"Tiller" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Pier, but there are several narrow openings out of it connecting with the river. Through one of these Tommy steered his course, bringing us into the main stream a few hundred yards down from where we had been lying. Then, turning her round, he handed the tiller over to Joyce, and clambered up alongside of me on to the ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... sheets a young man stood, resting one hand on the tiller, his navigating a sinecure, for the wind was barely enough to give him steerageway. He was, one would say, about twenty-five or six, fairly tall, healthily tanned, with clear blue eyes having a touch of steely gray in their blue depths, and he was ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... sprigs," said the girl, resting her elbow on the tiller. "There are geese on the shoal, yonder. They've come out from Currituck. Oh, I'm afraid it's to be blue-bird weather, ...
— Blue-Bird Weather • Robert W. Chambers
... an earthenware dish, each man cutting off slices with his jack-knife, and using his bread as a platter. Little was said while the meal went on; but when they went on deck again, the skipper, having put another man at the tiller, while the man released went forward to ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... Dan, as he put the Isabel about, and headed towards the small island, about half a mile from the shore. "Take the helm, Cyd," continued he, as he left his post at the tiller, and rushed into ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic
... one views a vessel, as compared with a house, or store, or engine. Why, there are no two ships alike, and two were never built just alike. There are lucky and unlucky ships, and ships that almost steer themselves, while others need a whole watch at the tiller in a dead calm. But I think that you are mistaken as to the 'Flying Dutchman' being the only other 'flyer,' as the sailors call them, for they are often seen in the Pacific, in ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... setting; and they floated through waves as rosy as the rosy sky. A fresh wind filled the sail, and ruffled Gulliver's white breast as he sat on the mast-head crooning a cheery song to himself. Dan held the tiller, and Davy lay at his feet, with Nep bolt upright beside him; but the happiest face of all was Moppet's. Kneeling at the bow, she leaned forward, with her lips apart, her fuzzy hair blown back, and her eyes fixed on the island which was to be her home. Like a little black figure-head ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... the ordinary Chinese sails, an immense sweep in the bows as an aid in turning, and a strong rudder with an enormous tiller, are the chief items ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... a crowd of quaint shipping, wondering where I was, and asking myself whether I was mentally rising equal to my extraordinary surroundings, whether I adequately appreciated the immensity of my remove from those other seas on which I had last travelled, tiller-ropes in hand, piloting a captain's galley from a wharf. Good heavens, what would my comrades on my ship say if they could see me now steering a load of hairy savages up one of those waterways which our ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... Jacques de la Mare waiting for us in their small fishing-smack which I knew so well, having so often sailed with them as boy and lad, and well they loved me, as did all the fishers of Grande Havre and St. Sampson. But now, as Jacques took the tiller, old Simon bade me handle the sail, as though I were indeed that which I appeared, a raw hand learning seaman's craft. Right manfully I took up my task, and in a moment the dark sail ran up the mast, Simon undid the fastening and pushed off, and with Jacques cunningly guiding us ...
— The Fall Of The Grand Sarrasin • William J. Ferrar
... stowed more trimly than the skipper could do it in the dark, all the running rigging hauled taut, and the ends coiled away, so that the yacht was in man-of-war style. He found a padlock, with a key in it, to fasten the cabin door; and having put the tiller below, so that no one could sail the Skylark in his absence, he secured the door, and went on shore with Monkey. He stopped at the cottage to see if his mother had returned from Rockport, but neither she nor Ezekiel ...
— Little Bobtail - or The Wreck of the Penobscot. • Oliver Optic
... comes your storm cloud all right, Horace; only instead of a ducking we stand a chance of getting a licking from another enraged tiller of the soil!" ...
— The Boy Scouts of Lenox - Or The Hike Over Big Bear Mountain • Frank V. Webster
... old farmer, with that youngest son. He had not quite the spirit of the old lady, nor her serenity; he thought that men in these days were no better than des btes froces. And in truth his philosophy—of an old tiller of the soil—was as superior to that of emperors and diplomats as his life is superior to theirs. Not very far from that little farm is the spot of all others in that mountain country which most stirs the sthetic ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... made it much harder for us, plying the hoe and rake, to keep the fields with room upon them for the corn to tiller. The winter wheat was well enough, being sturdy and strong-sided; but the spring wheat and the barley and the oats were overrun by ill weeds growing faster. Therefore, as the ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... rent the sky, and made the granite ring and quiver; a bright world of flame, and then a blank of utter darkness, against which stood out, glowing red-hot every mast, and sail, and rock, and Salvation Yeo as he stood just in front of Amyas, the tiller in his hand. All red-hot, transfigured into fire; and behind, ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... chests belonging to 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 ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... 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 if he might fall any moment. And now he had postponed his ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... 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 the past in its entirety, its abuses as well as its grandeurs, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... clothes-line with scores of little skirts and pairs of pants on it, and behind that, a little house with many children running in and out of the door. A round fat rosy woman with great big arms was calling to the children to "take care," and a man stood at the stern with his hand on the tiller. He had a red shirt on and in his mouth a pipe which Marmaduke could smell a ...
— Half-Past Seven Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... revolution, and what he thought of it all. It should be remembered he was not a newspaper-reading Russian. He called himself a Gosudarstvenny or State peasant, apparently indicating that his family had not been serfs but had been free men. He was normally a peaceful tiller of the soil, stopped at the plough and put into battle-harness by ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... he was ordered and took the tiller. And by his skilful guidance the craft gradually drew near ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... 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 up like an egg-shell ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... asked him which he would prefer. Nelson replied: "Take your choice, Hardy, it does not signify much." The master was ordered to put the helm to port, and the VICTORY ran on board the REDOUTABLE, just as her tiller ropes were shot away. The French ship received her with a broadside; then instantly let down her lower-deck ports, for fear of being bearded through them, and never afterwards fired a great gun during the action. Her tops, like those of all the ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... 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; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Presently the tiller was put up and, as the brig's head paid off, the yards were braced square; and she ran rapidly along towards the southwest, with the wind nearly dead aft. The next morning when Bob went on deck he found that the wind had dropped, ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... power of doing mischief; and I would advise no one to come within range of the tail, or thrust his toes too near the animal's mouth. The blow of a tolerably large-sized shark's tail might break a man's leg; and I have seen a three-inch hide tiller-rope bitten more than half-through full ten minutes after the wretch had been dragged about the quarter-deck, and had made all his victors keep at the most respectful distance. I remember hearing the late Dr. Wollaston, with his wonted ingenuity, suggest a method for measuring the ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... 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
... new contrivance with interest. His steering-gear was rude, being a single runner under the tender with tiller attachment, but it served the purpose. The road was so nearly a straight line ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... 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 ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... clamor dead ahead, the fellow at the tiller managed to suddenly shift the course of the advancing boat, and just in time. They swept past the Jessamine with hardly a yard ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen
... of the principle runs on. We question, however, whether there be any illustration among them more striking than that indirect consequence of the Reform Bill on the tenantry of England to which we refer. The provision which conferred a vote on the tenant-at-will, abrogated leases, and made the tiller of the soil a vassal. The farmer who precariously holds his farm from year to year cannot, of course, be expected to sink so much capital in the soil, in the hope of a distant and uncertain return, as the lessee certain of a possession for a ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... Carmagnola sprang from obscurity by personal address and courage to the command of armies. Colleoni fought his way up from the grooms to princely station and the baton of S. Mark. Francesco Sforza, whose father had begun life as a tiller of the soil, seized the ducal crown of Milan, and founded a house which ranked among the first ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... crowned with success. It is probable that ours also will be successful. How can one know beforehand what the consequence will be? Having exerted thyself thou wilt know what the fruit of thy exertion will be. The tiller tilleth with the plough the soil and soweth the seeds thereon. He then sitteth silent, for the clouds (after that) are the cause that would help the seeds to grow into plants. If however, the clouds favour him not, the tiller is absolved from all blame. He sayeth unto ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... 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
... had been up night and day when cruising along the Cuban coast, and now thought he might safely take a few hours' repose. Few hours, indeed, for soon after midnight he hears the cabin-boy screaming "danger!" A strong, unsuspected current has carried the tiller out of his weak hands, and the Santa Maria is scraping on a sandy bottom. Instantly the Admiral is on deck, and the disobedient helmsman is roused from his sleep. At once Columbus sees that their only possible salvation is to launch the ship's ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley
... period 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 ...
— The Evolution of the Country Community - A Study in Religious Sociology • Warren H. Wilson
... 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 in beneath his seat, that it ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... people in a temporal sense; the Church in a spiritual sense; and the Land being the only substantial and enduring means of subsistence. Cotton, coal, and iron cannot be eaten, but the land gives us corn and beef; therefore, the land stands first and foremost, and the agriculturist, as the tiller of land, possesses an inalienable right which it is his duty to maintain, and in so doing he is acting for the good of the community. I believe that the son and the daughter should obey their parents, and show regard to their wishes ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... after this, Desmond, who fancied he was awake, was sitting near the tiller, with his hand placed mechanically on it, when he felt it suddenly move. There was a rushing sound, the boat heeled slowly over. Tom, who even in his sleep felt the movement, jumped up, and finding ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... 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 for ever lost to him on earth? These thoughts bewildered ...
— Young Lion of the Woods - A Story of Early Colonial Days • Thomas Barlow Smith
... time they took a rotten old leaky boat they were poor and could afford no other—they took, I say, a rotten old leaky boat whose tiller was loose and whose sails mouldy, and whose blocks were jammed and creaking, and whose rigging frayed, and they boldly set out together ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... 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 there was a gleam of white teeth, like a bright break in the sky, but it meant nothing. ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... With the tiller under one arm and a pipe in his mouth, long empty, sat Martin, thinking about Joan. Hearing voices, Tootles looked up from a book that she was trying to read. She had been lying in the hammock on the stoop of Martin's cottage for an hour, waiting for Martin. It ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... 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, as she lay alongside the dock in New London Harbor, ready to discharge ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... took the tiller from the steersman, and bade him go below and fill himself. Will Cary went down, and returned in five minutes, with a plate of bread and beef, and a great jack of ale, coaxed them down Amyas's throat, as a nurse does with a child, and then scuttled below ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... drawback—at least, for Henry Burns and Harvey, who were hankering for the grip of a tiller and the thrill of a boat under sail. There wasn't a sailboat to be hired on the pond. There were not many, and they were all engaged. Coombs, who owned the slip and the boats, said he hadn't done such a business in years. He could only let them have two rowboats. ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... my knees, listening. 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 ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... effortless and fast. But most new hoes are sold without even a proper bevel ground into the blade, much less with an edge that has been carefully honed. So after working with dull shovels and hoes, many home food growers mistakenly conclude that cultivation is not possible without using a rotary tiller for both tillage and weeding between rows. But instead of an expensive gasoline-powered machine all they really needed was a little knowledge and ...
— Organic Gardener's Composting • Steve Solomon
... 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
... himself. He laid his hand on the tiller and was about to change his course when he ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump
... the evening the wind shifted immediately in our teeth, a violent hurricane and tempest suddenly arose, the most dreadful possible of nights and of scenes ensued, the sea breaking everywhere over the ship. We lost the tiller, and the vessel was for some minutes down on her beam-ends; and nothing, I believe, but the undaunted presence of mind, perseverance, experience, and courage of Paget preserved us from a watery grave. The oldest and most experienced of ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... between stopping and flying from the room before he should discover her. But she felt no fear of the man himself, and bracing her nerves, struck a light. It showed Gray Michael sitting up and evidently under the impression he was at sea. He grasped the bed-head as a tiller ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... the 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 ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... lower classes had any relation to the upper classes, it was one, thought Shakespeare, of dependence and obligation. It was not the tiller of the soil who fed the lord of the manor, but rather the lord who supported the peasant. Does not the king have to lie awake and take thought for his subjects? Thus Henry V. complains that ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... 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, blood-beaten ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... 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
... on through gales, with creaking cordage and jerking tiller ropes, until on the 11th of March the Cape was sighted, off which they were knocked about until the 20th instant; lying in the track of vessels bounding before the gale at the rate of ten or twelve knots ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... at the tiller side by side with the lieutenant, and scraps of their conversation ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... imitate; and feels his spirit lowered—he is no more a people—the tide of intellect has borne him down, and swept his humble wigwam from the earth. He, too, is changing: he now dwells, for the most part, in villages, in houses that cannot be moved away at his will or necessity; he has become a tiller of the ground, his hunting expeditions are prescribed within narrow bounds, the forest is disappearing, the white man is everywhere. The Indian must also yield to circumstances; he submits patiently. Perhaps he murmurs in secret; but his voice is low, it ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... and get in," Tom ordered his companions, as he pushed out a pair of oars. "Nicolas, you're also good with a pair of oars. Mr. Renshaw, you take the tiller. Inform me instantly when you see the first gleam of the 'Morton's' search-light. Evarts ought to have caught the scoundrels this time. Evidently he's been cruising softly ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock
... huzzah and wave their hands to the express; but for the most part, it is an interruption too brief and isolated to attract much notice; the sheep do not cease from browsing; a girl sits balanced on the projecting tiller of a canal boat, so precariously that it seems as if a fly or the splash of a leaping fish would be enough to overthrow the dainty equilibrium, and yet all these hundreds of tons of coal and wood and iron have been precipitated roaring past her very ear, and there is not a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... who suffered himself to be made the lackey of the South; and Taney, who had denied that, in the contemplation of the American Constitution, the Negro was a man. It was Black, an old Jacksonian, who in the moment of peril held the nerveless hands of the President firm to the tiller. It was Dix, another such, who sent to New Orleans the very Jacksonian order: "If any man attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... 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 ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... by right 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
... rapid settlement and successful cultivation of them are now justly considered of more importance to our well-being than is the fund which the sale of them would produce. The remarkable growth and prosperity of our new States and Territories attest the wisdom of the legislation which invites the tiller of the soil to secure a permanent home on terms within the reach of all. The pioneer who incurs the dangers and privations of a frontier life, and thus aids in laying the foundation of new commonwealths, renders ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... sheet shipped the tiller, and, taking his seat by the girl, put the boat before the wind. La Touche, who had taken his seat on the after thwart, was engaged in opening the tin of beef. The girl scarcely noticed him. She was experiencing a new sensation, the sensation ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... the fun commenced. We made fast a line 20 fathoms long, to the bow of the yawl, and put the men (both crews) to it like horses on the shore. Brown, the pilot, stood in the bow, with an oar, to keep her head out, and I took the tiller. We would start the men, and all would go well till the yawl would bring up on a heavy cake of ice, and then the men would drop like so many tenpins, while Brown assumed the horizontal in the bottom of the boat. After an hour's hard work we got back, ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... will be sailing against me; and all will be just as we want it. The captain won't get on so fast as he would like, but he will get on, and so shall we. I'm just going to put you on board. Do you see in front of the tiller—that thing the man is working, now to one side, now to the other—a round thing like ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... sec. of time, we, of course, dropped one day, and called the 5th of February, Saturday the 4th. This afternoon I sent two boats on shore for various refreshments, having nearly completed our water. In the morning of the 5th, the cutter swamped at her moorings aftern; the oars and tiller washed out of her, ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... the 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 ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... doubt of it now. We should be baling soon. Yeo, with one brown paw on the sheet and the other on the tiller, had not moved, nor even, so he looked, blinked the strange, unfrowning eyes peering from under the brim of his hat. The Mona came on an even keel by the lifeboat-house, shook her wing for a moment as though in delight, ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... we could plainly see the figures upon her deck. One man sat by the stern, with something black between his knees over which he stooped. Beside him lay a dark mass which looked like a Newfoundland dog. The boy held the tiller, while against the red glare of the furnace I could see old Smith, stripped to the waist, and shovelling coals for dear life. They may have had some doubt at first as to whether we were really pursuing them, but now as we followed every winding and turning ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... them and saw them the birds of night and sea, the birds of prey, the howlets of the brine, flying large and powerful throughout the under-sky that is salt and swinging and never lit by moon or star. And as the boats followed each other out of the bay, a gallant company, the crews leaned on tiller or on mast and sang their Gaelic iorrams that ever have the zest of the oar, the ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... a Cleeve, glancing swiftly at Bateese, saw his body stiffen suddenly with his hand on the tiller; saw his eyes travel forward, seeking his brother's; saw his face whiten. Dominique stood erect, gazing back, challenging. Beyond him John caught a glimpse of Father Launoy looking up from his breviary; and the priest's face, ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... sand in the dingy. Nothing elevates a biography like appropriate comparison. But I doubt whether either Jason or Columbus felt a more enthusiastic glow pervade their frames when each saw himself fairly under sail for unknown seas than I did when I seized the tiller of the dinghy, which was, by the bye, a stick not at all bigger than that which I had, not many months before, used ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... the women ordinarily marry late in life); and his little son Jean Francois (the second child and eldest boy), though set to weed and hoe upon the wee farm in his boyhood, was destined by his father for some other life than that of a tiller of the soil. He was born in the year before Waterloo—1814—and was brought up on his father's plot of land, in the hard rough way to which peasant children in France are always accustomed. Bronzed by sun and rain, poorly clad, ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen
... out on the sound, the little knockabout was heeling far over in the playful breath of the summer breeze. Tom Blake, bare- headed, bare-armed, was at the tiller. Jack Schuyler, also bare-headed and bare-armed, sat on the after overhang, tending the sheet, and bracing muscular legs against the swirling seas that, leaping over the low freeboard, tried to swirl him off among them. Kathryn Blair, leaned lithely against the ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... starboard bow. They altered course a little and, slowing down, passed within a few yards of it. It was a ship's life-boat, half full of water; lying in the water, rolling slowly from side to side as the boat rocked in their wash, were five dead men. A sixth sat huddled at the tiller, staring over the quarter with unseeing ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... the Isles Of Khaledan, I spied one evenfall A black blotch in the sunset; and it grew Swiftly . . . and grew. Tearing their beards, The sailors wept and prayed; but the grave ship, Deep laden with spiceries and pearls, went mad, Wrenched the long tiller out of the steersman's hand, And, turning broadside on, As the most iron would, was haled and sucked Nearer, and nearer yet; And, all awash, with horrible lurching leaps Rushed at that Portent, casting a shadow now That swallowed sea and sky; and then, Anchors and ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... perfect ecstasy of delight; even Dorothy forgot her beloved Louise for the time, while Lisbeth leaner toward me, the tiller-lines over her shoulders, her lips parted and a light in her eyes I had never seen there before. And yet Selwyn hung fast in our rear. If he was deficient in a sense of humour, he ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... so expert a 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
... suffering does not result from inequality of condition. Many a poor tiller of the fields enjoys a degree of peace and happiness that those favoured by birth or fortune would envy. Disease visits poor and rich alike; moral suffering is more especially the appanage of the so-called higher classes, and if obscurity and poverty render ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... Tidemand held the tiller. A couple of warehousemen from Henriksen's wharf were along as crew. Ole had arranged the trip carefully and had brought along a choice supply of provisions; he had even remembered roasted coffee for Irgens. But he had failed ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... it was broad daylight; so he looked to the tiller and got the boat's head a little up to the wind, and then gazed about him with the sleep still in his eyes. And as his eyes took in the picture before him he could not refrain a cry; for lo! there arose up great and ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris
... 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 ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... 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 no exact ...
— Folk Tales from the Russian • Various
... aloofness logically demanded of one in his position. Stubborn, and not spiritually subtle, though by no means dull in practical matters, he was resolutely letting the waters bear him on, holding the tiller firmly, without perceiving that he was in the vortex of a whirlpool. Indeed, his common sense continually impelled him, against the sort of reactionaryism of which his son Miltoun had so much, to that easier reactionaryism, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... which mean "tiller of the mountain," form with the old Cantabri a solemn preface to any subject ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... dismissed, except at his own desire. This assurance had a surprising effect upon Pipes, who, though he made no manner of reply, thrust the helm into the master's hands, saying, "Here, you old bumboat-woman, take hold of the tiller, and keep her thus, boy, thus;" and skipped about the vessel, trimming the sails, and managing the ropes with such agility and skill, that everybody on deck stood ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... the oars; while a little one, sometimes hardly more than an infant, will take the helm, to which his tiny strength and cunning skill are sufficient. Going off late one night from Hong Kong to the ship, and having to lean over in the stern to get hold of the tiller-lines, I came near putting my whole weight on the baby, lying unperceived in the bottom. Those sedate Chinese children, with their tiny pigtails and their old faces, but who at times assert their common ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... 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 or ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... watchful eye the tide and the wind and the weather, 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, Glad to be gone from a land of sand and sickness and sorrow, Short allowance of victual, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... There was no tiller, but Ken found a broken scull at the bottom of the boat with which he contrived to steer. He kept her head due south, but fairly close in shore, and what between Roy's powerful efforts, and the strong current which always flows out of the Sea of Marmora into the Aegean, they were ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... Israel's monarch after Heaven's own heart, His vigorous warmth did variously impart To wives and slaves; and wide as his command, Scatter'd his Maker's image through the land. 10 Michal, of royal blood, the crown did wear; A soil ungrateful to the tiller's care: Not so the rest; for several mothers bore To god-like David several sons before. But since like slaves his bed they did ascend, No true succession could their seed attend. Of all the numerous progeny ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... unlovely, close- fitting skullcap of thick gray felt, that looks wonderfully like a bowl clapped on top of their heads, others sport a huge woolly head-dress like the Roumanians; this latter imparts to them a fierce, war-like appearance, that the meek-eyed Persian ryot (tiller of the soil) is far from feeling. The national garment is a sort of frock-coat gathered at the waist, and with a skirt of ample fulness, reaching nearly to the knees; among the wealthier class the material of this garment is usually cloth of a solid, dark color, and among ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... poured; Fast as they expel the tide, Faster still it rolls aboard. Now e'en Frithiof's dauntless mind Owned the triumph of his foe; Louder yet than wave and wind Thus his thundering accents flow! 'Haste and grasp the tiller, Bjorn, with might of bear-paw! Tempest so infuriate Comes not from Valhalla.* Witchcraft is a-going; Sure, the coward Helge Spells* the raging billows! Mine the charge to explore.'" [Footnote: Longfellow's translation] *[Footnote: Valhalla, the palace of Odin, in Asgard, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... bidding us farewell in his tongue, clapt on all sail and stood out before the wind, leaving us there to shift for ourselves. Don Sanchez took one oar, and I t'other,—Dawson lying in the bottom and not able to move a hand to save his life,—and Moll held the tiller, and so we pulled with all our force, crying out now and then for fear we should not be seen, till by God's providence we came alongside the Talbot of London, and were presently hoisted aboard without mishap. Then the captain of the Talbot and his ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord. And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering: But unto Cain and to his ...
— The Dore Gallery of Bible Illustrations, Complete • Anonymous
... '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 river next morning. We didn't want to put him to so much trouble on our account, but he said: ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... can't say that I like it better than life at Putnam Hall," smiled Sam Rover, as he threw over the tiller of the little yacht. "I'm quite anxious to meet Captain Putnam and Fred, Frank, and ...
— The Rover Boys on the Ocean • Arthur M. Winfield
... picturesque, healthful, and economical mode of travel. It was warm weather, the beginning of May, I think, and the plan was to sleep ashore every night. We found this plan to answer expectation. The trip was, in every respect, delightful. Mr. Willers lent a ready hand at the oars and tiller by turns. He possessed a good share of urbanity, had seen much of the world, and was of an age and temper to vent no violent opinions. He gave me information on some topics. We got along pleasantly. One day, a sleeping sawyer, as it is called, ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... 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
... Paris which, through its murmurings and righteous insurrections against the oppressive system of many of our kings, has forced them to entertain milder sentiments regarding the relief of the French people, and principally of the tiller of the soil?.. Without the energy of Paris, Paris and France would now be inhabited solely by slaves, while this beautiful soil would present an aspect as wild and deserted as that of the Turkish empire or that of Germany," which has led us "to confer still greater lustre on this Revolution, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... against an azure heaven, flecked with clouds pink and gold and flaming red; and stark against this splendour was the grim figure of Resolution Day, a bloody clout twisted about his head, where he sat, one sinewy hand upon the tiller, the other upon the worn Bible open upon his knees, his lips moving as he read, while hard beside me on the floor of the boat lay Joanna, fast asleep. At sight of her I started and shrank from her nearness, whereupon Resolution, lifting his head and closing ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... her nose pointing up the river and her stern towards me. The man stood by her wheel (for some idiotic reason, best known to himself, her builder had given her a wheel instead of a tiller), which was covered up with tarpaulin. He stood with a hand on this tarpaulin case, and looked back over his shoulder towards me—a tall fellow with a reddish beard and a clean-shaven upper lip. I was drifting close by this time—he looking curiously at me—and I must have been ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... in the lee of the hills, the sails flapped idly and it was necessary to bring the long oars into service. But beyond the sheltered harbour a light north-west breeze caught and filled the sails, the oars were stowed, the rudder shipped, and with David at the tiller Doctor Joe lighted his pipe and settled himself for a quiet smoke while Andy and Jamie turned their attention ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... sinned, the earth would have brought forth thorns and thistles to be the food of animals, but not to punish man, because their growth would bring no labor or punishment for the tiller of the soil, as Augustine says (Gen. ad lit. iii, 18). Alcuin [*Interrog. et Resp. in Gen. lxxix], however, holds that, before sin, the earth brought forth no thorns and thistles, whatever: but the ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... things we can do to make soil moisture more available to our summer vegetables. The most obvious step is thorough weeding. Next, we can keep the surface fluffed up with a rotary tiller or hoe during April and May, to break its capillary connection with deeper soil and accelerate the formation of a dry dust mulch. Usually, weeding forces us to do this anyway. Also, if it should rain during summer, we can hoe or rotary till a day or two later ...
— Gardening Without Irrigation: or without much, anyway • Steve Solomon
... Land, and I found seats in the stern of the skiff. The longboat's coxswain took the tiller; his four companions leaned into their oars; the moorings were cast off ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... coast-line, gone were rock and wood and sand; Grimly anxious stood the helmsman with the tiller in his hand, And questioned of the darkness what was sea and what ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... afloat in ten minutes," said a man in oil-skins, who helped them over the low bulwarks. He spoke good English, and seemed to have learned some of the taciturnity of the seafaring portion of that nation with their language; for he went aft to the tiller without more words and ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... wind the long bow and nose serve as a head-sail. The high, square, piled-up stern, with its antique carving, and the sides with their lattice-work, are wonderful, together with the extraordinary size and projection of the rudder, and the length of the tiller. The anchors are of grapnel shape, and the larger junks have from six to eight arranged on the fore-end, giving one an idea of bad holding-ground along the coast. They really are much like the shape of a Chinese "small-footed" woman's shoe, ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... was to square in the 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 ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... occupations of life, none was farther removed from the profession of arms than commerce. The merchant was placed lowest in the category of vocations,—the knight, the tiller of the soil, the mechanic, the merchant. The samurai derived his income from land and could even indulge, if he had a mind to, in amateur farming; but the counter and abacus were abhorred. We knew the wisdom of this ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... said David. "I held on to the tiller-ropes though I did go overboard." Then ensued a battle between David and his horse, the one wanting to mount, the other anxious to be unencumbered with sailors. It was settled by David making a vault and sitting on the animal's neck, ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... up, and Charles made sure she meant to box the man's ears. He could not see the look on her face, but whatever it was it cowed the fellow, who seized his oars again and began to pull for dear life, as she sat back and laid her hand on the tiller. ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... grow less; hence the people have courage, force of soul, and strength of body; they love their country, they respect the magistrates, they are attached to a prince, to an order, and to laws to which they owe their peace and well-being. And you will no longer see the son of the honourable tiller of the soil so ready to quit the noble calling of his forefathers, nor so ready to go and sully himself with the liveries and with the contempt of ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... Richardson all right?" asked Ponty. "I should say he and his friend are in the same boat, and he's holding the tiller." ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... 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 |
