"Tiller" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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
... under-ice stream, near where they escaped from the glacial cavern. These kames and sand plains, because of the silicious nature of their materials and the very porous nature of the soil which they afford, are commonly sterile, or at most render a profit to the tiller by dint of exceeding care. Thus in Massachusetts, although the first settlers seized upon these grounds, and planted their villages upon them because the forests there were scanty and the ground free from encumbering boulders, were soon driven to betake themselves ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... reindeer of the north. I must gaze on the unbroken world-rim, 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 ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... 23rd Nov.—Good weather with a south-easterly wind and a steady breeze; in the morning, we found our rudder broken at top in the tiller hole; we therefore hauled to windward under reduced sail and fitted a cross beam to either side. By estimation the west side of Nova Guinea must ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... 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 ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... nearly on her beam. The shock was so violent and unforeseen, that the unrestrained slaves, who were enjoying the fine weather on deck, rolled to leeward till they floundered in the sea that inundated the scuppers. There was no power in the tiller to "keep her away" before the blast, for the rudder was almost out of water; but, fortunately, our mainsail burst in shreds from the bolt-ropes, and, relieving us from its pressure, allowed the schooner to right under control of the helm. The West Indian squall abandoned us as rapidly ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... go back, now," said the sailor. "Going to have a big blow afore night." And he threw over the tiller and gave the necessary commands to change ...
— The Rover Boys on Land and Sea - The Crusoes of Seven Islands • Arthur M. Winfield
... Freddie, crawling back toward the tiller, which was the last thing Bert had let go of, as he shot from ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in a Great City • Laura Lee Hope
... Dominick steered with a cumbrous tiller, with large horizontal pullies attached. At each pully-end stood a subordinate black, and between them, at the tiller-head, the responsible post, a Spanish seaman, whose countenance evinced his due share in the general hopefulness ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... cultivation, husbandry, farming; georgics, geoponics^; tillage, agronomy, gardening, spade husbandry, vintage; horticulture, arboriculture^, floriculture; landscape gardening; viticulture. husbandman, horticulturist, gardener, florist; agricultor^, agriculturist; yeoman, farmer, cultivator, tiller of the soil, woodcutter, backwoodsman; granger, habitat, vigneron^, viticulturist; Triptolemus. field, meadow, garden; botanic garden^, winter garden, ornamental garden, flower garden, kitchen garden, market garden, hop garden; nursery; green house, hot house; conservatory, bed, border, seed ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... 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 ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... delighted to honour as a master in the art—I mean Henry Fielding—we shall be somewhat puzzled, at the first moment, to state the difference that there is between these two. Fielding has as much human science; has a far firmer hold upon the tiller of his story; has a keen sense of character, which he draws (and Scott often does so too) in a rather abstract and academical manner; and finally, is quite as humorous and quite as good-humoured as the great Scotsman. With all these points of resemblance between the men, it is astonishing ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... scare!" shouted Whistler as he ran back to take the tiller. "Toot away once in a while. We don't want to stub our toe against some other craft, and that before we get out of ...
— Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns - Sinking the German U-Boats • Halsey Davidson
... the lantern, he saw indeed that they were on the edge of a canal, wherein lay a long black barge, with a boy on horseback waiting on the tow-path, a little ahead of it. On the barge's deck by the tiller an immensely fat boatman leant and smoked his pipe, which he withdrew placidly from his lips as Captain Salt gave the password to the man with the lantern and handed over the ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... came on board apprised Spike fully of the state in which he was now placed, and by a desperate effort, he clutched the tiller, and got the yawl again before the wind. This could not last, however. Little by little, his hold relaxed, until his hand relinquished its grasp altogether, and the wounded man sunk into the bottom of the stern-sheets, unable to raise even his head. Again the boat broached-to. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... gave them to us in the state of imperfect sketches, for us to fill out and complete; it was for our skill and our labor patiently to induce the nourishing pulp which was the earliest form of capital, whose interest is always increasing in the primordial bank of the tiller of the soil. ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent
... port yet farther. Look you, fellow, have you no inkling of your business? You'll have us all ashore. Mary, mother! Give me the helm!" With sweat bursting from his brow the captain caught the tiller and put it hard over. The ship shook a bit, swerved, yet made side-wise toward the green patch on the sea. The land ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... she would take the sculls and I the tiller, and I would tell her (in French) all about our school adventures at Brossard's and Bonzig, and the Lafertes, and the Revolution of February; and in that way she picked up a lot of useful and idiomatic Parisian which ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... shot straight out to sea. The two on shore used to relate how they saw Stephen stop rowing a moment, and take off his coat to get at his work better; but James's wife sat quite still in the stern, holding the tiller-ropes by which she steered the boat. When they had got very small indeed she ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... 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 here at this season. The ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... 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 ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... 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
... or corvettes were fitted out for sea while Sir Joseph Yorke was First Lord of the Admiralty, having a flush-deck, and carrying 18 32-pounder carronades and two long nines. They were fitted with stern chase-ports, but from the narrowness of their sterns there was no room to work the tiller, while the guns were pointed from the ports. They were defective also in having their masts too slight, while they were in other respects heavily rigged. The worst vessels, however, constructed at a later period, were the 10-gun brigs of war, small, narrow craft, so low between ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... compass on the stern seat near the tiller, and sitting there he directed the course of the small boat as nearly as he could toward the large island. He and Mr. Carr were to divide the watches of the day and night. There would be four, of six hours each. That is, Captain Spark would be in charge of the boat for six hours, ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster
... 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
... 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 the piazza loungers and gossips see her in his somewhat too gay company. Most particularly ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... as the oars were got out, and headed directly away from the ship. The crew seemed to me to be mostly stewards or cooks in white jackets, two to an oar, with a stoker at the tiller. There was a certain amount of shouting from one end of the boat to the other, and discussion as to which way we should go, but finally it was decided to elect the stoker, who was steering, as captain, and for all to obey his orders. He set to work at once to ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... of attack transcended those of the mere devourer of leaf-tissue, as radically as an inventor of most intricate instruments differs from the plodding tiller of the soil. In the center of one leaf, less disfigured than some of its fellows, I perceived four tiny ivory spheres, a dozen of which might rest comfortably within the length of an inch. To my eye they looked quite smooth, although a steady oblique gaze revealed hints of concentric lines. ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... and in a minute or two we were speeding merrily before the breeze towards the opposite shore. But about the middle of the lake we found the water a good deal rougher, and the wind began to increase notably. Hamilton held the tiller, and not liking to make fast the haulyard of the sail, gave me the rope to hold, with instructions to hold on till further orders. He was a perfect master of the business in hand, and so was the new boat a perfect mistress ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... 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 ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... I found myself actually on the back of the athaleb than all fear left me. I perceived fully how completely tame he was, and how docile. The reins attached to his wings could be pulled with the greatest ease, Just as one would pull the tiller-ropes of a boat. "Familiarity breeds contempt;" and now, since the first terror had passed away, I felt perfect confidence, and under the encouragement of Layelah I had become like some rustic in a menagerie, who at first is terrified by the sight of the elephant, but soon gains courage ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... with the tiller in my hand. The end of those men seemed so horrible that I forgot for the instant what ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... nothing more to be said. The boat was lowered so smartly that Dick was seated at the tiller, and four ash blades were driving her rapidly shoreward, before the leading crew of panting Somalis reached the ship's side. They secured two passengers, however. Mrs. Haxton, who had declined a seat in the jolly-boat on the score of the intense heat, changed her mind, ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... 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
... seating himself in the stern, with the tiller in his hand, he brought the boat round to the wind. Once he turned toward shore and waved his hat, and then he sailed ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... not difficult to steer; will almost steer herself, indeed, in smooth water. Jack Tier could take his trick at the helm, in any weather, even in running before the wind, the time when it is most difficult to guide a craft, and Rose might be made to understand the use of the tiller, and taught to govern the motions of a vessel so small and so simply rigged, when on a wind and in smooth water. On the score of managing the schooner, therefore, Mulford thought there would be little cause for apprehension. Should the weather continue settled, he had little doubt ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... spoke Magda leaned back luxuriously against her cushions and glanced smilingly across at Michael where he sat with his hand on the tiller of the Bella Donna, the little sailing-yacht which Lady Arabella kept for the amusement of her guests rather than for her own enjoyment, since she herself could rarely be induced ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... 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 ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... evidently thought that they would do well to leave these troubled waters. He jammed the tiller down, and tried to sheer away. It was the most unfortunate ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... of the siege a great deal of scooping and excavating went on, and you might see on one side some gallant tiller of the soil providing cover for a lady, while another rigged up sheltered garden-seats for children. An amusing picture was beheld of three massive Gordons in their kilts plying pick and shovel for a small couple in distress, a natty little woman in a state of panic which agreed badly with her ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... 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 measured ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... the packet, went right off home and said to his wife, 'Now do for gracious' sake, mother, jist look here, and see how slick them folks go along; and that captain has nothin' to do all day, but sit straddle legs across his tiller, and order about his sailors, or talk like a gentleman to his passengers; he's got most as easy a time of it as Ami Cuttle has, since he took up the fur trade, a-snarin' rabbits. I guess I'll buy a vessel, and leave the lads to do the ploughin' and little chores; ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... put an abrupt end to the remarks of his refractory seaman by starting up suddenly in fierce anger and seizing the tiller, apparently with the intent to fell him. He checked himself, however, as suddenly, and breaking into a loud ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... ship. When all were seated in the admiral's steam launch, the admiral descended the accommodation ladder and himself picked up the tiller ropes. ...
— My Buried Treasure • Richard Harding Davis
... "The tiller of the soil is going forth again to his work. Do not turn your eyes from him, and let a feeling of impatience stir in your heart because he is not a soldier rushing to battle, or a brilliant orator holding thousands ...
— Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures • T. S. Arthur
... hoist with a will. In an incredibly short time he had the sail hoisted all the way up, while Darrin, stern and whitefaced, crouched and braced himself by the tiller, gripping the sheet with his ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock
... respect to plants, no one would expect wheat to tiller more, and each ear to produce more grain, in poor than in rich soil; or to get in poor soil a heavy crop of peas or beans. Seeds vary so much in number {113} that it is difficult to estimate them; but on comparing beds of carrots saved for seed in a nursery garden with wild plants, the ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... but offered to take my own tiller and lend him Grue. He couldn't wriggle out of it, seeing that his alleged motive had been the overcrowding of my boat, but he looked rather sick when Grue went ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... Iffley on board the Kite schooner, of which his father was mate. She was a fine craft, with a handsomely fitted up cabin. She had been a privateer in the last war, and still carried six brass guns on deck, which were bright and polished, and took my fancy amazingly. She also had a long mahogany tiller bound with brass, and with a handsomely carved head of a kite which I much admired. These things, trifles as they were, made me still more desire to belong to so dandy-looking a craft. The captain was ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... water. On another occasion, he was going by himself from Falmouth to Plymouth in a small punt, fourteen feet long, when his hat was blown overboard, and he immediately threw off his clothes and swam after it, having first secured the tiller a-lee. As he was returning with his hat, the boat got way on her, and sailed some distance before she came up in the wind. He had almost reached her when she filled again, and he was thus baffled three or four times. At length, by a ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... 'Twas some field-tiller from his plough at rest, First hummed his homely words to numbers true, Or trilled his pipe of straw in songs addressed To his blithe woodland gods, with ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus
... we cannot have been less than thirty; the exact number no man will ever know. But we shoved off without mischance; the chief mate had the tiller; the third mate the boat-hook; and six or eight oars were at work, in a fashion, as we plunged among the great smooth sickening mounds ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... France towards reform, whilst dragging her into the Revolution, King Louis XVI., honest and sincere, was still blindly seeking to clutch the helm which was slipping from his feeble hands. Every day his efforts were becoming weaker and more inconsistent, every day the pilot placed at the tiller was less and less deserving of public confidence. From M. Turgot to M. Necker, from Calonne to Lomenie de Brienne, the fall had been rapid and deep. Amongst the two parties which unequally divided the nation, between those who defended ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... horrible and disgusting. They 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 gone to the ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... Gascoigne, dragging at the tiller with all his strength; "she has taken the bit between ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... 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
... 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 replace the ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... the tiller guiding the steering gear to fix the vessel in its course, on the smooth, ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis
... and that both arms and legs were on the point of giving way, a loud shout from Hawkstone alarmed us all. He jumped up, shouting, "Row hard on the bow side, ease off on the stroke," and in a moment (how he got from the bows I shall never know!) we saw him seated behind the stern-board with the tiller in his hand. The boat shot round, shipping a heavy sea, and we were at one moment within a yard of the rock underneath the parade. "Row hard, all!" was soon the cry, and away we shot before wind and tide in the opposite direction to that in which we had been going. Again we ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... 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)
... and horrible. They jumped into the barge without hurrying themselves.... The Tatar and the three ferrymen took the long, broad-bladed oars, which in the darkness looked like the claws of crabs; Semyon leaned his stomach against the tiller. The shout on the other side still continued, and two shots were fired from a revolver, probably with the idea that the ferrymen were asleep or had gone to the pot-house ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... tiller is tilling the hard ground and where the pathmaker is breaking stones. He is with them in sun and in shower, and his garment is covered with dust. Put of thy holy mantle and even like him come ...
— Gitanjali • Rabindranath Tagore
... Ennius and meaning servus. Caesar (De Bello Gallico, vi. 15) says of the Gallic equites, "atque eorum ut quisque est genere copiisque amplissimus, plurimos circum se ambactos clientesque habent.'' Accepting the Celtic origin of the word, it has been connected with the Welsh amaeth, a tiller of the ground. A Teutonic origin has been suggested in the Old High Ger. ambaht, a retainer, which appears in a Scandinavian word amboht, bondwoman or maid, in the Ormulum (c. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... ancestor. The familia is thus an economic unit, developed out of the gens, which is a unit of kin and little more. And thus the religion of the familia will be a religion of practical utility, of daily work, of struggle with perils to which the shepherd and the tiller of the soil are liable; it is not the worship of an idea of kinship expressed in some dimly conceived common ancestor; the familia, as I hope to show, had no common ancestor who could be the object of worship, except that of the gens from which it had sprung. The life of the familia was a realisation ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... 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 ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... lads!" he cried; "no talking," and he took the tiller ropes. As he seated himself he looked toward the bows, and his eyes encountered the calm ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... 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
... 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 ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... committed in sea and tempest. Upon the strand, and close opposite to the small gate which now stood ajar, lay one of her boats, the crew of which had abandoned her with the exception only of a single individual, apparently her cockswain, who, with the tiller under his arm, lay half extended in the stern-sheets, his naked chest exposed, and his tarpaulin hat shielding his eyes from the sun while he indulged in profound repose. These were the only objects that told of human life. Everywhere beyond ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... the schooner, probably to consult what to do with us; for, in eight or ten minutes they came back, apparently in great haste, shut us all below, fastened up the companion way, fore-scuttle and after hatchway, stove our compasses to pieces in the binnacles, cut away tiller-ropes, halliards, braces, and most of our running rigging, cut our sails to pieces badly; took a tub of tarred rope-yarn and what combustibles they could find about deck, put them in the caboose house and set them on fire; then left us, ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... just right," said Diamond, the sheet in one hand and the tiller in the other. "Ye 'ad a ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... lighthouse, a dark pencil mark on the cloudless sky. To the south the full Atlantic piled the black reefs with hills of snow. Ahead the main islands humped out of the blue sea like a school of basking whales. I had the tiller and Uncle Billy John Polsue was forward picking up the marks and carrying on a running commentary, punctuated by expectorations of dark fluid. Suddenly something away on the port bow attracted his attention. He rolled to his feet, stared for some seconds and shouted, "Hold ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 8, 1920 • Various
... wind! I used to yaw about a good deal at first, but she tuck that out o' me in a day or two. If I put the helm only so much as one stroke to starboard, she guv' a tug at the tow-rope that brought the wind dead aft again; so I've gi'n it up, and lashed the tiller right amid-ships." ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... was not even acquainted with the theory of sailing; nor did he know, how, or on what principle, a sail-boat moves. About steering he was equally ignorant, nor did he know how a boat obeys its rudder. But he knew that the one who sails a boat sits in the stern, and holds the tiller; so David did the same, holding the tiller in his right hand, and the sheets in ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... fifth Saturday of our cruise, I waited till the changing of the watch; then I stole noiselessly upon deck, and secreted myself behind a life-boat which hung at the side of the vessel. The helmsman was nodding silently upon his tiller; two seamen sat motionless upon the bow, and the lookout party in the crow's-nest talked mutteringly of our ill-luck as they scanned the horizon. The Northern Lights were pulsing like some great radiating heart, and the sea ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... brave Dependent on the aid of fools and cowards? Look,—there she goes,—her topsails in the sun Gleam from the ragged ocean edge, and drop Clean out of sight! So let the traitors go Clean out of mind! We'll think of braver things! Come closer in the boat, my friends. John King, You take the tiller, keep her head nor'west. You Philip Staffe, the only one who chose Freely to share our little shallop's fate, Rather than travel in the hell-bound ship,— Too good an English seaman to desert These crippled comrades,—try to make ...
— The White Bees • Henry Van Dyke
... upright beside the useless tiller bared his head and listened reverently, but always with an eye to the waterspout and to the clouds, and as a deep-throated Amen rose from his comrades he gave the tiller a shove and ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... his 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 best ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... 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 ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... the tough oars, and the Dragon leapt ahead to meet the foe. Her bow was pointed as if she would have passed close by the side of the Danish galley, which was crowded with men. When close to her, however, the helmsman pushed the tiller across and the Dragon swept straight down upon her. A shout of dismay rose from the Danes, a hasty volley of arrows and darts was hurled at the Dragon, and the helmsman strove to avoid the collision, but in vain. The Dragon struck her on the beam, the frail craft broke ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... the 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 ...
— The Evolution of the Country Community - A Study in Religious Sociology • Warren H. Wilson
... suggestions have no effectiveness. Are they to be blamed? Or has one humbly and faithfully to take it as an indication that they are just not fit, from some secret weakness, some fibre of feebleness, to take the tiller? ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... fastened the 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 ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the roadside, and they have been trampled into the dust by the men of the new regime, and yet it seems that you others of the noblesse have not learnt your lesson. You have not yet discovered that here in France the man who was born a tiller of the soil is still a man, and, by his manhood, the equal of a king, who, after all, can be no more than a man, and is sometimes less. Enfin!" he ended brusquely. "This is not the National Assembly, and I talk to ears untutored ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... which Flag-officer Foote was on, besides having been hit about sixty times, several of the shots passing through near the waterline, had a shot enter the pilot-house which killed the pilot, carried away the wheel and wounded the flag-officer himself. The tiller-ropes of another vessel were carried away and she, too, dropped helplessly back. Two others had their pilot-houses so injured that they scarcely formed a protection to the men ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... and in place of a wise aloofness, befitting a wearer of the third Gold Button and the Horn Belt-clasp, in situations of critical perplexity, seems by his own ingenuous showing to have maintained an unparalleled aptitude for behaving either with the crystalline simplicity of a Kan-su earth-tiller, or the misplaced buffoonery of a seventh-grade body-writher taking the least significant part in an ill-equipped Swatow one-cash Hall of Varied Melodies." Assuredly, if your striking and well-chosen metaphors ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... what came over Dan: a blind rage swelling in his heart seemed to make him larger in every limb; he towered like a flame. He sprang to the tiller, but, as he did so, saw with one flash of his eye that Mr. Gabriel had unshipped the rudder and thrown it away. He seized an oar to steer with in its place; he saw that they, in their ignorance fast edging on the flats, would shortly be aground; more fisherman than sailor, he knew a thousand ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... on 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
... keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground." By this it seems yet further, that Cain was the man in favour, even him that should, by his Father's intentions, have been heir, and have enjoyed the inheritance: He was nurtured up in his father's employment, but Abel was ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... not an old and experienced farmer, nor a tiller of the soil, nor one of the hard-handed sons of labor. I imagine, however, that I know something about cultivating the soil, and getting happiness out ...
— The Ghosts - And Other Lectures • Robert G. Ingersoll
... said Long Jack, "to have a frind at coort, though. I'm o' Manuel's way o' thinkin'. About tin years back I was crew to a Sou' Boston market-boat. We was off Minot's Ledge wid a northeaster, butt first, atop of us, thicker'n burgoo. The ould man was dhrunk, his chin waggin' on the tiller, an' I sez to myself, 'If iver I stick my boat-huk into T-wharf again, I'll show the saints fwhat manner o' craft they saved me out av.' Now, I'm here, as ye can well see, an' the model of the dhirty ould ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... for the Blanco Encalada. But upon the nearest launch the effect of the flagship's fire was terrible. The helmsman had been cut nearly to pieces by the hail of bullets, and he now hung dead over the tiller of the little steamer, which was consequently yawing wildly about. The remainder of her crew were in the well abaft the boiler, some lying huddled up on the floor, while others hung loosely, like half-empty sacks, over the launch's ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... duties are those of a farm laborer, yet this phrase would not be a fair translation. This word, which is rendered "tiller of the soil," has ...
— Folk Tales from the Russian • Various
... 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 of the tarpaulin was lost, the small boat appeared a motionless ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... forward. Her husband could not see her. At this moment the sloop took a dreadful plunge. A heavy sea swept over her from stern to bow, completely submerging her. The Captain, who had taken the precaution to lash himself to the deck, in a half-drowned state, held steadily to the tiller. As soon as possible he called to his wife, but no answer came back. He called to Paul, and he too was silent. Was she lost? Had she, in whom all his hopes were placed, been carried into the sea and ...
— Young Lion of the Woods - A Story of Early Colonial Days • Thomas Barlow Smith
... 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 plomb d'un ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield
... standing at it. There we lay, with the ship utterly unmanageable and at the mercy of our opponent. It was enough to make us weep with sorrow, but instead of that we set to work to try and get tackles on to the tiller to steer by. ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... been 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. ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... jiffy the two young chums had put off in the boat, Hal at the oars, Jack at the tiller ropes. The gunboat was now lying to, some seven hundred yards off the mouth of the little harbor. Hastings bent lustily to the oars, sending the boat over the rocking water until he was within a hundred yards of the ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies • Victor G. Durham
... necessary to every agriculturist. On this depends the importance of the technic secondary industries of agriculture, which are, in principle, opposed to the division of labor. Hence, too, almost any person engaged in a trade, no matter of what kind, supposes a greater number of customers than a tiller of the land of the ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... seated themselves. "Take the tiller, pilot; I myself will attend to the sail. Do thou, Master Morgan, seat thyself in the bow and maintain a sharp lookout; thine eyes are younger than mine, and more used to the lights of the river." The anchor was lifted in, and immediately ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... Thames waterman, that he was quite able to manage the boat without a steersman, and Charley was nearly his equal. But there is some amusement in steering, and Katie was allowed to sit between the tiller-ropes. ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... were cast loose, the boat was swung outboard and manned with a speed which would have done credit to a smart yacht's crew. Miss Daisy ran to her cabin. The oarsmen sat ready to push off. Mr. Phillips stood in the stern sheets, the tiller between his feet. Miss Daisy appeared at the top of the accommodation ladder. She held a ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... leader who knows—the man Most fit to be called American, A prophet that once in generations Is given to point to erring nations Brighter ideals toward which to press And lead them out of the wilderness. Will you turn your back on him once again? Will you give the tiller once more to men Who have made your country the laughing-stock For the older peoples to scorn and mock, Who would make you servile, despised, and weak, A country that turns the other cheek, Who care not how bravely your flag may float, Who answer an insult ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... weather of it. And Thompson rode the tiller, an eye to his sheets, glorying in his mastery of the sea. It was good to be there with a clean wind whistling through taut stays, no sound but the ripple of water streaming under his lee, and the swoosh of breaking seas that had no power to harm him. Peace rode with him. His body rested, ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... blowing her hair back from her face, with her hand on the tiller, and with her eager eyes sweeping the surface of the moonlighted waters, smiled ...
— Judy • Temple Bailey
... The man at the tiller was in fact, looking, with mingled curiosity and hostility, at the gunboat that he was passing but a few yards away, and did not notice a canoe, manned by six rowers, that was coming down with the stream, taking an oblique course across the bows of the Serpent, and ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... falling rearward over each other and ran for the landing. The men were waiting on their oars. We leaped in, and Captain Blaise took the tiller ropes. "Give way!" ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... the ordinary Chinese sails, an immense sweep in the bows as an aid in turning, and a strong rudder with an enormous tiller, are ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... the tiller, down the pilot rolled. Thrice round the billow whirled her, as she lay, Then whelmed below. Strewn here and there behold Arms, planks, lone swimmers in the surges grey, And treasures snatched from Trojan homes away. Now fail the ships wherein Achates ride And ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... words, which mean "tiller of the mountain," form with the old Cantabri a solemn preface to any subject which should ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... London, I was homesick for a smell of salt marshes and for the sight of water and 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 ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... and had kept on underneath the Arab attire, he pulled the head rope until the craft was nearly over the anchor. He then loosened the line that brailed up the sail, got the stone that served as an anchor on board, hauled the sheet aft, and took his place at the tiller. The wind had dropped a good deal with the sun, but there was still sufficient air to send the light craft fast through the water. He steered out for a time, and then, when he thought himself a good mile from the shore, headed east. By the appearance of ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... lake (Pontchartrain), as the tow-line was cast off, he hoisted sail, and, skimming out by lighthouse and breakwater, tripped away toward Pointe-aux-Herbes and the eastern skyline beyond, he and Sweetheart alone, his hand clasping hers—the tiller, that is—hour by hour, and the small waves tiptoeing to kiss her southern cheek as she leaned the other away from the saucy north wind. In time the low land, and then the lighthouse, sank and vanished behind them; on the left the sun went down in the purple black swamps of Manchac; the intervening ...
— Strong Hearts • George W. Cable
... 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 until the yawl would bring us on a heavy cake of ice, and then the men would drop like so many tenpins, while Brown assumed the horizontal in the bottom of the ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... the erection, and their duty was to push it, so that it should move along on its hidden wheels. Their only duty was to push it; outside, the two servants in black clothes and white wigs were in charge of the front and back shaft or tiller, which guided the eucharistic car through the tortuous streets. Gabriel was placed by his companions in the centre; he was to warn them when to stop and when to recommence their march. The monumental Custodia was mounted on a platform with a great counterpoise, ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... right across the tiller head The horse it ran apace, Whereon a traveller hitched and sped Along the jib and vanished To heave the ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... temper and method were in pointed contrast to McKinley's. Whereas McKinley seemed simply to hold the tiller, availing himself of currents that to the eye deviously, yet easily and inevitably, bore him to his objective, Roosevelt strenuously plied the oar, recking little of cross currents or head winds, if, indeed, he did not delight in them. Chauncey Depew aptly styled McKinley "a Western ...
— History of the United States, Volume 6 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... quiet morning, with a smooth, rolling sea that tossed the ship 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 ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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 ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read
... particularly—only it's—it is disappointing, you know. ROSE (to Robin). Oh, but, sir, I knew not that thou didst seek me in wedlock, or in very truth I should not have hearkened unto this man, for behold, he is but a lowly mariner, and very poor withal, whereas thou art a tiller of the land, and thou hast fat oxen, and many sheep and swine, a considerable dairy farm and much corn and oil! RICH. That's true, my lass, but it's done now, ain't it, Rob? ROSE. Still it may be that I should not be happy in thy love. I am passing ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... mast, short-bowspritted, her boom clewed up to clear her deck load of rough stone; drawing ten feet aft and nine feet for'ard; a twelve-horse hoisting engine and boiler in her forecastle; at the tiller a wabbly-jointed, halibut-shaped, moon-faced (partially eclipsed, owing to a fringe of dark whiskers), sleepy-eyed skipper named Baxter,—such was the sloop Susie Ann, and her outfit and her commander, ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... that filled his body with a sense of profound joy. Out at sea the boats were approaching the harbor; the morning sun fell on the slack sails, and made them glow; every boat was laboring heavily forward with the aid of its tiller. He had slept like a stone, from the moment of lying down until now. Sleep lay like a gulf between yesterday and to-day. Whistling a tune to himself, he packed his belongings and set out upon his way, a little bundle ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... left her that morning with a sense of the most superfluous of shocks: it was like a collision between vessels in broad daylight. There had been no mist, no hidden current to excuse it, and she herself had only wished to steer wide. He had bumped against her prow, however, while her hand was on the tiller, and—to complete the metaphor—had given the lighter vessel a strain which still occasionally betrayed itself in a faint creaking. It had been horrid to see him, because he represented the only serious harm that (to her belief) she had ever done ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... the hurried lowering of her 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 stranger ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... lived all his turbulent life among wars and rumours of wars: the head of the tiller, the hilt of the scimitar, the butt of the arquebus, had been in his hand since early youth; bloodshed and strife were the atmosphere in which he lived and breathed. Desperate adventures by land and sea had been his ever since he could remember; there was no hazard that he had not run, no peril ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... 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
... through the green corn-lands: the most picturesque of things amphibious. Or the horse plods along at a foot-pace, as if there were no such thing as business in the world; and the man dreaming at the tiller sees the same spire on the horizon all day long. It is a mystery how things ever get to their destination at this rate; and to see the barges waiting their turn at a lock affords a fine lesson of how easily the world may be taken. There ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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 ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... there must, after all, have been something in me worthy to command that man's half-bitter fidelity, his half-ironic devotion. Many of Nostromo's speeches I have heard first in Dominic's voice. His hand on the tiller and his fearless eyes roaming the horizon from within the monkish hood shadowing his face, he would utter the usual exordium of his remorseless wisdom: "Vous autres gentilhommes!" in a caustic tone that hangs on my ear yet. Like Nostromo! "You hombres finos!" Very much like Nostromo. ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... deck again into the moonlight. A white, silent world of waters is about us as we join the crew going aft to the poop. The awning has been partly folded back, and we see the Skipper resting his book on the tiller-gear, while the Steward stands by with a lantern. I look curiously into the faces I know so well, seeking, in the presence of death, a little more knowledge of life. I look at the Skipper, with his white hair and fierce moustache gleaming ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... are 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 of ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... down one of the glassy channels between the mangroves we saw the pirate felucca approaching us rapidly. She had got out her sweeps and looked like some gigantic water-insect as she made her way towards us, churning the sleeping waters into foam. At her tiller stood a tall form, which I recognised with a shudder as that of the villainous mulatto Pedro, and her black flag drooped limply in the stagnant air. Our gallant captain at once ordered our carronades to be loaded with canister, and ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... 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, renders a signal service to his country, ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... of eternal love, and vowed to follow her to the ends of the earth in despite of every human power. We stood alone; for two sailors were with O'More and the girl in the cabin, and the third, having lashed the tiller to, was fixing something forward. We stood alone I cannot guess how long—time is short, but the joy of those moments has been everlasting. We exchanged vows of mutual affection and constancy, and I had sealed our blessed compact with a kiss, witnessed only by the moon and stars, when the ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... 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 to splinters." ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... the enemy kept up a fire at us. Toby Bluff gave a sharp cry. A bullet had hit him, but he answered me when I spoke, and kept his seat. We had the muskets ready. I let go the tiller and seized one. Grey and Billy Wise and two other men did the same, and let fly ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... 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 his ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... arrangements. Land, the only source of food, is rightly charged with the support of the destitute. The necessity for such aid arose originally from their being evicted therefrom. The charge should fall exclusively upon the rent receivers, and in no case should the tiller of the soil have to pay this charge either directly or indirectly. It is continued by the inadequacy of wages, and the improvidence engendered by a social system which arose out of injustice, ...
— Landholding In England • Joseph Fisher
... 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 ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... rowed, where once we sailed, Gentlemen, And damsels took the tiller, veiled Against too strong a stare (God wot Their fancy, then or anywhen!) Upon that shore we are ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... hour afterwards a fine breeze sprang up from the north-east, and, putting the boat before it, George seated himself in the stern, tiller in hand, and steered as near a southerly course as the boat, without canvas, ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... hold out no longer. His half-closed eyes, his open mouth and swollen features showed the suffering which had brought him to this pass. Another man sat bowed together in a kind of torpor. A third, the oldest and most experienced of the party, kept his hand upon the tiller; but there was a sullen hopelessness in his air, a nerveless dejection in the pose of his limbs, which showed that he had neither strength nor inclination to fight much ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... where he held the jib sheet. His hat was off, his hair tumbled in the wind, and his lean brown face gave him the touch of an Oriental. Presently he changed places with Sangree, and came down to talk with me by the tiller. ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... I float singly on the weltering Mediterranean; or, in some place I touch at, I may find what I seek—a companion; or if this may not be—to endless time, decrepid and grey headed—youth already in the grave with those I love— the lone wanderer will still unfurl his sail, and clasp the tiller—and, still obeying the breezes of heaven, for ever round another and another promontory, anchoring in another and another bay, still ploughing seedless ocean, leaving behind the verdant land of native Europe, adown ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... you will return to the ship," said Mr. Lowington, sternly, as he took the tiller-ropes ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... Lastique, who was at the tiller, took a pull every now and then from a bottle hidden under the seat; and he smoked a short pipe which seemed inextinguishable, although he never seemed to relight it ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... lived on its greenest and richest plains; 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 attach ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... imposts of the lords of manors, and all the other odious burdens and heavy impediments on the prosperity of the thrifty and industrious part of the nation. If he had seen ever so clearly that one of the most important sides of the Revolution in progress was the rescue of the tiller of the soil, Burke would still doubtless have viewed events with bitter suspicion. For the process could not be executed without disturbing the natural course of things, and without violating his principle that all changes should find us with our minds tenacious of justice and ...
— Burke • John Morley
... of seniority, led the way in the Rosan as commodore of the fleet. He stood to his tiller like a graven image, looking neither to right nor left, but gripping his pipe with all the strength of his ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... 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 ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... upon the tiller in such a manner that the whole concern travelled backwards and forwards across the deck in the maddest kind of way. For the first quarter of an hour, in spite of the September chill, the sweat poured off me in ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... 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 ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... and, while the mother drank her coffee, was patting the baby under the cloak. But she had to betake herself to the tiller again, for the curate was ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... flavour that a seaman loves. After fully fifteen minutes' severe tugging at the oars, the barge drew near enough to permit the black mass of the Caesar to be seen. For some time, Lord Geoffrey, who had seated himself at the tiller,—yoke-lines were not used a century since,—steered by the top-light of the rear-admiral; but now the maze of hamper was seen waving slowly to and fro in the lurid heavens, and the huge hull became visible, heaving and setting, ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Viracocha, "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 mythology ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... At the tiller stood our guide and boatman, his sombre eye steady on the south-by-east. Around the horizon of his countenance there spread a dark and six-days' beard, like a slowly rising thunder-cloud; ever and anon ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... sides the mound was close to its 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 then ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler
... Lucius was a 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
... 'nother 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 ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... 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
... The latter, with tarpaulin battened snugly down over the cockpit and the seas dashing over her wash-board until she seemed under water half the time, was forging stodgily Londonwards, her bargee at the tiller smoking a ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... 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 ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... yards and keep the vessel before the breeze, and then the good ship and the steady gale did the rest between them. The man at the wheel never vexed the old lady with any superfluous steering, but comfortably adjusting his limbs at the tiller, would doze away by the hour. True to her work, the Dolly headed to her course, and like one of those characters who always do best when let alone, she jogged on her way like a veteran old sea-pacer ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... began and became an husbandman, and planted vineyards."—This does not imply that Noah was the first who began to till the ground, and, more especially, to cultivate the vine; for Cain, too, was a tiller of the ground, Gen. iv. 2. The sense rather is, that Noah, after the flood, again took up this calling. Moreover, the remark has not an independent import; it serves only to prepare the way for the communication of the subsequent ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... kicked backward with so much vigor that two little jets of spray were often tossed up in his wake as he went under, like the splash from a steamer's paddles. And he had a rudder, too, for in the after part of his body there were two muscles just like tiller-ropes, fastened to his tail in such a way that they could twist it to either side, and steer him to port or starboard as occasion demanded. With his long neck stretched far out in front, his wings pressed tightly against his sides, and his ...
— Forest Neighbors - Life Stories of Wild Animals • William Davenport Hulbert
... by servants and slaves, dispensing hospitality according to his means after the fashion of the British nobility. Cotton had not yet poured the gold of England into the lap of the South, but tobacco held its own as a substantial basis of wealth. In the North, on the other hand, the tiller of the soil was usually its owner, assisted sometimes by indentured servants or slaves, but never himself above the toil which he exacted from others. The North, too, had its great families, descendants of patroons and ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann |
