"Skipper" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Blunt's Coast Pilot, revised and improved to a precious sight better condition than it's ever possible for them fellers in Bosting to get out. By Blunt's Coast Pilot, young sir, I allude to a celebrated book, as big as a pork bar'l, that every skipper has in his locker, to guide him on his wanderin way—ony me. I don't have no call to use sech, being myself a edition of useful information techin ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille
... cold, we was noticing how Phil was sailing that three-cornered sneak-box—noticing and criticising; at least, I was, and Cap'n Jonadab, being, as I've said, the best skipper of small craft from Provincetown to Cohasset Narrows, must have had some ideas on the subject. Your old chum, Catesby-Stuart, thought he was mast-high so fur's sailing was concerned, anybody could see that, but he had something to larn. He wasn't beginning to get out all there was ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... But the name had been painted over, because it was the former English name. As I thought, 'You're rid of the fellow' the ship came up again in the evening, and steamed within a hundred yards of us. I sent all my men below deck, and I promenaded the deck as the solitary skipper. Through Morse signals the stranger gave her identity. She proved to be the Hollandish torpedo boat Lynx. I asked by signals, 'Why do you follow me?' No answer. The next morning I found myself in Hollandish waters, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... as how when a storm came on It 'ud turn clean upside down, But I never could make out as why Its skipper ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... Government would provide the necessary assistance. This offer the authorities accepted, but they forgot the essential condition of furnishing assistance. Naturally, much delay and vexation were caused by this display of official ineptitude. At this juncture a retired coasting skipper, Captain William Hilton Hovell, made an offer to join the party, and find half the necessary cattle and horses. This offer aroused the Government to some sense of its responsibility, and it agreed to do something in the matter. This "something" amounted to six pack-saddles ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc
... an Autumnal day, when he found himself becalmed off a small island not down on the chart, the skipper felt no little uneasiness. He paced his deck impatiently, occasionally turning his eye to every quarter, surveying the horizon for some sign of a ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... William McFee Rhubarb The Haunting Beauty of Strychnine Ingo Housebroken The Hilarity of Hilaire A Casual of the Sea The Last Pipe Time to Light the Furnace My Friend A Poet of Sad Vigils Trivia Prefaces The Skipper A Friend of FitzGerald A Venture in Mysticism An Oxford Landlady "Peacock Pie" The Literary Pawnshop A Morning in Marathon The American House of Lords Cotswold Winds Clouds Unhealthy Confessions of a Smoker Hay Febrifuge Appendix: ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... day or two after the vessel got to sea the mates got better and went to duty, and the skipper seemed to take a pleasure in abusing and worrying them, although it was evident from their appearance that they had suffered severely from the swamp fever, and had not been shamming, as ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XII, Jan. 3, 1891 • Various
... some large ship as it passed by, on which men live for weeks and months without ever touching land. We used to sail long distances, and occasionally be out for several days and nights together. My brother-in-law's skipper could tell me what country almost every vessel that we saw was bound for. Some were sailing to climates where the heat is so great that our most sultry summer in England is comparatively cold; others were off ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... knew that gratitude is too nice and delicate a plant to grow on common soil. Once, when he was twenty-two or three, he was engaged to a young woman of Boston, while he was a clerk in a commission store. But her father, a skipper from Beverly or Cape Cod, who continued vulgar while he became rich, did not like the match. "It won't do," said he, "for a poor young man to marry into one of our fust families; what is the use of aristocracy if no distinction is to be made, and our daughters are to marry Tom, Dick, and Harry?" ...
— Two Christmas Celebrations • Theodore Parker
... Curlie; "the trip's got to be made. I thought you might be afraid to undertake it; that's why I wanted to know at once. I'll go out and hunt another skipper. There's surely plenty of them idle these ...
— Curlie Carson Listens In • Roy J. Snell
... without food. Our hero thought they could stand it better without any supper than he could, for he had had only half a dinner, and besides, everybody thinks his own misfortunes are infinitely more trying than those of other people. But we must do our young skipper the justice to add that he sympathized with the excursionists in case they ...
— Little Bobtail - or The Wreck of the Penobscot. • Oliver Optic
... Madonna—of which there was a statue in wood. But, many and genuine as were the invocations, all were unanswered. The gale continued, and more and more damage was done the upper works. Whereupon in a rage the skipper ordered the image to be hurled overboard. Strange to say, almost instanter the tempest lulled, and in a short time the bark rode steadily on the pacific waters. Come to examine the leak in the side, they found the wooden effigy thrown over, sucked into it, and ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... Wizard's Glen Balanced Rock Shonkeek-Moonkeek The Salem Alchemist Eliza Wharton Sale of the Southwicks The Courtship of Myles Standish Mother Crewe Aunt Rachel's Curse Nix's Mate The Wild Man of Cape Cod Newbury's Old Elm Samuel Sewall's Prophecy The Shrieking Woman Agnes Surriage Skipper Ireson's Ride Heartbreak Hill Harry Main: The Treasure and the Cats The Wessaguscus Hanging The Unknown Champion Goody Cole General Moulton and the Devil The Skeleton in Armor Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... a fish of the north of New South Wales and of Queensland, Periophthalmus australis, Castln., family Gobiidae. Called also Skipper. ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... on the Brook Islands; her figurehead—the spread eagle of the United States—and a seaman's chest were picked up on the beach here. Her windlass, with a child's pinafore entangled with it—for the skipper had taken his wife and two children to bear him company—drifted on the South Franklands, 40 miles to the north, and a large portion of the shattered hulk on a reef eastward of Fitzroy Island, 25 miles still ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... congregation, he wad say to me, 'they may pray that stand the risk, Peggy Bryce, for I've made insurance.' He was a merry man, Doctor; but he had the root of the matter in him, for a' his light way of speaking, as deep as ony skipper that ever loosed anchor from Leith Roads. I hae been a forsaken creature since his death—O the weary days and nights that I have had!—and the weight on the spirits—the spirits, Doctor!—though I canna say I hae been easier since I hae been at the ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... vessels ever find their way, say from Hangoe to Nystad, is a mystery to the uninitiated landsman. At a certain place there are no less than 300 islands of various sizes crowded into an area of six square miles! Heaven preserve the man who finds himself there, in thick weather, with a skipper who does not ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... general use among the Chinese for performing the ordinary computations of addition, subtraction, &c., thinking it a grand article of curiosity, particularly in a remote seaport town on the east coast, with which to astonish the natives. But what was my chagrin when I was informed by an honest Baltic skipper, that to him, at least the instrument was no rarity at all; that he had seen them used hundreds of times for the same purposes at various ports in the Baltic; and that, moreover, he had one of them in his home at that very time, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 54, November 9, 1850 • Various
... we reached the roarin' forties. The skipper knew how to handle sailors, you bet he did. When they came aft to kick about the grub he knocked 'em down ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... all up. The skipper, most likely, had finished his tea, and the mate was hard at work at his, when the leak had been discovered, or some derelict had been run into, or whatever ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... when there landed at St. Andrews a French barber- surgeon, to tend the health and the beard of the great Cardinal Beaton; I have shaken a spear in the Debateable Land and shouted the slogan of the Elliots; I was present when a skipper, plying from Dundee, smuggled Jacobites to France after the '15; I was in a West India merchant's office, perhaps next door to Bailie Nicol Jarvie's, and managed the business of a plantation in St. Kitt's; ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sir, and it's a bad job as those boats was launched; they'd all have been better here if the skipper ...
— King o' the Beach - A Tropic Tale • George Manville Fenn
... remarked as the two boys glanced at each other. "That must mean it's plenty big news! It would have to be, skipper, to top all the other jobs you and your dad ...
— Tom Swift and The Visitor from Planet X • Victor Appleton
... to be the skipper of a vessel, inquired for Cutler, and gave him a letter, who said as soon as he had read it, "Slick, our cruise has come to a sudden termination. Blowhard has purchased and fitted out his whaler, and only awaits my return to take ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... the South Seas, he found that no inconsiderable portion of their crews consisted of Americans, some of whom enlisted on board his own vessel; and among the crews of the American whalers were many British. In fact, though the skipper of each ship might brag loudly of his nationality, yet in practical life he knew well enough that there was very little to choose between a Yankee and a Briton. [Footnote: What choice there was, was in favor of the ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... on her way to the town, and saw the gun fired which announced her arrival. The steamer was so near, that we could scan the faces of everybody on board, and hear enthusiastic congratulations on their safe arrival after their tedious voyage. The skipper conferred with the Morro guard. What was the ship's name? Where did she hail from? Who was her captain? Where was she bound for? A needless demand, I thought, seeing that there is no water navigable beyond the town; ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... canvas snugly furled upon them and the booms; the red ensign streamed from the gaff-end; and the burgee, or house flag—a red star in a white diamond upon a blue field—cut with a swallow tail in the present instance to indicate that her skipper was the commodore of the fleet—fluttered at ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... had turned her round and was making headway against the waves, but still her bow would not lift, and the captain wept still more. His womanish behaviour disgusted me. At last a quiet passenger, an experienced sailor, gave some advice, which the skipper followed, and which helped matters a little, so that he regained his self-control to the extent of calling a general council; he announced that he dared not continue the voyage, and asked our consent to return to Noumea. We ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... eyes, and boats put out all along the coast to inquire; and within two or three hours the pinnace was back again in Rye harbour, with news that set bells ringing and men shouting. On Wednesday, the skipper reported, there had been an indecisive engagement during the dead calm that had prevailed in the Channel; a couple of Spanish store-vessels had been taken on the following morning, and a general action had followed, which again had been indecisive; but ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... Harding[2] presenting unto us a certificate in the Dutch language with the seale of Amsterdam affixed to it that the ship called in the certificate the holy ghost togather with the skipper thereof did belong unto the united provinces (Although at the first arrivall of the s'd ship diverse rumors were spread which did render them suspitious to have unjustly surprised the s'd ship) whereupon the Counsell thought it there duty to enquire into ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... blundered slowly along the road, the weary cattle swinging from side to side under the lash of the bullocky, who yelled hoarse profanity with the volubility of an auctioneer and the vocabulary of a Yankee skipper unchecked by authority. A little further on another team, drawn up before a hotel, lay sprawling, half buried, the patient bullocks twisted into painful angles by reason of their yokes, quietly chewing the cud. Riders and drivers conformed to no rule ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... to do anything unnecessarily, while Neb was far too humble to aspire to such an office while Master Miles was there, willing and ready. In that day, indeed, it was so much a matter of course for the skipper of a Hudson river craft to steer, that most of the people who lived on the banks of the stream imagined that Sir John Jervis, Lord Anson, and the other great English admirals of whom they had read and heard, usually amused themselves with that employment, ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... harsh, easterly weather, the swell ran pretty high, and out in the open there were "skipper's daughters," when I found myself at last on the diver's platform, twenty pounds of lead upon each foot and my {172} whole person swollen with ply and ply of woollen underclothing. One moment, the salt wind was whistling round my ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... was shortened, and the ship hove- to. The bodies of the five poor fellows who had fallen in the attack of the previous night were placed in the lee gangway, sewn up in their hammocks, each with an eighteen-pound shot at his feet, and the ensign spread over them as a pall. The skipper stationed himself at their heads with the prayer-book in his hand, and, having looked along the deck fore and aft to satisfy himself that everything was as it should be, took off his cocked hat, the rest of us ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... hundred yards, and then striking boldly into the current; and it was amusing to see our well-crammed boat suddenly drawn into the rapid stream and whisked and whirled about like a straw, while a nice calculation on the part of the skipper, and a good deal of rowing and shouting on that of the sailors, enabled us to touch the opposite shore not very far below the point from which we had started. One last lingering look at Cashmerian ground, a step over the side, and we were once more standing upon the ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... "Your sister, skipper?" said the old salt. "Shiver my topsails if I've seen any thing in the shape of a gal, except this old craft of mine here, since you all left your ...
— Jessie Carlton - The Story of a Girl who Fought with Little Impulse, the - Wizard, and Conquered Him • Francis Forrester
... J.D.A. Vincent, and at the same time Lieut. Langdale was appointed 2nd in Command of "C." There were also other changes, for Major R.E. Martin was given Command of the 4th Battalion, and was succeeded as 2nd in Command by Major W.S.N. Toller, while Captain C. Bland became skipper of ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... When Jones shook his head, Cochrane said harassedly; "Better get one picked out. But when we make out our sail-off papers, for destination we'll say, 'To the stars.' A nice line for the news broadcasts. Oh, yes. Tell Bill Holden to try to find us a skipper. An astrogator. Somebody who can tell us how to get back if we get anywhere we need to get back from. Is there such ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... are past away, When, doomed in upper floors to star it. The bard inscribed to lords his lay,— Himself, the while, my Lord Mountgarret. No more he begs with air dependent. His "little bark may sail attendant" Under some lordly skipper's steerage; But launched triumphant in the Row, Or taken by Murray's self in tow. Cuts both ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... I told you I was born at sea. My father was a merchant skipper of Boston. I don't remember him very well, for he died when I was seven, but I have a vague sort of an idea that he was a big man with big dark eyes and a great nose like the beak of a bird. He had ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... task and the barge swept on by the forts. A Yankee sloop overhauled and surveyed them. If its skipper had entertained suspicions they were dissipated by the presence of Solomon Binkus ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... Adventurous Merchant Skippers.—Foreign trade at Athens is fairly well systematized, but it still partakes of the nature of an adventure. The name for "skipper" (naukleros) is often used interchangeably for "merchant." Nearly all commerce is by sea, for land routes are usually slow, unsafe, and inconvenient[*]; the average foreign trader is also a shipowner, probably too the actual working captain. He has no special commodity, but will handle everything ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... The skipper, a sun-burned young fellow, was showing a row of strong white teeth at some sally from the lady when ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... The politic skipper for once preferred to answer Lady Tozer. "There is no cause for uneasiness," he said. "Of course, typhoons in the China Sea are nasty things while they last, but a ship like the Sirdar is not troubled by them. She will drive through the worst gale she is likely to meet here in ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... "Seems like it." The skipper went on eating for some moments in silence. His curiosity was satisfied. Nor did Kars attempt to break the silence. He ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... a skipper of Dyrevig called Bardun. He was so headstrong that there was no doing anything with him. Whatever he set his mind upon, that should be done, he said, and done it ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... just going to suggest it," said the skipper of the Dora, and soon they were turning toward shore. A good landing place was found and the houseboat was tied up near several large trees in ...
— The Rover Boys on the Plains - The Mystery of Red Rock Ranch • Arthur Winfield
... [A Bold Skipper] It was a glorious sight to see the fleet get under way the next morning. Many a close shave and more bumps but no serious collisions were caused by the twenty or more vessels crowding out together through ...
— Bowdoin Boys in Labrador • Jonathan Prince (Jr.) Cilley
... countenances of the starboard watch whilst listening to this address; but on its conclusion there was a general move towards the forecastle, and we soon were all busily engaged in getting ready for the holiday so auspiciously announced by the skipper. During these preparations his harangue was commented upon in no very measured terms; and one of the party, after denouncing him as a lying old son of a seacook who begrudged a fellow a few hours' liberty, exclaimed with an oath, 'But you don't bounce ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... sort of life, he called it. No opportunities, no experience, no variety, nothing. Some fine men came out of it—he admitted—but no more chance in the world if put to it than fly. Kids. So Captain Harry Dunbar. Good sailor. Great name as a skipper. Big man; short side- whiskers going grey, fine face, loud voice. A good fellow, but no more up to people's ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... motto. I've left the ship; no more letter of marque for me. Good-bye to Kit French, privateersman's mate; and how-d'ye-do to Christopher, the coasting skipper. I've seen the very boat for me: I've enough to buy her, too; and to furnish a good house, and keep a shot in the locker for bad luck. So far, there's nothing to gainsay. So far it's hopeful enough; but still there's Admiral ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... some years ago," interrupted Lingard, "I chummed with a French skipper in Ampanam—being the only two white men in the whole place. He was a good fellow, and free with his red wine. His English was difficult to understand, but he could sing songs in his own language about ah-moor—Ah-moor means ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... to the Captain of the Hydrographer, the bluff skipper set the young man down as a college boy in search of sociological experience and therefore to be viewed with good-humored tolerance—good-humored, because Dan was six feet tall and had combative red-gold hair. His steel eyes were shaded by long straw-colored lashes; he had ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... of years than you would like to add up on your slate, a certain sailor-boy sailed on the high seas with his uncle, who was a skilled skipper. And the boy could reef a sail and coil a rope and keep the ship's nose steady before the wind. And he was as good a boy as you would find in a month of Sundays, and worthy to be ...
— The Book of Dragons • Edith Nesbit
... agreed the skipper of the disabled craft. "Hit a submerged log," he explained to Tom, as the work of rescue proceeded. "Stove a hole in the bow, but we stuffed coats and things in, and made it a slow leak. Kept the engine going as long as we could, but I thought no one ...
— Tom Swift among the Fire Fighters - or, Battling with Flames from the Air • Victor Appleton
... just to show that there was some red underneath the green, and climbed aboard the omnibus. I rode along for a spell, admirin' as much of the scenery as I could see between the women's hats, then I told the skipper of the thing that I wanted to make port at 82nd Street. He said 'Ugh,' apparently suff'rin' from the same complaint the dog woman had, and we went on and on. At last I got kind of ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... thought of war—a good-tempered, if dull and bibulous old man, he had seemed in the midst of semi-civilian routine; but a different party here afield. Peter recalled the saying of old sailors that you never know a skipper ...
— Red Fleece • Will Levington Comfort
... the happy bridegroom, was evidently still in the adoring stage, so he listened complacently to his wife's silly badinage with the skipper, whom she informed, apparently for the information of the company, that she was just nineteen, but winced a little at her further admission that they had ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... too late? Is it still possible to survive? The ship is now indeed upon the rocks and the skipper in his bunk below drinking bottled ditchwater. But perhaps a Captain Shotover, drunk on the milk of human kindness rather than rum, will emerge upon the quarterdeck and, blowing his whistle, call all hands on deck before the last rending crash. In that unlikely event, one of those emerging from ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... forty feet sentries met and parted, so indifferent to us, apparently, that we wondered if we might get nearer. We ventured, but at a certain moment a sentry called to us, "Fifty yards off, please!" Our young skipper answered, "All right," and as the sentry had a gun on his shoulder which we had every reason to believe was loaded, it was easily our pleasure to retreat to the specified limit. In fact, we came away altogether, after that, so little promise was ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Corbett," Strong replied. "Log yourself in as skipper with me along as supercargo. I'll ride in ...
— Stand by for Mars! • Carey Rockwell
... lands. England was a good customer of the colonies, and Boston shipowners did a thriving trade with oil from New Bedford or Nantucket to London. The sloops and ketches engaged in this commerce brought back, as an old letter of directions from shipowner to skipper shows, "course wicker flasketts, Allom, Copress, drum rims, head snares, shod shovells, window-glass." The trade was conducted with the same piety that we find manifested in the direction of slave-ships and privateers. In order that the oil may fetch a good price, and the ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... he or his skipper hailed me just now and wanted to know whether you were here, I said you were. The fellow asked me if I was going into the harbor. I said I was. So he gave me a message for you—that they would hang about outside for half an hour or so, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... The skipper rolled his quid of tobacco in his cheek reflectively a moment. "Well, no," he said, "I guess nothin' to speak of. They're too busy answering the batteries; it's only the stray shot that comes our way. There's a thousand ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 5 • Various
... hours, as I have sat in the Tontine Tower, drinking the bad port wine, for, after spending a fortune in telegraphic messages to Holyhead, it has been decided that B— cannot come on, and I have been forced to rig up a Glasgow merchant skipper into a ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... forget our large basket which we had had so much difficulty in finding, and which excited so much attention and attracted so much curiosity towards ourselves all the way to John o' Groat's. It even caused the skipper to take a friendly interest in us, for after our explanation he stored that ancient basket amongst ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... be the skipper of the expedition, because of his superior knowledge of boats in general, and also his possessing the chart of ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... same. I bought that craft because—well, because she reminded me of old times, I cal'late. I used to command a schooner like her once; bigger and lots more able, of course, but a fishin' schooner, same as she used to be. And I was a good skipper, if I do say it. My crews jumped when I said the word, now I tell you. That's where I belong—on the deck of a vessel. ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... all at once by people who have been neglected for centuries. But there can be no radical defect in them, for they work hard enough in America, and under strict taskmasters too, for a Yankee farmer is like a Yankee skipper, inclined to pay good wages, but to insist on the money being earned. So far as discipline is concerned there is no better soldier or soldier-servant than a Western Irishman, none more patient under difficulty and privation, none so full of cheerfulness and resource. Probably ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... owners!" exclaimed Kitchell. "I ain't a skipper of no oil-boat any longer. I'm a beach-comber." He fixed the wallowing bark with glistening eyes. "Gawd strike me," he murmured, "ain't she a daisy? It's a little Klondike. Come ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... leave—and I wint down to Yaquina Bay with Captain Tyler on his tin gas schooner, thinkin' to mesilf it was a holiday—and all the fun I had was insthructin' the gasoline engineer in the mysteries of how to expriss one's sintimints without injurin' the skipper's feelin's? Well, I landed in the bay and walked about in the woods, which is foine for the smell of thim which is like fresh tar; and one afternoon I find two legs and small feet stickin' out of a hole under a stump. I pulled on the ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... to Norway and had a prosperous voyage, and Audunn spent the following winter with the skipper Thorir, who had a farm in Morr. The summer after that, they sailed out to Greenland, where they ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... anything like that between us until the night before we were to leave the fishing grounds for home. In the afternoon we had set our trawls, and, leaving the vessel, the skipper had said, "Our last set, boys. Let 'em lay to-night, and in the morning we'll haul;" and, returning aboard after setting, we had our supper and were making ready, such as had no watch to stand, to turn in for a good, long sleep against the ...
— The Trawler • James Brendan Connolly
... confusion than was incidental to a general and hasty rummaging of sea-chests and lockers in search of those magic protections on which hung the immediate destiny of every man in the ship, excepting only the skipper, his mate and that privileged person, the boatswain. The muster effected, the officer next subjected each protection to the closest possible scrutiny, for none who knew the innate trickery of seamen would ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... temptations now, nor to any risks. Right onwards he went to the docks, addressed himself to a grave, elderly master of a trading vessel, bound upon a distant voyage, and instantly procured an engagement. The skipper was a good and sensible man, and (as it turned out) a sailor accomplished in all parts of his profession. The ship which he commanded was a South Sea whaler, belonging to Lord Grenville—whether lying at Liverpool or in the Thames at that moment, I ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... white flag. Have to be jolly careful, you see. Either give the thing a wide berth, and wireless the destroyers to take possession of the prize, or else cut the brute in two. Anyhow, something funny did happen. There were two fellows in mufti standing close to the skipper on the submarine's deck. Goodness only knows why they did it, but I saw one ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... A skipper gray, whose eye's were dim, Could tell by tasting, just the spot, And so below, he'd "dowse the glim,"— After, of course, ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... in the town that the place was haunted on moonlight nights by the spirit of a woman who had perished in the wreck. It had been a French vessel, wrecked five years before, and all on board were drowned—six men and one woman, the wife of the skipper. They had all been buried in one grave in the little cemetery that was on the top of the headland; and it was easy to see how the superstition of the haunting came about, for as the curate watched the spray on the rock near the wreck ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... one afternoon, it began to rain, and after the rain came a gale from the eastward. The watchful skipper saw it purple the water to windward, and ordered the topsails to be reefed and the lee ports closed. This last order seemed an excess of precaution; but Dodd was not yet thoroughly acquainted with his ship's qualities: and the hard cash round his neck made ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... delay, and it was almost the end of the long vacation. Charles Audley undertook to go to Trieste with the travellers, and make inquiries about Zoraya and her first husband. Sir Robert, the Skipper, as the family still termed him, had written for his yacht to meet him there, and be ready for him to convey the party to Sicily. He professed that he could not lose sight of Franceska, with whom he declared himself nearly ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... devil's own work in the night. The skipper says we shall have to stay at Genoa for a week while things ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... Outer Holm we called "America," Graemsay Island was "Africa," and the Ness Point was "Spain," while a small rock that stood far out in the bay was "St. Helena." Tom Kinlay was, by his own appointment, our skipper; Robbie Rosson and Willie Hercus were classed able seamen; and my dog, Selta, and I were called upon to do duty for both passengers and cargo, curiously enough, sailing with ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... hand, there's many a man as has giv' the helm into the hands of his old woman and made a better v'yage thereby; and I don't mind sayin', sir, that havin' while follerin' the water got into the habit of allowin' her for to be skipper in the house durin' my short stoppin's on shore, it got for to be so much the custom, that since comin' home for a full due I ain't never tried for to break away from it; and though human natur' is falliable, and she does make mistakes, especially ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... of the London season; and Malcolm was now almost in despair of ever being of the least service to her as a brother to whom as a servant he had seemed at one time of daily necessity. If he might but once be her skipper, her groom, her attendant, he might then at least learn how to discover to her the bond between them, without breaking it in the very act, and so ruining the hope of ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... Hesperus, That sailed the wintry sea; And the skipper had taken his little daughter, To ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... and swept over the deck. And thus, for the space of fourteen days went the Good Intent and her inmates, tossed to and fro on the German Ocean, with no comfort to mitigate the extreme of such unwonted sufferings, save the rough but hearty kindness of the skipper and crew, when their cares on deck left them a moment to go below, and offer any attention in their power. I have made many rough voyages since the time alluded to; but this one dwells on my memory like the visions in a wild and troubled dream, surpassing all I have ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... gallant skipper of the British collier, slouching with a heavy load of grime for London, or waddling back in ballast to his native North, alike is delighted to discover storms ahead, and to cast his tarry anchor into soft gray calm. For here shall he find the good shelter of friends like-minded with himself, ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... from a routine training flight that had taken them to the moons of Jupiter, the three cadets, Corbett, Manning, and Astro, and their unit skipper, Captain Steve Strong, completed the delicate task of setting the great ship down on the ...
— Danger in Deep Space • Carey Rockwell
... the Stazy scarcely expected to see a German periscope during the run to Reef Harbor. Yet they did not neglect watching out for something of the kind. Skipper Phil Gordon, a young man with one arm but a full and complete knowledge of this coast and how to coax speed out of a gasoline engine, ordered his "crew" of one boy to remain sharply ...
— Ruth Fielding Down East - Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point • Alice B. Emerson
... some moments, and cried; but only one hope was in life; The hood upon baby I tied—I fastened the shawl on my wife. The skipper took charge of the child—he stuck to his word till the last; But only this hood on the wild, bitter shore of ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... only a few people who live there, and they are principally wood-cutters," continued the skipper. "But they are true as steel, and you can trust them with your life. I have bought wood of them for years and know them like a book. I will go ashore with you and give you a good send-off. We shall get there ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... a skipper, and you actually don't know how the deductions are made which come off before the nett produce is halved?-Of course I have asked about these things, and I have been told that there were no other deductions taken ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... the yarn wot Sergeant Wells O' 'Is Majesty's Marine Told in the mess 'bout seven bells— 'E's the skipper's servant an' knows a lot; An' I don't say it's true and I don't say it's not, But it easily ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 9, 1917 • Various
... sinking rapidly by the head, with the twisting sidelong motion that was soon to aim her on her course two miles down. Murdock saw the skipper swept out; but did not move. Captain Smith was but one of a multitude of lost at that moment. Murdock may have known that the last desperate thought of the gray mariner was to get upon his bridge and ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... so," he exclaimed. "Even in the little I saw of them this evening I thought there was something in the wind. I guess that accounts for the whole thing. What do you say, skipper?" ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... Francis who had been in chains, and set them to work their own ship under command of Herriot and another pirate. He undertook to sail the James himself, for by this time he was really an able skipper, despite the fact that he had taken to the sea so late in life. As the crew of the Francis lined up before going aboard, the notorious buccaneer faced them with a cold glitter in his eyes. For a while he kept them wriggling under his piercing scrutiny. ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... way depends upon perfect solution; existing approximations are sufficient to a point of accuracy far beyond what can be wanted.[355] And geometry, content with what exists, has long passed on to other matters. Sometimes a cyclometer persuades a skipper who has made land in the wrong place that the astronomers are in fault, for using a wrong measure of the circle; and the skipper thinks it a very comfortable solution! And this is the utmost that the problem ever has ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... quarter of an hour they were on the wharf. Many of the craft there had no one on board, the men having gone either to join the rioters or to look on at what had been done. The skipper of a large fishing-boat was sitting on the wharf looking moodily down into ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... people whose like she had never before seen. And their speech, plentifully sprinkled with colloquialisms of a salt flavor, amused her, and sometimes puzzled her. Some of the men who rode short distances in the car wore fishermen's boots and jerseys. They called the conductor "skipper," and hailed each other in ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... about it. This pleasure and enjoyment make one with the thought in those who, from self-love or love of the world, believe in one's own prudence. The thought glides along in its enjoyment like a ship in a river current to which the skipper does not attend, attending only to the sails ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg
... so many prizes in the South Pacific that his supply of older officers ran out, and twelve-year old David Farragut was appointed prize-master of one of them, with orders to take her to Valparaiso. When Farragut gave his first order, her skipper, a hot-tempered old sea-dog, flew into a rage, and declaring that he had "no idea of trusting himself with a blamed nutshell," rushed below for his pistols. The twelve-year-old commander shouted after him that, if he came on deck again, he would be thrown overboard, and thenceforth was master ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... mourned and dreamed away these first days of the family's return to their town house, old Aaron Rockharrt was sifting the evidence of the story told by Captain Ross; he proved the truth of the skipper's account; and he failed to connect the young man's late visit on that fatal night with the almost ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... I was not homeward bound in that craft. She had come into port a month before and had reported three men missing from her papers. There were no witnesses; but the sight of the rest of the crew told the story of the disappearance of their shipmates, and the skipper had been clapped into jail. I had heard of the ruffian's sinister record before, and inwardly hoped he would get his deserts for his brutality, although I knew there was little chance for it. He belonged to the class ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... the stage with Titans, and forming them with Titanic thoughts, and endowing them with Titanic voices, has rendered it indispensable for all the little fellows of the present time to be prodigiously Titanic too. Did you ever hear the skipper of a steamer bellowing and roaring through a speaking-trumpet, when his ordinary voice could have had no effect amidst the awful noises of a hurricane, and the sea and the breakers under his lee? Nothing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... go, neither!" he declared. "Doggone you, Van, you know we won't go without the skipper, and you're shovin' ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... I find that some wretched government or other, hard pushed, and on its last legs, is interceding with me, the reader, to vote for it,—mere importunate than an Italian beggar; and if I have a mind to look at its certificate, made, perchance, by some benevolent merchant's clerk, or the skipper that brought it over, for it cannot speak a word of English itself, I shall probably read of the eruption of some Vesuvius, or the overflowing of some Po, true or forged, which brought it into this condition. I do not ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... an evasive, discouraged-looking person, heavy-headed, and stooping so that one could never look him in the face, that even after his friendly exclamation about Monroe Pennell, the lobster smack's skipper, and the sleepy boy, I did not venture at once to speak again. Mr. Tilley was carrying a small haddock in one hand, and presently shifted it to the other hand lest it might touch my skirt. I knew that my company ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett
... curst," said the skipper; "speak her fair: I'm scary always to see her shake Her wicked head, with its wild gray hair, And nose like a hawk, and eyes like a snake." But merrily still, with laugh and shout, From Hampton river the boat sailed out, Till the huts and the flakes on Star seemed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... aboard one of the vessels—a coaster from Boston. The wind was still blowing pretty hard from the southeast. There were maybe a dozen vessels lying within the inlet at that time, and the captain of one of them was paying the Boston skipper a visit when Blackbeard came aboard. The two captains had been talking together. They instantly ceased when the pirate came down into the cabin, but he had heard enough of their conversation to catch its drift. "Why d'ye ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... of the fine Chinese river-boats was signalised by what might have been a fatal catastrophe but for the skilful manoeuvring of his ship by the veteran American skipper. ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... where be all those mariners bold who used to control the sea, The Admiral great and the bo'sun's mate and the skipper who skipped so free? O what has become of our midshipmites, the terror of every foe, And the captain brave who dares the wave when the stormy winds ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley
... True enough, Skipper Broome had come from a long line of New England farmers, hard, close-fisted, close-mouthed men. Young Broome had broken away from the farm, and followed his bent for seafaring, but to the end of his rope, and his days, he kept his farmer-like appearance, and he affected many of the traits of ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... ever-ready Sam; 'jes you wait where you are one minute.' In less than that time the agile Sam had rounded up Miss Denby and had her walking along the beach by the side of Captain Abner, and whether she thought that skilful skipper was going to show her some rare seaweed or the state of his mind, Sam considered not for one minute. He had brought the two together, and that was all ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... to the next seaport to find another berth, since I've refused to sail on the Huntress," he explained in answer to her questions. "Mr. Martin has had to get a new skipper and a new crew, for none of the old hands would sail when they heard it was against your father's wishes. There was a bark came in from Delaware to be laid up for repairs, with mostly Swedes aboard, and they have manned the Huntress from her. The ship is to sail on Friday ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... death-ship keeps her track While the ships of men sail on, For God is her skipper and helmsman, too, And knoweth ...
— Pan and Aeolus: Poems • Charles Hamilton Musgrove
... by which the lot of us could have made a lot of money. Needless to say, we were ready enough to go in with them. Already they had a scheme of getting a ship such as they particularly needed. There was at that time lying at Hong-Kong a sort of tramp steamer, the Elizabeth Robinson, the skipper of which wanted a crew for a trip to Chemulpo, up the Yellow Sea. Salter Quick got himself into the confidence and graces of this skipper, and offered to man his ship for him, and he packed her as far as he could—with his own brother, ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... ruffian skipper, "here take this and this and this!" and he distributed the contents of his revolver ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 17, 1891 • Various
... each other. Della surreptitiously squeezed Frank's hand beneath the table. This promised to be interesting. The Brownell place was one of the delightful bugaboos of their childhood. Old Captain Brownell, a Yankee whaling skipper, was long since dead. The house had stood boarded up and untenanted for years. Tradition declared he had committed acts of piracy on the high seas during the period of his whaling voyages and that, having retired uncaught, he had come down to this secluded nook and built the great house in order ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... and swiftness which were part of his manner, the Sicilian skipper bent forward and laid a brown finger ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... the voyage, and giving money amongst the sailors, he desired that his portmanteau might be put into the wherry. The honest fellows, in gratitude to the bounty of their passenger, struggled who should obey his commands, when the skipper, angry at being detained, snatched away the baggage, and flinging it into the boat, leaped in after it, and was followed ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... passion. Almost immediately afterwards, however, he decided that he must have been mistaken in supposing this, for as Walford looked up and recognised him he stopped dead in the road for a moment, and then hurried towards the skipper with outstretched ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... any considerable period of time. Very well, then, this is the condition of affairs. If ever there was a time when those in authority should avoid spreading alarm this was the time. By all the traditions of the maritime service it devolved upon the skipper to remain calm, cool and collected. But what does the poet reveal to a lot ...
— A Plea for Old Cap Collier • Irvin S. Cobb
... something!" He stared at both of us with an almost startled expression, as if he could not believe his own verdict, yet could not get away from it. "Else you'd give the Bundesrath story to the papers! That German skipper's conduct ought to be bruited round the world! You said you'd do it. You promised us! You told the man to his face ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... sailors always hauling at something that interfered with the inspection-drill: every one in the wrong place, and each cursing his neighbour for stupidity. At last the shore-boats boarded us, as if our confusion wanted anything to increase it. Red-faced harbour-masters shook hands with the skipper and pilot, and disappeared into the "round-house" to discuss grog and the gales. Officers from the garrison came out to welcome their friends—for it was the second battalion we had on board of a regiment whose first had been ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... river we can I think nearly live on the fish we get there. From there too, there are more signs of caribou. About four days more and we ought to reach a remnant of flour we threw away. It was wet and lumpy, but we will welcome it now. It, if it is usable, will see us to the head of Grand Lake, where Skipper Blake has a cache, I think, in a winter hunting shanty. It promises to be a hungry trip, but it is a man's game. Now that we are starting home I am content with the trip and the material. We've done all we could. Our minds turn to home even more and we are anxious to be back. So hungry ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... see the little, vessel running away from the great broad-backed rollers which rolled over the shore far above. Every now and then she shipped a sea, and once her deck was quite full of water, up to the gunwale nearly.' And as for her future skipper, he says, 'I had plenty of work at navigation. It really is very puzzling at first; so much to remember—currents, compass, variation, sun's declination, equation of time, lee way, &c. But I think I have done my work pretty well ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... they had spent some time in this manner of conversation, began to look at his watch. "Carlson's pretty prompt," said he—"that's the skipper of the Columbia. We'll be hearin' her whistle ...
— The Young Alaskans in the Rockies • Emerson Hough
... the course of my first visit to the villa, some further particulars respecting her brother Tom, the potato-thrower of Covent Garden Market. Mr. Thomas Blake, it seemed, was the proprietor and skipper of a barge. A pleasant enough fellow when sober, but too much given to what Kit described as "his drop." He had apparently left home under something of a cloud, though whether this had anything to do with "father's trousers" I never knew. Kit said she had not ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... mistake me, I don't pretend to have seen anything or heard anything extraordinary in the ordinary way of seeing or hearing. Only I was dead sure that he was there with the same old entreaty. Afterwards I lighted a pipe, went above, talked to the skipper's wife, read, investigated my boy's and also my dog's welfare rather perfunctorily, settled down to saying an evening Office, made an end more or less of that, just as night came on, and then again took time to think over things. I remembered that he would have possibly ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... that U-boat fight the skipper, first officer, chief engineer, and myself were trying our French on a waiter in a cafe ashore, but not quite putting it over; we had to resort to a little English to get action for one important item of our meal. A party of American ...
— The U-boat hunters • James B. Connolly
... long, long time came also a skipper who wished to see the mill. He asked if it could make salt. "Yes, it could make salt," said he who owned it, and when the skipper heard that, he wished with all his might and main to have the mill, let it cost what it might, for, he thought, if he had ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... thought that she was a New England trader, or rather huxter, ladened with notions, such as apples, dried and green, apple-sauce, onions, cheese, molasses, New England rum, and gingerbread, and a number of little ditto's, suitable, as the skipper thought, for the Quebec market, after it should have ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... spectre ship, formerly supposed to haunt the Cape of Good Hope. The tradition of seamen was that a Dutch skipper, irritated with a foul wind, swore by donner and blitzen, that he would beat into Table Bay in spite of God or man, and that, foundering with the wicked oath on his lips, he has ever since been working off and on near the Cape. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... somehow struck his fancy, raised in angry protest, followed by the crack of a whip, and much loud laughing, the skipper of the brigantine had pushed into a ...
— Darry the Life Saver - The Heroes of the Coast • Frank V. Webster
... been laid by for some fowls which we brought to sea with us, but the fowls were killed. There had been some barley and wheat together, but, to my great disappointment, I found afterwards that the rats had eaten or spoiled it all. As for liquors, I found several cases of bottles belonging to our skipper, in which were some cordial waters, and in all above five or six gallons of rack: these I stowed by themselves, there being no need to put them into the chest, nor no room for them. While I was ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... to pass that, on a fine sunny day, the company's yacht, the Half Moon, having been on one of its stated visits to Fort Aurania, was quietly tiding it down the Hudson; the commander, Govert Lockerman, a veteran Dutch skipper of few words but great bottom, was seated on the high poop, quietly smoking his pipe, under the shadow of the proud flag of Orange, when, on arriving abreast of Bearn Island, he was saluted by a stentorian voice from the shore, ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving |
