"Tiller" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the work 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 of ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... up the tiller ropes and steer out towards some small schooners grouped to the left of the town near ...
— Under the Southern Cross • Elizabeth Robins
... sailing master issued these orders Dick signed to the helmsman, who thereupon thrust the ponderous tiller hard down, and the Adventure, answering her helm perfectly, swept round in a short curve and went gliding up on the starboard side ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... out of it connecting with the river. Through one of these Tommy steered his course, bringing us into the main stream a few hundred yards down from where we had been lying. Then, turning her round, he handed the tiller over to Joyce, and clambered up alongside of me on to the ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... 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 ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... Fellows like you with their hands always on their tillers, fellows with cool heads and calm passions never can understand us who fly off at every spark that's set to us. All I can promise you is this—help me now and, by God! I'll let your hand rest on my tiller till I get into smooth waters again and—I've learned my lesson! What I've got to tell you sounds like a yarn, Sand. All the time I was coming up The Way I kept repeating 'it's not true!' but good Lord—it is! Morley, I'm married. I was ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... impressions, never tired of contemplating its infinite, free and powerful immensity. It offended him to receive such a reply to his question concerning the beauty of the sea that he loved. Seated at the tiller, he cleaved the water with his oar and gazed tranquilly before him, filled with the desire to thus continue rowing forever over this ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... abaft—(for thou canst understand That phrase)—and there he sitteth at the stern, Grasping the tiller in his broad brown hand, The hardy Fisherman. Thou may'st discern Ten fathoms off the wrinkles in the tann'd And honest countenance that he will turn To look upon us, with a quiet gaze— As we are passing on our ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... and with Harris at the sculls and I at the tiller-lines, and Montmorency, unhappy and deeply suspicious, in the prow, out we shot on to the waters which, for a fortnight, were to be ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... ships. Though they were only schooners carrying cement, I wanted to sit in the sun on the string-piece of a wharf and watch them. I wanted to beat about the harbor in a catboat, and feel the tug and pull of the tiller. Kinney protested that that was no way to spend a vacation or to invite adventure. His face was set against Fairport. The conversation of clam-diggers, he said, did not appeal to him; and he complained that at Fairport our only chance of adventure would be my capsizing the catboat or robbing ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... was on deck, over the railing, and in the boat. The men wanted to put off. Frederick protested, and disputed loudly with the third mate, who in the meantime had entered the boat and was grasping the tiller. ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... "And she again bare his brother Abel, And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground." ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... into the boat, and he flung out the dory's anchor and followed. The sail went up with a pleasant clucking of the tackle, and the light wind filled it. Libby made the sheet fast, and, sitting down in the stern on the other side, took the tiller and headed the boat toward the town that shimmered in the distance. The water hissed at the bow, and seethed and sparkled from the stern; the land breeze that bent their sail blew cool upon her cheek and freshened it with ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the captain put 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 ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... voyageurs, who fought and overcame the ancient Nile, surely never wielded paddles. His chief trial was his own faithful follower, for Dan Murphy strove to out-Canadian the wildest river-driver of the Ottawa valley. And had Scotty's strong hand not been often placed upon the unsteady tiller of his friend's life, there might have been a sadder wreck among the Nile voyageurs than has been set down in history. His vigilant oversight of Dan's conduct did not prevent him distinguishing himself in quite a ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... than even!—with you, dear lady," he promised, releasing his tiller to shake his fist at Miss Herron's unconscious and unbending figure, "if it takes all summer. I wonder if she could have guessed. And it ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... 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, renders a signal service to his country, and is entitled to ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... and made the blood run to and fro on the round-house floor, and a heavy rain that drummed upon the roof. All my watch there was nothing stirring; and by the banging of the helm, I knew they had even no one at the tiller. Indeed (as I learned afterwards) there were so many of them hurt or dead, and the rest in so ill a temper, that Mr. Riach and the captain had to take turn and turn like Alan and me, or the brig might have gone ashore and nobody the wiser. It was a mercy ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Gattamelata and Carmagnola sprang from obscurity by personal address and courage to the command of armies. Colleoni fought his way up from the grooms to princely station and the baton of S. Mark. Francesco Sforza, whose father had begun life as a tiller of the soil, seized the ducal crown of Milan, and founded a house which ranked among the first ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... control of an airplane has to be learned mechanically. Once learned the aviator applies his knowledge intuitively. He "senses" the position and progress of the craft by the feel of the controls, as the man at the yacht's tiller tells mysteriously how she is responding to the breeze by "the feel." Even before the 'plane responds to some sudden gust of wind, or drops into a hole in the air, the trained aviator will foresee precisely what is about to happen. He reads ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... pokeberry juice; her cheeks—round an' soft—is as cl'ar an' bright an' glowin' as a sunset in Jooly; her teeth is as milk-white as the inside of a persimmon seed. She's five-foot-eleven without her mocassins, stands as up an' down as a pine tree, got a arm on her like the tiller of a scow, an' can heft a full-sized side of beef an' hang it on the hook. That's fifty years ago. She's back home on the Hawgthief waitin' for me now, my Sarah Ann is. You'd say she's as gray as a 'possum, an' as wrinkled as a burnt boot. Mebby so; but ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... leurs 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 ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield
... the sort; instead, working at it as hard as he could go, he was letting out a couple of reefs which he had taken up in the mainsail an hour before—in another minute they were out, the yacht moved more swiftly, and, springing to the tiller, he deliberately steered her clear away ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... hurrah, we're off once more," Shouted the Polar Bear, waving his paw, And the Mermaid Princess laughed in glee As he held the tiller and ...
— The Iceberg Express • David Magie Cory
... nor does even the flora of the Oolite seem to have been in the least suited for the purposes of the shepherd or herdsman. Not until we enter on the Tertiary periods do we find floras amid which man might have profitably labored as a dresser of gardens, a tiller of fields, or a keeper of flocks and herds. Nay, there are whole orders and families of plants of the very first importance to man which do not appear until late in even the Tertiary ages. Some degree of doubt must always ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... about, with the intention of fleeing; Vagn Akason cried out to him bidding him stay, but never a moment would Sigvaldi heed give to what he said, so Vagn sent a javelin after him, and smote the man who held the tiller. Earl Sigvaldi rowed out of the battle with thirty-five ships and left twenty-five ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson
... for the rest of the Summer. They are going to Norway in Jack Stuart's yacht. Archie is going with them." Now Archie was known to be a great man in a yacht, cognizant of ropes, well up in booms and spars, very intimate with bolts, and one to whose hands a tiller came as naturally as did the saddle of a steeple-chase horse to the legs of his friend Doodles. "They are going to fish," ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... 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 had ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... men set their teeth. He of the stern lashed the tiller amidships, and crept forward, aiding the other to push out the long boom which projected from ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... feared to see the thin planks yield and my trunk go out to sea by itself. Not that I cared for my trunk—my life was the subject that interested me at the time. Outside, too, the doors and blinds rattled, the tiller-chain chattered and wailed and sobbed like a woman in distress, and above all other sounds rose the dismal fog horn, for a pall of ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... girl's and big grey eyes—was the hero of the lower deck. Eager questioners crowded round him. He narrated: 'I just saw his head bobbing, and I dashed my boat-hook in the water. It caught in his breeches and I nearly went overboard, as I thought I would, only old Symons let go the tiller and grabbed my legs—the boat nearly swamped. Old Symons is a fine old chap. I don't mind a bit him being grumpy with us. He swore at me all the time he held my leg, but that was only his way of telling me to stick to the boat-hook. ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... through the locks by men harnessed to a long tow rope, and a savage dog on one of these barges menaced me with dripping fangs and bloodshot eyes when I stopped to talk to the steersman, who sat on the tiller smoking a short, evil-smelling pipe, while his "vrouwe" was hanging out a heavy wash of vari-colored garments on a line from the staff on the bow to a sweep fastened upright ...
— Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders • George Wharton Edwards
... his head, took the tiller from the steersman, and bade him go below and fill himself. Will Cary went down, and returned in five minutes, with a plate of bread and beef, and a great jack of ale, coaxed them down Amyas' throat, as a nurse does with a child, and then scuttled below again ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... into the starry vault of the sky and exchanging no speech with Martin, experienced a sudden feeling of loneliness. She glanced at him. A puff of wind was heeling the boat over till the deck was awash, and he, one hand on tiller and the other on main-sheet, was luffing slightly, at the same time peering ahead to make out the near-lying north shore. He was unaware of her gaze, and she watched him intently, speculating fancifully about the strange warp of soul that led him, a young man ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... noiseless in-plunge and out-glide of shining rods—the ten-foot stroke of either shaft and equal sweep of crank, the nimble beat of paddle-wheels and tumble of their cataracts, the tranquil creep of tiller-ropes, and the compelling swing and sage guidance ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... And Nelson replied: "Yes, my backbone is shot through." But he showed no agitation, and as the men carried him below he covered his decorations with a handkerchief, lest the crew should notice them and realize that they had lost their chief, and he gave Hardy an order to see that tiller-lines were rigged on the rudder-head, to ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... 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 for the ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... land on some Olympian errand. Here and there, indeed, a few children huzzah and wave their hands to the express; but for the most part it is an interruption too brief and isolated to attract much notice; the sheep do not cease from browsing; a girl sits balanced on the projecting tiller of a canal boat, so precariously that it seems as if a fly or the splash of a leaping fish would be enough to overthrow the dainty equilibrium, and yet all these hundreds of tons of coal and wood and iron have been precipitated ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... life than by your death. Why have the oxen deserved this, an animal without guile and deceit, innocent, harmless, born to endure labour? In fact, the man is ungrateful, and not worthy of the gifts of the harvest, who could, just after taking off the weight of the curving plough, slaughter the tiller of his fields; who could strike, with the axe, that neck worn bare with labour, through which he had so oft turned up the hard ground, {and} had ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... away, lads!" he cried; "no talking," and he took the tiller ropes. As he seated himself he looked toward the bows, and his eyes encountered ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... every act of the drama and feel the pulsation of his great heart. Through an interpreter he afterwards narrated his manner of taking the vessel, and how it happened to reach American shores. How, after taking the ship, he stood by the tiller with drawn weapon and commanded the mate to steer back to Africa. During the day he complied, but at night took the opposite course. After sometime of circuitous wandering the vessel ran into Long ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... 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
... work for the oarsmen; but the seat of honour was in the stern of the boat, and no man filled it better than the transformed Tam. Alert and full of resource, with one hand on the tiller, he leaned over the boat, lengthening or shortening rope for the halter, and regulating the speed of the oarsmen with unerring judgment; giving a staunch swimmer time and a short rope to lean on, or literally dragging the faint-hearted across at full speed; careful ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... three-cornered hat, and two soldiers had unfastened their knapsacks and used them as pillows. Near the bowsprit stood a cabin-boy looking into the stay-sail and whistling for wind, while the skipper remained aft and managed the tiller. Still no wind arose. Orders were given to haul in the sails; slowly and gently they came down and fell in a heap on the benches; then each sailor took off his waistcoat, stowed it away under the bow of the boat, and the men began ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert
... to which woman is always consigned where civilization and religion are not, she was little less than a beast of burden, busy with cooking, the manufacture of pottery, mats, baskets, moccasins, etc., a tiller of the ground, a nurse for her own children, and at all times a servant to the commands and passions of ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... tiller had been expropriated from the soil Wallace says: "The ingenuity of lawyers and direct landlord legislation steadily increased the powers of great landowners and encroached upon the rights of the people, till ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... was warm weather, the beginning of May, I think, and the plan was to sleep ashore every night. We found this plan to answer expectation. The trip was, in every respect, delightful. Mr. Willers lent a ready hand at the oars and tiller by turns. He possessed a good share of urbanity, had seen much of the world, and was of an age and temper to vent no violent opinions. He gave me information on some topics. We got along pleasantly. One day, a sleeping sawyer, as it is called, rose up in the river behind ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... stand still the runner-plank would strike him below the knee and break both his legs like straws; besides, when he was knocked over he was likely to be struck by the tiller-runner, which ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... Amour. She reached it in the late afternoon 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
... she was splendid and stirred the dead embers of Farwell's imagination to something like life. If she were bent upon her course, if his hand could not rest upon the tiller of her untested craft when she put out to sea, what could he do for her? ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... later we stood on the quarter-deck of the cruising sampan. Lee Fu took his station at the great tiller. The wind lulled, as the trough of a squall passed over; he gave a few sharp orders. Moorings were cast off, a pinch of sail was lifted forward. The big craft found her freedom with a lurch and a stagger; then pulled herself together and left the land ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... funnel, which slips off just above the roof. The slit in the cabin top just back of the hatch is where your engine lever comes through. The bitts, B, fore and aft, are made of Spanish cedar, running through the deck to the hull. Your tiller may be made of steel wire running through the head of the rudder-post, which is made of iron wire; the man who makes your engine will do this ...
— Harper's Young People, July 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... no guns or carronades of any kind in the vessel, which had more the appearance of a fast-sailing trader than a pirate. But I was struck with the neatness of everything. The brass work of the binnacle and about the tiller, as well as the copper belaying-pins, were as brightly polished as if they had just come from the foundry. The decks were pure white, and smooth. The masts were clean-scraped and varnished except at the cross-trees and truck, which were painted black. The standing and running rigging was in ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... friend and kinsman, the Stukeleys could not part from him until he was safely launched upon his voyage. At the head of the stairs they were met by Captain King; at the foot of them a boat was waiting, as concerted, the boatswain at the tiller. ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... tiller of the fields, but, also, a water-carrier. He was resting now, after his labors in the ...
— Virgilia - or, Out of the Lion's Mouth • Felicia Buttz Clark
... round the cabin. The fish were placed on an earthenware dish, each man cutting off slices with his jack-knife, and using his bread as a platter. Little was said while the meal went on; but when they went on deck again, the skipper, having put another man at the tiller, while the man released went forward to get his ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... this," said Mr. Fison, who was trembling violently. He went to the tiller, while the boatman and one of the workmen seated themselves and began rowing. The other workman stood up in the fore part of the boat, with the boat-hook, ready to strike any more tentacles that might appear. Nothing else seems to have been said. Mr. Fison had expressed the common feeling ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... the month of May, 19—, I launched my boat, and after rowing about half a mile from shore I shipped my oars, stepped the mast, hoisted sail and reclining on a cushioned seat at the stern with my hand on the tiller, I waited for a breeze to spring up, and whilst so doing I fell asleep. How long I slept I know not, for when I awoke my boat was close to shore, and to my' astonishment I was in strange waters. I went ashore, when I was accosted in English ...
— Eurasia • Christopher Evans
... lower classes had any relation to the upper classes, it was one, thought Shakespeare, of dependence and obligation. It was not the tiller of the soil who fed the lord of the manor, but rather the lord who supported the peasant. Does not the king have to lie awake and take thought for his subjects? Thus Henry V. complains that he can ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... any question was answered at once with quiet, willing brevity, not as if he had been interrupted in his thoughts, or was recalled to a recognition of our existence, but just as he would turn the tiller in steering his boat,—while the eye still continued its conversation with that impersonal, elemental company which he seemed to keep. I found it out of my power to relate myself to him as an individual. In most faces you study special character; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... 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
... with his not over-numerous crew—for it consisted only of a man and a boy, besides himself, though Mrs. Tom, who also lived in the tiny craft, ought to be counted as no inconsiderable addition to the vessel's complement, for she did the cooking, and on occasions could take the tiller and steer as cunningly as the gallant Tom himself. I found him hard at work hurrying the cargo over the side, assisted by the townspeople, who all showed the greatest anxiety that no time should be lost in setting out for the relief of the shipwrecked men. Everything ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... stepped slowly into the barge.... The Tartar and the three ferrymen took the long, broad-bladed oars, which in the dim light looked like a crab's claw, and Simeon flung himself with his belly against the tiller. And on the other side the voice kept on shouting, and a revolver was fired twice, for the man probably thought the ferrymen were asleep or ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... now stood baskets and shawls, a book or two, an empty basket for wild flowers, and by the tiller sat Faith—invested with her new dignity but not yet instructed therein. Mr. Linden stood on the shore, with the boat's detaining rope in his hand, looking about him as if he had a mind to take the good of things as he went along. ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... enlightened nation is quaint, unconsciously softened by the cultivation and refinement of institutions that lie far away. In such communities live poets with lyres attuned to drollery. Moved by the grandeurs of nature, the sunrise, the sunset, the storm among the mountains, the tiller of the gullied hill-side field is half dumb, but with those apt "few words which are seldom spent in vain," he charicatures his own sense of beauty, mingling rude metaphor with the language of "manage" to ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read
... Phil got Cap'n Jonadab talking "boat," and when Jonadab talks "boat" there ain't no stopping him. He's the smartest feller in a cat-boat that ever handled a tiller, and he's won more races than any man on the Cape, I cal'late. Phil asked him and me if we'd ever sailed on an ice-boat, and, when we said we hadn't he asks if we won't take a sail with him on the river next ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... side!" called out Dick, and ran for the biggest sweep he could find. "Jam over the rudder!" he called to Songbird, who was at the tiller. ...
— The Rover Boys in Southern Waters - or The Deserted Steam Yacht • Arthur M. Winfield
... keep the cutter just without the breakers, Mr. Effingham," Captain Truck continued, after standing up a while and examining the shore, "I will pull into the channel, and land in yonder bay. If you feel disposed to follow, you may do so by giving the tiller to Mr. Blunt, on receiving a signal to that effect from me. Be steady, gentlemen, at your oars, and look well to the arms on landing, for we are in a knavish part of the world. Should any of the monkeys or ouran-outangs claim kindred with Mr. Saunders, we may find it no easy matter to persuade ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... in ten minutes," said a man in oil-skins, who helped them over the low bulwarks. He spoke good English, and seemed to have learned some of the taciturnity of the seafaring portion of that nation with their language; for he went aft to the tiller without more words and ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... too closely observe the crew of the whaleboat. The chief of the expedition had quietly descended to the platform of the after gangway, and when the boat dropped astern, he stepped into it, selecting his place by the side of the engineer, who had taken the tiller lines. The boat pulled away at once, with four hands at the oars, and Mr. Graines headed it to the north-east by the compass, the side lights of which were covered so that they should not betray the approach of the boat to the shore, if ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... 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 ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... do turn out very oddly; don't they?' said Mark with a sly glance of complacency, and his hands in his pockets. 'But I know you'll hold the tiller till I get through; hang me if I know the soundings, or where I'm going; and you have the chart by ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... gulleries upon him. He has a strange kindness for an action of the case, but a most passionate loyalty for the King's writ. A well-drawn bill and answer will draw him all the world over, and a breviate as far as the Line. He enters the lists at Westminster like an old tiller, runs his course in law, and breaks an oath or two instead of a lance; and if he can but unhorse the defendant and get the sentence of the judges on his side, he marches off in triumph. He prefers a cry of lawyers at the Bar before any pack of the best-mouthed dogs in all the North. He has ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... wholesome salt airs, 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 silence of the seas,' as ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... distance which shall maintain him in that knowledge. The ambitious farmer is not the hunting farmer in his normal condition; he is either one who has an eye to selling his horse, and, riding with that view, loses for the time his position as farmer; or he is some exceptional tiller of the soil who probably is dangerously addicted to hunting as another man is addicted to drinking; and you may surmise respecting him that things will not go well with him after a year or two. The ...
— Hunting Sketches • Anthony Trollope
... 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 here at this season. The boat was nearing this—all but close—when the bigger ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... the darkness came another darkness, and gradually loomed forth the heaviness of a barge. Noiselessly it glided down the stream, very slowly; at the end of it a boy stood at the tiller, steering; and it passed beneath them and beyond, till it lost itself in the night, and again they ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham
... Cipango (or Japan). So he decided to sail into one of its harbors to spend Christmas Day. But just before Christmas morning dawned, the helmsman of the Santa Maria, thinking that everything was safe, gave the tiller into the hands of a boy—perhaps it was little Pedro the cabin boy—and went to sleep. The rest of the crew also were asleep. And the boy who, I suppose, felt quite big to think that he was really steering the Admiral's flagship, was a little ...
— The True Story of Christopher Columbus • Elbridge S. Brooks
... was on deck—the man at the helm, dozing peaceably with his arm over the useless tiller. Minute by minute the light grew, and the heat grew with it; and still the helmsman slumbered, the heavy sails hung noiseless, the quiet water lay sleeping against the vessel's sides. The whole orb of the sun was visible above the water-line, when the first sound pierced its way through ...
— Miss or Mrs.? • Wilkie Collins
... will handle the oars; while a little one, sometimes hardly 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, ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... no manner o' doubt you're right, lad, but I've got my sea-legs on now, so to speak; leastwise I've got used to ridin' in the trip out here, as well as used to steerin' wi' the tiller-ropes in front, which seems to me right in the teeth o' natur', though I couldn't see how it could well be otherwise. But I confess that my chief difficulty is the ordnance, for it interferes a good deal wi' the ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... were occupied in field work and more field work; he cleared new bits of ground, getting out roots and stones; ploughing, manuring, harrowing, working with pick and spade, breaking lumps of soil and crumbling them with hand and heel; a tiller of the ground always, laying out fields like velvet carpets. He waited a couple of days longer—there was a look of rain about—and ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... seemed to slide swiftly into the pearly splendour of a moonlit night. And now the lights of Coralio appeared, distributed against the darkening shore to their right. The admiral stood, silent, at the tiller; the Caribs, like black panthers, held the sheets, leaping noiselessly at his short commands. The three passengers were watching intently the sea before them, and when at length they came in sight of the bulk of a steamer lying a mile out from the town, with her lights radiating deep ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... said: "Now may we see the treason of those brethren against us." Therewith he took the tiller, but Frithiof caught up a forked beam, and ran into the prow, and sang ...
— The Story Of Frithiof The Bold - 1875 • Anonymous
... rope which held the dinghy to a stanchion beside the tiller. Then he and his father proceeded to hoist the foresail so as to get ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... accident has just occurred. As the gig was coming alongside, under sail, the tiller broke, and the coxswain who was steering, fell overboard. He was a good swimmer, and struck out for the ship, not thirty yards distant, while the boat fell off rapidly to the leeward. In less than half a minute, a monstrous shark rose to the surface, ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... rapidly on the schooner; I could see the brass glisten on the tiller as it banged about; and still no soul appeared upon her decks. I could not choose but suppose she was deserted. If not, the men were lying drunk below, where I might batten them down, perhaps, and do what I chose ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... an answering hail, and they soon saw that a boat was being manned. It came rapidly inshore, propelled by four members of the crew, and, as it drew nearer, they could see that Rogers was seated at the tiller. ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... of the flocks we find associated poetry, the first notes of higher religious motives, and a largeness of the sympathetic life which is favored by the nature of the occupation. Where the nomadic habits of the original shepherds pass into the more sedentary state of the soil tiller, the element of personal care and the affection and the consequent education of the sympathy were increased. Men had now to care for half a dozen or more kinds of animals; they had to learn their ways, in a manner to put themselves in their places ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... Wayland Smith, whose anvils dot the shores of Britain; by way of Tubal Cain, "an artificer in brass and iron," of the seed of Cain, "a tiller ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... with the ordinary Chinese sails, an immense sweep in the bows as an aid in turning, and a strong rudder with an enormous tiller, are the chief ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... springing up again, we once more began dancing on through the water at a quicker rate, the sampan making better progress by putting her right before wind and slacking off the sheet of our transformed sprit-sail. An hour later, Ching Wang, who had gone into the bows to look out, leaving me at the tiller, suddenly called out: ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... vessel's masthead: at this dreadful moment the swell left the cutter, and she struck upon a rock with such force that the rudder was nearly lifted out of the gudgeons: fortunately we had a brave man and a good seaman at the helm, for instantly recovering the tiller, by a blow from which he had been knocked down when the vessel struck, he obeyed my orders with such attention and alacrity that the sails were kept full; so that by her not losing way, she cleared the rock before the succeeding wave flowed from under her, and ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... the tiller of the soil might feel against the Indian's hunting quail on his land, he always welcomed him as a killer ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... number of things we can do to make soil moisture more available to our summer vegetables. The most obvious step is thorough weeding. Next, we can keep the surface fluffed up with a rotary tiller or hoe during April and May, to break its capillary connection with deeper soil and accelerate the formation of a dry dust mulch. Usually, weeding forces us to do this anyway. Also, if it should rain during summer, we ...
— Gardening Without Irrigation: or without much, anyway • Steve Solomon
... sitting 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 around her, and all the first ardor of passion ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... perhaps that explains the present European attitude. The war has left us incapable of any supreme activity. Enthusiasm is dead; consequently the enthusiasm of good-will lacks from our councils and we drift, without any great guiding hand upon the tiller of destiny. Heart and brains are at odds, groping on different roads instead of advancing together by the one and only road. We see no great men. There are, of course, leaders, great by contrast with those they lead; but history will declare ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... first seigneur belongs to Louis Hebert, and it was a curious chain of events that brought him to the role of a yeoman in the St Lawrence valley. Like most of these pilgrim fathers of Canada, Hebert has left to posterity little or no information concerning his early life and his experience as tiller of virgin soil. That is a pity; for he had an interesting and varied career from first to last. What he did and what he saw others do during these troublous years would make a readable chronicle of ...
— The Seigneurs of Old Canada: - A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism • William Bennett Munro
... "Come and hold the tiller here, Joe, my lad," growled Shaddy, "while I dip him a bucket of water to wash. When he knows the Paraguay like we do, he won't want to bathe. Why, Mr Rob, there's all sorts o' things here ready for a nice juicy boy, from them little piranas right up to turtles and crocodiles and big snakes, ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... side as the 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 men were vainly endeavouring to secure ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... instability of the winds in the Kerguelens, the weather became calm before I did. I opened my window, and at the same moment a sailor stepped into one of the boats of the Halbrane and laid hold of a pair of oars, while a second man seated himself in the back, but without taking the tiller ropes. The boat touched the landing, place and Captain Len Guy stepped ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... how Mrs. Britt sat there smiling upon him, and urging him to have "just one more piece of pie, and another cruller." Never before had he felt so important. He was the guest being treated with such respect. When holding the tiller that morning he had longed for Sammie Dunker and the rest of the boys to see him. So now, sitting near the bluff old captain and his wife, he desired the same thing. He felt quite sure that no other boy in the whole parish had been so honoured, and if his schoolmates ever heard of it, they ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... beyond the meridian. Burt, from his intimate knowledge of the channel, acted as pilot, and was jubilant over the fact that Amy consented to take an oar with him and receive a lesson in rowing. Mrs. Marvin held the tiller-ropes, and the doctor was to use a pair of oars when requested to do so. Webb and Leonard took charge of the larger boat, of which Johnnie, as hostess, was captain, and a jolly group of little boys and girls made the echoes ring, while Ned, with his thumb in his ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... 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 belonging to it, from ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... great writer not only described the wild aspect of American scenery and the hardly less wild features of pioneer character. He painted with equal skill the life of the American sailor, at a time when that life had an interest and excitement it no longer possesses. Long Tom Coffin, Tom Tiller, Bob Yarn, belonged to a period when the United Stales was a maritime country, before American enterprise and industry were shut off from the sea by legislative imbecility. No marine novelist has given a more life-like impression of a ship than Cooper, and none ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... of plaster, the effect is decidedly more durable; nor is it then necessary that the seeding should so immediately follow its application. If, however, the object is to improve the land at the same time; and surely it should be a primary object with every tiller of the soil—and lime, from your location, or the price, is unattainable, I would advise about half the amount determined on, to be expended for ground bones. This may be harrowed ...
— Guano - A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers • Solon Robinson
... answered my hail, and walked quickly aft. In a short space of time, we launched the cutter, into which Mr. Larkin and myself jumped, followed by the two men, who took the oars. I rigged the tiller, and the mate sat beside me in ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... minister frequently is himself a tiller of the soil. Many of the older churches had land, ten or twenty or forty acres, which the minister was expected to till, and from it to secure a part of his living. A church at Cranberry, N. J., had a farm of one hundred acres until the close of ...
— The Evolution of the Country Community - A Study in Religious Sociology • Warren H. Wilson
... to the Isles Of Khaledan, I spied one evenfall A black blotch in the sunset; and it grew Swiftly . . . and grew. Tearing their beards, The sailors wept and prayed; but the grave ship, Deep laden with spiceries and pearls, went mad, Wrenched the long tiller out of the steersman's hand, And, turning broadside on, As the most iron would, was haled and sucked Nearer, and nearer yet; And, all awash, with horrible lurching leaps Rushed at that Portent, casting a shadow now That swallowed sea and sky; and then, Anchors and nails and bolts Flew screaming ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... little craft, we made an early start. Towards noon the wind freshened and soon was blowing furiously. The seas ran high, but George and I had become so used to rough weather and had faced danger so often that we ran right on in front of the gale, I at the tiller, and he handling the sail rope and bailing the water out when occasionally we shipped a sea. The rate at which we travelled quickly brought us to the rapid at the eastern end of the lake, and through this we shot down into the Little Lake, and thence through the strait known ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... broad daylight; so he looked to the tiller and got the boat's head a little up to the wind, and then gazed about him with the sleep still in his eyes. And as his eyes took in the picture before him he could not refrain a cry; for lo! there arose up great and grim right ahead the black cliffs of the Isle of Ransom. ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris
... replied Dan, as he put the Isabel about, and headed towards the small island, about half a mile from the shore. "Take the helm, Cyd," continued he, as he left his post at the tiller, and ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic
... dogs, the dim vision of the doctor's compressed lips and eyes full of unaccustomed fire, the damp foam on his hands as he rocked from one wall to the other, amid a dull music of growls, and fierce, low barks, came back to him now as he trimmed the sails to catch the undecided winds, or felt the tiller leap under his hold. Each moment he had expected to be bitten, but somehow they all tumbled together unhurt into Lawler's pantry, where they found that factotum standing grim and wire-strung with anticipation. Beyond the ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... according to the orders of the agent, the Pilgrim set sail for the windward, to be gone three or four months. She got under weigh with very little fuss, and came so near us as to throw a letter on board, Captain Faucon standing at the tiller himself, and steering her as he would a mackerel smack. When Captain T—— was in command of the Pilgrim, there was as much preparation and ceremony as there would be in getting a seventy-four under weigh. ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... lunch, and Mrs. Selborne smoked a cigarette before we returned to the deck. The skipper was at the tiller, but she did not relieve him. She was in a lazy mood, and I arranged some cushions to make her comfortable. We were ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... the peak and throat, and one block for the wire rope 1/4 in. in diameter for the jib halyard. Four 6-in. and one 7-in. cleats, Fig. 18, are used. The blocks shown in Fig. 11 are used for the main and jib sheets. The steering arrangement is shown in Figs. 4 and 5. The tiller is 3-1/2 ft. long; rudder post, 1-1/4 in. in diameter; shoulder to lower end of jaws, 4 in.; depth of jaws, 2-7/8 in.; length of post including screw top, 12 in. The rubber washer acts as a ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... be serious: our temples will go ungarlanded; the streets will be redolent no longer of roast meat, the bowl no longer yield us libation; our altars will be cold, sacrifice and oblation will be at an end, and utter starvation must ensue. Hence like a pilot I stand up at the helm all alone, tiller in hand, while every soul on board is asleep, and probably drunk; no rest, no food for me, while I ponder in my mind and breast on the common safety; and my reward? to be called the Lord of all! I should like to ask those philosophers who assign us the monopoly of blessedness, when they suppose ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... 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 tholepins sounded crisp and ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... 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 old ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... seize upon the gunwale of the nearly submerged boat, over which each wave breaks. He pulls himself along, and thus reaches Lady Ruth whom he finds holding on to one of the tiller ropes which has formed a loop, through which her ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... "sea-foam," the Peruvian god of the sea, was regarded as the source of all life and the origin of all things,—world-tiller, world-animator, he was called (509. 316). Xenophanes of Kolophon, a Greek philosopher of the sixth century B.C., taught that "the mighty sea is the father of clouds and winds and rivers." In Greek ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... the cutter was always an excellent sailer, and in a very short space of time she was running down Long Reach with Erith and its adjacent shores out of sight, past the round of land where Dartford creek is to be found. Joe Westlake then called a council. Robins was at the tiller; Plum and Tuck came aft, and the ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... saw close ahead of them a large boat, which, with its sail hanging idly by the mast, was drifting downstream. Two boatmen were sitting by the tiller, smoking ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... edge. So we pulled on softly round the tongue of land, being maybe about fifty paces from the mound across the water. And when we saw the other side of Sigurd's resting place, the oars stayed suddenly, and the jarl, who held the tiller, swung the boat away from the shore, and I think I knew ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler
... hand-breadth, the thumb-breadth (or inch), the hair-breadth, and the foot. The simple fisherman on our coasts still measures off his fathoms by stretching out both his arms to the full; the village sempstress still tells off her cloth-breadths by finger-lengths and nails; the untaught tiller of the soil still estimates the area of his little field by pacing along its sides. Man's first and most obvious expedient, when he sets himself to measure, is to employ his own person as his standard; and the first or common cubit was a measure of this natural description equal in length to the ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... the boat regarded her with curious eyes as they drew nearer. Even the three rowers turned their heads, and were called to order therefor by the mate at the tiller. A red ensign was seized jack downward in her main rigging, the highest note of the sailorman's agony of distress. On its wooden case, in her starboard fore-rigging, a dioptric lens sent out the faint green glow of a lamp's light into ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... am size, the wull o' the win', an' whether or no yer lordship or my leddy can tak the tiller." ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... thing which gave us confidence was Hall's coolness, now that the danger was unmistakable. He neither allowed himself to get flurried nor alarmed, but sat with closed lips watching the sail—one hand on the tiller and the other grasping the sheet, ready to let it go at a ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... most powerful, though not the most convenient rudder. In the lakes of North Italy, where the winds are steady, the heavy boats have a bar upon which the tiller of the rudder rests: this bar is full of small notches; and the bottom of the tiller, at the place where it rests on the bar, is furnished with a blunt knife-edge; the tiller is not stiffly joined to the rudder, but admits of a little play up and down. When the boatman finds that the boat steers ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... the impression of deep and widespread discontent with the condition of the Church which one meets in the writings of the early sixteenth century. The whole German people, from the rulers down to the humblest tiller of the fields, felt themselves unjustly used. The clergy were denounced as both immoral and inefficient. One devout writer exclaims that young men are considered quite good enough to be priests to whom one would not intrust the care of a cow. While the begging friars—the Franciscans, Dominicans, ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... now gaining rapidly on the schooner; I could see the brass glisten on the tiller as it banged about, and still no soul appeared upon her decks. I could not choose but suppose she was deserted. If not, the men were lying drunk below, where I might batten them down, perhaps, and do what I chose ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... clear as to his instructions, Levin took the tiller, and Jack Wonnell superserviceably got the terrapin tongs, and stood in the bow while the cat-boat skimmed down Monie Creek before a good breeze and a lee tide. The chain dredge for terrapin was thrown over the side, but the boat made too much sail for Wonnell ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... didactic poem by Luigi Alamanni (born 1495), called Husbandry, has: 'O blessed is he who dwells in peace, the actual tiller of his joyous fields, to whom, in his remoteness, the most righteous earth brings food, and secure in well-being, he rejoices in his heart. If thou art not surrounded by society rich with purple and gems, ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... one very respectful towards the fisherman who singlehanded can sail his boat and manage five mackerel lines at once—one on the thwart to lew'ard and one to wind'ard; a bobber on the mizzen halyard and two bobbers on poles projecting from the boat. He must keep his hands on five lines, the tiller and the sheet; his eyes on the boat's course, the sea, the weather and the luff of the sail. Probably I know rather more of the theory of sailing than he does; but, when a squall blackens the sea to wind'ard, whilst I am thinking whether to run into the wind or ease off the sheet; whilst ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... new contrivance with interest. His steering-gear was rude, being a single runner under the tender with tiller attachment, but it served the purpose. The road was so nearly a straight line ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... should be no new legislation which would operate to the injury or embarrassment of the large body of respectable artisans and laborers. The mechanic who emigrates to the West and pursues his calling must labor long before he can purchase a quarter section of land, whilst the tiller of the soil who accompanies him obtains a farm at once by the bounty of the Government. The numerous body of mechanics in our large cities can not, even by emigrating to the West, take advantage of the provisions ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... boat, with the cloudiness of the sky darkening the 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 ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... dwellings belong chiefly to the labourers on the Wendover estate, and those are liberally paid and well cared for. An agricultural labourer's wages at Kingthorpe might seem infinitely small to a London mechanic; but when it is taken into account that the tiller of the fields has a roomy cottage and an acre of garden for sixpence a-week, his daily dole of milk from the home farm, as much wood as he can burn, blankets and coals at Christmas, and wine and brandy, soup and bread from ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... 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 ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... to sail anywhere," said Wilkins, as he hauled up the mainsail, which flapped idly in the still air. "For you see," he added, touching a button alongside of the tiller, "this button sets that big electric fan in the stern revolving, and the result is an artificial breeze which distends the sail, and there ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... was hoisted on the mast of the pirogue. Benito took the tiller, and off they went, after a last gesture from Lina to Fragoso ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... gentleness than the Avon. The other passengers seemed to have no eyes for the picturesque—perhaps they had seen the scenery till they were tired of it; and some of them were more pleasantly engaged than gaping and gazing at rocks and trees. Grouped at the tiller-chains were four or five people, very happily employed in looking at each other—a lady and gentleman, in particular, seemed to find a peculiar pleasure in the occupation; and were instructing each other in the art and mystery of tying the sailor's knot. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... tiller. A couple of warehousemen from Henriksen's wharf were along as crew. Ole had arranged the trip carefully and had brought along a choice supply of provisions; he had even remembered roasted coffee ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... a tiller of the soil under the yoke of Joshua Hitch, who lived on a farm about seventeen miles from Baltimore. James spoke rather favorably of him; indeed, it was through a direct act of kindness on the part of his master ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... roughly chipped into shape, and was intended to be held in the hand. The Neolithic ax was a much better made one, and was furnished with a handle. They were enabled to accomplish a great deal with such axes. "Before it, aided by fire, the trees of the forest fell to make room for the tiller of the ground, and by its sharp edge wood became useful for the manufacture of various articles and implements indispensable for the advancement of mankind in culture." These axes vary in size and finish. As a general thing they ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... set up the armourer's forge, to repair the braces of the tiller which had been broken, and went on getting our wood and water, without suffering the least molestation from the natives; who came down with different sorts of fish, which we purchased with cloth, beads, and glass bottles, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... athwart hawse of these canoe gentry, by the hour, and teach them rigging and modesty, both at the same time. In the first place," continued the captain, jerking at his line, and then beginning to count on his fingers—"There is the 'man- rope;' then come the 'bucket-rope,' the 'tiller-rope,' the 'bolt- rope,' the 'foot-rope,' the 'top-rope,' and the 'limber-rope.' I have followed the seas, now, more than half a century, and never yet heard of a 'cable-rope,' from any one who could hand, ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... 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 of the tarpaulin was lost, the small boat appeared ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... compactly stowed, covered, and stopped down, and will cause the boat and boom covers to be hauled over and securely stopped down; the relieving tackles to be hooked and ready for use; a compass to be placed to steer by; and see the spare tiller at hand, the chronometer and other instruments put out of the reach of shot, and relieved as much as possible from the jar ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... the boatswain's pipe, too, the cutter's crew had begun to muster on the poop, the leading hands unloosing the gripes with which the boat was secured and the coxswain attending to the tiller; while two or three of the men had already put on their cork jackets and taken their seats on the thwarts, ready for lowering away, the little craft being swung out from ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... all," he disclaimed. "Cocks'n, if you'll be so kind as to go forward, I'll take the tiller. Tom, old man! don't stand there all day. You'll get ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... standing up, was owing to the 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
... We made fast a line 20 fathoms long, to the bow of the yawl, and put the men (both crews) to it like horses on the shore. Brown, the pilot, stood in the bow, with an oar, to keep her head out, and I took the tiller. We would start the men, and all would go well till the yawl would bring up on a heavy cake of ice, and then the men would drop like so many tenpins, while Brown assumed the horizontal in the bottom ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... shouldn't wonder if he croaked afore morning. So what's to be done? If we have to sew him up, some of those pirates there for'ard may take it into their heads to run off with the ship, because there's no one at the tiller. Now, I've detarmined what's best to be done; but I don't want to do it unless I've good men to back me, and make things all fair and square if ever we ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... course of twelve chapters, bearing the titles of the months of the year, it reveals a welding together of two things which in many minds have unfortunately become divorced: the practical problems and arduous labour which no tiller of the soil can escape and—the keen delight of a poetical temperament in the ever-changing, yet annually renewed, beauties of earth and sky and ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... is regarded as making the gift of what is the high refuge for all creatures. The cow should never be given away for slaughter (i.e., unto one who will kill her); nor should the cow be given unto a tiller of the soil; nor should the cow be given unto an atheist. The cow should not also, O chief of the Bharatas, be given unto one whose occupation is the keeping of kine.[344] The wise have said that a person who gives away the cow unto any of such sinful persons has to sink into everlasting ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... in France that King Haakon abandons tiller and compass for crown and scepter without one hour's ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough |
