"Skiff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... running ashore, and wait until they sent out a small boat to fetch us. This took some little time during which we pitched and tossed about in a very disagreeable fashion. When the boat did at last arrive she turned out to be a wretched little skiff, rowed by two men, with very indifferent oars, and only capable of taking three passengers at a time. Tom went first, taking with him the two children, and the two poor sea-sick maids, and the boat at once put off for the land, Tom steering. ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... into a fever of excitement by the establishment of a boatyard and, the actual construction of a bateau; but a Democratic Congress turned its back on the proposed improvement. No boat bigger than a skiff ever ascended Salt River, though there was a wild report, evidently a hoax, that a party of picnickers had seen one night a ghostly steamer, loaded and manned, puffing up the stream. An old Scotchman, Hugh Robinson, when ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... except for the dip of the oar Of the skiff, or the barge striking out from the shore, While merry excursionists shout till the gale Reverberates laughter through ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... the point where it enters the Argentine territory, had Francia established his military stations, styled guardias, where sentinels kept watch at all hours, by night as in the day. For a boat to pass down, even the smallest skiff, without being observed by some of these Argus-eyed videttes, would have been absolutely impossible; and if seen as surely brought to a stop, and ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... remaining two succeeded in getting a hold in the cross-trees of the mainmast, which were above water, where they clung for nearly an hour. It was then that the three heroic brothers took a small flat-bottomed skiff, twelve feet long, three feet wide, and fifteen inches deep, the only boat available on the coast, and leaving their weeping wives and children, who formed a part of the watching group of forty or fifty persons on the shore, went out in this frail shell to the rescue. The venture was, ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... detached service, was as field officer of the day. This necessitated the visiting occasionally during the day and night, our videttes and picket posts which were stationed on the roads into the country, and at intersecting points in the fields; and also crossing in a skiff the Mississippi river, to visit the troops stationed to guard a telegraph station on the other side. This station was in the vicinity of a famous duelling ground,—a path not far from the river bank,—to which in former days the ...
— Reminiscences of two years with the colored troops • Joshua M. Addeman
... from Toronto to the wharf at the mouth of the Niagara River in an ordinary double-scull, lap-strake pleasure-skiff, by the writer and another Argonaut—Herbert Bartlett—one unruly morning in the summer of 1872. Though a risky row, and not previously attempted, it was not regarded as a remarkable feat by ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... launch; life boat, long boat, jolly boat, bum boat, fly boat, cock boat, ferry boat, canal boat; swamp boat, ark, bully, battery, bateau [Can.], broadhorn^, dory, droger^, drogher; dugout, durham boat, flatboat, galiot^; shallop^, gig, funny, skiff, dingy, scow, cockleshell, wherry, coble^, punt, cog, kedge, lerret^; eight oar, four oar, pair oar; randan^; outrigger; float, raft, pontoon; prame^; iceboat, ice canoe, ice yacht. catamaran, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... thee confess An exile from the wilderness,— The hills where health with health agrees, And the wise soul expels disease. Hark! in thy ear I will tell the sign By which thy hurt thou may'st divine. When thou shalt climb the mountain cliff, Or see the wide shore from thy skiff, To thee the horizon shall express But emptiness on emptiness; There lives no man of Nature's worth In the circle of the earth; And to thine eye the vast skies fall, Dire and satirical, On clucking hens and prating fools, On thieves, on drudges and on dolls. And thou shalt ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... Favourites of Heavn, to its former Indulgence, yet had not hitherto the Apostles themselves (so deep set is our Natural Pride) any other than hopes of worldly Power, Preferment, Riches and Pomp: For Peter, who it seems ever since he left his Net and his Skiff, Dreamt of nothing but being a great Man, was utterly undone to hear our Saviour explain to em that his Kingdom was not of this World; and was ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... professors and such like cheap high-brows—had raised yawping voices to point out that Paul Revere galloping along the pre-Revolutionary turnpike to spread the alarm passed en route two garages and one electric power house; that Washington crossing the Delaware stood in the bow of his skiff half shrouded in an American flag bearing forty-eight stars upon its field of blue; that Andrew Jackson's riflemen filing out from New Orleans to take station behind their cotton-bale breastworks marched for some distance beneath ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... dreadful nor'wester howled along and lashed the narrow sea between England and the Continent; yet I kept our frail skiff before it, hoping, at daylight, to descry the lowlands of Belgium. The heart-broken woman rested motionless in the stern-sheets. We covered her with all the available garments, and, even in the midst of our own griefs, could not help feeling that the suddenness of her double desolation ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... the Norway foam, The pilot of some small night-founder'd skiff, Deeming some island, oft as seamen tell, With fixed anchor in his scally rind Moors by ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... like. Middy's gittin' the skiff ready to take ye out. Scoot there, and light a fire in the hut! Here be ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... very fairly, for he belonged to a boat club at school. It was not very much of a club; but then the club boat was not very much of a boat, being a small, flat-bottomed skiff, which leaked so badly that she could not be kept afloat unless one boy kept constantly at work bailing. However, Harry learned to row in her, and he now found this knowledge very useful. He was anxious to start on the cruise immediately, but his uncle insisted that the crew must first be trained. ...
— Harper's Young People, June 1, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... on Charon's skiff He didn't have a cent; So he handed out a sweetbread And on the boat ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... wavelets speeds our skiff To the oar's measured beat; Cloudclapt, the heaven-aspiring hills Appear our ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... rocks and now slippery with rain. One of the canoes was lost here by being driven out into the strong current, where the force of the water was so great that it could not be held by the men; the frail skiff drifted down the rapids and disappeared. They now had two canoes and two periogues left, and the loads were divided among these craft. This increased the difficulties of navigation, and Captain Lewis crossed over to the south ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... west and a quarter southwest a matter of a hundred leagues, where on March 6, 1521, they fetched two islands inhabited by many people of little truth; and they did not take precautions against them until they saw that they were taking away the skiff of the flag-ship, and they cut the rope with which it was made fast, and took it ashore without their being able to prevent it. They gave this island the name of Thieves' ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... at the tired strangers with sympathy, and vigorously plied his oars. The waves rippled and the rocking skiff glided over the broad expanse of waters which, on the south side, appeared endless. From the way in which the two men spoke to the Master, Simon thought to himself: "A rabbi, and they are his pupils." To the Master's questions regarding his life and trade, the fisherman gave ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... skiff a big ship seemeth, Every bush with tall wings clad; Every man his good brain deemeth The only brain that ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... of the 13th we spied a sail coming towards us, which we judged to be that we had seen the day before, and we immediately caused the Hind to weigh anchor and go towards her, manning likewise our own skiff, to lay her on board or to learn what she was, and within half an hour we weighed also. When the vessel noticed us, she put about and sailed from us; and soon after there came on so heavy a fog that we could not see her, and as the fog continued the whole ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... explain, would be to dive deeper than Ishmael can go. The subterranean miner that works in us all, how can one tell whither leads his shaft by the ever shifting, muffled sound of his pick? Who does not feel the .. irresistible arm drag? What skiff in tow of a seventy-four can stand still? For one, I gave myself up to the abandonment of the time and the place; but while yet all a-rush to encounter the whale, could see naught in that brute but the deadliest ill. ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... statistics, the musters of January 1625 give much more information. Jamestown had a church, a court-of-guard (guardhouse), 3 stores (probably storehouses), a merchant's store, and 33 houses. Ten of the Colony's 40 boats were here, including a skiff, a "shallop" of 4 tons, and a "barque" of 40 tons. There were stores of fish, 24,880 pounds to be exact, corn, peas, and meal. There were four pieces of ordnance, supplies of powder, shot and lead, and, for ...
— The First Seventeen Years: Virginia 1607-1624 • Charles E. Hatch
... the object of their search was changed. They wanted a small, handy skiff on hire. It did not turn out an easy quest, but by the late afternoon they succeeded in obtaining the desired article. They purchased also close-fitting caps and rubber-soled shoes, together with some food for the night, a couple of electric torches, and a yard of black cloth. ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... thrill of horror which went through me at this sudden apparition. What!—a boat—a small boat—passing beneath that arch into yonder roaring gulf! Yes, yes, down through that awful water-way, with more than the swiftness of an arrow, shot the boat, or skiff, right into the jaws of the pool. A monstrous breaker curls over the prow—there is no hope; the boat is swamped, and all drowned in that strangling vortex. No! the boat, which appeared to have the buoyancy of a feather, skipped ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... current new vistas unfolded themselves as tier upon tier of woodland delighted the eye with a diversity of timber and foliage. In unison did the rowers ply their sculls, yet it was though of itself that the skiff shot forward, bird-like, over the glassy surface of the water; while at intervals the broad-shouldered young oarsman who was seated third from the bow would raise, as from a nightingale's throat, the opening staves of a boat song, and then be joined by five or six more, until the melody had come ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... and gazed out upon its quiet waters with satisfaction. At the foot of Annandale’s main street was a dock where several small steam-craft and a number of catboats were being dismantled for the winter. As I passed, a man approached the dock in a skiff, landed and tied his boat. He started toward the village at a quick pace, but turned and eyed me ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... pickerel; of the latter single specimens are often caught which weigh fifteen pounds. There were a few wild ducks on both lakes. A brood of the goosander or red merganser, the young not yet able to fly, were the occasion of some spirited rowing. But with two pairs of oars in a trim light skiff, it was impossible to come up with them. Yet we could not resist the temptation to give them a chase every day when we first came on the lake. It needed a good long pull to sober us down ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... of human faces, To beat away this deep contempt for all things, Which quenches my revenge. O! would to Alla, The raven, or the sea-mew, were appointed To bring me food! or rather that my soul Could drink in life from the universal air! It were a lot divine in some small skiff Along some Ocean's boundless solitude, To float for ever with a careless course, And think myself the only ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... edifice its walls oppos'd Unlevell'd in the ruin, high above Its roof the billows mounted, and its towers Totter'd, beneath the watery gulf oppress'd. Nor land nor sea their ancient bounds maintain'd, For all around was sea, sea without shore. This seeks a mountain's top, that gains a skiff, And plies his oars where late he plough'd the plains. O'er fields of corn one sails, or 'bove the roofs Of towns immerg'd;—another in the elm Seizes th' intangled fish. Perchance in meads The anchor oft is thrown, and oft the keel Tears the subjacent vine-tree. Where were wont The nimble goats ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... her side, his length along the warm wave, his arm along the boat, a boy floats in his linen clothes, an amphibious child, so undersized as to seem but little more than a baby, and yet a year her senior. He swims round and round the skiff in circling frolics, followed by the great dog who gambols with them, he dives under it and comes up far in advance, he treads water as he returns, and, seizing the painter, draws it forward while she sits there ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... came the farewell hand-shake; but few words were spoken, and they got into the boat, he, my brothers, and a friend, while the Fram glided ahead with her heavy motion, and the bonds that united us were severed. It was sad and strange to see this last relic of home in that little skiff on the wide blue surface, Anker's cutter behind, and Laurvik farther in the distance. I almost think a tear glittered on that fine old face as he stood erect in the boat and shouted a farewell to us and to the Fram. Do you ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... who for the sum of fifty pounds sterling will keep themselves at our disposition three successive nights. Once on board we drop down the Thames and in two hours are on the open sea. In case I am killed, the captain's name is Roger and the skiff is called the Lightning. A handkerchief, tied at the four corners, ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... oars, watching the scene with the eager, vivid interest which was characteristic of her. So absorbed was she that she failed to notice that her own small skiff was getting rather dangerously hemmed in. To her right lay a biggish sailing vessel, blocking the view on that side, behind her a small fry of miscellaneous craft, packed together like a flotilla of Thames boats on a summer's day awaiting the opening of the lock gates. Half ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... my little skiff any further into the wide ocean of this dispute, only will I tell you that the praise and commendation is not mean and slender which is due to those honest and good women who, living chastely and without blame, have had the power and virtue to curb, range, and subdue that unbridled, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... canvass. The charge of one complete suit of sails for the Sovereign is 404l. Stirling money; the weight of the sea store, in point of ground tackle and other cordage, is sixty tons, eight hundred and odd pounds. She carries a long-boat of fifty feet, a pinnacle of thirty-six feet, and a skiff of twenty-seven feet long. The weight of her rigging, three ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 528, Saturday, January 7, 1832 • Various
... horn he wound, When lo! forth starting at the sound, From underneath an aged oak That slanted from the islet rock, A damsel guider of its way, A little skiff shot to the bay, That round the promontory steep Led its deep line in graceful sweep, Eddying, in almost viewless wave, The weeping willow twig to rave, And kiss, with whispering sound and slow, The beach of pebbles bright as snow. The boat had touched ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... cutting wood, drawing water; and all this without being ordered. Lay any command on him, and the stubborn sea-urchin was sure to rebel. He was never so much at home, however, as when on the water, plying about in skiff or canoe, entirely alone, fishing, crabbing, or grabbing for oysters, and would bring home quantities for the larder of the Wild Goose, which he would throw down at the kitchen door, with a growl. No wind nor weather deterred him from ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... stood Mr. Hammond in good stead that morning, as soon as I understood that he was looking for a place where his men could land easily. It was only to sweep round a small bluff that jutted into the river, and carry the skiff into the mouth of Nat's Creek, where the bank sloped gradually down to the water from a level bit of meadow-land that extended back some rods before the hills began to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... on the bank had attracted the attention of a man in the mill. After a long scrutiny, this individual launched a skiff and pulled ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... Lang whirled about only a few feet from the dory. From the shadowed crevices in the rocks, men leaped forward and hurled themselves to the beach. About the skiff bright jets of flame cut the fog. Came the sharp report of an automatic, ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... may go. He needn't think I'll take 'im back; I won't have nothin' to say to 'im, never!' Ad' I'll quarrel 'bout you too; an' when all ov 'em is done fussin' 'bout me comin' back, I'll steal to you in a dark night, an' lay a plan to meet on Lickin' River; an' we'll take a skiff an' muffle oars till we get to the Ohio; an' I knows jus' whar to go in any dark night, an' we 'll be free together. I didn't tell Jim I's gwine to make massa b'leve all my lies to get you; for I tell you, Liz, I ain't got whole ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... great gulf! My skiff is thin as a nutshell, or even more fragile still. Let the leak but widen a little and all is over for the navigator. A mere nothing separates me from idiocy, from madness, from death. The slightest breach is enough to endanger all this frail, ingenious edifice, which calls itself my being ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... frango, fregi, break, breach; fagus, [Greek: phega], beech, f changed into b, and g into ch, which are letters near akin; frigesco, freeze, frigesco, fresh, sc into sh, as above in bishop, fish, so in scapha, skiff, skip, and refrigesco, refresh; but viresco, fresh; phlebotamus, fleam; bovina, beef; vitulina, veal; scutifer, squire; poenitentia, penance; sanctuarium, sanctuary, sentry; quaesitio, chase; perquisitio, ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... if My rippling skiff Float swift or slow from cliff to cliff; With dreamful eyes My spirit lies Under the ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... departure of the steamer. The dignity of official position requires that he should remain on shore for the space of one hour after the dropping of the anchor. He then musters his forces, marches them down to his war-skiff, from the stern of which waves the Danish flag, and, placing an oar in the hands of each man, he gives the order to advance and board the steamer. On his arrival alongside he touches his cap to the passengers ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... to begin with, go back to the larva of the Sitaris. By the end of a week the Anthophora's egg has been drained dry by the parasite and is reduced to the envelope, a shallow skiff which preserves the tiny creature from the deadly contact of the honey. It is on this skiff that the first transformation takes place, whereafter the larva, which is now organized to live in a glutinous environment, drops off the raft into the pool of honey and leaves its empty skin, ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... the peril worthy of his fates: "Are such the labours of the gods?" exclaimed, "Bent on my downfall have they sought me thus, Here in this puny skiff in such a sea? If to the deep the glory of my fall Is due, and not to war, intrepid still Whatever death they send shall strike me down. Let fate cut short the deeds that I would do And hasten on the end: the ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... Charlie came back, there was going to be a change. She repeated that to herself with determination. Between whiles she rambled about in the littered clearing, prowled along the beaches, and paddled now and then far outside the bay in a flat-bottomed skiff, restless, full of plans. So far as she saw, she would have to face some city alone, but she viewed that prospect with a total absence of the helpless feeling which harassed her so when she first took train for her brother's camp. She had passed through ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... interested in looking at his game that he thought it not worth while to look at whoever might be passing in the skiff; so, once more, Dorothy slid out of danger down ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose
... business of mine, if the mast groan with the African storms, to have recourse to piteous prayers, and to make a bargain with my vows, that my Cyprian and Syrian merchandize may not add to the wealth of the insatiable sea. Then the gale and the twin Pollux will carry me safe in the protection of a skiff with two oars, through the tumultuous ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... had now all one trade: we skimmed the crested waves and sought our prey beneath them, the man with as keen enjoyment as the birds. Always when the east grew purple I launched my dory, my little flat-bottomed skiff, and rowed cross-handed to Point Ledge, the Middle Ledge, or perhaps beyond Egg Rock; often, too, did I anchor off Dread Ledge—a spot of peril to ships unpiloted—and sometimes spread an adventurous sail and tracked across the ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... now his own master, but he found it dull. He had so few parishioners that it is said he used to go down to the seashore and skiff stones in order to gather a congregation. For he thought if the people would not come to hear sermons they would come at least to stare at the mad clergyman, and for years he was remembered as the "mad clergyman." And now because he found his freedom dull, and for various other reasons, when ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... Faucon, had taken the Pilgrim, and was the green-jacketed man on the quarter-deck. The boat put directly off again, without giving us time to ask any more questions, and we were obliged to wait till night, when we took a little skiff, that lay on the beach, and paddled off. When I stepped aboard, the second mate called me aft, and gave me a large bundle, directed to me, and marked "Ship Alert.'' This was what I had longed for, yet I refrained from opening it until I went ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... friendless. Glaucus is kind to, and protects her, finally purchases her of her brutal master. She loves him passionately and hopelessly, saves his life and that of his betrothed at the destruction of Pompeii; embarks with them in a skiff bound for a safer harbor, and while all are asleep, springs overboard and drowns herself.—E. L. Bulwer, Last Days ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... Philip, while Meadows began letting himself down the side of the wharf to the skiff which he knew rode there upon the black water, "'tis enough to make one believe in miracles, my running into you! What were ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... got him!' And in a moment the boat came out, and I saw two men were supporting the guard, half in and half out of the water, and the other pushing the skiff to shore. ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... beach of silvery sand. The water is pure and translucent, of azure blue, here and there crested with the pearly froth of coral breakers. I look to the eastward, and behold a summer sea that seems to invite navigation. But where are the messengers of commerce with their white wings? The solitary skiff of the savage "pescador" is making its way through the surf; a lone "polacca" beats up the coast with its half-smuggler crew; a "piragua" swings at anchor in a neighbouring cove: this is all! Far as eye or glass can reach, no other sail is in sight. The beautiful sea before me is almost unfurrowed ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... The skiff passed the little point or platform of rock on which the fire was blazing, and running about two boats' length farther, stopped where the cavern (for it was already arched overhead) ascended from ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... steaming, on its vast surface. Since that day the enterprising inhabitants have actually held regattas on the mighty stream, in which some of the best-known men in the annals of rowing in England have taken part. But seven years ago our river trip was attended with mild excitements; the small skiff, carrying our party of six, was an excessively leaky canoe, which had to be incessantly baled out to keep it afloat, and wherein, notwithstanding our efforts, a deep pool of water accumulated, necessitating our sitting with feet tucked under us in Oriental fashion. Hence I cannot say we realized ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... your stupidity in that matter. Take the maid an' be done with it. God be thanked I isn't a widower-man. If I was, I'd bring your chance into peril soon enough," said his father. "'Tis t' be a fair day for fishin' the Skiff-an'-Punt grounds the morrow. Go t' bed. I'll pray that wisdom may overcome your caution ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... in hand, and a boat-hook laid ready for instant use, the bold young fellow now ordered the men to shove off the skiff into the river and then pay out the line, as he should direct—thus lowering him, yard by yard, down toward ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... clamorous; one portion were for throwing Schriften overboard, the other for throwing Philip; at last, the point was decided by the captain, who directed the small skiff hanging astern to be lowered down, and ordered both Philip and Schriften to get into it. The seamen approved of this arrangement, as it satisfied both parties. Philip made no objection; Schriften screamed and fought, but he was tossed into the ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... nearness and in the distance, when a blue gleam from its surface, among the green meadows and woods, seems like an open eye in Earth's countenance. Pleasant it is, too, to behold a little flat-bottomed skiff gliding over its bosom, which yields lazily to the stroke of the paddle, and allows the boat to go against its current almost as freely as with it. Pleasant, too, to watch an angler, as he strays along the brink, sometimes sheltering himself behind a tuft of bushes, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... sometimes caught in the basin at night. Two miles away, in the direction of the "run," there are on Woodboo plantation two similar basins connected by a shallow streamlet, and with no outlet which a minnow could navigate: one of them is large enough for a little skiff to float on, and the gray rock slopes down to a centre depth of ten feet. Just where the sides meet is a long, irregular fissure, out of which huge bass, pike, jack and mudfish are constantly emerging, and into which they retreat when disturbed. Hundreds of perch, bream and young bass sport ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... Darrel, "the soul in me is like a toy skiff, tossing in the ripples of a duck pond an' mayhap stranding on a reed or lily. An' then," he added, with kindling eye and voice, "she is a great ship, her sails league long an' high, her masthead raking the stars, her hull in ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... lakes, so jealously guarded by its chain of mountains that only in two places is it possible to effect a landing. The dark pines and silvery birches clothing the sides of the mountains; the gray limestone cliffs rising step and sheer from the water, in which their slim, green skiff glided swiftly on, the oars, which were more like long, brown spades, pulled by a man and woman, who took it in turns to sit and stand; the man with gay tie and waistband, Tyrolese hat and waving feather; the woman wearing a similar hat over a gayly embroidered head-dress, ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... many parts of the Po, excepting in the stillness of its current, which was so great, that it would have been easy while leaning over the bow of the vessel, to fancy the Saone into the blue sky, and the coche d'eau, into Southey's vessel of the Suras, or Wordsworth's aerial skiff. ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... The skiff-boat near'd: I heard them talk, "Why, this is strange, I trow! Where are those lights so many and fair, That ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... gave her a blow on the face and drew blood, and went away and called his men and ran the skiff down to the shore. Then six of them jumped into her and rowed out to the Bear-isles, and began to load her with meal ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... excursion,—as soon as he knew that the boat was signalling for help and that Miss Lawson was sending up rockets,—rushed for a row boat, grabbed an oar (two would have hampered him), and paddled madly out into the lake. He struck right out into the dark with the crazy skiff almost sinking beneath his feet. But they got him. They rescued him. They watched him, almost dead with exhaustion, make his way to the steamer, where he was hauled up ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... on board. He did it as a man goes to a funeral. He had been a fisherman in his younger days, but it was a bitter necessity, in his view, which now compelled him to resume it when he was old and stiff. While he was stowing the bait and lines in the skiff, Dock Vincent came down to see him. He had laid aside his suit of black, and now ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... such a sensation among the inhabitants of Belle-Isle, dropped anchor within cannon shot of the place. It was soon seen, notwithstanding the darkness, that some sort of agitation reigned on board the vessel, from the side of which a skiff was lowered, of which the three rowers, bending to their oars, took the direction of the port, and in a few instants struck land at the foot of the fort. The commander jumped ashore. He had a letter in his ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Bob; "if you didn't mind rowing across the river every day, I've got a skiff, and there's the old hewed-log house on the Indianny side where we used to live. A body might stay as long as he pleased in that house, I guess. Judge Kane owns it, and he's one of the best-hearted men in ...
— The Hoosier School-boy • Edward Eggleston
... Winds, that sweep from Ursa Major to the Tropics and Equators, dancing their giant-waltz through the kingdoms of Chaos and Immensity, they care little about filling rightly or filling wrongly the small shoulder-of-mutton sails in this cockle-skiff of thine! Thou art not among articulate-speaking friends, my brother; thou art among immeasurable dumb monsters, tumbling, howling wide as the world here. Secret, far off, invisible to all hearts ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... the prime, the pterodactyl, did even better. Stretching on each little finger a lateen sail that would have served to waft a skiff across the Thames, it kept the rest of its hands for other uses. But what bearing has all this on the case of birds? Here is a whole sub-kingdom, as they call it, of the animal world which has unreservedly and irrevocably bartered one pair of its limbs ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... clothing, food, and firearms, Radisson left the Mohawk Valley with three hunters. By the middle of August, the rind of the birch is in perfect condition for peeling. The first thing the hunters did was to slit off the bark of a thick-girthed birch and with cedar linings make themselves a skiff. Then they prepared to lay up a store of meat for the winter's war-raids. Before ice forms a skim across the still pools, nibbled chips betray where a beaver colony is at work; so the hunters began setting beaver traps. One night as they were returning to ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... ashes. The flagship held out longer, but the soldiers did not wait for the Dutch to board, for some of them escaped from the galleon by swimming. Thirteen or fourteen of them were drowned, among them Christobal de Fegueredo. Some jumped into a small skiff belonging to the galleon, for they had taken all the boats from the city, so that they had none in which to come thence. The galleon was left with a few men, who were no longer firing and were silent. At this juncture, the general left by a port, as best he could. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVII, 1609-1616 • Various
... the negro appeared on the bank, with some chickens in his hand, which was a signal to Frank that he had something to communicate. He immediately set off alone, in a skiff. When he reached the shore, the negro informed him that the rebel lieutenant was expected at the plantation that evening, and that he would bring with him the mail, which was to be carried ...
— Frank on a Gun-Boat • Harry Castlemon
... more genial spot. He was short but very portly, and his voice contained many of the elements of a fog-horn. It is related that years ago, while piloting a schooner out to sea, he fell over the stern into the river. His boys put off in a skiff to the rescue, but being so ponderous it was impossible to pull him in without upsetting the boat, so putting a rope around his body they towed him ashore, not much the worse off for his sudden bath. This colony has always been ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various
... I hooked huge fish that swam off ponderously, dragging the skiff until my line parted. Once I was fortunate enough to see one, which fact dispelled any possibility of its being a shark. Manuel called it "Cherna!" It looked like a giant sea-bass and would have weighed at least eight hundred pounds. The color was lighter than any sea-bass ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... said the stranger, ejecting a quid of tobacco that might have freighted a small skiff, "I'm a ringtailed roarer from Big Sandy River; I can outrun, outjump, and outfight any man in Kentucky. They telled me in Danville, that this 'ere lawyer was comin down to give you a lickin. Now I hadn't nothin ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... become the scene of strife between the contending parties. Should we be taken prisoners I intended to show this and to claim his assistance to obtain our release. We left the ship early in the evening, and with a fair wind our light skiff flew quickly over the water towards the mouth of the Nansimond river. I never saw O'Driscoll in such high feather. Had I been inclined to be in low spirits he would have kept them up. Commend me to such a companion in all cases of this sort, he joked, he told good ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... yourself towed a skiff on the Thames, when the current was so strong that the progress made with the oars was unsatisfactory. Well, if you have, you don't know one bit what this was like. In the first place, the Thames, even ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... of their flight, they shake, as it were, the plants and flowers on the border of the lake, who thus pay their morning salute to the sun of Africa. A small barque, however, advances (vide picture), and from this frail skiff suddenly appears the flash of a gun. In a moment the whole air is in motion; grebes with their beautiful plumage, flamingoes with flaming wings, wild swans, and ducks, and teals, by thousands whirl ...
— Notes in North Africa - Being a Guide to the Sportsman and Tourist in Algeria and Tunisia • W. G. Windham
... reached them of breaking bushes and the loud voices of Cossacks approaching along the bank on horseback and on foot. 'Are you bringing the skiff?' shouted Lukashka. ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... recrossed the river in the primitive fashion of an open boat, which the conflict of wind and tide, together with the swash and swell of the passing steamers, tossed high and low rather tumultuously. This inquietude of our frail skiff (which, indeed, bobbed up and down like a cork) so much alarmed an old lady, the only other passenger, that the boatmen essayed to comfort her. "Never fear, mother!" grumbled one of them, "we'll make the river as smooth as we can for you. We'll get a plane and plane down the waves!" The ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... played false to her mistress again—" but the threat was never formulated. There was a chink and click of a pair of oars moving on their thole-pins. For an instant a skiff was visible at the foot of the embankment; two occupants were in it. The boat disappeared under the friendly cover of the protecting sea-wall of the lower terrace. There was a little landing-place here, with a few steps leading upward, where now and then a yacht ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... star wove silver webs across the ways Carved by the wind, a half-breathed sigh, That spoke in ripples. "O Heart's Delight," I cried, "The skiff comes for me now across the water." And, as I bent to kiss her, Love's fair daughter, She barely breathed, "Good-night," And some musician blended Chopin with her phrase: "Good-bye, Love's youth, Youth's ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... their oars just in time as the shell grazed the stern of a heavy skiff, which a boy, who was rowing, had stopped just in the course ...
— The Boy Scouts Patrol • Ralph Victor
... minute—so white and wild-looking. 'Take me down this river a way,' says he. I was working then, you'll remember, far down on the line, across from Amsterdam. I told him I was no boatman. 'It's an affair of life and death,' says he. 'Take me on a few miles. Yonder skiff is not locked, but it may be a poor man's boat and I'd be loath to rob him!' (The words might differ some, vrouw, for it's all like a dream.) Well, I took him down—it might be six or eight miles—and then he said he could run the ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... west the ghastly war-flame spread; High on St. Michael's Mount it shone: it shone on Beachy Head. Far on the deep the Spaniard saw, along each southern shire, Cape beyond cape, in endless range, those twinkling points of fire. The fisher left his skiff to rock on Tamar's glittering waves: The rugged miners poured to war from Mendip's sunless caves: O'er Longleat's towers, o'er Cranbourne's oaks, the fiery herald flew: He roused the shepherds of Stonehenge, the rangers of Beaulieu. Right sharp and quick the bells all night rang out from Bristol ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... boat, and seating herself on a pile of cushions heaped in the centre, pushed out into the stream. There was no hardihood in this, she had been accustomed to action and exercise all her life, and could propel her little skiff with the skill and grace ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... that Jerry was arrested and put into prison on account of it, and that the only thing that turned Tom Mason in favor of the boys who were working to help him was the fact that Luke Redman was going to take the money across the river into Texas. Mark Coleman came near getting the money, when his skiff was stranded at Dead Man's Elbow, but had to go away without it; and from that time the history of the five thousand begins. Tom Mason fell in with Joe Coleman, who was Mark's twin brother, and ...
— Elam Storm, The Wolfer - The Lost Nugget • Harry Castlemon
... enemy by the dense forests that intervened. Even spies could not get near him, on account of the undergrowth and overflowed lands. Suspicions of some mysterious movements were aroused. Our river guards discovered one day a small skiff moving quietly and mysteriously up the river near the east shore, from the direction of Vicksburg, towards the fleet. On overhauling the boat they found a small white flag, not much larger than a handkerchief, set up in the stern, no doubt intended as a flag of truce in case of discovery. ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... over one's shoulder in it was a manoeuvre of extreme delicacy, especially where the rapids caused the water to be in wild commotion. I was told that it would go down stream like an arrow, and so it did. There was no need to row hard, for the current took the fragile skiff along with it so fast that the trees on the banks sped by as if they were running races, and every few minutes brought a change of landscape. It was very delightful; only one sensation of movement could have been better—that ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... twenty-seventh of October, she was heroically attacked and sunk by Lieutenant W. B. Cushing, U. S. N., with a spar torpedo projecting from a little steam launch. Cushing himself swam off through a hail of bullets, worked his way through the woods, seized a skiff belonging to one of the enemy's outposts, and reached the flagship half dead ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... and arrived at Goshen about 10 A. M., where, after some little encouragement, the stage-driver attached his horses to the stage, and we started slowly through the mountains, breaking the track. On reaching the Baths, the North River was unfordable, but I was ferried across in a skiff, with all my bundles (I picked up two more in Staunton and one at Goshen) and packages, and took a stage detained on the opposite bank for Lexington, where I arrived in good time. I found all as well as usual, and disappointed at not seeing you with me, though I was not expected. I told them ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... "Can you point out the place where Bear Creek used to be before the railroad came?" I said, "Yes, it ran along yonder." "And can you point out the swimming-hole?" "Yes, out there." And he said, "Can you point out the place where we stole the skiff?" Well, I didn't know which one he meant. Such a wilderness of events had intervened since that day, more than fifty years ago, it took me more than five minutes to call back that little incident, and then I did call it back; ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... We put the skiff into the water and a couple of the Elks rowed around near the house-boat, keeping near, while Hunt Ward showed Skinny the strokes. The rest of us sat along the cabin roof, cheering just so's the kid would be encouraged. He looked awfully thin and little in his bathing suit and ...
— Roy Blakeley's Adventures in Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... J. V. Skiff; Director of Works, Harris D. H. Connick; Director of Exhibits, Asher Carter Baker; Director of Exploitation, George Hough Perry; Director of Concessions and Admissions, ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... for The stars, I own my telescope is dim: But at least I have shunn'd the common shore, And leaving land far out of sight, would skim The ocean of eternity: the roar Of breakers has not daunted my slight, trim, But still sea-worthy skiff; and she may float Where ships have founder'd, as doth many ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... later Outfield West and Joel March were seated on the ledge where, nearly two months before, they had begun their friendship. The sun beat warmly down and the hill at their backs kept off the east wind. Below them the river was brightly blue, and a skiff dipping its way up stream caught the sunlight on sail and hull until, as it danced from sight around the headland, it looked like a white gull hovering over the water. Above, on the campus, the football field was noisy with voices and the ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... away with a quick writhing motion. "No," she groaned, "it is he who has killed me—with two words—bring Helene." She darted to the house with the news of Edward's accident, and then to the beach, where Helene was already before her. The tiny skiff was pushed off, and the two ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... be willing to be," Mr. Pinchem said. "He stole a skiff from the boat club in Northvale and it was found empty down below here ...
— Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... ought to know. She remembered, one of the first things that she could remember, a middle-aged gentleman, in a black hat and coat, who used to row over the river from the other shore in a small skiff, and walk into her father's store to make his purchases, with a grave, but not cold or forbidding face, and used to pat her on the head, with such a fatherly smile, and say a few words in such a kind tone, as to fill her little breast quite full ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... I had much experience in boating, and we had none in boat building. However, when we had discarded the idea of taking a canoe, we set to work with a hearty good will to build us a skiff. We made it out of light lumber, then easily obtained at Tumwater. We determined to have the skiff broad enough not to upset easily, and long enough to carry us and our light cargo of food ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... opinion of Tacitus on the women of the old Germans, and Caesar's accounts of the women of the Iberians and Scots confirm the fact. Columbus had to sustain a fight before Santa Cruz with an Indian skiff in which the women fought as bravely as the men; and we find this theory further confirmed in the passages from Havelock Ellis's work, "Man and Woman," which Dr. Hope B. Adams-Walther deals upon in Nos. 39 and 40 of the "Neue Zeit." ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... dart the skiff?— Each sport has here its tackle and tool: Come, plant the staff by Cadair cliff; Come, swing the ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... first day did not suffice to carry them clear of the reeds, in fact, at night when they landed to camp, they could scarcely find room to pitch their tents. On the second day, an accident happened to the skiff they were towing; she struck on a log, and immediately sank with all the valuable cargo she carried. Two days were spent in recovering the things, as the boat had gone down in twelve feet of water, and ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... and came to anchor out in the beautiful harbor, a half mile from the ancient gate of the clock. A few curious idlers along the shore watched it and commented on its perfect lines. And the numerous officials of the port lazily craned their necks at it, and yawningly awaited the arrival of the skiff that was immediately lowered ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... felt that he had reached a point high enough up the flooded bank to justify him in the attempt to get across. He jumped into the home-made skiff, and, setting his strength to the clumsy oars, began to pull ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... guns and the carved and gilt work with which the ship was adorned; for it was the custom, especially in the Spanish navy, in those days to ornament ships of war far more profusely than at present. At length Don Hernan came on deck. He observed the skiff alongside; and his eye falling on Lawrence, he very naturally at first took him to be some poor fisherman habited in the cast-off finery of a gentleman. Lawrence, however, guessed who he was from his uniform, and, shuffling along the deck, made him one of his ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... scoundrel and handed his flask to him; and the Egyptian turned up his eyes then and there with all the pleasure in life. But there is not much fun for us about this little affair. Napoleon steps aboard of a little cockleshell, a mere nothing of a skiff, called the Fortune, and in the twinkling of an eye, and in the teeth of the English, who were blockading the place with vessels of the line and cruisers and everything that carries canvas, he lands in France for he always had ...
— The Napoleon of the People • Honore de Balzac
... only ten years old, but my pretty white skiff was little, in proportion, and so were my sculls, and we were ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... skiff to the silver strand on the opposite side. When William asked him if the king's dead horse had been found, he smiled, and said he only knew that bones had been found near where the king's horse died, but he could not be sure that they were the bones of King ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... sea. It was a seal-impression, found in 1903, in the Temple Repositories, on which a great sea-monster, with dog's head and open jaws, is seen rising from the waves and attacking a fisherman, who stands up in his light skiff endeavouring to defend himself. The Little Palace yielded a somewhat more adequate representation of the Minoan marine in the shape of another seal-impression, which showed part of a vessel carrying one square sail, and propelled also by a single bank of ...
— The Sea-Kings of Crete • James Baikie
... indistinctly, sitting in a small skiff, which he tried to keep off the roof with ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... obliging and found a skiff, and a man to row it for ten dollars, payment in advance. Churchill paid, and was helped into the skiff. It was beyond him to get in by himself. It was six miles to Skaguay, and he had a blissful thought of sleeping those six miles. But the man did not know how to row, and Churchill ...
— Lost Face • Jack London
... time with the song, and his portentous voice thundered out the refrain with an energy which shook the little skiff from stem to stern. By the time that "Boney" was safely consigned to his grave in sunny France, they were nearing the flats on which the steamer Huntress lay, quietly awaiting the ...
— Captain January • Laura E. Richards
... river, and under their shade had been erected a number of seats of japanned mason-work, in a style peculiar to Spanish countries. There were steps cut in the face of the bank, overhung with drooping shrubs, and leading to the water's edge. I had noticed a small skiff moored under the willows, where these steps went ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... horizon, and penetrated, methought, into the very skies far beyond the lake, were mountains or clouds: a dark problem, which to this day I have not been able to solve. Nay, I was taken twice, despite of the most virtuous efforts to the contrary, from a Salve Regina, to watch a little skiff, which shone with its snowy sail spread before the radiant evening sun, and glided over the waters, like an angel sent on some happy-message. In fact, I found my heart on the point of corruption, by indulging in what I had set down in my vocabulary as the lust of the eye, and ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... watched it with longing eyes, he sought upon the shining disk and in the spots upon it mountains and forests, wonderful castles and enchanted flowers and fragrant trees. He believed that he saw lakes with shining swans which were drawing boats, a skiff which carried him and his beloved, while about them charming mermaids blew upon their twisted conchs and stretched their arms filled with water lilies over into ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... a sinking heart that he stepped into the frail skiff, which seemed scarcely more than a nutshell upon the tempestuous deep. He was on the point of asking his servant, unacquainted though he was with seamanship, to be the third man in the boat; but the latter, ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... away, Kippy! Wait for me! Wait!" and leaving the old house open to the night, he plunged into the darkness, beating through the woods and up and down the road, calling in vain for Kippy, who lay cowering in the bottom of a leaking skiff that was drifting down the river at the ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice
... is this? what have we here! we must not pass it by; A Telescope upon its frame, and pointed to the sky: Long is it as a Barber's Poll, or Mast of little Boat, Some little Pleasure-Skiff, that doth ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... drawing near when I was to begin my second series of bouts with John Barleycorn. When I was fourteen, my head filled with the tales of the old voyagers, my vision with tropic isles and far sea-rims, I was sailing a small centreboard skiff around San Francisco Bay and on the Oakland Estuary. I wanted to go to sea. I wanted to get away from monotony and the commonplace. I was in the flower of my adolescence, a-thrill with romance and adventure, dreaming of wild life in the wild man-world. Little I guessed how all the warp ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... skiff, or bark rather, as it might be truely styled, being a veritable Indian canoe, made of birch bark most cunningly put together, these being so light as to float in shallow water, and to be easily removed, are for this reason preferred by the Indians to more solid ...
— Sketches And Tales Illustrative Of Life In The Backwoods Of New Brunswick • Mrs. F. Beavan
... of these, propelled by an Englishman (resident in Paris), came in easily first, and the second prize was won by a Frenchman. Here, surely, was a good sound lesson to English canoe-men who wished to paddle fast on still water, in a boat useless for any other purpose, and slower at last than a skiff with two sculls. Accordingly, we ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... from usShe but circles, Like the fleet sea-bird round the fowler's skiff, Lost in the mist one moment, and the next Brushing the white sail with her whiter wing, As if to court the aim.Experience watches, And has her on the wheel ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... Two men in a skiff, whom we passed hereabouts, floating buoyantly amid the reflections of the trees, like a feather in mid-air, or a leaf which is wafted gently from its twig to the water without turning over, seemed still in their element, and to have very ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... Exposition, William H. Thompson, as chairman of the committee on grounds and buildings, introduced Isaac S. Taylor, who delivered the gold key to the buildings to President Francis and presented diplomas to his staff. An address followed by Director of Exhibits F.J.V. Skiff, who presented commissions to his staff, the chiefs of the various exhibit departments. Next followed addresses in behalf of the city of St. Louis by Hon. Rolla Wells, Mayor; in behalf of the National Commission by Hon. Thomas H. Carter, its President; ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... Irishman," he cried loftily. "I canna get Robbie Burns' graun' words oot o' my heid: 'The Scotsmen staun' an' Irish fa'—let him on wi' me,'" and on this wave of martial spirit Geordie took another plunge at right angles from our previous course, bearing me after him like a skiff tied to a schooner amid ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... the Department and his own energy, Luce had given the College a good send-off, like a skiff shoved by hand from the wharf into mid-stream. There remained only to keep it moving. We had an appropriation, and a building that was ready for lecturing; with also two as yet uncompleted suites of quarters, for myself and one other officer. ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... "a man should not communicate his own glorie"—he stepped sedately down to the trim green skiff and was rowed ashore by a boy who, for aught that either knew, might three months before have jostled him at some ill-favoured lunch counter. For in America, dreams of gold—not, alas, golden dreams—do prevalently come true; and of all the butterfly happenings in this pleasant land of larvae, ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... made with the man, and with a few strokes from his muscular arms the little skiff was soon whirling out into the deep waters of the bay. Then he rested on his oars and floated down ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey
... side of the steamer, and Mr. Green, looking round, observed the long form of Joe scrambling over the side. His appearance betokened alarm and haste, and Mr. Green, after a brief remark on the extravagance, not to say lordliness, of a waterman's skiff when a hail would have taken the ship's boat to him, demanded to know what was ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... his party reached the sea at last. The National Guard of Boulogne began firing on them. The prince, Count Persigny, Colonel Voisin, and Galvani, an Italian, were put into a boat. As they pushed off, a fire of musketry shattered the little skiff, and threw them into the water. Colonel Voisin's arm was broken at the elbow, and Galvani was hit in the body. The prince and Persigny came up to the surface at some distance from the land. Colonel Voisin ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... said Stafford, with a smile, as he signed to the man to bring up a skiff. "Now, let me make you as comfortable as I can. We ought to have had a gondola," he added, as he handed her to the ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice |
