears ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... masther fetched a terrible oath and fell back upon his seat. 'You assisted in this villainy!' he shouted. They clinched, and I saw something shine dimly in Mr. William Zane's hand. The report told me what it was. I lifted one oar in a feeling of horror, and the boat swung round abruptly on the blade of the other, and Mr. Rainey, released from the masther's grip, fell overboard in ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... the boat, and Frank took one oar and Harry the other, and Brave stationed himself at his usual place in the bow. George took the helm, and they began to move swiftly down the creek toward the river. About a quarter of a mile below the mouth of the creek was a place, covering half an acre, where the water ...
— Frank, the Young Naturalist • Harry Castlemon
... large square lantern took the place of the torch of pine, and grateful wayfarers alongshore, by rein or oar, guided or steered by the glimmer of Saint ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... with lightest of breezes, Weaving plants of the pine conjoined in curve of the kelson; 10 Foremost of all to imbue rude Amphitrite with ship-lore. Soon as her beak had burst through wind-rackt spaces of ocean, While th'oar-tortured wave with spumy whiteness was blanching, Surged from the deep abyss and hoar-capped billows the faces Seaborn, Nereids eyeing the prodigy wonder-smitten. 15 There too mortal orbs through softened spendours regarded Ocean-nymphs who exposed bodies denuded of raiment ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... there are compensations. In the morning the shadows are long, and, as one rattles north among the water-meadows, the flying plumes of the engine leave a procession of melting silhouettes on the fields to the west. Rooks oar their way towards their homes with long twigs in their beaks. Horses go through the last days of their kingship dragging ploughs and harrows over the fields with slow and monotonous tread. Here ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... felt rather unwell, and would stay at home. An oar happened to be wanted in the regimental gig, which Sir Henry offered to take. He was soon accoutred in the dress of an absent member, and in a short time was discharging the duties of his office to the satisfaction of all; for he ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... the fourth day the storm abated, and the Saxons prepared to make their way seaward again. The wind still blew, but lightly, from the same quarter, and the sails would therefore be of no use. With their great oar-power they were confident that, once through the Danish flotilla, they ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... would be called in New England—had gone to cut bait on board another boat, but Kirwan could manage the boat well enough alone. Long he toiled with his oars toward the west, where he fancied the rest of the fleet to be; and sometimes he spread his little sprit-sail, steering with an oar—a thing which was, in a heavy sea, almost as hard as rowing. At last the fog lifted, and he found himself alone upon the ocean. He had lost his bearings and could not tell the points of the compass. Presently out ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... off it was, I dessay, an' a pretty big wash. This was caused by the current, no doubt, for the wind was nex' to nothin', an' no swell around the boat. What's more, the current was takin' us, broadside on, pretty well straight for the rocks. There was no rudder an' only one oar left i' the boat; an' that was broke off short at the blade. But I managed to slip it over the starn an' made shift to keep her head straight. Her nose went bump on the shore, an' then she swung round an' went drivin' past: me not havin' strength left ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... casting off the tow-rope. He had hardly left the ship when the mizenmast fell over the side, by which great numbers were thrown into the water, and left struggling in the waves; for, as the launch had only one oar, and neither sail nor mast, she drifted much faster than the men could swim, and many, whom those on board her would gladly have saved, perished within a few feet of ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... have to quarantine this fellow, in the long run, Bluewater! I do believe if I were to take him to Lambeth Palace, or even to St. James's, he'd thrust his oar into the archbishop's benedictions, ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... soldiers in full chase. Already they were beginning to cheer, for the leading man had all but grabbed the boat, and the prisoner was as good as retaken. George looked down for something with which to strike, for he did not intend to submit without a struggle, but there was no oar on board. There had been a small boat-hook, but that he had left sticking in the sand when he gave his lusty shove off. The pursuer, up to his neck in water, seized the boat, and for a moment his chin rested on the side. But the next instant the lad had kicked out with ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead
... land, and not to do them further mischief. Vortigern, who was in their company and would in no wise depart from their fellowship, went to his son to procure such truce as the Saxons required. Whilst he was about this business the Saxons entered in their galleys, and with sail and oar put out to sea as swiftly as they were able. Such was their haste to escape that they left their wives and sons with the Britons, returning to their own country in exceeding fear. After the Saxons had all forsaken the realm, and the Britons were assumed of peace, Vortimer gave again ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace
... corroborated. To apply the power of the first mover to the greatest advantage in producing this effect is a very material point. The mode universally adopted by Nature is the oblique waft of the wing. We have only to choose between the direct beat overtaking the velocity of the current, like the oar of a boat, or one applied like the wing, in some assigned degree of obliquity to it. Suppose 35 feet per second to be the velocity of an aerial vehicle, the oar must be moved with this speed previous to its being able to receive any resistance; then if it be only required ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... brass, and three arrows of lead. Shoot the three arrows at the statue, and the rider and his horse will fall into the sea; this being done, the sea will swell and rise to the foot of the dome. When it has come so high, thou wilt perceive a boat, with one man holding an oar in each hand; this man is also of metal, but different from that thou hast thrown down; step on board, but without mentioning the name of God, and let him conduct thee. He will in ten days' time bring thee into another sea, where thou ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... ship's boats could be spared, so I [MacGillivray] hired one pulled by four negro slaves who, although strong, active fellows, had great objections to straining their backs at the oar, when the dredge was down. No sieve having been supplied, we were obliged to sift the contents of the dredge through our hands—a tedious and superficial mode of examination. Two days after, Mr. Huxley and I set to work in Botafogo Bay, ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... been dragged ashore and lay bottom upwards under a cliff about three hundred yards above the ford. If we could reach and right it without being discovered, either one of us was clever enough, with an oar over the stern, to scull noiselessly across to the entrance of a creek where the current would take us up towards Boconnoc between banks held on either side by Royalists; to whom, if they surprised us, we ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... brigantines were now afloat on the lake, fully equipped, and manned by expert sailors, and were found to obey both sail and oar to a wish. When Montezuma learnt this, he requested to go a-hunting to a certain district which was full of game, all other persons being prohibited from hunting there under pain of death. Cortes granted ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... together, and it was the sailor's companionship and cheerfulness that had lightened the first days of his captivity; and had it not been for his advice and support he might now have been tugging at an oar in the bey's corsair galley. Ever since they had been at Cadiz he had daily spent an hour or two in his society; for when work was done they generally went for a walk together on the fortifications, and talked of England and discussed the possibility of escape. After his departure he was thrown ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... head. "There was a boy, but I paid him off. Sarah takes the helm from this night forth. You wouldn't believe it, but she can swig upon a rope too: and as for pulling an oar—" He went on to tell me that she had been rowing a pair of paddles when his eye first lit on her: and I gathered that the courtship had been conducted on these waters under the gaze of Saltash, the male in one boat pursuing, the female ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... exclaimed. "Why shouldn't I, in the name of goodness? Let me tell you I can pull a good oar still. If only I had had my flannels! You seem to think ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb
... of business, and lives in one of those strange, old-fashioned houses, in the form of a square, with an outside spiral staircase, so common in this extraordinary city. He introduced me to his son, an intelligent young man—well qualified to take the labouring oar, either upon the temporary or ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... 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 to his Father, as if he dwelt on that mountain-top ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... two men," says he, "and they rowing round with poteen before the cocks crowed, and the oar of one of them caught the body, and they passing the black cliffs of ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... sea as smooth as a duck-pond. And Captain Robin, being well-to-do, and established with every thing except a wife, and pleased with the pretty smile and quiet ways of Joan—for he never had heard of her money, mind—put his oar into the sea and rowed from Flamborough all the way to Filey Brigg, with thirty-five fishermen after him; for the Flamborough people make a point of seeing one another through their troubles. And Robin was known for the handsomest man and the uttermost ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... beyond my courtyard, is a boat in which I row myself out in warm weather to visit my friends along the coast. When I ply the oar, the crab-fishery is unproductive, droughts prevail, and I am not often upset ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... mocking cry of a diver, that rang strangely; and at once, without order. Thord dug his oar blade into the water and swung the boat round, and when once Kolgrim's back was towards that he feared, he held water strongly and then the boat was about, and we were flying from the place towards the ships, before we knew what was being ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler
... on the logs, ascertained how the raft was put together, and took a pull on the long, clumsy steering-oar. At length he seated himself beside Lynn. He was eager to ask questions; to know about the rafts, the river, the forest, the Indians—everything in connection with this wild life; but already he had learned that questioning these frontiersmen is ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... was maddening, and he pulled desperately, first on one oar and then on the other. Around the rocks the waters ran swiftly, and before he knew it there came a crash and his craft was stove in and upset. He clutched at the gunwale of the boat, but missed it, and plunged ...
— Young Captain Jack - The Son of a Soldier • Horatio Alger and Arthur M. Winfield
... hapless tribute of his purchas'd lays, His servile, his Egyptian tasks of praise!— If not sublime his strains, Fame justly plac'd Their power above their work.—Now, with wide gaze Of much indignant wonder, she surveys To the life-labouring oar assiduous haste A glowing Bard, by every Muse embrac'd.— O, WARTON! chosen Priest of Phoebus' choir! Shall thy rapt song be venal? hymn the THRONE, Whether its edicts just applause inspire, Or PATRIOT VIRTUE view them with a frown? What needs for this the golden-stringed Lyre, The snowy ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... of the "manifest destiny" type seem to imagine oar country necessary to the designs of Providence. So thought the Hebrews, and on far more plausible grounds, of their commonwealth; but, rather than fulfil to such degenerate descendants the promise made to their great ancestor, "God is able," said the divine ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... Parson Rasba's oar pins needed wetting, for the strain he put on the sweeps made them squeak. The splash of oars down the current was heard by people on board and several ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... shoot up, and the bamboo is welcome, for it is a tree of many uses. Its wood serves for the framework of houses, and its leaves are often used as thatch. It will make a dish, a box, a plate, a bowl, an oar, a channel for conveying water and a vessel for carrying it, a fishing-rod, a flower-vase, a pipe-stem, a barrel-hoop, a fan, an umbrella, and fifty other things, while young bamboo shoots are eaten and considered a ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Japan • John Finnemore
... a muff at rowing, though, and kept "catching a crab," which disaster he accounted for by declaring that the fishes would keep holding on to his oar when he dipped it into the water; but the Palaeotherium, who was in the bow of the boat, and consequently got all of the splashes and knocks with the oar, declared that this was all nonsense, and I am inclined to ...
— Dick, Marjorie and Fidge - A Search for the Wonderful Dodo • G. E. Farrow
... fellows can handle an oar?" Frere went on. "There, curse you, I don't want fifty! Three'll do. ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... got his craft fairly afloat. Now, Michael O'Hearn was not left-handed, and, as usually happens with such men, the inequality between the two limbs was quite marked. By a sinister accident, too, it happened that the longest oar got into the strongest hand, and there it would have staid to the end of time; before Mike would think of changing it, on that account. Joel, alone, sat with his face towards the head of the lake, and he alone ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... more, but the splash of an oar in the narrow canal by which they walked cut short his entreaties. A gondola was approaching them; the cry of the gondolier, awakening echoes beneath the eaves of the old houses, gave to Fra Giovanni that inspiration he had been seeking now ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... Workmen, and the Publick, to send over People to make all Sorts of Utensils in Iron in Virginia, where they may have all Sorts of Provisions and Materials for their Work much cheaper than in England; where they may have Land to settle for little or nothing; where Wood, Oar, and Water Conveniences are plentiful. What Detriment would it be to work up Iron there, if it may be done cheaper, and by the same People, who are so numerous in England that they can (abundance of them) ...
— The Present State of Virginia • Hugh Jones
... foliage of the bank was a small boat, a 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 of a small fire, and staring back toward ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... its owner. The ebb had ceased, and the incoming tide was being already felt close in shore; so with tide and wind against me, and the darkness of night settling down gloomily upon the wide bay, I pulled a strong oar for five miles to the entrance of Kill Van Kull Strait, which separates Staten Island from New Jersey and connects the upper bay ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... screw began to thresh the water and the tug to move swiftly out into the river, it required rare skill on the part of the young boatman to manoeuvre the boat so she should not be upset at the start. But Dan had the skill required and more besides, as he knelt in the stern with one oar deep in the water to the ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... not to love and delight in it, is a slavery, a bondage, not a business: the shop is a bridewell, and the warehouse a house of correction to the tradesman, if he does not delight in his trade. While he is bound, as we say, to keep his shop, he is like the galley-slave chained down to the oar; he tugs and labours indeed, and exerts the utmost of his strength, for fear of the strapado, and because he is obliged to do it; but when he is on shore, and is out from the bank, he abhors the labour, and hates to come ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... she! From the soft-curtained chamber of Hymen she fled, By the breath of giant Zephyr sped, And shield-bearing throngs in marshalled array Hounded her flight o'er the printless way, Where the swift-flashing oar The fair booty bore To swirling Sim'o-is' leafy shore, And stirred the crimson fray. —Trans. ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... forbid to mortals, kept supreme And separate the prerogative of God!) That seaman idle who is borne abroad To the far haven by the favouring stream. Not he alone that to contrarious seas Opposes, all night long, the unwearied oar, Not he alone, by high success endeared, Shall reach the Port; but, winged, with some light breeze Shall they, with upright keels, pass in before Whom easy Taste, ...
— New Poems • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the ripple now, Julie, when no breath of wind is in the heavens, and neither oar nor paddle ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... giddy mates I careless play'd, Or plied the quiv'ring oar, on conquest bent:— Again, beneath the tall elms' silent shade, I woo'd the fair, and ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... [banco, Sp.] A seat or bench for rowers in the happily all but extinct galley: these are properly called the athwarts, but thwarts by seamen. The common galleys have 25 banks on each side, with one oar to each bank, and four men to each oar. The galeasses have 32 banks on a side, and 6 or 7 rowers to each bank. (See DOUBLE-BANKED, when two men pull separate ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth |
