"Tiller" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... were no guns or carronades of any kind in the vessel, which had more of the appearance of a fast-sailing trader than a pirate. But I was struck with the neatness of everything. The brass work of the binnacle and about the tiller, as well as the copper belaying-pins, were as brightly polished as if they had just come from the foundry. The decks were pure white, and smooth. The masts were clean-scraped and varnished, except at the cross-trees and truck, which were painted black. ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... life is surely worthy the thought of the captain of industry, of the statesman, of the economist, of the educator, of the preacher. We may also, without danger of being put to confusion, assume that the tiller of the soil is in essential character very much like other people. Farmer nature is usually a fair specimen of human nature. Nevertheless the environment of the farmer is a peculiar one. Individually as well ...
— Chapters in Rural Progress • Kenyon L. Butterfield
... of mast, short-bowspritted, her boom clewed up to clear her deck load of rough stone; drawing ten feet aft and nine feet for'ard; a twelve-horse hoisting engine and boiler in her forecastle; at the tiller a wabbly-jointed, halibut-shaped, moon-faced (partially eclipsed, owing to a fringe of dark whiskers), sleepy-eyed skipper named Baxter,—such was the sloop Susie Ann, and her outfit and her commander, ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... have the goodness to row,' he said; 'I will take the tiller, so that my hand may ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 443 - Volume 17, New Series, June 26, 1852 • Various
... out the shabby sail, set the rudder for a long tack downstream, and was off. The breeze was coming in gentle puffs, so that the boat moved slowly through the water, the ripples making a sleepy whisper under the bow and the tiller, now and then, jerking lazily under his hand. One side of the stream was marshy so that he pushed into tall grass and cat-tails and startled an indignant kingfisher who was dozing on a dead tree. The bird went skimming off, a flash ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... side!" called out Dick, and ran for the biggest sweep he could find. "Jam over the rudder!" he called to Songbird, who was at the tiller. ...
— The Rover Boys in Southern Waters - or The Deserted Steam Yacht • Arthur M. Winfield
... rose in her seat. Her hand went 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
... the frame of an ice boat is built. On the ends of the shorter cross-piece are fastened the runners that slide over the ice. On the end of the longer cross-piece is another runner, but this one turns about from side to side with a tiller, like the tiller of a boat that goes in water, and by this the ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandpa Ford's • Laura Lee Hope
... pull as if rowing in a regatta! Soon they are near enough to be individually recognised, when it is seen that neither of the two officers is in the boat! Nor the coxswain—one of the oarsmen having taken his place at the tiller. ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... kindness for an action of the case, but a most passionate loyalty for the King's writ. A well-drawn bill and answer will draw him all the world over, and a breviate as far as the Line. He enters the lists at Westminster like an old tiller, runs his course in law, and breaks an oath or two instead of a lance; and if he can but unhorse the defendant and get the sentence of the judges on his side, he marches off in triumph. He prefers a cry of lawyers at the Bar before any pack of the best-mouthed dogs ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... cable that held the felucca to her anchor, until the last turn was gone and the flakes went writhing and twisting out through the hawse-hole; then, as the end disappeared with a splash I dashed aft and rammed the tiller hard over to port—noticing, as I did so, that a large boat, pulling eight oars, was less than a hundred fathoms distant from us, and coming up to us hand over hand. Then, catching a turn of the main-sheet round ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... one end of the boat to the other as to what we should do, where we should go, and no one seemed to have any knowledge how to act. At last we asked, "Who is in charge of this boat?" but there was no reply. We then agreed by general consent that the stoker who stood in the stern with the tiller should act as captain, and from that time he directed the course, shouting to other boats and keeping in touch with them. Not that there was anywhere to go or anything we could do. Our plan of action was simple: to keep all the boats together as far as possible and wait until we were picked up ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley
... wound—a cutlass slash which had severed the collar-bone-he ordered the sail to be hoisted and took the tiller. This done he steered a due west course, which according to the mate's chart would bring them to the easternmost of the Faumotus—a group of low-lying islands almost unknown in those ...
— The South Seaman - An Incident In The Sea Story Of Australia - 1901 • Louis Becke
... up to the wind. Flinders, for the moment thinking he was on board the old Investigator again, turned to the officer near him and said with a quiet smile: "At her old tricks again; she wants as much tiller rope as a ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery
... O Tiller of the fields of heaven, Gardener of space, by day and even The circling earth, a once fair garden, Lifts up its ...
— Song-waves • Theodore H. Rand
... Land's End. About two or three in 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 our sailors were petrified and paralysed; ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... and experienced farmer, nor a tiller of the soil, nor one of the hard-handed sons of labor. I imagine, however, that I know something about cultivating the soil, and getting happiness out ...
— The Ghosts - And Other Lectures • Robert G. Ingersoll
... long and Captain Blood had outmanoeuvred him. In attempting to fire now upon the Englishman, the Milagrosa and her consort would also be firing into each other. Too late he ordered his helmsman to put the tiller hard over and swing the ship to larboard, as a preliminary to manoeuvring for a less impossible position of attack. At that very moment the Arabella seemed to explode as she swept by. Eighteen guns from each of her flanks emptied themselves at that point-blank range into the hulls ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... is the development of the broadest sympathy of man for man. The welfare of the wage-worker, the welfare of the tiller of the soil, upon these depend the welfare of the entire country; their good is not to be sought in pulling down others; but their good must be the prime ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... that Benjamin's manipulation of the tiller was extraordinary and erratic, and it was not until the boat was well past the wharves that he ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... temper and method were in pointed contrast to McKinley's. Whereas McKinley seemed simply to hold the tiller, availing himself of currents that to the eye deviously, yet easily and inevitably, bore him to his objective, Roosevelt strenuously plied the oar, recking little of cross currents or head winds, if, indeed, he did not delight in ...
— History of the United States, Volume 6 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... Phil got Cap'n Jonadab talking "boat," and when Jonadab talks "boat" there ain't no stopping him. He's the smartest feller in a cat-boat that ever handled a tiller, and he's won more races than any man on the Cape, I cal'late. Phil asked him and me if we'd ever sailed on an ice-boat, and, when we said we hadn't he asks if we won't take a sail with him on the ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... round and I dared not stop. Words and phrases began repeating themselves in my head as they will under a strain: so I know at sea a man perilously hanging on to the tiller makes a kind of litany of his instructions. The central part was passed, the three-quarters; the tension of that enduring effort had grown intolerable, and I doubted my ability to complete the task. Why? What could prevent me? I cannot say; it was all a bundle of imaginaries. ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... the wind. As the 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 blow, and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... crippling blows to right and left, and strewing the quarter-deck with the slain and wounded. His object was to fight his way to the cabin, where there were fire-arms; but he was hemmed in with foes, covered with wounds, and faint with loss of blood. For an instant he leaned upon the tiller wheel, when a blow from behind, with a war-club, felled him to the deck, where he was despatched with knives and ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... of the broad bright lakes, the heat lifted, the breeze leaped up, the loose sail flapped and filled; and, bending graciously as a skater, the old San Marco began to shoot in a straight line over the blue flood. Then, while the boy sat at the tiller, Sparicio lighted his tiny charcoal furnace below, and prepared a simple meal,—delicious yellow macaroni, flavored with goats' cheese; some fried fish, that smelled appetizingly; and rich black coffee, of Oriental fragrance and thickness. ...
— Chita: A Memory of Last Island • Lafcadio Hearn
... The tiller had been lashed so as to set the Greek skipper at liberty, and the travellers were alone, while, wearied by his extra exertion, Lawrence lay back, apparently fast asleep, when Yussuf approached the professor ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... the "Bonadventure," carried away by currents, had drifted so much that it would be impossible to rectify her course. Pencroft, uneasy to the last degree, yet did not despair, for he had a gallant heart, and grasping the tiller he anxiously endeavored to pierce the ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... indeed, a few children huzzah and wave their hands to the express; but for the most part, it is an interruption too brief and isolated to attract much notice; the sheep do not cease from browsing; a girl sits balanced on the projecting tiller of a canal boat, so precariously that it seems as if a fly or the splash of a leaping fish would be enough to overthrow the dainty equilibrium, and yet all these hundreds of tons of coal and wood and iron have ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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 ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... unable to sleep. I suppose I was over-weary, and after a little feverish slumber by the tiller of the barge I sat up, ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... him sailing along with ne'er a watch on deck at all, he being below aft steering by compass from t' locker, with t' tiller lines ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... Semele? I long have pined to rest My world-tormented head upon thy breast,— To lull my wearied senses to repose From the wild storm of earthly joys and woes,— To dream away the emblems of my might, My reins, my tiller, and my chariot bright, And live for naught beyond the joys of love! Oh heavenly inspiration, that can move Even the Gods divine! What is the blood Of mighty Uranus—what all the flood Of nectar and ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... so that 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 which they took there ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... crowd that came; neither did they approach offensively near, or stare with vulgar curiosity. It's component members—three or four handsome young mule-drivers, princely in shabbiness; an elderly tiller of the soil, with the eyes and profile of a half-tamed hawk; an old woman and a young girl madonna-like in their hooded cloaks, as they sat their patient donkeys; and a couple of shy children with the eyes of startled deer—hovered, paused, and ruminated, ready to take flight, like wild creatures ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... skipper had predicted, was nearly due south. As the ketch made its way out from the mouth of the river, and the wide expanse of water opened before them, the boys were filled with delight. They had taken their seats, one on each side of the skipper, who was at the tiller. ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... for the rest of the Summer. They are going to Norway in Jack Stuart's yacht. Archie is going with them." Now Archie was known to be a great man in a yacht, cognizant of ropes, well up in booms and spars, very intimate with bolts, and one to whose hands a tiller came as naturally as did the saddle of a steeple-chase horse to the legs of his friend Doodles. "They are going to ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... only a few yards behind him and heard his command; so he wasted no more time in conversation, but bounded up the long spiral staircase leading to the pilot-house, having reached which he laid his hands upon the engine lever and tiller, and gaspingly awaited the signal shout which should tell him he might move the ship, gazing anxiously out through the windows meanwhile on the watch for some sign of the bursting of ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... a vicious and variable wind in their superior's moral atmosphere, under which his canvas strained or flapped unaccountably. They imagined, to pursue their own figure, that his hand did not grasp the reason tiller with its customary grip, and that his bark was left more or less to the conflicting guidance of other influences. Many a time since his departure from England had the old sailor been stung with remorse at the unwritten tenor of his present commission. He would frequently try to look ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... Whatever resentment the tiller of the soil might feel against the Indian's hunting quail on his land, he always welcomed him as a ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... dory into the boat, and he flung out the dory's anchor and followed. The sail went up with a pleasant clucking of the tackle, and the light wind filled it. Libby made the sheet fast, and, sitting down in the stern on the other side, took the tiller and headed the boat toward the town that shimmered in the distance. The water hissed at the bow, and seethed and sparkled from the stern; the land breeze that bent their sail blew cool upon her cheek and freshened it with a ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... aft, he soon had the tiller in his own hands. The pilot was prepared for what was to follow; and, at a sign from his young commander, the rag of sail that had so long been set was taken in. At that moment, Jasper, watching his time, put ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... abreast of it a lofty frigate was disclosed to view—a convoy (so the Chevalier said) to a fleet of transports which that morning had gone up the river. I resolved instantly, since fight was useless, to make a run for it. Seating myself at the tiller, I declared solemnly that I would shoot the first man who dared to stop the shallop's way, to make sign, or speak a word. So, as the frigate stood across the river, I had all sail set, roused the men at the oars, and we came running by her stern. Our ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... sleep of the gin-drunken. At four o'clock in the morning the gray fog grew grayer with the early dawning; and as I gazed with weary eyes into the vague unknown that shut us in, Booden roused him from his booze, and seizing the tiller from my hand, bawled: "'Bout ship, you swab! we're on the Farralones!" And sure enough, there loomed right under our starboard quarter a group of conical rocks, steeply rising from the restless blue sea. Their wild white sides were crowded with chattering ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... And Nelson replied: "Yes, my backbone is shot through." But he showed no agitation, and as the men carried him below he covered his decorations with a handkerchief, lest the crew should notice them and realize that they had lost their chief, and he gave Hardy an order to see that tiller-lines were rigged on the rudder-head, to replace ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... with the ordinary Chinese sails, an immense sweep in the bows as an aid in turning, and a strong rudder with an enormous tiller, are the chief items ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... P. went out fishing. He hired a boat, and a man to sail it, and while the man was getting ready to put off, Mr. P. took his seat in the bow and began to fix his lines. He always likes to sit in the bow. The tiller don't knock him so often in the back, and the boom don't bother his head so much. What he particularly wanted was to catch a devil-fish! He thought to himself what a splendid thing it would be to catch ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 14, July 2, 1870 • Various
... coast, and as burly an old sea-dog as ever navigated the Sound. Luke's wife, a lusty wench of some forty summers, accompanied him, as mate and could steer as good a trick as any Tom Marlin that ever stood at a tiller. Indeed, Luke manned the "Two Marys" with his own family, for his two sons, who made up the crew, "went hands before the mast," while the good wife added to the office of mate that of cook. The "Two Marys" was, in addition ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... through 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 biggest ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... am, I only smiled indulgently at him, as if, for women, marrying was mere reposing on eider-down cushions, with the tiller ropes in their hands, while men did the rowing. I was not going to admit, Tabby, that the most of the girls we know never worked harder in their lives than during that indefinite and mysterious period known as "making ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... to pounce; yet he did not, lolling back in the stern-sheets, very much at his ease. The tiller under his arm wobbled, and he wobbled with it. In spite of those staring eyes of his, there was a dreadful unsteadiness about the man. Was ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... other odious burdens and heavy impediments on the prosperity of the thrifty and industrious part of the nation. If he had seen ever so clearly that one of the most important sides of the Revolution in progress was the rescue of the tiller of the soil, Burke would still doubtless have viewed events with bitter suspicion. For the process could not be executed without disturbing the natural course of things, and without violating his principle that all changes should find us with our minds tenacious of justice and tender of property. ...
— Burke • John Morley
... from the Raker struck the helms-man on board the pirate, shattering at the same time the tiller. In a moment the brig was up in the wind, and taken aback, throwing the pirates ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... began and became an husbandman, and planted vineyards."—This does not imply that Noah was the first who began to till the ground, and, more especially, to cultivate the vine; for Cain, too, was a tiller of the ground, Gen. iv. 2. The sense rather is, that Noah, after the flood, again took up this calling. Moreover, the remark has not an independent import; it serves only to prepare the way for the communication of the subsequent account ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... was pouring out the words, the steersman sprang from the tiller, and seized Potts' oar just in time to save the boat from capsizing. Then he and the big Kentuckian both turned on ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... picked up a breeze, and with the ebbing tide made good speed down the estuary. Shalah the Indian had the tiller, and I sat luxuriously in the bows, smoking my cob pipe, and wondering what the next week held in store for me. The night before I had had qualms about the whole business, but the air of morning has a trick of firing my blood, and I believe I had forgotten the ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... 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 ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... far as the lower classes had any relation to the upper classes, it was one, thought Shakespeare, of dependence and obligation. It was not the tiller of the soil who fed the lord of the manor, but rather the lord who supported the peasant. Does not the king have to lie awake and take thought for his subjects? Thus Henry V. complains that he ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... canoes one sees the first step towards a fixed rudder and tiller, a modified form of paddle being fixed securely to one side of the stern, in such a way that the blade can be turned so as either to have its edges fore and aft, or its sides presented at a greater or less angle to the water, according to the direction in which it is ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher
... the farthest and the nearest; only over us in the boat it passed always as over vacant space. Yet any question was answered at once with quiet, willing brevity, not as if he had been interrupted in his thoughts, or was recalled to a recognition of our existence, but just as he would turn the tiller in steering his boat,—while the eye still continued its conversation with that impersonal, elemental company which he seemed to keep. I found it out of my power to relate myself to him as an individual. In most faces you study special character; but in him ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... no new legislation which would operate to the injury or embarrassment of the large body of respectable artisans and laborers. The mechanic who emigrates to the West and pursues his calling must labor long before he can purchase a quarter section of land, whilst the tiller of the soil who accompanies him obtains a farm at once by the bounty of the Government. The numerous body of mechanics in our large cities can not, even by emigrating to the West, take advantage of the provisions of this bill without entering upon a new occupation for ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... swift patter of heralding drops, and then a steady, rhythmical drumming on the shake roof. The man smiled, with that ineffable delight in the music which no one really knows but the tiller of the soil. ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... hare-lipped youth of seventeen or eighteen. Last on the tug rope was an oldish man with a long white beard parted in the middle and rusty coloured at the tips. A graceful slip of a girl, lithe as a marsh sapling, worked the tiller of the rear barge and she took no notice of the soldiers on the shore ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... 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
... 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, ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... stowed, covered, and stopped down, and will cause the boat and boom covers to be hauled over and securely stopped down; the relieving tackles to be hooked and ready for use; a compass to be placed to steer by; and see the spare tiller at hand, the chronometer and other instruments put out of the reach of shot, and relieved as much as possible from the ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... breeze, which was now growing stronger, and the craft began to drift. Catching up the centre-board, lying near, the boy drove it down into its narrow groove with a resounding thud. Seizing the sheet-line with one hand, and squatting well astern he grasped the tiller with the other. Nobly the boat obeyed her little determined commander. The sail filled, she listed to the left and darted forward, bearing bravely up the wind. Straight ahead the boy could see the distressed boat sinking lower and lower in the water, with a man and ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... in," Tom ordered his companions, as he pushed out a pair of oars. "Nicolas, you're also good with a pair of oars. Mr. Renshaw, you take the tiller. Inform me instantly when you see the first gleam of the 'Morton's' search-light. Evarts ought to have caught the scoundrels this time. Evidently he's been cruising softly without ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock
... the blue sea from Zanzibar. If one could dream, one could picture the corsairs' red flag and the picturesque Arab figure standing high in the stern beside the tiller, and fancy would portray the freight of spices and cloves that they should bring from the plantations of Pemba and Zanzibar. But there are no dusky beauties now aboard these ships; and their freight is rations and other hum-drum prosaic ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... springing up again, we once more began dancing on through the water at a quicker rate, the sampan making better progress by putting her right before wind and slacking off the sheet of our transformed sprit-sail. An hour later, Ching Wang, who had gone into the bows to look out, leaving me at the tiller, suddenly ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... owing so much to the qualities of the smack, as to the seamanship of the skipper. A prime sailor he was, surely. There wasn't another man sailed out of the River Thames who could handle a smack like Bob Goss. When he took the tiller, somehow the craft seemed to know it, and bobbed up half a point nearer to the wind; and when we were running free with the main-sheet eased off, and the foresail shivering, her wake would be as straight as her mast; ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 426 - Volume 17, New Series, February 28, 1852 • Various
... 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: ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... 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 ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... ungarlanded; the streets will be redolent no longer of roast meat, the bowl no longer yield us libation; our altars will be cold, sacrifice and oblation will be at an end, and utter starvation must ensue. Hence like a pilot I stand up at the helm all alone, tiller in hand, while every soul on board is asleep, and probably drunk; no rest, no food for me, while I ponder in my mind and breast on the common safety; and my reward? to be called the Lord of all! I should like to ask those philosophers who assign ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... shape, and was intended to be held in the hand. The Neolithic ax was a much better made one, and was furnished with a handle. They were enabled to accomplish a great deal with such axes. "Before it, aided by fire, the trees of the forest fell to make room for the tiller of the ground, and by its sharp edge wood became useful for the manufacture of various articles and implements indispensable for the advancement of mankind in culture." These axes vary in size and finish. As a general thing they ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... the useless tiller bared his head and listened reverently, but always with an eye to the waterspout and to the clouds, and as a deep-throated Amen rose from his comrades he gave the tiller a ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... slips off just above the roof. The slit in the cabin top just back of the hatch is where your engine lever comes through. The bitts, B, fore and aft, are made of Spanish cedar, running through the deck to the hull. Your tiller may be made of steel wire running through the head of the rudder-post, which is made of iron wire; the man who makes your engine will ...
— Harper's Young People, July 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... suddenly appeared for one brief instant, relieved against a tower of glimmering foam. I still see her reefed mainsail flapping loose, as the boom fell heavily across the deck; I still see the black outline of the hull, and still think I can distinguish the figure of a man stretched upon the tiller. Yet the whole sight we had of her passed swifter than lightning; the very wave that disclosed her fell burying her for ever; the mingled cry of many voices at the point of death rose and was quenched in the ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... occupied in field work and more field work; he cleared new bits of ground, getting out roots and stones; ploughing, manuring, harrowing, working with pick and spade, breaking lumps of soil and crumbling them with hand and heel; a tiller of the ground always, laying out fields like velvet carpets. He waited a couple of days longer—there was a look of rain about—and then ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... double line was run off the reel, and a two-score of ready hands grasped it. Cole, as was his privilege, jumped on the engine to steer, for he had rigged up a tiller wheel on it, since it had been in his barn, and this made it easier to pull, ...
— The Young Firemen of Lakeville - or, Herbert Dare's Pluck • Frank V. Webster
... the tiller. Shirley and Burke pushed the boat into deep water, and jumped aboard. The oars dipped, and they were off, regardless of the low surf which splashed its crest over the ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... the mouth of the inlet at Bolderhead after a day's fishing. Occasionally as the fitful breeze swooped down the sloop made a pretty little run, then she'd sulk, with the sail flapping, till another puff came. I lay in the stern with my hand on the tiller, half asleep, while Paul Downes, my cousin, was stretched forward of the mast, wholly in dreamland. A little roll of the sloop as she tacked, almost threw him into the water and he awoke with a ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... lead to harmony on board. Lipscomb attempted to seize hold of the tiller, so as to steer the vessel back to Hastings Roads, where the cruiser was lying. But Field turned to him ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... was captured, a tremendous cannonade was opened by the guns of the fortress. The lightning was flashing vividly, and this enabled the gunners to direct their aim upon the ship. Over and over again she was struck, and one shot destroyed the steering wheel, cut the tiller rope, and killed two men who were steering. The single sail was not sufficient to assist in steering her, and the men in the boats rowed with such energy ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... live in any wind and a lifeboat in any sea, but they both want good and experienced men at the tiller. ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... too, are limited in their supply, let him have a fixed measure, which shall be determined by the wardens of the country. This he shall receive each day, and on these terms have a share of his neighbours' water. If there be heavy rain, and one of those on the lower ground injures some tiller of the upper ground, or some one who has a common wall, by refusing to give them an outlet for water; or, again, if some one living on the higher ground recklessly lets off the water on his lower neighbour, ...
— Laws • Plato
... 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? ...
— Young Lion of the Woods - A Story of Early Colonial Days • Thomas Barlow Smith
... which with labour in hot-beds is reared, Secur'd by nice art from the dews and the rains, Unsound at the root may with justice be feared, If it pay not with int'rest the tiller's ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... yacht, like Miller, That skimmer of the seas— A wheel rigged on a tiller, [See Notes (5)] And a fresh gunwale breeze, A crew of friends well chosen, And all a-taunto, I Would sail for regions frozen— I'd rather freeze ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... is not the hunting farmer in his normal condition; he is either one who has an eye to selling his horse, and, riding with that view, loses for the time his position as farmer; or he is some exceptional tiller of the soil who probably is dangerously addicted to hunting as another man is addicted to drinking; and you may surmise respecting him that things will not go well with him after a year or two. The friend of my heart is the farmer who rides, but rides without sputtering; who never makes a show of ...
— Hunting Sketches • Anthony Trollope
... perception, cutting at the 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, which, living ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... away from the steamer there was no sign in the darkness of the little boat they had run down, but the man at the tiller steered as determinedly as if he knew for just what point in the blackness he was headed. With his head bent slightly forward and his big body swaying with the rock and pitch of the lifeboat he kept his eyes ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... sails, instead of being white, were tanned a dull red, that blended perfectly with the colour of the distant shore line. A bright-faced, resolute chap, somewhat younger than Cabot, but of equally sturdy build, held the tiller, and regarded with evident approval the behaviour of ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... not without difficulty got into my clothes. In the after-cabin, under the superintendence of the able and energetic navigating lieutenant, Mr. Brown, a group of blue-jackets were working at the tiller-ropes. These had become loose, and the helm refused to answer the wheel. High moral lessons might be gained on shipboard, by observing what steadfast adherence to an object can accomplish, and what large effects are heaped up by the ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... furnish; but Fleda was so thankful to have finished the voyage in safety that she took thankfully everything else, even lying awake. It was a wild night. The wind rose soon after they reached Bridgeport, and swept furiously over the boat, rattling the tiller chains and making Fleda so nervously alive to possibilities that she got up two or three times to see if the boat were fast to her moorings. It was very dark, and only by a fortunately placed lantern she could see a bit of the ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... 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
... gaining rapidly on the schooner; I could see the brass glisten on the tiller as it banged about; and still no soul appeared upon her decks. I could not choose but suppose she was deserted. If not, the men were lying drunk below, where I might batten them down, perhaps, and do what I ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the tiller is tilling the hard ground and where the pathmaker is breaking stones. He is with them in sun and in shower, and his garment is covered with dust. Put of thy holy mantle and even like him come ...
— Gitanjali • Rabindranath Tagore
... got on board, and Jack took his seat, started his engine, took the tiller and glided out upon the river, and then down toward the railroad station, Percival noting the speed, the smoothness with which everything worked, and the apparent ease with which Jack managed it all, as though he had always ...
— The Hilltop Boys on the River • Cyril Burleigh
... 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 ...
— Miss or Mrs.? • Wilkie Collins
... 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 of Hope, she ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... 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
... the tiller from the steersman, and bade him go below and fill himself. Will Cary went down, and returned in five minutes, with a plate of bread and beef, and a great jack of ale, coaxed them down Amyas' throat, as a nurse does with a child, and then scuttled below ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... comforted her by assurances of eternal love, and vowed to follow her to the ends of the earth in despite of every human power. We stood alone; for two sailors were with O'More and the girl in the cabin, and the third, having lashed the tiller to, was fixing something forward. We stood alone I cannot guess how long—time is short, but the joy of those moments has been everlasting. We exchanged vows of mutual affection and constancy, and I had sealed our blessed compact with a kiss, witnessed only by the moon and ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... 23rd Nov.—Good weather with a south-easterly wind and a steady breeze; in the morning, we found our rudder broken at top in the tiller hole; we therefore hauled to windward under reduced sail and fitted a cross beam to either side. By estimation the west side of Nova Guinea must be ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... and the ship shook as the engines ceased revolving, and then reversed in stopping her. Orders were flung about fast. A man climbed to the lookout as the first officer began to put a boat into the water. The crew of it and the second officer were already at the oars and the tiller as the ropes slid in the blocks. The passengers came crowding from their cabins, where they were dressing for dinner, and there were many expressions of surprise and slight terror. Death aboard ship is terrible in its imminence to all. The buoy, ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... 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 that little ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... H.F. LEE, late a Representative from the Eighth Congressional district of Virginia, yet I can not permit this occasion to pass and my hand and heart to fail to pay my humble tribute to his memory. Gen. LEE's life had been spent after manhood in arms or as a tiller of the soil. In early life he saw military service as lieutenant in the Sixth Regiment, United States Infantry, and was with Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston in the expedition in 1858 ...
— Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of William H. F. Lee (A Representative from Virginia) • Various
... 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 ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens |
