"Tiller" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... supper time, too drunk to take the sail off her, so we drove on down Channel, trusting to the goodness of the gear. There would have been a pretty smash-up if we had had to alter our course hurriedly. As it was we were jumping like a young colt, in a welter of foam, with two men at the tiller, besides a gang on the tackles. I never knew any ship to bound about so wildly. I passed the evening after supper on deck, enjoying the splendour of that savage leaping rush down Channel, yet just a ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... of seed sown, while there was land in the vale of the Garonne that returned thirty-fold. The two conditions for raising tolerable crops were abundance of labour and abundance of manure. But misery drove the men away, and the stock were sold to pay the taxes. So the land lacked both the arms of the tiller, and the dressing whose generous chemistry would have transmuted the dull earth into fruitfulness and plenty. The extent of the district was estimated at a million and a half of hectares, equivalent to nearly four millions of English acres: yet the population of this vast tract was ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Turgot • John Morley
... 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 ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... rowers kept the boat stationary, backing water. The steersman's left hand played with the tiller-rope, and the boat edged slowly to the shore. There was a grating thrown out over the water from the parapet of the river-wall, to the side of which was attached a boat-ladder, now slung up, for no boat's crew ever stopped here at this season. ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... unlearned: how to labor correctly and profitably. His intellectual offspring each succeeding year realize more and more difficulty in finding places, so that the so-called higher avenues are becoming crowded to an uncomfortable extent. The colored man will find it not a whit to his disgrace to be a tiller of the soil; when he is an educated tiller he will find that he can produce better crops, make more money, and rear his children usefully. If he keeps up his present lick, he will find that he has ...
— Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading • Various
... so sure that no one would find his boat, which was carefully screened by the bushes, that he had not even hidden the oars. So it was soon afloat with Jock at the tiller, Sandy on the bottom, Jean in the prow holding to the sides of the boat, scarcely daring to speak for fear of upsetting it, and Alan at the oars. The lake was smooth, and they reached the opposite shore without mishap, except that twice Alan "caught a crab" and splashed ...
— The Scotch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... deck of the little cutter, he saw Blue Peter sitting on the coamings of the hatch, his feet hanging down within. He was lost in the book he was reading. Curious to see, without disturbing him, what it was that so absorbed him, Malcolm dropped quietly on the tiller, and thence on the deck, and approaching softly peeped over his shoulder. He was reading the epistle of James the apostle. Malcolm fell a-thinking. From Peter's thumbed bible his eyes went wandering through the thicket of masts, in which moved ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... 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 ...
— The Ghosts - And Other Lectures • Robert G. Ingersoll
... divided into "watches," six taking an hour's "breather" while the other six rowed, hour and hour about, alternately rowing and resting. When the wind served they hoisted their big square sail, our hero at the tiller. On this occasion there was little wind, and "Master Isaac," for example's sake, and "to keep my biceps and fore-arm in good condition"—as he told the sergeant-major—took his regular spells at the oar. On arriving at Fort George, Colonel Hunter, Governor and Commandant, ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... 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 ...
— Forest Neighbors - Life Stories of Wild Animals • William Davenport Hulbert
... tiller in my hand. The end of those men seemed so horrible that I forgot for the instant what ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... poop-rail, he jumped into the sea. But the gunner, judging accurately the swell of the waves, brought the boat to the very spot where the captain had struck the water and hoisted him on board. Without a word he made his way to the stern and took the tiller. ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... by Capmany, regarding the equipment of galleys, show the same thing, for he is probably mistaken in saying that one of the dos timones specified was a spare one. Joinville (p. 205) gives incidental evidence of the same: "Those Marseilles ships have each two rudders, with each a tiller (? tison) attached to it in such an ingenious way that you can turn the ship right or left as fast as you would turn a horse. So on the Friday the king was sitting upon one of these tillers, when he called me and ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... his companion to take up the oars, and then shoved off, leaping lightly on the stern-sheets where he could handle the tiller. ...
— Messenger No. 48 • James Otis
... out after breakfast, and I gave him a leg up on to his very sorry horse, which he sat like a tailor or a sailor. He held the reins like tiller-lines, and indulged in a pleased smile at the effect of ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... 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 of this bill without entering upon a new occupation ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... 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 ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... he has much to do as he lies there on his six-foot deck that narrows away so sharply to the stern. He has taken a hitch round the heavy tiller with the slack of the main sheet to keep it off the side of his head while he eats. There is no current, and there is not a breath of air. By and by, before midnight, you will smell the soft land breeze blowing in puffs out of every little bay and indentation. There is no order needed. The men ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... to fatness; and then your only remedy (upon my knowledge, Prince) is in a morning a Cup of neat White-wine brew'd with Carduus, then fast till supper, about eight you may eat; use exercise, and keep a Sparrow-hawk, you can shoot in a Tiller; but of all, your Grace must flie Phlebotomie, fresh Pork, Conger, and clarified Whay; They are all dullers ...
— Philaster - Love Lies a Bleeding • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... and 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 away ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... cloak she reached out an arm—a bare arm with two jewelled bracelets—and took the tiller. "I can steer you to the quay," she said, and leaning forward in the light of Sergeant Archelaus' lantern, she lifted ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... we found the tiller sprung in the rudder head, and, by some strange neglect, we had not a spare one on board, which we were ignorant of till now it was wanting. I knew but of one tree in the neighbourhood fit for this ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... was but the work of a few minutes to gain the landing, hoist sail, cast off and reach down the bay, the wind abeam. Bill got into a snug place at the mast, Gus held the tiller, each boy firmly determined to do something that might call for the ...
— Radio Boys Loyalty - Bill Brown Listens In • Wayne Whipple
... through the water. Paul, at the tiller, steered with judgment and craft, and his was no light task. Now and then low boughs were lapped in the water and bushes submerged to their tops grew in the way. To become tangled in them might be fatal and to scrape against ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... creature 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 ...
— Miss or Mrs.? • Wilkie Collins
... Jack Tiller gave a hoist at his slacks, and with something between a sigh and a grunt, he wheeled round and went ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... the vine its fruit deny, Although the olive yield no oil, The withering fig-trees droop and die, The fields elude the tiller's toil. The empty stall no herd afford, And perish all the bleating race, Yet will I triumph in the Lord— The ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... fire," said the captain quietly as he stood at the tiller; "everyone but the men at the sweeps lie down ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... humanity, with a rope, or "steering lanyard," round the tiller to prevent its knocking him down or sweeping him overboard, stands there guiding the plunging smack on her course through the dangerous shoals. Of course Billy's father has an eye on him, but he does not require to say more than an ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... 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
... that I 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
... call it justice to make him alone suffer. His rents have been reduced from 25 to 30 per cent. and over, but all the rent charges, mortgages, debts and dues have been retained at their full value. The scheme of reduction does not pass beyond the tiller of the soil, and the landlord ...
— About Ireland • E. Lynn Linton
... and water sounded the crash. The ship, with only a small sail upon the poop, blew about into the trough of the sea. A mountain of green water thundered over the prow, bearing away men and wreckage. The "governor," Brasidas's mate, flung away the last steering tiller. ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... that you harm not any tiller of the ground, nor any yeoman of the greenwood—no, nor no Knight nor Squire, unless you have heard him ill spoken of. But if Bishops or Archbishops come your way, see that you spoil them, and mark that you always hold in your mind the High ...
— The Book of Romance • Various
... 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 on shore, but Mr Iffley, the mate, ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... to the south before the wind, and after escapes many and incredible, reached a haven of safety, with men worn and dazed, but not all with crews complete; too many paid toll to the sea with one or more lives. For as long as a day and a half, there were skippers who sat, unrelieved, at the tiller of their boat, an awful weight of responsibility on their shoulders, human lives depending on their nerve and skill. Some of these men had to be carried ashore, when at length they reached safety; the legs of one were found to be so twisted and wedged ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... don't know 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, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... no relics of dead queens; but on the stand, close to your hand, cheap books and magazines. There's no Egyptian crock, or painted jabberwock, but by the wall there stands a tall and loud six-dollar clock. Old Tiller can't impart much lore concerning art, or tell the price of virtu nice until he breaks your heart. But in his home abide those joys which seem denied to stately halls upon whose walls are works of pomp and pride. ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason
... English 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 at length the monstrous doctrine arose that a landless Englishman has no right whatever ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... the mate. "Walter, ship the tiller." He was instantly obeyed, fortunately for them; for should such another sea as that which had washed the boat off the raft catch her broadside, it might roll her over and over. By great exertions the mate got her round, head to the sea, and there he and Nub were able to keep her. But what had ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... strong backward sagging when the rocks appear above it as it falls. We have our hand on the throb of the current turning in a salting river inland between green hills; we are borne upon it bodily as we sail, its movement kicks the tiller in our grasp, and the strength beneath us and around us, the rush and the compulsion of the stream, its silence and as it were its purpose, all represent to us, immediately and here, that immeasurable to and fro which ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... 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
... sweltering under his 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 to row ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert
... 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 in the well-wooded districts of ...
— Birds in the Calendar • Frederick G. Aflalo
... down-stream, 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 considerably astonished Fraeulein Werner, the German governess, who ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... Paying no heed to the bleeding member, he limped about the boat, swept by the iron hail, and gave his orders as coolly as before. But the shot that killed the pilot also smashed the wheel, and the unmanageable boat began drifting down stream. The tiller ropes of another boat were also cut about the same time, and she also floated helplessly with the current. The Confederates increased their fire, and the other two boats, also greatly damaged, followed the flagship, and the ferocious fight that had lasted more than an ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... with his lean arms, hoisting the small triangular sail. The boat heeled over, pitched without making headway, and then began to cleave the water with a gentle ripple against her sides. They sailed out of the channel, leaving the Vedra behind, coasting along the island. Jaime held the tiller, while the old man, clasping the fish-basket between his knees, began counting and fingering ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... light was now straight to port, but the breeze was brisker, and she hated the thought of losing it. She had handled the tiller of small craft, but would not have dared to bring around the Savonarola with her vast sweep of sail, even had she cared to regain the original course.... Bedient could not hold these two men at bay all night. He looked as ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... 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 them rest More easy on the thwarts. And John, my son, My little ...
— The White Bees • Henry Van Dyke
... ship-sloops 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 decks that ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... considerable ingenuity, contrived a rudder, which enabled him to guide the floating apparatus with ease. He took the tiller, as a matter of course. The worthy man was as good a sailor as he was a guide and duck hunter. I then let go the painter which held us to the shore, the sail was brought to the wind, and we made a ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... 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 standing well ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... for centuries was simply a 'tiller of the ground.' Guano, though formed, according to some eminent authorities, long ages before the creation of man, was not then known. The coprolites lay undisturbed in countless numbers in the lias, the greensand, and the Suffolk ...
— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris
... 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 Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... man, proudly, "and who wass it that first put a gun into his hand? and who wass it skinned the ferry first seal that he shot in Loch Scridain? and who wass it told him the name of every spar and sheet of the Umpire, and showed him how to hold a tiller? And if there is any man knows more as me about the birds and the deer, that is right—let him go out; but it is the first day I hef not been out with Sir Keith since ever I wass at Castle Dare; and now it is time that I am going away; for I am an old man; and the ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... I said 'Starboard,' you would move the tiller to the right side.—Now, boys, which of you can tell me the difference between ...
— The Nursery, June 1877, Vol. XXI. No. 6 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... not! Sit still!" cried Bert, grasping the tiller, which Harry was not holding just right. By turning the ice-boat to one side the wind did not strike it so hard, and the craft settled down on the ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Snow Lodge • Laura Lee Hope
... straight prepar'd The heav'nly fire; and first upon the plain The flames he kindled, and the dead consum'd, Who lay, promiscuous, by Achilles slain: The plain was dried, and stay'd the wat'ry flood. As when the breath of Boreas quickly dries In Autumn-time a newly-water'd field, The tiller's heart rejoicing: so was dried The spacious plain; then he, the dead consum'd, Against the river turn'd the fiery glare: Burnt were the willows, elms, and tamarisk shrubs, The lotus, and the reeds, and galingal, Which by the lovely river grew profuse. The eels and fishes, 'mid the eddying whirl, ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... had taken his friend Peter the Great's place at the tiller, and the captain stood near the stern observing a passing vessel. A stiffish but steady breeze carried them swiftly over the waves, which, we might say, laughingly reflected the bright sunshine and the deep-blue sky. ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... 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 ...
— Burke • John Morley
... 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 ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... immediate effect upon the olfactory nerves was excessively disagreeable and oppressive. We found the officer who had charge of the vessel confined to a small space in the after-part of the deck near the tiller. The pressure of this dense mass of human beings was suffocating, and the crowd was so great that one poor slave who had fallen overboard in the night, on the voyage, was never missed until the ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... proceeded to throw off turn after turn of the stiff hempen cable that held the felucca to her anchor, until the last turn was gone and the flakes went writhing and twisting out through the hawse-hole; then, as the end disappeared with a splash I dashed aft and rammed the tiller hard over to port—noticing, as I did so, that a large boat, pulling eight oars, was less than a hundred fathoms distant from us, and coming up to us hand over hand. Then, catching a turn of the main-sheet round a cleat, I jumped forward ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... want an ordinary boatwoman for us five, for we were not very like the rest of the world. We wanted something unexpected, funny, ready for everything, something, in short, which it would be almost impossible to find. We had tried many without success, girls who had held the tiller, imbecile boatwomen who always preferred wine that intoxicates to water which flows and carries the yawls. We kept them for one Sunday, and then got ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... we may perceive how much climate affects agriculture. The humidity or dryness of soils, their natural or acquired heat or cold, the prevailing winds, the quantity of rain, the snows, the dews, all affect the planter of the seed and the tiller of the ground; they increase or diminish the aggregate of the products of countries, the value of their imports and exports,—in short, their material power, their resources, their influence, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... 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 ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... now, lads, and pull for life," cried Edgar, seizing the tiller with one hand, while with the other he held the revolver. "You take this oar, Dwarro, and pull with ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... white face turned toward him, a quick instinct of self-preservation seized him, and he sprang up to lower the sail. Something caught the halliards. His left arm was of little service; his right hung useless at his side. She reached forward—one hand on the tiller—to help him. The rim of the storm slipped up over the sun—a sudden flaw struck them—the rudder flew sharp round, wrenched out of her slight hold—the top-heavy sail caught the full force of the blow, surged downward with a heavy lurch, and the gale was on them. A great ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... little patches of cultivation are to be seen: small potato-gardens, as they are called, or a few roods of oats, green even in the late autumn; but, strangely enough, with nothing to show where the humble tiller of the soil is living, nor, often, any visible road to these isolated spots of culture. Gradually, however—but very gradually—the prospect brightens. Fields with inclosures, and a cabin or two, are to be met with; ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... the jetty gradual she was hauled: Then one the tiller took, And chewed, and spat upon his hand, and bawled; And one the canvas shook Forth like a mouldy bat; and one, with nods And smiles, lay on the bowsprit end, and called And cursed ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... a little yawl down on the shore I wouldn't take a thousand dollars for. She's knowin' as if she was alive. I can tell to an inch how much sail she'll stand an' how much water she'll draw. She answers to the tiller quick as a child to your voice, too—quicker'n most children. I've had her for years, an' smooth weather or foul she ain't never gone back on me. Folks disappoint you sometimes; but a boat never does." As if sensing that he was venturing ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... common model. They carry a mast and sail, although for the greater part of their journeys they are towed by their owners, or rather by the familles, wife and children, of the owner. Mynheer, the barge-owner, is usually to be seen smoking his pipe and taking his ease near the tiller. Formerly it was otherwise, for the towing was done by dogs, under the personal direction of, and no doubt with some assistance from, the barge-owner himself, while his wife and children remained on ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... side of the tiny ship as near the prow as might be; her uncle sat at the tiller and managed the sails. They were a silent pair, the one in a suit of tweeds with a slouch hat, the other in a muslin gown with a veil of black lace wrapped about ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... 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
... cwt. and a half of pellets of lead, and thirty-two pounds of gunpowder by way of ammunition.(516) The mention of "teleres" and the small amount of ammunition favours the assumption that the instruments were rather hand-guns than heavy pieces, as has been supposed.(517) A "telere" or tiller was a common name for the stock of a cross-bow,(518) and the earliest hand-guns or fire-arms known consisted of a simple tube of metal with touch-hole, fixed on a straight stick or shaft, which when used ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... 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
... 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 measured in ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... sail, cast off, took my place at the tiller, the sheet in my hand, and headed across channel. The skiff heeled over and plunged into it madly. The spray began to fly. I was at the pinnacle of exaltation. I sang "Blow the Man Down" as I sailed. I was no boy of fourteen, living the mediocre ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... Cadmus, at the signal given By time and season must the ruler speak Who sets the course and steers the ship of State With hand upon the tiller, and with eye Watchful against the treachery of sleep. For if all go aright, thank Heaven, men say, But if adversely—which may God forefend!— One name on many lips, from street to street, Would bear the bruit and rumour of ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... a field most fertile Bears vile and noxious weeds, Through failure of the tiller To ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... do! He threw up the window, and drank in the spring morning in a breath 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 under his arm. He took the direction of the ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... continued old Silas, putting his hand on the tiller and turning his face seaward, "if Tom Simmons had kept command of that wreck, we all would 'a' laid there an' waited an' waited till some of us was starved, an' the others got nothin' fur it, fur the cap'n never mended his engine, an' it wasn't more'n a week afore ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... water, and Lancelot added his unconscious testimony. He was between Urquhart's knees, his hand upon the tiller, his ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... a rotten old leaky boat they were poor and could afford no other—they took, I say, a rotten old leaky boat whose tiller was loose and whose sails mouldy, and whose blocks were jammed and creaking, and whose rigging frayed, and they boldly set out together into ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... nature dreamed of spring; a brilliant, almost joyous sun made the grass in the ditches on either side of the road sparkle with those deceptive pearls of the hoarfrost which vanish at a touch, and rejoice the heart of a tiller of the earth when he sees them glittering at the points of his wheat as it pushes bravely up through the soil. All the windows of the diligence were lowered, to give entrance to this earliest smile of the Divine, as though all hearts were saying: "Welcome ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... and objurgation to every man in the boat except the Captain, he seemed to our hero to take particular delight in working him. There he stood in the stern, the fiery little coxswain, leaning forward with a tiller-rope in each hand, and bending to every stroke, shouting his warnings, and rebukes, and monitions to Tom, till he drove him to his wits' end. By the time the boat came back to Hall's, his arms were so numb that ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... explained that this operation is performed by bringing a ship nearly into the eye of the wind, and then hauling the foresail across, and belaying the sheet. The aft sail—or mizzen—is then hauled tight, and the tiller lashed amidships. As the fore-sail pays the vessel off from the wind, the after sail brings her up again; and she is thus kept nearly head to sea, and the crew go below, and wait till the ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty
... see that they are beating a wretched earth-tiller?" answered the boatman, smiling. "He must have done something, so pain is traveling ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... boat had gone to the farther corner of the lake, and it was necessary to brace her up or come about. I went aft to take the helm, and Kate followed me, taking a seat at my side. I put the tiller hard down, and the Splash came about, heading towards Cannondale. Our passenger was quick to discern the course, and became ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... the lives of those within had so often been 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 the eye rested on the faint outline ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... 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 ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... difference between the action of the surplus forces as we see them to-day and as they appeared before the outbreak of physical science and mechanism. Then it seemed clearly necessary that whatever social and political organisation developed, it must needs; rest ultimately on the tiller of the soil, the agricultural holding, and the Normal Social Life. But now even in agriculture huge wholesale methods have appeared. They are declared to be destructive; but it is quite conceivable that they may be made ultimately as recuperative as that small ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... and the caldron had bubbled. The brass-covered tombs of the abbots in the presbytery looked as if a century had passed over them without disturbance; while the graves in the cloister cemetery, obliterated, and only to be detected when a broken coffin or a mouldering bone was turned up by the tiller of the ground, preserved their wonted appearance. The face of nature had received neither impress nor injury from the fantastic freaks and necromantic exhibitions of the witches. Every thing looked as it was ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... go back, now," said the sailor. "Going to have a big blow afore night." And he threw over the tiller and gave the necessary ...
— The Rover Boys on Land and Sea - The Crusoes of Seven Islands • Arthur M. Winfield
... been sighted by Timmy Durrant lying like mountain-tops almost a-wash in precisely the right place. His calculations had worked perfectly, and really the sight of him sitting there, with his hand on the tiller, rosy gilled, with a sprout of beard, looking sternly at the stars, then at a compass, spelling out quite correctly his page of the eternal lesson-book, would have moved a woman. Jacob, of course, was not a woman. The sight of Timmy Durrant was no ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... hard enough 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 then only of one thing: to keep ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... 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
... 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 pantry were the dogs' night quarters, and ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... Erlend and his ships got near the land they rowed aground instantly, jumped overboard, and took to the land; but at the same instant Olaf's ship came up with them. Olaf saw a remarkably handsome man swimming in the water, and laid hold of a tiller and threw it at him. The tiller struck Erlend, the son of Hakon the earl, on the head, and clove it to the brain; and there left Erlend his life. Olaf and his people killed many; but some escaped, and some were made ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... 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 laugh, cried—"Come, Jo, you must admit that there is at least one living man who has made you 'shut up' before you had finished what you'd ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... long-boat 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
... on board with 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 ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... 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
... Why had he not denounced me, then? And in the same instant the answer came: He was to profit by my disgrace; he was to be aggrandized by my downfall. The drama he had prepared was to be set in scenery of his own choosing. His savant fingers grasped the tiller, steering me inexorably to ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... 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 ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 8, 1920 • Various
... manipulation of the tiller was extraordinary and erratic, and it was not until the boat was well past the wharves that ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... very short space of time we launched the cutter, into which Mr. Larkin and myself jumped, followed by two men, who took the oars. I held the tiller, and the mate sat ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes
... couldn't talk, either, when our man was hoisting the orange-painted sail and hauling up the anchor and running back and forth to pull ropes and things. But when he was settled at the tiller and all of us were cosy with sweaters and coats, ...
— Us and the Bottleman • Edith Ballinger Price
... doubtful himself. He laid his hand on the tiller and was about to change his course when he made ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump
... 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 are ground to a sharp, smooth ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... job before him suited him exactly, and, after leaving Martinton, he settled back with his hand on the tiller and his eyes on the ...
— The Young Bridge-Tender - or, Ralph Nelson's Upward Struggle • Arthur M. Winfield
... word, Mr. Phillips rushed to lower one. Lashings 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 large parcel in ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... having adopted him, she gives him to be brought up by the three nymphs of the dew. Of these, Aglauros, the dweller in the fields, is the envy or malice of the earth; she answers nearly to the envy of Cain, the tiller of the ground, against his shepherd brother, in her own envy against her two sisters, Herse, the cloud dew, who is the beloved of the shepherd Mercury; and Pandrosos, the diffused dew, or dew of heaven. Literally, you have in this myth the ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... upon the calm water that murmured along the shore, when a young man came down from the upper bank of white drift sand, and seized the tiller rope. He had the rope in his hand, his arm was upraised to draw the boat to his feet, when he was startled by hearing the words with which we open ...
— The Dock Rats of New York • "Old Sleuth"
... direction along shady paths in the oasis and never weary of its beauty. The tiller-folk are a happy people—one can see from their faces that they have few cares; those that are not at work under the trees may be seen splashing about the brooks or wending to market with donkeys that almost disappear under immense loads ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... their reputed forefathers, the old inhabitants of Judaea, must have been before them, for of that strain presumably some trace was still present in their veins. However far he may have drifted from such pursuits, originally the Jew was a tiller of the soil, and here, where many of his other characteristics had evaporated under pressure of circumstances—notably the fierce courage that Titus knew—this taste remained to him, if ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... too early to return, she went down to the riverside and seated herself on one of the benches. Many boats were going by, a majority of them containing only two persons—a young man who pulled, and a girl who held the strings of the tiller. Some of these couples Monica disregarded; but occasionally there passed a skiff from which she could not take her eyes. To lie back like that on the cushions and converse with a companion who had nothing of the shop ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... To rig this singular-looking craft with an enormous mainsail and jib was no very difficult matter, the wreckage alongside furnishing him with the requisite spars, canvas, and rigging. Each of the rudders was then furnished with a tiller; and these two tillers being connected together with a cross-piece, were controlled by a central tiller that actuated both rudders simultaneously. The construction and completion of this catamaran cost Leslie three whole weeks of arduous labour; ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... XVII. Dashed from 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 ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... passengers and several things belonging to Mr. Piper and 4 sows, the property of Government, and washed overboard the binnacle, 2 compasses and lamps. At half-past 3 carried away main sheet and broke the tiller, down main-sail: bore up and set the fore-sail not being able to keep the sea found the larboard side of the waist covering board split and leaking a good deal. At 8 heavy gales with squalls and a heavy sea: ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... the Volsung banners, and on went Sigmund before, And his sword was the flail of the tiller on the wheat of the wheat-thrashing floor, And his shield was rent from his arm, and his helm was sheared from his head: But who may draw nigh him to smite for the heap and the rampart of dead? White went his hair on the wind like the ragged drift of the cloud, And his dust-driven, ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung • William Morris
... tip-top," said the skipper, as soon as he began to feel the boat bearing on the tiller. "She minds her helm as soon as I ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic
... 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 close of the nineteenth century. But with the coming of ...
— The Evolution of the Country Community - A Study in Religious Sociology • Warren H. Wilson
... motives to extortion, and made their terms accordingly. And what were the terms these poor people were obliged to consent to, to answer the bribes and peshcush paid to Mr. Hastings?—five, ten, twenty, forty per cent? No! at an interest of six hundred per cent per annum, payable by the day! A tiller of land to pay six hundred per cent to discharge the demands of government! What exhaustless fund of opulence could supply this destructive resource of wretchedness and misery? Accordingly, the husbandman ground to powder between the usurer ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... 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 would ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... 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 ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner |
