"Boatman" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in everything. Steam-boatmen were the natural successors of these pioneers—a shade less coarse, a thought less profane, a veneer less barbaric. But these things were mainly "above stairs." You had but to scratch lightly a mate or a deck-hand to find the old keel-boatman savagery. Captains were overlords, and pilots kings in this estate; but they were not angels. In Life on the Mississippi Clemens refers to his chief's explosive vocabulary and tells us how he envied the mate's manner of giving an order. It was easier to acquire those things than piloting, ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... YACHTSMAN'S HANDBOOK, by Herbert L. Stone. The author and compiler of this work is the editor of "Yachting." He treats in simple language of the many problems confronting the amateur sailor and motor boatman. Handling ground tackle, handling lines, taking soundings, the use of the lead line, care and use of sails, yachting etiquette, are all given careful attention. Some light is thrown upon the operation ...
— Taxidermy • Leon Luther Pray
... interested in keeping him in power and unfettered, and he watched eagerly for an opportunity to remove the man who thwarted him. Mucka, the King's head tailor, was equally anxious, for his own interests, to get rid of the favourite, and so was Gunga Khowas, a boatman, another personal servant and favourite of the King. These three men soon interested in their cause some of the most influential ladies of the palace, and all sought with avidity the opportunity to effect their object. Ghalib Jung was the person, or one of the ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... right to-day?" asked Donald, smiling, for he was well aware that every boatman has a good excuse for the ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic
... what he supposed to be a boatman in his way. On arriving at his next landing he learned that a huge rock had fallen from the mountain into the bed of the stream, and that a signal was placed there to warn the coming boats of the unknown danger. Alas! many regard ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Dwight Moody
... stranger, with soft, dark eyes, appeared once not far from Muircarrie, and he married a boatman's daughter. He was very restless one night, and got up and left her, and she never saw him again; but a few days later a splendid dead seal covered with wounds was washed up near his cottage. The fishers say that his ...
— The White People • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... is probably no river on earth that has heard so many vows of love as the St. Lawrence; for there is not a Canadian boatman that has ever passed up or down the river without repeating, as the blade of his oar dropped into the stream, and as it arose, the ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... enough to walk to and from their bathing tents, clothed and unashamed. Strange to say, Broadstairs has placed its ladies' machines nearest the pier, for the benefit of loungers armed with glasses; and I must not forget to mention that the boatman himself holds a daily levee of mermaidens, who make direct for his boat and gambol around the prow. If anything needs reforming in our marine manners, it is rather the male costume. Why we men are allowed to go about like savages, clothed ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... there is no place for the sprites whose voices the ancients heard in the twilight silence. How could any properly constituted nymph play hide-and-seek with the moonbeams, or cast an eye upon a handsome boatman, from under the well-regulated bank of a river of to-day? As far as present-day mortals are concerned, any stream means water-power, any river means a waterway for commerce, and those thus engaged after the day's work turn away from river ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... drew up to the landing, and disembarked a passenger. That he was not the person she was expecting became instantly apparent. She glanced at him once, and then, satisfied he was a stranger in whom she had no interest, resumed study of the bay. He, however, after dropping something in the boatman's hand, turned, and walked to the gateway, and ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... if gone to sleep. Our instinct told us that he was not dead. We thanked God, and each one of us sent up a silent prayer. Then we cried for help and a boatman who lived a quarter of a mile away came up. He took up Ram Lal in his arms and as he was doing it tr—rrrrrrrrrr—went Ram Lal's long coat. The unfortunate lad had hammered the skirt of his long coat along with the ...
— Indian Ghost Stories - Second Edition • S. Mukerji
... implores him, if he has not forgotten all that scene of bygone love, at least to lift up his eyes and give her one friendly glance. The sad crooning burden of the stanzas in which she repeats this request was very touching. When the boatman had finished, he hung his head and seemed ashamed of feeling the song too much; then, when we asked for another, he said he would sing another about a girl that was happy. This one was in three parts. First, a tuneful address from a maiden to her absent lover; ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... "I don't think any one will suspect that we have left town. I believe my uncle engaged a boatman to pursue the Splash. I saw a schooner, which I think was the Alert, standing up the lake, after we had landed. They will find the Splash in the brook where I left her. Old Jerry was going over after Tom Thornton, and very likely he will reach the cottage some time this afternoon. As it is almost ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... mare was destined to make the experimental trip, and the Governor, with many injunctions and misgivings, committed the end of the tether-rope to the hand of his servant, who belayed it to the stern of the boat, where he seated himself, to act as occasion should require. The boatman rowed till the tether-rope was out at full stretch; his Excellency coaxed and entreated the mare to enter the water, and "shoo-ed!" and "shaa-ed!" and called her a stupid creature, whilst I cracked my whip and jumped about, and rattled my hat, and made as much noise as people ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... they are above all things saint-worshippers. The ejaculations used to stimulate effort show this. The embankment builder in the south-western Panjab invokes the holy breath of Bahawal Hakk, and the Kashmiri boatman's cry "Ya Pir, dast gir," "Oh Saint, lend me a hand," is an appeal ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie
... centuries either to foreign rule or to the influx of strangers on whom they depended. So common is the use of gestures in Italy, especially among the lower and uneducated classes, that utterance without them seems to be nearly impossible. The driver or boatman will often, on being addressed, involuntarily drop the reins or oars, at the risk of a serious accident, to respond with his arms and fingers in accompaniment of his tongue. Nor is the habit confined to the uneducated. ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... forest, the unbroken soil, The iron bark that turns the lumberer's axe, The rapid, that o'erbears the boatman's toil, The prairie, hiding the mazed ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... very like "Kiope 'oul kiopek,"—dog and son of a dog; the oarsmen grinned and pulled harder than ever, and the caique shot past the pier. Paul shrugged his shoulders contemptuously, but did not translate the Turkish ejaculation to his brother. A boatman stood lounging near them, leaning on a stone post, and following the retreating caique ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... word by word as she devised, then she prayed her father that after her death she might be put in a barge in all her richest clothes, the letter fast in her right hand, and that the barge, covered over and over with black samite, might be steered by one boatman only down the Thames ...
— Stories of King Arthur and His Knights - Retold from Malory's "Morte dArthur" • U. Waldo Cutler
... of it, he found life completely changed for him. As a boatman on a strange shore in the night-time drifts without knowing of it, he, in the absorption of his business, drifted away from his old relation without marking the process. His wife had her life and friends, and he had his. He made at times an effort to recover the old relation, but she was too ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... the hill, I walked along the bank of the canal to the west. Presently I came to a barge lying by the bank; the boatman was in it. I entered into conversation with him. He told me that the canal and its branches extended over a great part of England. That the boats carried slates—that he had frequently gone as far as Paddington by the canal—that he was generally three ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... into the curious mist which hung pall-like upon the outer world, and seemed to combine the opposite elements of glare and dulness, just as Tanty, aided by the stalwart arm of the boatman, who had rowed her across, succeeded in dragging her rheumatic limbs up the last bit of ascent to the ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... hard by. When the rustle of the Countess' approach was audible, a boatman suddenly stood up, helped the fair laundress to take her seat in it, and rowed with such strength as to make the boat fly like ...
— The Exiles • Honore de Balzac
... could neither eat a meal nor even get a cup of coffee. Paget made a capital sailor, and, though the old Maltese captain of former days was dead, his two sons, lads then, were dexterous sailors in the rough-and-ready, rule-of-thumb manner of the Levantine boatman, knowing nothing of navigation and little more of geography than Ulysses himself. We had no charts, and only a very primitive compass, but we all had the antique love of adventure and indifference to danger. Leaving Cerigotto, an island out of the line of traditional ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... a cold chicken, some ham, a salad, with other accessaries for lunch, and the added luxury of a gipsy tea-set, having been duly put into a boat, we followed it, and taking our seats, were met with the following query of the boatman, who sat looking at us, his two oars poised ready ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... had to do with the old Bonapartist officers, those brigands of the Loire.' But it is quite impossible to translate into another language the fierce energy of this speech. Arrived at the port, he threw the boatman a few pieces of silver, saying: 'Here, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 443 - Volume 17, New Series, June 26, 1852 • Various
... sets out to fly in bad weather, may be likened to a boat that is being launched from a beach upon a rough and stormy sea. It is the waves close inshore, which may raise his craft only to dash it to destruction, that the boatman has chiefly to fear; and for the aviator, when he leaves the land and embarks upon the aerial sea, or when he returns again from this element and must make his contact with the earth, there lurks a risk ...
— Learning to Fly - A Practical Manual for Beginners • Claude Grahame-White
... fears turned out to be baseless. For instance, one day Johnny Boatman, a little boy not quite four years old, was lost. His mother was almost crazed, for word went out that the Indians had stolen him. A day later the lad was found under a tree, asleep. He had simply ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... correct, the meaning would be—"That (one sense) amongst the senses moving (among their objects) which the mind follows, (that one sense) tosseth the mind's (or the man's) understanding about like the wind tossing a (drunken boatman's) boat on the waters." The parenthetical words are introduced by Sreedhara himself. It may not be out of place to mention here that so far as Bengal, Mithila and Benares are concerned, the authority of Sreedhara is regarded ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... sight is so firmly rooted in Celtic opinion, the tourist or angler who 'has no Gaelic' is not likely to hear much of it. But, when trout refuse to rise, and time hangs heavy in a boat on a loch, it is a good plan to tell the boatman some ghostly Sassenach tales. Then, perhaps, he will cap them from his own store, but point-blank questions from an inquiring southron are of very little use. Nobody likes to be cross-examined on such matters. Unluckily the evidence, for facts not for folklore, is worthless till it has stood ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... thee, sir constable— Rouse thee and look; Fisherman, bring your net, Boatman your hook. Beat in the ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to the Highlands bound, Cries, "Boatman, do not tarry! And I'll give thee a silver pound To row us ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... take de cotton boat from Chester to Columbia. Six slaves handled de flat-boat. Dere was six, as I said, de boatman, two oarsmen, two steermen and an extra man. De steermen was just behind de boatman. Dey steered wid long poles on de way up de river and paddled down de river. De two oarsmen was behind dem. Dey used to pole, too, ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... reach it. An invalid lady of seventy could have enjoyed all that I did if only one could have got her into the passenger's seat. Getting there was a little difficult, it is true; the waterplane was out in the surf, and I was carried to it on a boatman's back, and then had to clamber carefully through the wires, but that is a matter of detail. This flying is indeed so certain to become a general experience that I am sure that this description will in a few years seem almost as quaint as if I had set myself to ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... into one boat. One of the men having stopped John to ask him something, the colonel is given a chance to occupy the same boat, and, when Doctor Chicago arrives, he is told by the boatman that this craft having two passengers, and being smaller than the other, ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... reassured her when she reached his side. "I was dragged a bit and jammed among the boulders." He sank down, and his lips were white with pain, but his gray eyes smiled bravely. The boatman removed his chief's boot and fell to rubbing the injury, while the ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... men who rowed them have never been heard of again. Once in the dungeons of Saint Mark it would be of no use to plead that you had entered into the affair simply for the amusement. The fact that you were not a regular boatman would make the matter all the worse, and the maxim that 'dead men tell no tales' is largely acted upon ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... with now and then a native, and for hardihood, skill, and reliability, cannot be surpassed by any other similar class of men the world over. They are usually men of many parts, can act equally well as guide, boatman, baggage-carrier, purveyor, and cook. They are respectful and chivalrous: no woman, be she old or young, fair or faded, fails to receive the most polite and courteous treatment at their hands, and with these qualities they possess a manly independence that is ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 1, October, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... along the road stopped and regarded the artist curiously. A boatman exchanged civilities with him. He felt that possibly his circumspect attitude and position looked peculiar and unaccountable. Smoking, perhaps, might seem more natural. He drew pipe and pouch from his pocket, ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... they know their playmate, their companion, and best friend; they have hoarded up, since the preceding night, a hundred things to say, and now they have got their loving and attentive listener. "Look what I have done, father," says the chief boatman, "Tom and I together." "Well done, boys!" says the father—and Tom and he are kissed. "I have been locking baby," lisps little Billy, who, in return, gets rocked himself. "Father, what's the capital of Russia?" ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... believes in saving labor even in talking," said he, "but I am not complaining, for he has brought us this far in safety. I'm willing to say he's as good a boatman as I ever saw, and more careful than I feared he would be. Most of these Indians are too lazy to line down, and will take all sorts of chances to save a little work. But I must say Leo has been careful. It has been very rarely we've even shipped a ...
— The Young Alaskans in the Rockies • Emerson Hough
... of supper in the cabin. At the sound of it he rushed up the companion, and found all his crew on deck with their necks cricked back, barring one man, who that moment popped his head up through the fore-hatchway. "What on earth was that?" he asked. "A rocket, sir," said the chief boatman; "just sent up from Prussia Cove." Mr. Wearne couldn't find his breath for a moment; but when he did, 'twas to say, "Very well, John Carter. I've a-got you this time, my dandy! I don't quite understand how you come to be such a fool. But that rocket costs you a hundred pounds, ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... boatman then: "Erewhile was of this town One Anselm, that of worthy lineage came; A wight that spent his youth in flowing gown, Studying his Ulpian: he of honest fame, Beauty, and state assorting with his ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... back to our boat sick at heart. Nobody said a word. We went aboard and made our Greaser boatman head for Yuma. It took us a week to get there. We were all of us glum, but Denton was the worst of the lot. Even after we'd got back to town and fallen into our old ways of life, he couldn't seem to get over it. He seemed plumb possessed ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... signs, and hallooed that they should fetch us; but they either did not understand us, or thought it impracticable, so they went away, and night coming on, we had no remedy but to wait till the wind should abate; and, in the meantime, the boatman and I concluded to sleep, if we could; and so crowded into the scuttle, with the Dutchman, who was still wet, and the spray beating over the head of our boat, leaked through to us, so that we were soon almost as wet as he. In this manner ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... canal making, a gamekeeper, a poacher, an incendiary, a charcoal-burner, a keeper of village ale-houses, and Tom-and-Jerrys; a tramp, a pauper, pacing sullenly in the court-yard of a parish-union, or working in his frieze jacket on some parish-farm; a boatman, a road-side stone-breaker, a quarryman, a journeyman bricklayer, or his clerk; a shepherd, a drover, a rat-catcher, a mole-catcher, and a hundred other things; in any one of which, he is as different from the sheepish, straw-hatted, and ankle-booted, bill-holding fellow of the print-shop ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... beaten off with bucketsful of water and left cursing us from his boat; the last passenger had come aboard at the last moment—a fussy graybeard who kept the big ship waiting while he haggled with his boatman over half a lira. But at length we were off, the tug was shed, the lighthouse passed, and Raffles and I leaned together over the rail, watching our shadows on the pale green, liquid, veined marble that again washed ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... a boatman near by and ordered the man to row him over as fast as he could to the vessel lying in the stream. He had no sooner reached the deck of the Swordfish than he asked for the young person who had ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... night of storm and darkness. No boatman would venture on the Rhine, but Gerbert, anxious to pay the last respects to the body of his beloved, was not to be deterred. With his own hands he unmoored a vessel and sailed across to Oberwoerth. Having landed at that part of the island furthest from the convent, he was ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... to Marazion, Mr. J. ATWOOD.SLATER, from Bristol, in a sea for tranquility suited for the saline venture, swam completely round St. Michael's Mount, Cornwall. Accompanied by a local boatman the swimmer rowed out from the mainland, quitting his boat, and entering ten fathoms in depth of water at two o'clock. A mean distance of a hundred yards from the coast was, whilst the circuit was made, preserved. No ...
— Original Letters and Biographic Epitomes • J. Atwood.Slater
... were no passers-by; not even a boatman nor a lighter-man was in the skiffs which were moored here ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... The boatman nodded emphatically. "But he does it though. He's educated his feet an' his teeth to do things God never meant 'em to." Then in a voice of naive emphasis he demanded, "Did either one of you ever lose anything that belonged to you? ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... did discover a skiff moored in a little-visited creek, which the boatman got out for me. The sculls were rough and shapeless—it is a remarkable fact that sculls always are, unless you have them made and keep them for your own use. I paddled up the river; I paused by ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... ship was nearest, called aloud to him, asking if he had caught any fish that night. But the boatman still slept. Then Guthmund took up an arrow and fired it so that it struck the boat's mast. In an instant the man started to his feet, threw off his cloak, and stood up. The morning sunlight shone on his head of tangled gold hair and on part of his coat of chain ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... the Boatman brings with him no treasure, but only a white rose in his hand and a ...
— Fruit-Gathering • Rabindranath Tagore
... a boatman to put them aboard the "Pollard." It was now the turn of Hal Hastings and Eph Somers to share in the excitement ...
— The Submarine Boys on Duty - Life of a Diving Torpedo Boat • Victor G. Durham
... of your sail, make a knot that can be untied by a single pull at the loose end: any boatman will show you how to do this. Never make fast the sheets in any other way. Hold the sheets in your hands if the wind is at all squally or strong. Do not venture out in a heavy wind. Stow your baggage snugly before you start: tubs made by sawing a flour-barrel in two are excellent to throw ...
— How to Camp Out • John M. Gould
... than I knew," muttered the boatman; "so you see, Colonel Hennion, 't is as well not to ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... stranger who had landed in the bay and who wore such uncommonly pointed boots. When I recognized in her, on the following day, a young person who had, a few weeks previously, made me the victim of a barefaced and audacious robbery, I could no longer doubt that she and the unknown boatman were in league together; and, since no Englishman would be likely to wear boots so excessively pointed at the toes, I did not hesitate to conclude that they were both members of the Society of the Friends of Man, a conclusion which became a certainty when I subsequently saw them together. This ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... the battles of Leipzig and Hanau. To do this he exposed himself to more risk, perhaps, than he had run during either of these sanguinary affairs, for advancing on horseback and in uniform to the edge of the river, in spite of our warnings, he hailed a boatman who knew him; but while he was chatting with this man, a Bavarian officer ran up with a picket of infantry who, aiming their weapons, prepared to shoot at the French general. However, a large body of citizens and boatmen crowded in front of the soldiers and prevented them from firing, ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... a great fancy to Lincoln, and offered him a place as clerk in the New Salem store. The young fellow jumped at the chance. It seemed to him quite an improvement on being a farm- hand, a flat-boatman, or a rail-splitter. It was, indeed, a step upward; for it gave him better opportunities for self-instruction and ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... permission that Morano sought, and a hideous yell broke from his throat hailing the boatman. The boatman looked up lazily, a young man with strong brown arms, turning black moustaches towards Morano. Again Morano hailed him and ran along the bank, while the boat drifted down and the boatman steered in towards Morano. ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... The day had broken, but the light was still uncertain. As the boat approached, however, Ulf said: "There is a boy in the boat, master, and he wears an apprentice's cap. Maybe that it is Ernulf." The other boat was keeping close inshore, for the tide had begun to run down. The armourer told the boatman to row closer in, and ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... and "Boats," and "Waggons!" Oh! ye shades Of Pope and Dryden, are we come to this? That trash of such sort not alone evades Contempt, but from the bathos' vast abyss Floats scumlike uppermost, and these Jack Cades Of sense and song above your graves may hiss— The "little boatman" and his Peter Bell Can sneer ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... men understand very well. Then this fine curber of phantasies got back to his house in the morning by the time Taschereau came to invite him to spend the day at La Grenadiere, and the cuckold always found the priest asleep in his bed. The boatman being well paid, no one knew anything of these goings on, for the lover journeyed the night before after night fall, and on the Sunday in the early morning. As soon as Carandas had verified the ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... del Lido!" said the older boatman, pointing far away to a line of deeper color beneath a dark ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... midnight by a loud "halloo," which seemed to proceed directly from the sea. Thinking it might be the cry of some boatman lost in the fog, he walked to the edge of the cliff, but the thick veil that covered sea and land rendered all objects at the distance of a few feet indistinguishable. He heard, however, the regular strokes of oars rising and ...
— Legends and Tales • Bret Harte
... first verse, beginning softly, but unconsciously raising his voice as he went on, until, as he came to the second, he was singing very audibly indeed, and Rosamond, standing on the bank, looking uncertainly about her for the old boatman, was in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... silence, and across the lake into a kind of backwater, covered thick with the flat leaves of the lotus, in an opposite corner. Gerrard expected to see the boat held fast among the twining roots, but it was evident that a channel was kept clear, for they slid through without difficulty. The boatman helped them to shore, still in silence, and Partab Singh touched his own ears and mouth lightly, explaining to Gerrard that the man was deaf and dumb, as he brought a lantern from the boat and preceded them ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... very wet and tired, and very much disconcerted by the nature of their prize—which, I suppose after all, will have to be recommitted to the sea, when the hides and tallow are secured. One lean-faced boatman murmured, when they were all ruminating over the bodies as they lay on the pier: 'Couldn't sassages be made on it?' but retired in confusion shortly afterwards, overwhelmed by the ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... athletic forms of the men are bent forward until each prostrates himself in the exertion of his full powers; when not a false step—each step a run—can be hazarded; when that monotonous unanimity of labor is at its height, in which each boatman becomes possessed as if by a devil of strife; when their faces lose every gentle semblance of humanity, and become distorted to a simple expression of stubborn brute force; when the muscles of their arms are knitted, rope-like, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... early for Alsoo. Found my old boat where I had left it, but brought my baggage on board of this one, which I mean to keep to, as the boatman is a much more useful fellow than the other man. He acts as a servant, knows all the places I am going to, including Ummernath, and has many excellent characters from those who have employed him. There was such a scene when my intentions were made known to the other crew, ...
— Three Months of My Life • J. F. Foster
... some boatman would be looking for his boat, which had disappeared one night, probably stolen, while twenty or thirty miles from there, on the Oise, some shopkeeper would be rubbing his hands, congratulating himself on ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... relief was allowed to me. And I give you my word, Richie, lads both, that while that most infernal Count Fretzel was pouring forth his execrable humdrum, I positively envied the privilege of an old palsied fellow, chief boatman of the forest lake, for, thinks I, hang him! he can nod his head and I can not. Let me assure you, twenty minutes of an ordeal like that,—one posture, mind you, no raising of your eyelids, taking your breath mechanically, and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... war-pipes ceased, but lake and hill Were busy with their echoes still; And, when they slept, a vocal strain Bade their hoarse chorus wake again, While loud a hundred clansmen raise Their voices in their Chieftain's praise. Each boatman, bending to his oar, With measured sweep the burden bore, In such wild cadence as the breeze Makes through December's leafless trees. The chorus first could Allan know, 'Roderick Vich Alpine, ho! fro!' And near, and nearer as they rowed, Distinct ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... White Hart Inn—what an ideal Boniface is this same Hull, and what an ideal inn—promised a boatman to pole the punt and look after my traps when the Henley regatta was over; and the owner of my own craft, and of fifty other punts besides, went so far as to say that he expected a man as soon as Lord Somebody-or-Other left for the ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... appearance and fascinating manners. Brummell's father, who was a steward to one or two large estates, sent his son George to Eton. He was endowed with a handsome person, and distinguished himself at Eton as the best scholar, the best boatman, and the best cricketer; and, more than all, he was supposed to possess the comprehensive excellences that are represented by the familiar term of "good fellow." He made many friends amongst the scions of good families, ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... I am afraid, were more pharisaical than wise. Here, for example, was one case. A couple had been married years ago. After living together for several years and having three children, the man went off to Red River as a boatman for the Hudson's Bay Company. Delayed there for a time, he married a wife in the Indian settlement, and made that place his home, only returning with his second family about the time I went there. His first wife, a year or two after he left, not hearing from him, married another man, who supposed ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... our canal, and then to be detained beyond a reasonable time in port, makes it worse. Mr. Wheeler, at Akron, is the only man on the Ohio canal, that we know of, that has been in the business longer than we have on our canal, and we defy you to find a boatman on our canal or river that will say we ever detained them beyond a reasonable time; and there is no need of it if men do as they would be done by, and the situation our river has been in this geason has been vexatious enough for any one. Time is money, and eight or ten boats ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... She held out her hands like a child, to the least impressionable boatman. In an instant she was ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... left Mr. Pratt, of the Newport Mercury, with an ostentation of affront, and bade James Brady, the boatman, hoist sail and carry me ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... boatman, not quite so angry now. "He come to see me yist'day, and asked if I had a sailboat I could hire out for a few days. He said he wanted to go cruising out to sea to bring in a boat of his that ...
— Frank and Andy Afloat - The Cave on the Island • Vance Barnum
... tent are planted. The bed is made and boxes ranged on each side of it, and then the tent pitched over all. Two Makololos occupy my right and left both in eating and sleeping as long as the journey lasts, but my head boatman makes his bed at the door of the tent ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... Out spoke the boatman then in time, "You shall not fail, don't fear it; I'll go not for your silver dime, ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... The boatman rowed the children out in the bay, where the water, now green, now blue, was always clear as crystal. On the rocks and sand at the bottom starfish and crabs crawled slowly along or clung to some ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton
... it was too late, a rough boatman had torn off a section of his flannel shirt and was chafing the cold little hands, while another rubbed the legs and a third tried to restore respiration. These people were familiar with cases of drowning, and knew the best and simplest immediate first ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... hurrying boat find the short way into harbor before a gale without sighting the big trees from point to point among the rocky shallows? It was a dangerous bit of coast in every way, and every fisherman and pleasure-boatman knew the pines on Packer's Hill. As for the Packers themselves, the first great adventure for a child was to climb alone to the great pines, and to see an astonishing world from beneath their shadow; and as the men and women of the family grew old, they sometimes made an effort to ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett
... circle as they then stood, and showing me that only his family and two friends, Mr. Clark and Mr. Sharpe, were present, he sat down for a minute beside me on a low sofa, and on my saying, "Do not let us interrupt what was going on," he immediately rose and begged Staffa to bid his boatman strike up again. "Will you then join in the circle with us?" he put the end of a silk handkerchief into my hand, and others into my sisters'; they held by these handkerchiefs all in their circle again, and the boatman began to roar out a Gaelic song, to which they all ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... and brought all our baggage from the various storing-places, where we had left it, out onto the wharf. Time passed; the norther continued, and no canoe from Pueblo Viejo came. Thinking that it might be possible to secure a canoe from here to Pueblo Viejo, we dickered with a boatman at the wharf. We had agreed to pay for the canoe ordered $1.00 for the journey, which was something more than the regular price. The man with whom we now were talking declared that he would not take us across for ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... route was changed, and Quash the boatman took us all the way round by water to Hampton. I should have told you that our exit was as wild as our entrance to this estate and was made through a broken wooden fence, which we had to climb partly over and partly under, with some risk and some obloquy, in spite ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... hands for the boat as hard as ever they kin lay to it. The boat meets 'em—Lord knows what the party at the oars thought—they climbs in an' the last I sees of 'em they was puttin' for shore—each havin' taken a oar from the boatman, an' they sure was ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris
... to "chuck the sea," and when he left me to go aboard his ship I felt convinced that I would never marry. While I was waiting at the steps for Jacobus's boatman, who had gone off somewhere, the captain of the Hilda joined me, a slender silk umbrella in his hand and the sharp points of his archaic, Gladstonian shirt-collar framing a small, clean-shaved, ruddy face. It was wonderfully fresh ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... children with the adoring tenderness that I lavished upon that bell-glass and its contents! I got sand and covered the bottom; I found two jagged stones and leaned them against each other on the sand; I gathered fronds of ulva latissima; I persuaded a boatman to bring me a bucket of salt-water from beyond the line of breakers, and I poured it carefully into the jar. During the next twenty-four hours I waited impatiently for the water to settle and clear; then I began to introduce the living inmates. I collected prawns and ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... Dutch," said Rollo to the boatman, "but that is the way we want to go." So saying, Rollo pointed in the direction which led towards the station. The man did not understand a word that Rollo had said; but still, by hearing it, he learned the fact that Rollo did not speak the language of ...
— Rollo in Holland • Jacob Abbott
... idea," said Miss Ladd warmly. "Let's do that at once and then run back to Twin Lakes. But remember, girls, don't say anything about our mission on the boat. The boatman would be sure to start some gossip that probably would reach the ears of the very persons we want to keep in the dark as ...
— Campfire Girls at Twin Lakes - The Quest of a Summer Vacation • Stella M. Francis
... a nimbler boat Must carry." Then to him thus spake my guide: "Charon! thyself torment not: so 't is will'd, Where will and power are one: ask thou no more." Straightway in silence fell the shaggy cheeks Of him the boatman o'er the livid lake, Around whose eyes glar'd wheeling flames. Meanwhile Those spirits, faint and naked, color chang'd, And gnash'd their teeth, soon as the cruel words They heard. God and their parents they blasphem'd, ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... appearance and character than the sponging, tip-seeking, loafing fraternity of slouching, lazy robbers who on the parades of Brighton, Hastings, and Eastbourne, and other fashionable seaside resorts in this country, lean against lamp-posts with "Licensed Boatman" writ on their hat-bands, and call themselves fishermen, though they seldom handle a herring or cod that does not come from a fishmonger's shop. These Australians of British blood are leaner in face, leaner in limb than the Kentish men, and drink whiskey instead of coffee or tea ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... poor doubters, uncertain of their way. It was to help these last, the doubters, that the Buddha went forth to preach. On his way to the holy city of India, Benares, a serious difficulty arrested him at the Ganges, namely, his having no money to pay the boatman for his passage. At Benares he made his first converts, "turning the wheel of the law" for the first time. His discourses are contained in the sacred books of the Buddhists. He converted great numbers, his father among the rest, but met with ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... to hear no more, but sauntered from the room whistling gayly a boatman's song. His point ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White
... the matter out of my hands, desiring the boatman to proceed; and though I sympathised with my bride's feminine terror much more than her father appeared to do, I was selfishly anxious, in spite of my declaration that there could be no novelty in this tunnel, to see one thing certainly original—the means ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... we are travelling Mother, the folk who live up in the clouds Mother, the light has grown grey Mother, your baby is silly On the seashore of endless worlds O you shaggy-headed banyan tree Say of him what you please Sullen clouds are gathering Supposing I became a champa flower The boat of the boatman Madhu The night was dark when we went away The sleep that flits on baby's eyes They clamour and fight This song of mine When I bring you coloured toys When storm clouds When the gong sounds ten Where have I come from Who stole sleep from baby's eyes Why ...
— The Crescent Moon • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.)
... my horse being in need of bating, I halted at the ferry-house before crossing the Tay, assured by the boatman that I should be able to overtake the army long before it could reach the meeting of the Tummel and the Gary. And so it proved; for, as I came to that turn of the road where the Tummel pours its roaring waters into the Tay, I heard the echoing of a trumpet among the mountains, and ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... rose and the fog began to thin and scatter. The boatman on the pier had long ago left it, forced off by the rising tide, and now sat floating in one of the row-boats fastened there. He had put on his oilskins and set his oars in readiness for the first sign of distress on the face of the ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... up suddenly. "She is merely thinking of that dear, cross-eyed boatman at Avalon. You know he promised to give us a free ride to the Marine Gardens this morning, and here we all came away and dragged Tabitha with us. Shame on us! What could we ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... Rhine alone. The mountains approach each other at this point, and the Lorelei rock rises up for four hundred and forty feet from the water. This is the haunt of the water nymph Lorelei, whose song charmed the ear of the boatman while his bark was dashed to pieces on the rocks below. It is also celebrated for its remarkable echo. As we passed between the rocks, a guard, who has a little house on the roadside, blew a flourish on his bugle, which was instantly answered by a blast ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... said Brown to the boatman, 'is the name of that fine cape that stretches into the sea with its sloping banks and hillocks of wood, and forms the right side ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... universal. But I was now close to Mme. Swann; I pulled off my hat with so lavish, so prolonged a gesture that she could not repress a smile. People laughed. As for her, she had never seen me with Gilberte, she did not know my name, but I was for her—like one of the keepers in the Bois, like the boatman, or the ducks on the lake, to which she threw scraps of bread—one of the minor personages, familiar, nameless, as devoid of individual character as a stage-hand in a theatre, of her ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... very large animal, that would have weighed quite thirty stone when gralloched. My boatman, who had been watching the sport, immediately despatched a man for assistance to the diahbeeah. I enjoyed the beauty of this animal: the hide glistened like the coat of ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... not manned by coast-guards. Not considered important, its complement was depleted at the outbreak of hostilities, most of the men joining the large armoured cruisers. A chief officer and a boatman alone remained. These were at a later period augmented by a party ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... Peterboro," he cried, following her. "Where did you get this?" he inquired, turning to the boatman. ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... way; but as soon as they were near his house, Mr. Strafford told his companions of his intention. Neither could find anything to say against it; but Mrs. Costello looked anxiously at him while he explained that he meant to take a good boatman with him and burn a bright light. Then she held out her hand to him to express the thanks she had ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... saint of this ancient town, of whose history I possess several manuscript versions. I incline to the briefest, since, if it should not be wholly true, it is at least likely to contain the least falsehood. "Ogg the son of Beorl," says my private hagiographer, "was a boatman who gained a scanty living by ferrying passengers across the river Floss. And it came to pass, one evening when the winds were high, that there sat moaning by the brink of the river a woman with a child in her arms; and she was clad in rags, and had a worn and withered look, ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... means for thy escape. At nightfall, as the clock strikes nine, a boat shall wait thee on the river before this house; the boatman will guide thee to a retreat where thou mayst rest in safety till the Reign of Terror, which nears its close, be past. Think no more of the sensual love that lured, and wellnigh lost thee. It betrayed, and would have destroyed. Thou wilt regain thy land ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... with me; I was never quite happy unless I happened to be either in or on the water; then, indeed, all other pleasures were less than nothing to me. As a natural consequence, I soon became the intimate companion of every boatman in the harbour; I acquired, to a considerable extent, their tastes and prejudices, and soon mastered all the nautical lore which it was in their power to teach me. I could sail a boat before I could read; and by the time that I had learned to write, was able to hand, reef, and ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... the boat, wilting and semi-delirious. Through his dimmed eyes the boatman looked like glowing inhuman things set in flames. Rosendo came to him and placed his straw hat over his face. Hours, interminable and torturing, seemed to pass on leaden wings. Then Juan, deftly swerving his paddle, ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking |
