"Tiller" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... yawl dipped her bulwarks to the receding wave. It was certain death for a man to attempt to stand upright upon the sopping deck, for the huge spar swung shoulder high. The steersman, crouching low by his strong tiller, was doing his best to avoid a clean sweep, but only a small jib and the mizzen were standing with straining clews and gleaming seams. Crouching beneath the weather bulwarks, with their feet wedged against the low combing of the hatch, three ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... tiller, on which the sloop broached to and nearly went on her beam ends. This was more than I could bear, and calling on Ramon to follow me, I sprang forward, seized Kidd by the throat, and, drawing my dagger, told him that unless he promised to obey my orders and do his duty, I would make ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... was run off the reel, and a two-score of ready hands grasped it. Cole, as was his privilege, jumped on the engine to steer, for he had rigged up a tiller wheel on it, since it had been in his barn, and this made it easier to pull, even with ...
— The Young Firemen of Lakeville - or, Herbert Dare's Pluck • Frank V. Webster
... young man had called on Cynthia. The girls had discussed the event excitedly, had teased Cynthia about it; they had discovered, moreover, that the young man had not been a tiller of the soil or a clerk in a country store. Ellen, with the enthusiasm of her race, had painted him in glowing colors—but she had neglected to read the name on ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... heart, child, I'd just as lief remember I was a Blake or even a Weatherby, for that matter. Why, Jacob Weatherby's grandfather was an honest, self-respecting tiller of the soil when mine used to fish his necktie out of the punch bowl every ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... nature dreamed of spring; a brilliant, almost joyous sun made the grass in the ditches on either side of the road sparkle with those deceptive pearls of the hoarfrost which vanish at a touch, and rejoice the heart of a tiller of the earth when he sees them glittering at the points of his wheat as it pushes bravely up through the soil. All the windows of the diligence were lowered, to give entrance to this earliest smile of the Divine, as though all hearts were ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... anchor, sailed out of Sandy Hook, and the same day at noon, took their departure from the High Land Never Sunk, and proceeded on their passage to Antigua. As soon as they made sail, the captain ordered the boat to be cast loose, in order that she might be painted, with the oars, rudder and tiller, which job, he (Captain Cochlan) undertook to ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... and now she observed with some girlish anxiety the young man's unwonted solemnity, the strange brilliance of his eyes. A certain nervousness began to show through her cold calm: her unconscious hand wound the taut sheet round and round the tiller, an injudicious business in view of the gusty breeze. How to be rid most quickly of the interloper?... She might, of course, put ashore with him: but she particularly did not care to do that, and have all ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... more than an infant, will take the helm, to which his tiny strength and cunning skill are sufficient. Going off late one night from Hong Kong to the ship, and having to lean over in the stern to get hold of the tiller-lines, I came near putting my whole weight on the baby, lying unperceived in the bottom. Those sedate Chinese children, with their tiny pigtails and their old faces, but who at times assert their common humanity by a wholesome cry; how funny two of them looked, lying in the street ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... imitate; and feels his spirit lowered—he is no more a people—the tide of intellect has borne him down, and swept his humble wigwam from the earth. He, too, is changing: he now dwells, for the most part, in villages, in houses that cannot be moved away at his will or necessity; he has become a tiller of the ground, his hunting expeditions are prescribed within narrow bounds, the forest is disappearing, the white man is everywhere. The Indian must also yield to circumstances; he submits patiently. Perhaps he murmurs in secret; ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... cried. "Haul over your head-sheet, and jam the tiller down into the lap of that comfortable-looking old gentleman. Come: bear a hand, my hummers! or your race-horse of a craft will get the bit into its mouth, and ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... among those of other hardy settlers of the neighborhood. No record has been found of his coming, but emigration by that time had grown so rapid that ships' lists were no longer carefully preserved. And then he was but a simple yeoman, a tiller of the soil; one who must have loved the sea, however, for he moved nearer and nearer towards it from Agawam through Wenham woods, until the close of the seventeenth century found his descendants—my own great-great-grandfather's family—planted in a romantic homestead-nook on a hillside, ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom
... suffering does not result from inequality of condition. Many a poor tiller of the fields enjoys a degree of peace and happiness that those favoured by birth or fortune would envy. Disease visits poor and rich alike; moral suffering is more especially the appanage of the so-called higher classes, and if obscurity and poverty render certain troubles specially severe, ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... With the tiller under one arm and a pipe in his mouth, long empty, sat Martin, thinking about Joan. Hearing voices, Tootles looked up from a book that she was trying to read. She had been lying in the hammock on the stoop of Martin's cottage for an hour, waiting for Martin. It had taken her ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... time they took a rotten old leaky boat they were poor and could afford no other—they took, I say, a rotten old leaky boat whose tiller was loose and whose sails mouldy, and whose blocks were jammed and creaking, and whose rigging frayed, and they boldly set out together into the ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... of the brine, flying large and powerful throughout the under-sky that is salt and swinging and never lit by moon or star. And as the boats followed each other out of the bay, a gallant company, the crews leaned on tiller or on mast and sang their Gaelic iorrams that ever have the zest of the oar, the ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... little unequal, isn't it, aunt?" she said. "One feels inclined to wonder what we have done that we should have exemption from the charge laid upon the first tiller of the soil that we, and the men who are plodding through the dust ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... is many things to many men. To the farmer, who has some claim to priority of verdict, it is a curse, even as the rabbit in Australia, the lemming in Norway, or the locust in Algeria. The tiller of the soil, whose business brings him in open competition with the natural appetites of such voracious birds, beasts, or insects, regards his rivals from a standpoint which has no room for sentiment; and the woodpigeons are to our farmers, particularly ...
— Birds in the Calendar • Frederick G. Aflalo
... not for a moment losing his presence of mind, he observed, as they were carrying him down the ladder, that the tiller ropes, which had been shot away, were not yet replaced, and ordered that new ones should be rove immediately; then, that he might not be seen by the crew, he took out his handkerchief, and covered his face and his stars. Had he but concealed these badges of honour from ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... I must feel the sting of spray, I must hear the rhythmic crash and roar of breakers and watch the sea-weed rise and fall where the green waves lift against the rocks. Once in so often I must ride those waves with cleated sheet and tugging tiller, and hear the soft hissing song of the water on the rail. And 'my day of mercy' is not complete till I have seen some old boat, her seafaring done, heeled over on the beach or amid the fragrant sedges, a mute and wistful witness to the romance of the deep, the blue and restless deep ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... we sail; And it's death that blows the gale And death that holds the tiller as we ride. For he's the king of all In the tempest and the squall, And the ruler of the ...
— New Poems • Robert Louis Stevenson
... amidships, but she came aft at once, and nestled by him as he sat holding the tiller. She put her face against his knee, like a tired child, and shut her eyes; her hair was lifted by the summer breeze; a scent of roses came from her; the mere contact of anything so fresh and pure was a delight. He put his arm ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... were all sailing in close order through a narrow sound, Cormac swung his steering-oar and hit Thorvald a clout on the ear, so that he fell from his place at the helm in a swoon; and Cormac's ship hove to, when she lost her rudder. Steingerd had been sitting beside Thorvald; she laid hold of the tiller, and ran Cormac down. When he saw what she was doing, ...
— The Life and Death of Cormac the Skald • Unknown
... stream of water plump against the helmsman's face. Again and again it flew, until dripping and sore he dropped the tiller and dashed down the companion-way calling loudly ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... Department show that George W. Tiller, the son of the claimant, enlisted in a Kentucky regiment on the 8th day of October, 1861, and that he deserted on the 20th day of September, 1863; that he was captured by the Confederates afterwards, but the time and circumstances are ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... next came, and with it the necessity of rowing again. Then the next, and the next, Cytherea always sitting in the stern with the tiller ropes in her hand. The curves of her figure welded with those of the fragile boat in perfect continuation, as she girlishly yielded herself to its heaving and sinking, seeming to form ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... all very well on paper, but I assure you it was a time of intense excitement to us; if in the moment of deadly struggle the tiller ropes had broken, or the helmsman had made one false turn of the wheel, we might have got across the boiling rapids, and then good-bye to sublunary friends; our bones might have been floating past Quebec before the news of our destruction ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... doubtful himself. He laid his hand on the tiller and was about to change his course when he ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump
... a wowl like a death-cry, shrill and bleak, as made the very blood hoot in their veins; and looking along the water not a hundred yards away, saw the same grizzled sight in the moonlight; so they turned the tiller, and came near enough to see her face—blea it was, and drenched wi' water—and she was above the lake to her middle, stiff as a post, holdin' the weeny barn out to them, and flyrin' [smiling scornfully] ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... impersonal issues. It would have presented a countenance that was unerringly Anglo-Saxon, though modified by the conditions of centuries of changes. One would have recognised instinctively the tiller of the soil—the single class which has refused concessions to the making of a racial cast of feature. The farmer would have stamped his impress indelibly upon the plate—retaining that enduring aspect which comes from contact ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... Robbie took the oars and rowed out until we could hoist the little sail, and then we rounded the Ness and got out into Hoy Sound. The wind was westward, and the current in our favour, so that we had a grand sail across the sound to the Kame of Hoy—Robbie at the tiller, and I sitting near him on the windward gunwale. How our boat danced along and curtsied on the green curling waves! How her bows lifted and fell and sent a belt of foam alongside and away behind us in ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... was pouring out the words, the steersman sprang from the tiller, and seized Potts' oar just in time to save the boat from capsizing. Then he and the big Kentuckian both ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... dream of a kindly, free, poetic, laborious, simple existence for the tiller of the field is not so hard to realize that it must be banished into the world of chimaeras. Virgil's sweet and sad cry: 'O happy peasants, if they but knew their own blessings!' is a regret; but like all regrets, it is at the same time a prediction. ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... and o'er the half-gulfed side, Flood succeeding flood is poured; Fast as they expel the tide, Faster still it rolls aboard. Now e'en Frithiof's dauntless mind Owned the triumph of his foe; Louder yet than wave and wind Thus his thundering accents flow! 'Haste and grasp the tiller, Bjorn, with might of bear-paw! Tempest so infuriate Comes not from Valhalla.* Witchcraft is a-going; Sure, the coward Helge Spells* the raging billows! Mine the charge to explore.'" [Footnote: Longfellow's translation] *[Footnote: Valhalla, the palace of Odin, in ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... every direction along shady paths in the oasis and never weary of its beauty. The tiller-folk are a happy people—one can see from their faces that they have few cares; those that are not at work under the trees may be seen splashing about the brooks or wending to market with donkeys that almost disappear under ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... this down-trodden sufferer took arms against his oppressors, and contemporary chronicles give us some interesting insight into brave deeds done by the tiller of the soil. One of these we propose to tell,—a stirring and romantic one. It is half legendary, perhaps, yet there is reason to believe that it is in the main true, and it paints a vivid picture of those days of blood and violence which is well ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... the barge Arabella sat in the stern of his craft with his right arm leaning on the tiller. A desultory conversation with the mate of a schooner, who was hanging over the side of his craft a few yards off, had come to a conclusion owing to a difference of opinion on the subject of religion. The skipper had argued so warmly that he almost fancied he must have ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... swashing down stream, and a schooner, having but little of wind and less of tide to help it along, was rocking listlessly in the long swell. In the shadow of the slack sails a man sprawled upon the schooner's deck, while against the old-fashioned tiller another leaned lazily. ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... wind as may be, and the other when she runs before it. Either will be quieter than washing about anyhow. May we make a parable out of that? If you want to have as little pitching and tossing as possible on your voyage, keep a good strong hand on the tiller. Do not let the boat lie in the trough of the sea, but drive her right against the wind, or as near it as she will sail. That is to say, have a definite aim to which you steer, and keep a straight course for that. So Christ says to us here. Be not filled with agitations, but seek the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... chiefs, or conspicuous criminals, having their eyes put out, or being maimed in their members. By these barbarous punishments they lost caste, if not life; but that indeed must have been a wretched remnant of existence which remained to the blinded lover, or the maimed warrior, or the crippled tiller of the soil. Of the social and religious relations existing between the races, we shall have occasion to speak more fully ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... in front of the frame. Connected to a system of cables, arms, and rods, possibly similar to the present cam-bar shifter, the shipper-fork carriage was moved from side to side by raising or lowering the tiller. ...
— The 1893 Duryea Automobile In the Museum of History and Technology • Don H. Berkebile
... you get on with poor Peggy last night, Eva?" asked Dr Hayward of his wife, in an undertone, as they breakfasted that forenoon beside the tiller, while the rest of their companions were similarly engaged in the middle of the boat, and ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... the midst of a herd,—and hauls it off to be disgorged down stream. And just as we conclude our lunch, German women come with hoes to practice the gentle art of horticulture—a characteristic conglomeration, in the heart of our busy West; the millionaire on the hill-top, the tiller on the slope, shipwright on the beach, and grimy Commerce master ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... oars until every thing cracked again; but as the flood made, the current against us increased, and we barely held our own. "Steer her, out of the current, man," said the lieutenant to the coxswain; the man put the tiller to ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... required he went down into the ship's waist and, taking off his shirt of chain mail, took his turn upon one of the benches, thus winning the praise of all on board. But most of all he loved to take the tiller in his hand and steer the vessel through the dangers ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... tried to speak reassuringly. "And that's not likely in this weather. As for the fog, it's a dirty nuisance to any navigator but, as I said, may quite possibly prove our salvation. I know these waters like a book, I've sailed them ever since I was old enough to tell a tiller from a mainsheet. I can smell my way in, if it comes to that, through the blindest fog the Atlantic ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... that the old Seahorse was lost. We came at the dons again as we had done before, only closer than ever; and just as the captain gave the word to put her about, a ball from one of their guns which they had trained down on us, cut old Dick Kemp in half at the helm, and broke the tiller ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... in," Tom ordered his companions, as he pushed out a pair of oars. "Nicolas, you're also good with a pair of oars. Mr. Renshaw, you take the tiller. Inform me instantly when you see the first gleam of the 'Morton's' search-light. Evarts ought to have caught the scoundrels this time. Evidently he's been cruising softly without showing ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock
... of the next day. Bissonnette did not know the object of the expedition, but he had caught the spirit of the affair, and his eyes were like spots of steel as he held the sheet or took his turn at the tiller. Joan's eyes were now on the sky, now on the sail, and now on the land, weighing as wisely as her father the advantage of the wind, yet dwelling on that cave where skeletons kept ward over the spoils ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... dignified air and important, Scanning with watchful eye the tide and the wind and the weather, 590 Walked about on the sands, and the people crowded around him Saying a few last words, and enforcing his careful remembrance. Then, taking each by the hand, as if he were grasping a tiller, Into the boat he sprang, and in haste shoved off to his vessel, Glad in his heart to get rid of all this worry and flurry, 595 Glad to be gone from a land of sand and sickness and sorrow, Short allowance of victual, and plenty of nothing but Gospel! Lost in the sound of the oars ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... station, told me, among other anecdotes, that one day, standing on the deck of a small schooner, watching the evolutions of an enormous shark, he saw it seize the rudder with its teeth in a kind of frenzy, or else in mere sport, and shake it so violently that the tiller, striking against some heavy object on deck, was actually broken in two pieces. It is a well-authenticated fact, that some years ago a shark, playing round a whaling vessel of upwards of 300 tons, whilst lying at anchor during a calm, got entangled in the buoy-rope ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... ailes lointaines Le battement dcrot, Si confus dans les plaines, Si faible, que l'on croit Our la sauterelle Crier d'une voix grle Ou ptiller la grle Sur le ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield
... cried; "no talking," and he took the tiller ropes. As he seated himself he looked toward the bows, and his eyes encountered the ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... the figures upon her deck. One man sat by the stern, with something black between his knees over which he stooped. Beside him lay a dark mass which looked like a Newfoundland dog. The boy held the tiller, while against the red glare of the furnace I could see old Smith, stripped to the waist, and shovelling coals for dear life. They may have had some doubt at first as to whether we were really pursuing them, but now ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of the stiff hempen cable that held the felucca to her anchor, until the last turn was gone and the flakes went writhing and twisting out through the hawse-hole; then, as the end disappeared with a splash I dashed aft and rammed the tiller hard over to port—noticing, as I did so, that a large boat, pulling eight oars, was less than a hundred fathoms distant from us, and coming up to us hand over hand. Then, catching a turn of the main-sheet round ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... first of the broad bright lakes, the heat lifted, the breeze leaped up, the loose sail flapped and filled; and, bending graciously as a skater, the old San Marco began to shoot in a straight line over the blue flood. Then, while the boy sat at the tiller, Sparicio lighted his tiny charcoal furnace below, and prepared a simple meal,—delicious yellow macaroni, flavored with goats' cheese; some fried fish, that smelled appetizingly; and rich black coffee, of Oriental fragrance and thickness. Julien ...
— Chita: A Memory of Last Island • Lafcadio Hearn
... misty sea, united to conceal the bold manoeuvre of the cutter. She had almost gained full headway ere an oblique shot, directed by mere chance, struck her stern, tearing the upcurved head of the tiller in the hands of the cabin-boy, and killing him with the splinters. Running to the stump, the captain huzzaed, and steered the reeling ship on. Forced now to hoist back the boat ere giving chase, the stranger was dropped ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... but Kit imagined he could trust them. Another crew picked up the oars, greasy caps were lifted, the Rio Negro's whistle screamed a last salute, and the boat stole away. Mayne steamed off to anchor on good holding ground, and Kit sat at the tiller, with his eyes fixed on the ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... fact that her sails, instead of being white, were tanned a dull red, that blended perfectly with the colour of the distant shore line. A bright-faced, resolute chap, somewhat younger than Cabot, but of equally sturdy build, held the tiller, and regarded with evident approval the behaviour of ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... shore we picked up a breeze, and with the ebbing tide made good speed down the estuary. Shalah the Indian had the tiller, and I sat luxuriously in the bows, smoking my cob pipe, and wondering what the next week held in store for me. The night before I had had qualms about the whole business, but the air of morning ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... now; all hands on deck! We can get into New Bedford in two days if this wind holds. Nor' west!" shouted the skipper to the man at the tiller. "We'll sup with our ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... early to return, she went down to the riverside and seated herself on one of the benches. Many boats were going by, a majority of them containing only two persons—a young man who pulled, and a girl who held the strings of the tiller. Some of these couples Monica disregarded; but occasionally there passed a skiff from which she could not take her eyes. To lie back like that on the cushions and converse with a companion who had nothing of ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... very pale and weak, stepped into the boat which carried the body of his humble friend. For it was decided that Tom Corbin should rest far out in the bay of Biscay. The officer took the tiller and, turning his head for the last look at the shore, saw on the grey hillside something moving, which he made out to be a little man in a yellow hat mounted on a mule—that mule without which the fate of Tom Corbin would have remained mysterious ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... of the harbor. The breath of wind that came down the street caught the top of the sail so lightly as to be imperceptible, and the Pearl seemed endowed with life—the life of a vessel driven on by a mysterious latent power. Pierre took the tiller, and, holding his cigar between his teeth, he stretched his legs on the bunk, and with his eyes half-shut in the blinding sunshine, he watched the great tarred timbers of the breakwater as ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... often sailed in the Greyhound with Ben and others, and she knew precisely what was to be done in order to get the boat under way. She understood how to move the tiller in order to make the craft go in a given direction, and had an indistinct idea of beating and tacking; but she was very far from being competent ...
— Hope and Have - or, Fanny Grant Among the Indians, A Story for Young People • Oliver Optic
... way its strong backward sagging when the rocks appear above it as it falls. We have our hand on the throb of the current turning in a salting river inland between green hills; we are borne upon it bodily as we sail, its movement kicks the tiller in our grasp, and the strength beneath us and around us, the rush and the compulsion of the stream, its silence and as it were its purpose, all represent to us, immediately and here, that immeasurable to and fro ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... the tiller ropes and steer out towards some small schooners grouped to the left of the town near the ...
— Under the Southern Cross • Elizabeth Robins
... rowers kept the boat stationary, backing water. The steersman's left hand played with the tiller-rope, and the boat edged slowly to the shore. There was a grating thrown out over the water from the parapet of the river-wall, to the side of which was attached a boat-ladder, now slung up, for no boat's crew ever stopped ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... into my old place at the tiller without another word—for the thought went through me like a knife that something had happened to Captain Ravender. I should consider myself unworthy to write another line of this statement, if I had not made up my mind to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth—and ...
— The Wreck of the Golden Mary • Charles Dickens
... Jones was intent upon grappling with his adversary. Quickly jerking the tiller to one side, he shoved the Richard into the wind and endeavored to run her—bows on—into the side of his opponent. The Serapis paid off, her stern swung to, and, before she could gather way, the ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... it conjures up a vision of spectral pines towering through the shadow that veils the earth below, while above the mists the snow lies draped in stainless purity waiting for the dawn. Then I know that Harry, who is only a tiller of the soil, had learned in the book of nature to grasp the message of that scene, and interpret it through the close of a ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... down the tiller. The Good Venture swept round under the stern of the Spaniard at a distance of some forty yards, and as she did so the guns loaded with bullets to the muzzle were fired one after the other. The effect was terrible, and the galleries and poop were swept by the leaden shower. ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... monasteries filled with untold wealth, and rich provinces to be won by the sword. Skalds sang of the deeds done in the south, and shiploads of spoil confirmed their lays. Little wonder then that Estein should feel his heart beat high as he stood by the great tiller. ...
— Vandrad the Viking - The Feud and the Spell • J. Storer Clouston
... from the last of them on the deck of the little cutter, he saw Blue Peter sitting on the coamings of the hatch, his feet hanging down within. He was lost in the book he was reading. Curious to see, without disturbing him, what it was that so absorbed him, Malcolm dropped quietly on the tiller, and thence on the deck, and approaching softly peeped over his shoulder. He was reading the epistle of James the apostle. Malcolm fell a-thinking. From Peter's thumbed bible his eyes went wandering through the thicket of masts, ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... cried Bert, grasping the tiller, which Harry was not holding just right. By turning the ice-boat to one side the wind did not strike it so hard, and the craft settled ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Snow Lodge • Laura Lee Hope
... suffered much more severely. The flagship Languedoc, 90, had carried away her bowsprit, all her lower masts followed it overboard, and her tiller also was broken, rendering the rudder unserviceable. The Marseillais, 74, lost her foremast and bowsprit. In the dispersal of the two fleets that followed the gale, each of these crippled vessels, on the evening of the 13th, encountered singly a British 50-gun ship; the Languedoc ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... been considered the natural avocation of the ignorant and the illiterate! Strange as it may appear, it seems to have been generally conceded that the typical clodhopper was the ordained farmer! That this perverted idea regarding the requirements of a tiller of the soil, should have maintained its existence for so many ages, is a matter of profound astonishment to ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... stiffen. Looking back against sun and wind, she saw herself pursued by a saucy little 15-ton craft that had been in her track since she left the Otley river before noon, dipping and straining, with every inch of sail set; as mad a stern chase as ever was witnessed: and who could the man at the tiller, clad cap-A-pie in tarpaulin, be? She led him dancing away, to prove his resoluteness and laugh at him. She had the powerful wings, and a glory in them coming of this pursuit: her triumph was delicious, until the occasional sparkle ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... beach; and the man who was ashore gave him an arm on board, and then shoved off and leaped into the bows himself. Northmour took the tiller; the boat rose to the waves, and the oars between the thole-pins sounded crisp and ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... broad face beaming with boyish happiness, and something like a fatherly gentleness in his eyes, as he watched his companion at the tiller, whom, for a half-asleep moment of waking, I couldn't account for, till our start all came back to me, when I realised that it was our young scapegrace of over-night. Charlie and he evidently were on the ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... within twenty yards of this ship, and slowly as they were moving through the water, in another three or four minutes the vessels grated together. At Harry's first order the whole of his men had swarmed on deck, pouring in such a fire of musketry that none could stand alive at the enemy's tiller to keep her head away as the Lass of Devon approached. As the vessels touched Harry leaped from the bulwark on to the deck of the enemy, followed by Jacob and his men. The Parliamentary troops had also rushed on deck, and, although ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... void perhaps, but so beatifically clean! Then it was that we learned her worth, drinking in the knowledge without effort, lulled hour after hour by her whisperings which asked for no answer, by the pulse of her tiller soft against the palm. Patter of reef-points, creak of cordage, hum of wind, hiss of brine—I think at times that she has found a more human language. Who that has ever steered for hours together cannot report of a mysterious voice 'breaking the ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... about 300 people—not more—in the fortification. Steaming close in without being hailed, the vessels hove to opposite the works. A row-boat manned by Senegalese pushed from the shore and made for the "Dal." From the stern staff drooped the French flag, and by the tiller sat Major Marchand and an officer, M. Germain. The Major was dressed in a suit of white ducks. Below the medium height, of spare habit, with something like Dundreary side whiskers, he looked elderly and worn, almost twice his years, for he is still ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... motioned his companion to take up the oars, and then shoved off, leaping lightly on the stern-sheets where he could handle the tiller. ...
— Messenger No. 48 • James Otis
... have finished the voyage in safety that she took thankfully everything else, even lying awake. It was a wild night. The wind rose soon after they reached Bridgeport, and swept furiously over the boat, rattling the tiller chains and making Fleda so nervously alive to possibilities that she got up two or three times to see if the boat were fast to her moorings. It was very dark, and only by a fortunately placed lantern she could see a bit of the dark wharf and one of the posts ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... and Charles made sure she meant to box the man's ears. He could not see the look on her face, but whatever it was it cowed the fellow, who seized his oars again and began to pull for dear life, as she sat back and laid her hand on the tiller. ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... in my time, but never just in that way. With the mizzen boom we rigged up a fore jury-mast and made shift to hoist a storm staysail to give us steerin' way and rigged up a tiller for steerin'. The wind was whistling like all possessed. It was askin' more than any vessel had a right to stand, and around midnight the fore staysail was blown clean out of the bolt ropes and she lost steerage way again. We couldn't hold her ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... I reckoned,' said the skipper, with just a nod of his head. He had taken the tiller and sent all the crew, saving four men rowing, forward whilst I examined the patients. 'Jock wouldn't be one to let out a groan if he knew there were women by to be scared by it. . . . Also, Doctor, if he's dying, I'd like to be handy by, if you understand. I got ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... by a signal before night; yet, with all this precaution, I found myself accompanied only by the brigantine Vengeance in the morning, the Granville having remained astern with a prize, as I have since understood the tiller of the Pallas broke after midnight, which disabled her from keeping up, but no apology has yet been made in behalf ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... I am, I only smiled indulgently at him, as if, for women, marrying was mere reposing on eider-down cushions, with the tiller ropes in their hands, while men did the rowing. I was not going to admit, Tabby, that the most of the girls we know never worked harder in their lives than during that indefinite and mysterious period known as "making up their minds." You see I uphold ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... skipper, "if the weather holds." And for a month the weather did hold, and the catches were good, and Duncan learned a great deal. He learnt how to keep a night-watch from midnight till eight in the morning, and then stay on deck till noon; how to put his tiller up and down when his tiller was a wheel, and how to vary the order according as his skipper stood to windward or to lee; he learnt to box a compass and to steer by it; to gauge the leeway he was making by the angle of his wake ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... around at the last moment for a perfect landing. The mainsail and jib went up with rapid jerks while the rings rattled their protest. The strenuous physical exercise brought him temporary relief; but, when he had cast off, taken the tiller and after a few moments of idle jockeying back and forth in the light puffs, squared away for the run seaward before the rising wind, his gloomy thoughts returned, to settle like a flock of phantom harpies and feast ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... the surface of things. Rapacity on the part of the rich meant oppression of the poor; increase of power for the mighty meant decrease of opportunity for the humble tiller of the soil and ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... significant remark that he looked forward to the time when they would once more live as country gentlemen in Kent. Pitt had the same longing; but he never wrote a line expressing a desire to leave the tiller at the height of the storm. Obviously Camden was weary of his work. Fear seems to have been the motive which prompted his proclamation of martial law in several counties and the offer of an amnesty to all who would surrender their ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... understand you not, unless your Grace means growing to fatness; and then your only remedy (upon my knowledge, Prince) is in a morning a Cup of neat White-wine brew'd with Carduus, then fast till supper, about eight you may eat; use exercise, and keep a Sparrow-hawk, you can shoot in a Tiller; but of all, your Grace must flie Phlebotomie, fresh Pork, Conger, and clarified Whay; They are all ...
— Philaster - Love Lies a Bleeding • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... instant, relieved against a tower of glimmering foam. I still see her reefed mainsail flapping loose, as the boom fell heavily across the deck; I still see the black outline of the hull, and still think I can distinguish the figure of a man stretched upon the tiller. Yet the whole sight we had of her passed swifter than lightning; the very wave that disclosed her fell burying her for ever; the mingled cry of many voices at the point of death rose and was quenched in the roaring of the Merry Men. And with that the tragedy was at an ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the first, and leaped to the steering deck, where he grasped the tiller, paying no heed to me. His eyes were on the lane end. I got out of his way, and stood by the stern post, with my arm round the ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... These two words, which mean "tiller of the mountain," form with the old Cantabri a solemn preface to any subject ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... heave to. I cried, "All hands down!" as the gale struck us with the force of a thunderbolt, carrying a wall of white water with it which burst over us like a cataract. I thought we were swamped as I clung desperately to the tiller, though thrown violently against the boom. But after the shock, our brave little boat, though half filled, rose and shook herself like a spaniel. The mast bent like a whip-stick, and I expected to see it blown out of her, but, gathering way, we flew with the wind. The surface was lashed ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... full of endurance and compassion, stood by the side of the bed on which the splendid Capataz de Cargadores lay stretched out motionless on his back. The whiteness of sheets and pillows gave a sombre and energetic relief to his bronzed face, to the dark, nervous hands, so good on a tiller, upon a bridle and on a trigger, lying open and idle upon a ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... and they floated through waves as rosy as the rosy sky. A fresh wind filled the sail, and ruffled Gulliver's white breast as he sat on the mast-head crooning a cheery song to himself. Dan held the tiller, and Davy lay at his feet, with Nep bolt upright beside him; but the happiest face of all was Moppet's. Kneeling at the bow, she leaned forward, with her lips apart, her fuzzy hair blown back, and her eyes fixed on the island which was to be her ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... aft with the sheet shipped the tiller, and, taking his seat by the girl, put the boat before the wind. La Touche, who had taken his seat on the after thwart, was engaged in opening the tin of beef. The girl scarcely noticed him. She was experiencing a new sensation, the ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... the stern, where he controlled the tiller, while the native lounged on the front seat smoking his eternal cigarette. Behind them the pretty little capital, with its five thousand inhabitants, distributed mostly in adobe huts, shabby and of small dimensions, gradually sank ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... cultivation of them are now justly considered of more importance to our well-being than is the fund which the sale of them would produce. The remarkable growth and prosperity of our new States and Territories attest the wisdom of the legislation which invites the tiller of the soil to secure a permanent home on terms within the reach of all. The pioneer who incurs the dangers and privations of a frontier life, and thus aids in laying the foundation of new commonwealths, ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... patter of heralding drops, and then a steady, rhythmical drumming on the shake roof. The man smiled, with that ineffable delight in the music which no one really knows but the tiller ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... loaded his piece. He looked up at the star of which he had been steering, just touching the tiller with his arm, to bring the boat, which had gone off half a point, back to her proper course; and then turning round, and half kneeling on the seat, he fired with the same deliberate coolness as before. The bullet struck the boat, but no one appeared to be wounded, ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... to take the sail off her, so we drove on down Channel, trusting to the goodness of the gear. There would have been a pretty smash-up if we had had to alter our course hurriedly. As it was we were jumping like a young colt, in a welter of foam, with two men at the tiller, besides a gang on the tackles. I never knew any ship to bound about so wildly. I passed the evening after supper on deck, enjoying the splendour of that savage leaping rush down Channel, yet just a little nervous at the sight of our spars buckling under the strain. The captain was drunk before ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... his stately head. There were more farewells in shallow water, more running to and fro; a brief reappearance of the undecided parrakeet. The young men took their places at the thwarts, the old chief settled the tiller on the rudder head, the women, girls, and children crowded in wherever they could, and then, amid shouts and cheers, the paddles dipped and the ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... Mr. P. went out fishing. He hired a boat, and a man to sail it, and while the man was getting ready to put off, Mr. P. took his seat in the bow and began to fix his lines. He always likes to sit in the bow. The tiller don't knock him so often in the back, and the boom don't bother his head so much. What he particularly wanted was to catch a devil-fish! He thought to himself what a splendid thing it would be to catch one of the ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 14, July 2, 1870 • Various |
