"Oar" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... presently I came to the bridge, and loitered for a moment to rest and watch the boats flitting about below. There went a four, smartly manned by youngsters no older than myself. There lolled a big fellow in a canoe. There swished by a senior in a skiff, calling on the four-oar to get out of the way as he passed. There, too, stood a master in flannels, with the Oxford Blue on his straw, talking to a group of boys. I wish I could have overheard what they were saying. Perhaps they were discussing the merits of ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... rowed by a crew of the young ladies, of which Miss Euthymia was the captain and pulled the bow oar. Poor little Lurida could not pull an oar, but on great occasions, when there were many boats out, she was wanted as coxswain, being a mere feather-weight, and quick-witted enough to serve well in the important office where brains are more needed ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... says, "shook her head" in her resentment; which, as he further says, put them all into great torments. Parris represents that in every motion of her head they were tortured. Marshal Herrick, as usual, put in his oar, and volunteered charges against her. She bore herself well through the shocking scene, and did not shrink, at its close, from expressing her unbelief of the whole thing: "I do not know whether there be any witches or no." When she was removed from the place ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... the applause of a considerable multitude of spectators. After a time he descended upon a common, where he left the cat nearly dead with cold, ascended, and continued his voyage. He says, in the narrative which he has left, that he descended by means of the one oar which was left to him, the other having fallen over; but, as he states that, in order to rise again, he threw over the remainder of his ballast, it is natural to believe that the descent of the balloon was caused by the loss of gas, because, if he descended by the use of the oar, he must have re-ascended ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion
... he slowly rowed homeward, and so did his thoughts work upon him that half way across the bay to Harpswell he slackened his oar without knowing it, and the boat lay drifting on the purple and gold-tinted mirror, like a speck between two eternities. Under such circumstances, even heads that have worn the clerical wig for years at times get a little dizzy and dreamy. Perhaps it was because of the impression ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... decoys bobbing and tugging at their anchor-cords outside the point. Before he had fished up a dozen on the blade of his oar a heavier squall struck the lagoon, blowing the boat out into the river. He had managed to paddle back and had secured another brace of decoys, when a violent gale caught ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... a good friend of mine all summer," said Hal. "There are some boys down the avenue, but they don't know as much about good times as Dorothy does. Why, she can swim, row, paddle, climb trees, and goes in for almost any sport that's on. Last week she swam so far in the sun she couldn't touch an oar or paddle for days, her arms were so blistered. But she didn't go around with her hands in a muff at that. Dorothy's all ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore • Laura Lee Hope
... not more than twenty yards from the shore, it was deemed prudent for all to lie down in as safe a position as possible, and attempt to push forward with the utmost practicable rapidity. While they continued in this situation, nine balls were shot into one oar, and ten into the other, without wounding the rowers, who were hidden from view, and protected by the side of the boat and the blankets in its stern. During this dreadful exposure to the fire of the savages, which continued about twenty minutes, Mr. Kilpatrick ...
— Heroes and Hunters of the West • Anonymous
... "Scholar Stokes" and he are found bracketed together as "Victors" of the school, who will proceed together to Oxford. His speech in the Chapter-house was from that place in Homer, where the soul of the lad Elpenor, killed by accident, entreats Ulysses for due burial rites. "Fix my oar over my grave," he says, "the oar I rowed with when I lived, when I went with my companions." And in effect what surprised, charmed the hearers was the scruple with which those naturally graceful lips dealt with every word, every syllable, put upon them. ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... the examiner continued, "you may have chanced to touch the mud at the bottom with your oar." ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... worrits me. Thar's days she won't speak nor eat, but just goes off to the woods an' makes little trinkets out o' pine needles an' bark, and then I know the fit's on her. And proud! Thar's not a man hereabout she'd lift an eye at, and one feller that wouldn't take "no" got his head split open with an oar. Sometimes I've thought that ef she was married to a strong man—strong AND kind, d'ye see?—'twould be the best thing ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... stepped aboard, and George put his arm around him, as Harry, with oar in hand, pushed the boat from the shore. Angel was startled, and tried to get away, but soothing words soon quieted him, and before they reached the mouth of the Cataract he was leaning over the gunwale and playing with the water in the most ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Mysteries of the Caverns • Roger Thompson Finlay
... Bay as usual, Walter pulling the stroke oar, and Harry Higginson the bow, whilst Drake and Alfred held the intermediate positions, Drake sitting behind Alfred—that is, nearer the bow. I had my place ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... oar, and swung the boat around, and caught one of the small piles of the wharf. Fran climbed up and Soames ...
— Long Ago, Far Away • William Fitzgerald Jenkins AKA Murray Leinster
... England like them. On its rivers in particular there are many charming little inns, but, to say truth, although the gentlemen-fishermen are as quiet as mice (from their habits of caution in their calling), the disciples of the oar are noisy; they get up too early and go to bed too late, and are too much addicted to melody. Moreover, these houses of entertainment often carry the principle of home production to excess: their native fare is excellent; ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... he nodded. "I'll admit that I was somewhat too hasty. I should have waited a while longer before I attempted to put in my oar. That was where I blundered; but I didn't quite reckon ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... appear to me more amusing and refreshing. 'What,' said he, 'my poor, little, good fellow, they sent you to the galleys! What did they mean to do with you? What a conscience they must have to put in fetters and chain to the oar a man who had committed no crime beyond praying to God in bad French!' He turned several times to me, denouncing persecution. He summoned into his room some persons who were staying with him, that they might share the joy he felt at seeing poor little Chaumont, who, though perfectly ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... benches was the raised middle gallery, commonly called the waist of the ship, four feet high and about three or four feet broad. The oars were fifty feet long, of which thirty-seven feet were outside the ship and thirteen within. Six men worked at each oar, all chained to the same bench. They had to row in unison, otherwise they would be heavily struck by the return rowers both before and behind them. They were under the constant command of the comite ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... stood at the side of the "Gaspee" warning off the assailants, he presented a good mark; and Joseph Bucklin, who pulled an oar in the leading boat, turned to a comrade and said, "Ephe, lend me your gun, and I can kill that fellow." The gun was accordingly handed him, and he fired. Dudingston fell to the deck. Just as the shot was fired, the leader of ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... sat themselves down in one of the aquatic cabs which ply the water streets of the city in the sea. The gondolier stood to his oar and put his best foot foremost, and as the boat sped forward on its way along the capital S of the Grand Canal, Larry told the tale of the twin brothers ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... they hired a skiff and rowed out to about the middle of the river. From there Hervey was greatly surprised at what he saw. His bantering mood was quieted at last and he became sober as Tom, holding the oar handles with one hand, pointed up to a mountain behind the bordering heights along the river. Upon this, as upon others, were the faintest suggestions of lines. No trails were to be seen, of course; only wriggling lines of shadow, as they seemed, now visible, now half visible, ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... of me, only the bow oar saying, "Is that you, Jim? Keep your head down." But Silver, from the other boat, looked sharply over and called out to know if that were me; and from that moment I began to regret what I ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hand too and a score of stout fellows breast the long oars which serve for capstan bars. A little higher still. Now prop her securely and make all snug and ship-shape, and make fast the blade of an oar to one of the forward tholes, with the loom on the ground, for a ladder. You are safe ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... would give me a turn at it," Skinner said. "I cannot offer to take an oar, for although my arm is going on very well the doctor says it may be months before I can venture to use it in anything like hard work. We get up jolly horse races here once a week in the evening. The natives enter their animals. Of course we have no chance with them on our little tats, ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... boat had been dragged ashore and lay bottom upwards under a cliff about three hundred yards above the ford. If we could reach and right it without being discovered, either one of us was clever enough, with an oar over the stern, to scull noiselessly across to the entrance of a creek where the current would take us up towards Boconnoc between banks held on either side by Royalists; to whom, if they surprised us, ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... their impressions of his poem from M. Dore's memorable illustrations, will here probably demur. What! Dante not grotesque! That tunnel-shaped structure of the infernal pit; Minos passing sentence on the damned by coiling his tail; Charon beating the lagging shades with his oar; Antaios picking up the poets with his fingers and lowering them in the hollow of his hand into the Ninth Circle; Satan crunching in his monstrous jaws the arch-traitors, Judas, Brutus and Cassius; Ugolino appeasing his famine ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... Lady Stafford, and Mistress Martin, and Milisent, and me. Too many were we for Adam to row, and thought to take old Matthias, had not Robin Lewthwaite chanced on us the last minute, and craved leave to take an oar, saying it should be a jolly pleasance for him to spend the day on Lord's Island. So Father took the second oar, and Adam steered, and all we got well across, thanks to God. We landed, Father gave his ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt
... crucifix. Life is a series of agonies, a Calvary, which we can only climb on bruised and aching knees. We seek distractions; we wander away; we deafen and stupefy ourselves that we may escape the test; we turn away oar eyes from the via dolorosa; and yet there is no help for it—we must come back to it in the end. What we have to recognize is that each of us carries within himself his own executioner—his demon, his hell, in his sin; that his sin is his idol, and that this idol, which seduces ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... cat was similarly tied. Through an overhanging latticed stern, too, hens craned their necks, longing for scenes they could not reach. With bare heads, bare feet, in short trousers and all dressed much alike, men, women, boys and girls showed equal mastery of the oar. Beginning so young, day and night in the open air on the tide-swept streams and canals, exposed to all of the sunshine the fogs and clouds will permit, and removed from the dust and filth of streets, it would seem that if the ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King
... and as I done it the skiff's bow slid up on something. I give an awful yank at the port oar; she slewed and tilted; a wave caught her underneath, and the next thing I knew me and Allie and the skiff was under water, bound for the bottom. We'd run acrost one of the guy-ropes ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... always such glorious anticipations for the morrow. Sometimes, in their eager pursuit after game, they would paddle up and down the creek, watching out on either side for ducks. On these occasions, Lizzie would hold the steering oar, while her father made vigorous use of the propelling ones; but one day his "Lady of the Lake," (as he called her), in her excitement, at the prospect over the bluffs, of flying ducks, rose to her feet; and, reeling, tipping, over she went, which was ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless
... interested in watching the muscular development of the boatmen as they pulled at the oars, and in admiring the dexterity and skill with which they managed the boat, that I did not think of danger," remarked a man who had been stroke oar on ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... little brother," said Mooka, her black eyes dancing; and in a wink crabs and sledges were forgotten. The old punt was off in a shake, the tattered sail up, skipper Noel lounging in the stern, like an old salt, with the steering oar, while the crew, forgetting her nipped finger, tugged valiantly at ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... beside ourselves with joy, but hunger bade us end our enforced fast. Now that we had found fresh water in the open sea, what might we not expect in this strange latitude where ship had never before sailed and the splash of an oar had ...
— The Smoky God • Willis George Emerson
... ready, all?" now called the starter, and each one of the different crews grasped his oar with quickened tension as the coxswains responded: "Ready!" and there followed the sharp report of ...
— The Boy Scouts Patrol • Ralph Victor
... shed Oswald's blood: the alternative they adopted was perhaps not more merciful—although a common doom in those times. They selected a crazy worm-eaten boat, and sent the criminal to sea, without sail, oar, or rudder, with a loaf of bread and cruse of water, the wind blowing ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... gleam of a face. She glanced up desperately for some means of rescue, and caught sight of the oars ranged on brackets against the wall. She snatched down the nearest, bent over the opening, and pushed the oar down into the blackness, crying out ...
— The Choice - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... fire, discharging every instant a shower of missiles, was terrifying. But the British sailors dashed down upon it, broke the huge raft into fragments, and towed them easily ashore. "Hang it, Jack," one sailor was heard to say to his mate as he tugged at the oar, "didst thee ever ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... wearing trousers and shirts of red flannel, and red net night caps—which common uniform the captain himself wore, I think I have said before, that he was a very handsome man, and when he had taken his seat, and the gigs, all fine men, were seated each with his oar held upright upon his knees ready to be dropped into the water at the same instant, the craft and her crew formed to my eye as pretty a plaything for grown children as ever was seen. "Give way, men," the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 579 - Volume 20, No. 579, December 8, 1832 • Various
... cannot say, but, whatever the cause, I found it difficult to focus my sight properly upon the flying apparition. It seemed, however, to be a man standing upright in a sort of flat-bottomed boat, steering with a long oar, and being carried down the opposite shore at a tremendous pace. He apparently was looking across in our direction, but the distance was too great and the light too uncertain for us to make out ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... rid of his dog, took it along with him to the river. He hired a boat, and rowing into the stream, threw the animal in. The poor creature attempted to climb up the side of the boat, but his master, whose intention was to drown him, constantly pushed him back with the oar. In doing this, he fell himself into the water, and would certainly have been drowned, had not the dog, as soon as he saw his master struggling in the stream, suffered the boat to float away, and held him above water till assistance ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst
... naturally drop together and partly close, presenting only a narrow front—almost an edge—of resistance to the water; then, when he makes a backward stroke, the toes spread far apart and, with the connecting membranes, are converted into a broad, propelling oar. Is it not a wonderfully ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... began to roll in from the open sea and to fill our little boat. It looked as though death was staring us in the face. My brother saw that he could escape; but as he thought that probably the boatman and I would both be drowned, he stayed with us and did all he could to help get the oar. The boat was full of water. We were all drenched and sat there in the water until we got back to the mainland about four ...
— Trials and Triumphs of Faith • Mary Cole
... his oar into the rowlock and Graeme took the other, and in five minutes they were speeding across the sands of Grande Greve—Margaret to cover, Graeme to his pocket ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... not far distant at Marlow, and Hogg could arrive from London, and here they were within reach of the river. No long time elapsed before they were tempted to experience again the delights of a holiday on the Thames. So Mary and Shelley, with Peacock and Charles Clairmont to help him with an oar, embarked and went up the river. They passed Reading and Oxford, winding through meadows and woods, till arriving at Lechlade, fourteen miles from the source of the Thames, they still strove to help the boat to reach this point if the boat would not help ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... stepped into the boat with Dwining and Ramorny, and, waiting for no other attendance, Eviot pushed off the vessel, which descended the Tay rapidly by the assistance of sail and oar ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... large sail-boat, and, as the water near the shore is not deep, he has to use a small boat to reach it. When Carlo sees him take down the oar from its place in the yard, he runs up, and takes it in his mouth, as much as to say, "Let me carry that for you, master." Then he trots down the hill with the oar, feeling very proud that he is allowed ...
— The Nursery, No. 106, October, 1875. Vol. XVIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... sniffed the fellow. "Say, just because you've got corns on your palms as big as pancakes, you needn't think you're the only human that ever pulled an oar. I was the first man through Miles Canon. During the big rush in '98 I ran the rapids for a living. I got fifty dollars a trip, and it only took me three minutes by the watch. That was the only easy money I ever picked up. Why, them tenderfeet used ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... the Duke turned his boat and went back again. No sooner had he set foot on the isle," proceeded the Norman, clenching his hands, and speaking between his teeth, "than we saw one Fleming strike him on the head with an oar; he fell senseless, the rest threw themselves upon him, and the next moment held up their bloody daggers in scorn at us! You may well think how we shouted and yelled at them, and plied our oars like men distracted, but all in vain, ...
— The Little Duke - Richard the Fearless • Charlotte M. Yonge
... pipe in his mouth. Affectionate and jolly, he was a fascinating companion for a voyage down the sparkling stream of life; only his boat was very small. There was room in it for a girl-partner at the oar, but no accommodation for passengers. He was allowed to drift away from the threshold of the Belgravian mansion while Winnie averted her tearful eyes. He was not a lodger. The lodger was Mr Verloc, indolent, and keeping late hours, ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... unfathomable gulfs As on we travell'd, and along the ridge, 'Mid groves of cork, and cistus, and wild fig, His motley household came.—Not last nor least, Battista, who upon the moonlight-sea Of Venice had so ably, zealously Served, and at parting, thrown his oar away To follow through the world; who without stain Had worn so long that honourable badge[63], The gondolier's, in a Patrician House Arguing unlimited trust.—Not last nor least, Thou, though declining in thy ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... are usually towed, but are sometimes fitted with some kind of engine; the men in charge of them are known as bargees. On tidal rivers barges are often provided with masts and sails ("sailing barges"), or in default of being towed, they drift with the current, guided by a long oar or oars ("dumb-barges"). Barges used for unloading, or loading, the cargo of ships in harbours are sometimes called "lighters" (from the verb "to light" to relieve of a load). A state barge was a heavy, often highly ornamented vessel used for carrying passengers on occasions of state ceremonials. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... oar curiosity, we returned to our quarters, where we passed the night in perfect security and quiet. By the next evening we arrived at Atahourou, the residence of our friend Tootahah, where, the last ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... being's End and Source! O check thy chariot in its fervid course; Bend from thy throne of darkness and of fire, And with one smile immortalize oar lyre!" ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... enter it properly. Corder suggested that the command should be "Left half turn," but Reardon contended for "Half left," and at the proper moment the corporal gave that order. Naturally there ensued at the tent another debate, everyone putting in his oar, until by the book the Old One proved that while for a company in column the command should have been "Column half left," for a squad "Left half turn" was correct. A mixing business, this learning how to fight for ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... venture to shift places, they were unable to make so much use of the pieces of wood as Ben and I were, who were seated at either end. As we were paddling on we caught sight of some spars floating at a little distance on one side. We made towards them, and found an oar and boat-hook. ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston
... general investigation of the vessel. On going on board he found that she was water-logged. She seemed to have been kept afloat either by her cargo, or else by some peculiarity in her construction, which rendered her incapable of sinking. He tore open the hatchway, and pushing an oar down, he saw that there was no cargo, so that it must have been the construction of the vessel which kept her afloat. What that was, he could not then find out. He was compelled, therefore, to leave the question unsettled for the present, and he took refuge in the thought that the one who ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... you are my perfect knight; and I will always buy my carpets through you. (Apollodorus bows joyously. An oar appears above the quay; and the boatman, a bullet-headed, vivacious, grinning fellow, burnt almost black by the sun, comes up a flight of steps from the water on the sentinel's right, oar in hand, and waits at the top.) Can ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw
... literature of knowledge, and secondly the literature of power. The function of the first is to teach, the function or the second is to move; the first is a rudder, the second an oar or a sail. The first speaks to the mere discursive understanding, the second speaks ultimately, it may happen, to the higher understanding or reason, but always through affections of ...
— The Interdependence of Literature • Georgina Pell Curtis
... the most awkward. In the graceful men of course the grace predominates, and nothing can be finer than the large, firm way in which, from their point of vantage, they throw themselves over their tremendous oar. It has the boldness of a plunging bird and the regularity of a pendulum. Sometimes, as you see this movement in profile, in a gondola that passes you—see, as you recline on your own low cushions, ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... the affair, hundreds of citizens assemble at her house, and raze it to the ground. The unfortunate creature, together with two or three men of like character, are committed, in an open canoe or boat, without oar or paddle, to the middle of the ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... was a man of unusual force and independence of character. The life which these early settlers lived was a life lived partly on the land and partly on the river. They were equally at home with scythe or oar. Amid such terraqueous conditions it was natural enough that the children should develop a passion for the sea. Like ducks many of them took to the water and became sailors. Abijah was a sailor. The amphibious habits of boyhood gave to his manhood a restless, roving character. ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... man. There are not many grown Englishmen who don't think they know something about a horse, would not like to attend a good assault-at-arms, or who are not pleased when they hear of their sons' prowess with the oar, the bat, ...
— Broad-Sword and Single-Stick • R. G. Allanson-Winn
... the boats were fifty feet asunder. No sooner was there room, than the periagua once more flew round, and commenced anew its course, dashing in again towards the shore. It was necessary, however, to venture within an oar's-length of the cutter, or to keep away,—a loss of ground to which he who controlled her movements showed no disposition to submit. The officer arose, and, as the periagua drew near, it was evident his hand held a pistol, though he seemed reluctant to exhibit the weapon. The mariner stepped aside, ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... Triton. Malcolm sung an Erse song, the chorus of which was 'Hatyin foam foam eri', with words of his own[486]. The tune resembled 'Owr the muir amang the heather'. The boatmen and Mr. M'Queen chorused, and all went well. At length Malcolm himself took an oar, and rowed vigorously. We sailed along the coast of Scalpa, a rugged island, about four miles in length. Dr. Johnson proposed that he and I should buy it, and found a good school, and an episcopal ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... to put my oar in, I see," observed he, tentatively, as he drew forward a small table whereon were set three glasses and a bottle ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... from the Ohio country before then—and Kentucky, too. I am to join Captain Clark at the Point of Rocks on the Ohio. I need another oar. Come, my man, we are on our way. Two minutes ought to be ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... him. "You needn't stick your oar in. Go and shut the window, do you hear? Now, child, let's have the truth, so far as any female is capable of speaking it! You've come here for pennies, you say. Don't you know that's a form of begging? And begging is ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... a length off when heavy shot fell splashing in her wake. Soon they were dropping all around her. One crossed her bow, ripping a long furrow in the sea. A chip flew off her stern; a lift of splinters from an oar scattered behind her. Plunging missiles marked her course with a plait of foam, but she rode on bravely. We saw her groping under the smoke clouds; we saw her nearing the other brig, and were all on tiptoe. The air cleared ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... sultry day, that they floated quietly with the tide between these stern mountains. There was that perfect quiet which prevails over nature in the languor of summer heat; the turning of a plank, or the accidental falling of an oar on deck, was echoed from the mountain side, and reverberated along the shores. To the left the Dunderberg reared its woody precipices, height over height, forest over forest, away into the deep summer sky. To the ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... rowlocks were safely locked up in the builder's shed. This would have stumped some people, but not Chippy. Often and often he had been able to get hold of a boat, but nothing else. He was quite familiar with the task of rigging up something to take the place of an oar. He hopped across the boats, gained the shore, and sought the boat-builder's shed. Around such a place lie piles of planks, broken thwarts, broken oars, odds and ends of every kind relating to boats, new or old. Chippy knew the shed, and sought ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... my studies, and I expect to be stroke oar of the college boat club. Besides this, I have been elected catcher of the college baseball club. I am thought to excel in athletic sports, and really enjoy my college life very much. Please send me the check by return ...
— Walter Sherwood's Probation • Horatio Alger
... this man had pulled the stroke oar of his crew, and on the gridiron had become a half-back of national renown. By the end of his second year no amateur could be found who would willingly face him with the gloves, and upon several occasions, ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... to die: It was so awful 'neath the majesty Of that great crystal height, that overhung The blackness at our feet, Unseen to fleet and fleet The flocking stars among, And only hear the dipping of the oar, And the small wave's caressing of the ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... the Silent Sea I wait the muffled oar; No harm from Him can come to me 15 On ocean or ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... he must lower his left side and elevate his right, striking forward with his left hand, and sideways with his right, the back of the hand being in front instead of upward, the thumb side of the hand being downward so as to serve as an oar. Should the swimmer wish to turn on his back, he must keep one leg still, and embrace the water beside him with the other, and he will turn to that side. To shew the feet, he must turn himself on ...
— The Book of Sports: - Containing Out-door Sports, Amusements and Recreations, - Including Gymnastics, Gardening & Carpentering • William Martin
... to get the mail. I reached the log-but in which the pilots lived, and saw them start with their boat across the bar, board the steamer, and then return. Ashlock was at his old post at the steering-oar, with two ladies, who soon came to the landing, having passed through a very heavy surf, and I was presented to one as Mrs. Ashlock, and the other as her sister, a very pretty little Minorcan girl of about fourteen years of age. Mrs. Ashlock herself was probably eighteen or twenty ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... his oar into the canal just under the Bridge of Sighs, and at half its length it was arrested by a hollow substance which he told me was the marble roof of the Pozzi, whose unfathomable tiers of dungeons stretched one under another beneath this dreadful water gallery. It was not here, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... twilight. Mutter she does at times, but it is in solitary places that are desolate as she is desolate, in ruined cities, and when the sun has gone down to his rest. This sister is the visitor of the Pariah; of the Jew; of the bondsman to the oar in the Mediterranean galleys; of the English criminal in Norfolk Island, blotted out from the books of remembrance in sweet far-off England; of the baffled penitent reverting his eyes forever upon a solitary grave, which to him seems the altar overthrown of some past ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... period of silent rowing. Then, whether it was because he pulled more strongly on one oar than on the other, or because of the drift of the current, and the effect of the wind, the younger lad suddenly found himself close to ...
— Frank and Andy Afloat - The Cave on the Island • Vance Barnum
... time the two chums gained the shore of the Rio Grande those ahead of them had already entered Ward Porton's boat. Ward and Brown each had an oar and rowed as rapidly as possible to the other side of the stream. Jarvey Porton sat in the stern of the craft, and looked back from time to time, trying to catch sight of the guerrillas and the other Mexicans, who were still shouting ...
— Dave Porter and His Double - The Disapperarance of the Basswood Fortune • Edward Stratemeyer
... would grace the diminitive tea-table of the Emperor of the Lilliputians. And a pair of boat-sculls, made of white ash, and only the size of writing-pens, which I dare say, the oars of the King of Blefuscan's barge resembled; these, with a magnificent oar, thirty-six feet long, are intended as presents for His Royal Highness the Prince ...
— The World's Fair • Anonymous
... mournful sense of duty. This thought reduced us to despair. It seemed as if all our efforts had only served to take us farther away from the ship, and deprived us of all motive for rowing any harder than was barely necessary to keep the boat steady. After a time Agnew dropped his oar and began to bail out the boat—a work which was needed; for, in spite of our care, she had shipped many seas, and was one third full of water. He worked away at this while I managed the boat, and then we took turns at bailing. In this way we passed ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... scull rig'ler in, Don't go for to make any crabs; But feather your oar, like a nob, And show 'em ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... ladder first: that was the old Alfred Hardie; he was always generous: vain, overhearing, saucy, but noble with it all. I liked him: he was a man that showed you his worst, and let you find his best out by degrees. He hated to be beat: but that's no crime. He was a beautiful oar, and handled his mawleys uncommon; he sparred with all the prizefighters that came to Oxford, and took punishment better than you would think; and a wonderful quick hitter; Alec Reed owned that. Poor Taff Hardie! ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... there, faculty willing, had it not been for the interfering "mustard girl." He could throw a hammer farther and run the hundred faster than any youth in the freshman class, and he could handle an oar with the best of them, but as he had spent nearly eight years in acquiring this proficiency to the exclusion of anything else it is not surprising that he excelled in these pursuits, nor is it surprising that he possessed a decided aversion for the things ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... oar carry us away from Peiraeus to a scene fraught with far more thrilling memories. That little point of rock emergent from the water between Salamis and the mainland, bare, insignificant, and void of honour among islands to the natural ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... river that wound so gracefully through the beautiful village of Wimbledon, and a smiling little lady, in a neat gingham sun-bonnet, sat coseyly in the stern, beneath the shady wing of the snow-white sail. A noble-looking lad plied the oar with graceful ease, chatting merrily the while with the little girl, and laughing at her constant and matronly care of a large basket which was placed beside her, neatly covered with a snowy napkin. "One would think that there were diamonds in ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... pieces, had it not been for the timely interference of my new-found friend, Wild Bill, who knocked the man down. As soon as he recovered himself, he demanded of Wild Bill what business it was of his that he should "put in his oar." "It's my business to protect that boy, or anybody else, from being unmercifully abused, kicked and cuffed, and I'll whip any man who tries it on," said Wild Bill; "and if you ever again lay a hand on that boy—little Billy there—I'll give you such a pounding that ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody
... already. Now then, I'm off," and she began to pull with a strength which, had it been suitably paired with skill, would have made her an excellent amateur oarswoman. But the place of skill was supplied by enthusiasm and determination. Once or twice an oar slipped from the rowlock and she nearly went over backward, and several times one of the blades got under the water with the flat side up, so that she had difficulty in getting it out. She raised her oars much too high in the air, but she counterbalanced ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton
... She seized the oar, and while Stern fought the monster she set the banca in motion again. Now the fish was leaping wildly from side to side, zig-zagging, shaking at the hook as a bull-dog shakes an old boot. The leather cord hummed through the water, ripping and vibrating, taut as a fiddle-string. ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... saw-mills under the falls. It would therefore have been no very difficult feat to paddle across, if his aching arms had had an atom of strength left in them. As soon as he was beyond the reach of flying stones he seated himself in the stern, took an oar, and after having bathed his throbbing forehead in the cold water, managed, in fifteen minutes, to make the further bank. Then he dragged himself wearily up the hill-side to Colonel Hook's mansion, and when he had given his message to Viggo, fell ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... little craft away from the rushing current they would soon be drawn into the great black hole that yawned in the middle. So he exerted all his might and pulled as he had never pulled before. He pulled so hard that the left oar snapped in two and sent Cap'n Bill sprawling upon the bottom ...
— The Scarecrow of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... putting in an oar," the young man hastened to say. "The plan was entirely Mr. Spence's. I am simply working out ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... satisfactorily in Machinery Hall. Without a sight of our harvest-fields and threshing-floors foreigners would carry away an incomplete impression of our industrial methods, the farm being our great factory. The oar, the rifle and the racer are as impatient of walls as the plough and its new-fangled allies. They demand elbow-room for the display of their powers, and the Commission was fain to let their votaries tempt it to pass the confines of its territory. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... Erickson, is described in the Sagas and other records as a large, strong man, of imposing appearance. The ships in which voyages were made by the Norsemen in those days were called drakkars, which were propelled both by oar and sail; at the ends rose wooden apartments called kastals. All the parts out of water were fashioned after the manner of monsters or drakkars (dragons, Drachen). The prow of the ship represented the terrible head, the sides, a continuation of the body, and the rear, the tail of the monster ...
— Thirteen Chapters of American History - represented by the Edward Moran series of Thirteen - Historical Marine Paintings • Theodore Sutro
... unfortunate fisherman. He stayed not to profit by our aid; for, when he perceived us near, he uttered a piercing shriek of joy, and bounded towards us through the agitated element the full length of an oar. I saw him for a second on the surface of the water, but the eddying current sucked him down; and all I ever beheld of him again was his hand held above the flood, and clutching in agony at some imaginary aid. I sat gazing in horror on the vacant sea ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... was carried a silver oar, the emblem from very early days of a pirate execution. Arrived at the gibbet, the prisoner, who always dressed himself in his, or someone else's, best clothes, would doff his hat and ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... occasionally sheering more into the lake, to avoid some overhanging and nearly horizontal tree, and then returning so closely to the land, as barely to clear the pebbles of the narrow strand with the oar. ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... one paddle left and the steering gear had got torn away from its socket, although Alcides with great courage had managed to save it. I ordered my men to paddle with their hands and with the large oar which was used for steering. We were tossed about in a terrific manner, the men and canoe going round and round the whirlpool in an absolutely ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... shyly toward the Quai Francois Joseph. He slipped through the barrier gate, signaled clumsily to a boatman, crawled under the drunken little awning of the dinghy, and steered a landsman's course along the shining Canal toward the black wall of a German mail-boat. Cramping the Arab's oar along the iron side, he bumped the landing-stage. Safe on deck, he became in a moment stiff and haughty, greeting a fellow passenger here and there with a half-military salute. All afternoon he sat or walked alone, ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... outrigger, it was impossible to keep such a long, narrow thing steady in the water. The outrigger may be described, in any boat, by laying oars across at equal distances, say one right above a thwart. Make fast the handle of each oar to the gunwale on the starboard side of the boat, and let the oars project on the larboard side. To the end of each projecting oar make fast four small sticks running down towards the water, and let their ends also be fastened to a long thick piece of wood, sharp at the one end ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner
... up to the gangway; the man at the bow oar stepped out and assisted her on board. Mat Mogmore did not follow her, but pushed off the boat, and pulled away into the darkness. It still wanted more than half an hour of the time appointed for the sailing of the yacht. Mat pulled a short distance from the vessel, and then lay upon ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... Trenton and Williston before dark. But the following day, our old enemy, the head wind, came with the dawn. We were now sailing a river more than twice the size of the Upper Missouri, and the waves were in proportion. Each at an oar, with the steering wheel lashed, we forged on slowly but steadily. In midstream we found it impossible to control the boat, and though we hugged the shore whenever possible, we were obliged to cross with the channel at every bend. When the waves caught us broadside, we ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... over far Pelorus; Burning crimson tops its frowning crest of pine. Purple sleeps the shore and floats the wave before us, Eachwhere from the oar-stroke eddying warm ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... situated between two townland-locked gulfs with very narrow openings—Lake Tacumshin and Lady's Island Lake. Possibly these lakes gave young Barry the inspiration for the sea, and upon both he in youth, we may be sure, oft pulled the oar. ...
— The Story of Commodore John Barry • Martin Griffin
... for the Old Swan. But none was to be found, so we went to the river, where we were compelled to take an open boat with a steersman and one oarsman. We made poor headway, having to beat against the wind and the tide, so George and I each took an oar. After a time the man at the steering oar said that he would row if George or I would steer the boat, but neither of us knew the river and therefore could not ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... The oar indeed and home with sails Flax-tissued, swelled with favoring gales, Staunch to the wave, from spear-storm free, Have to this shore escorted me, Nor so far blame I destiny. But may the all-seeing Father send In ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... all this action not one word was spoken, even the sturdy boatmen were mute, and the fall of the oar in the rowlock, the plash of the water, and the crushing sound of the yielding rushes as the "watery bier" made its way through them were the only sounds which broke the silence. Still Gustavus betrayed no emotion; but by the time they reached the ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... wide, 3 inches apart and about 5-1/2 feet from the stern end. When the strips were nailed in place these notches formed sockets to receive the row locks. A strip was also nailed across the stern of the boat and formed with two central notches, to receive the row locks for a steering oar. This strip, however, was 3 inches wide, and projected 1 inch above the end board, so as to lie flush with the deck boards, which were later applied. Six thole pins, 1/2 inch thick, 4-1/2 inches long and 2 inches wide, were cut ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond
... oar, and he continued to use the oar as a punt-pole, so that no sound of their movement should reach the bank. Water was pouring into the old sieve, and they touched ground once. But Aguilar knew precisely what he was about and got ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... vaunt is this—Thy grace, Poseidon, we behold, The ruling curb, embossed with gold, Controls the courser's managed pace, Though loud, oh king, thy billows roar, Our strong hands grasp the labouring oar, And while the Nereids round it play, Light cuts ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... with fourscore Italians and Spaniards, were sent forth in a galiot to take a Greek carmosel, which came into Arabia to steal negroes, and went out of Tripolis unto that place which was two hundred and forty leagues thence; but we were chained three and three to an oar, and we rowed naked above the girdle, and the boatswain of the galley walked abaft the mast, and his mate afore the mast, and each of them a whip in their hands, and when their devilish choler rose they would strike the ...
— Voyager's Tales • Richard Hakluyt
... anything should happen to stop it, there are other means of making the U. S. Customs look foolish. Each of us contributes valuable and essential services, mademoiselle, the skipper, my kid-brother, even I—and I pull a strong oar with the New York Police Department into the bargain. But there's a vacancy in our ranks, the opening left by the death of de Lorgnes, an opening that nobody could hope to fill so well as you. So we put it up to you squarely: If you'll sign on ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... no. I was looking to see whether GREEN the Guide was on the car. (Shouts of laughter are heard from the car behind.) Ah, that's GREEN the Guide! I wish he'd come on our oar—very amusing fellow, Sir—capital company! ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 15, 1892 • Various
... it my lot—there peeped a wish— To hand a pilot's oar and sail, Or haul the dripping moonlit mesh Spangled with herring-scale: By dying stars how sweet 'twould be, And dawn-blow freshening the sea, With weary, cheery pull to shore To gain my cottage-home once more, And meet, ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... through the clefts in as sudden a squall as ever overtook a sailor at sea. And then, you know, there is no sea-room. If the wind get the better of them, they are on the shore in a few minutes, whichever way the wind may blow. He saw them worn out at the oar, toiling in rowing, for the wind was contrary unto them. So the time for loneliness and prayer was over, and the time to go down out of his secret chamber and help his brethren was come. He did ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... illimitable canvas and a poem in innumerable cantos,—I have sometimes seen a pleasure-boat drifting along, her sail flapping, and she seeming as if she had neither will nor aim. At her stern a man was laboring to bring her head round with an oar, to little purpose, as it seemed to those who watched him pulling and tugging. But all at once the wind of heaven, which had wandered all the way from Florida or from Labrador, it may be, struck full upon the sail, and it swelled and rounded ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... untie the rope. She had not been in the boat very long, when she felt it moving off—she was frightened and did not know what to do. Growler rushed into the water, and continued to bark very loud. As Eva saw the boat getting away out into the river, she jumped out and with an oar commenced to swim for the shore. Growler took hold of her dress, and was taking her ashore, when an old slave named Sam, rushed into the water and taking her from the faithful dog, bore her in safety to the land. She lay sick for some time and she had a horrid fever for many days. ...
— The Girl's Cabinet of Instructive and Moral Stories • Uncle Philip
... said Cresswell, who still had the oars out, "it will take us all our time to get back. Are you ready to take an oar, ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... the sea-shore, "A bark drew near, that had nor sail nor oar; two women and two men the vessel bore: each of that crew, 'twas wondrous to behold, wore round his head a ring of blazing gold; from which such radiance glittered all around, that I was fain to look towards the ground. And when once more I raised my frightened ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... young jackanapes, there's been enough blood spilt on board this ship already—chiefly in consekence of your havin' shoved in your oar where it weren't wanted, and advisin' the skipper to flog a sick man—and I don't want to have to shed any more, you understand? Wery well, then; you stay in here until that there clock have marked off a good half-hour; arter that you may come out and do the best you can ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... earth did you get that from?... What? So you must put your oar in, must you? What the devil do you know ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... Ralph was sitting in an open boat, listening to the measured oar-strokes of the boatmen who were rowing him out to the nearest stopping-place of the steamer. The mountains lifted their great placid heads up among the sun-bathed clouds, and the fjord opened its cool depths as if to make room for their vast reflections. Ralph felt as if he were ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... lashed galley-slave must have felt when, during a lower-deck mutiny, he broke from his oar and sprang at the throat of the cruel overseer, the embodiment and source of the agony, starvation, toil, brutality, and hopeless woe that had thrust him below the level of the beasts (fortunate beasts) ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... overtaken her—there was yet a whole new region of distrust between them. She and Mercedes, as Mrs. Talcott cheerlessly imaged it, were like a constable and his captive adrift, by a curious turn of fortune, on the waters of a sudden inundation. Together they baled out water and worked at the oar, but both were aware that when the present peril was past a sentence had still to be carried out on one of them. Mercedes could not evade her punishment. If Karen were found Gregory Jardine must come to know that ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... sea-flowers overgrown Like a rock of ocean's own, Topples o'er the abandon'd sea As the tides change sullenly. The fisher on his watery way Wandering at the close of day, Will spread his sail and seize his oar Till he pass the gloomy shore, Lest thy dead should, from their sleep Bursting o'er the starlight deep, Lead a rapid masque of death O'er the waters of ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... the day, and settlers' boats were ready To bear their precious cargoes from the shore. The Pastor's presence kept the young folks steady, Though blandest smiles the happy party wore. Strong, manly arms plied well each sturdy oar, To make the boats fly swift o'er sparkling waves. These seemed quite conscious of the freight they bore, And kissed the water which their trim forms laved; While all enjoyed a scene that ne'er the ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... of the proa descended with a rattle and bang, the man at the oar gave it several vigorous sweeps, and the strange-looking but astonishingly swift craft came to rest almost in the same position that the schooner Coral ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... for his heart was in the talk that Sharlee was dutifully supporting with Mr. Miller. Into this talk he resolutely declined to be drawn, but his ear was alert for opportunities—which came not infrequently—to thrust in a polished oar to the ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison |
