"Tiller" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that they are beating a wretched earth-tiller?" answered the boatman, smiling. "He must have done something, so pain is traveling through ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... fools and cowards? Look,—there she goes,—her topsails in the sun Gleam from the ragged ocean edge, and drop Clean out of sight! So let the traitors go Clean out of mind! We'll think of braver things! Come closer in the boat, my friends. John King, You take the tiller, keep her head nor'west. You Philip Staffe, the only one who chose Freely to share our little shallop's fate, Rather than travel in the hell-bound ship,— Too good an English seaman to desert These crippled comrades,—try to make ...
— The White Bees • Henry Van Dyke
... the tiller, and, while the mother drank her coffee, was patting the baby under the cloak. But she had to betake herself to the tiller again, for the curate was not ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... 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 ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... 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
... was all the 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... the three men had seized the captain; but he fought with so much strength and fury that they found it difficult to hold him. The helmsman steadied the tiller with two turns of the rope and ran forward to assist them. They laid Blogg flat on the deck, but he kept struggling, cursing, threatening, and calling on the mate to help him; but that officer took fright, ran to his cabin in the deckhouse, and ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... 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 thole-pins sounded crisp and ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... motherhood deserve notice. We have seen the hopes that came to Eve, and beheld their realization in and through Christ. The trials were born of sin. Eve's eldest child, Cain, possessed a narrow, selfish nature. He was a tiller of the ground. Abel was a keeper of the sheep. The first born met this curse in the soil. The second born looked forward to the restoration. In process of time Cain brought of the fruit of the ground. Tradition has it that he brought what was left of his food, of light and tempting things, ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton
... every act of the drama and feel the pulsation of his great heart. Through an interpreter he afterwards narrated his manner of taking the vessel, and how it happened to reach American shores. How, after taking the ship, he stood by the tiller with drawn weapon and commanded the mate to steer back to Africa. During the day he complied, but at night took the opposite course. After sometime of circuitous wandering the vessel ran into Long Island Sound and was taken possession ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... the stern with his hat off, his legs stretched, out before him, and a tiller rope in each hand, the image of indolent ease. "Yes, this is perfect," he added; ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... a stem and a rudder with its screw and tiller, and seizing a carpenter's bag full of tools, he ran to the shore, dragging the holy man after him by his habit. The latter was bent, sweating, and breathless, under the ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... kindly, free, poetic, laborious, simple existence for the tiller of the field is not so hard to realize that it must be banished into the world of chimaeras. Virgil's sweet and sad cry: 'O happy peasants, if they but knew their own blessings!' is a regret; but like ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... went the Volsung banners, and on went Sigmund before, And his sword was the flail of the tiller on the wheat of the wheat-thrashing floor, And his shield was rent from his arm, and his helm was sheared from his head: But who may draw nigh him to smite for the heap and the rampart of dead? ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung • William Morris
... he saw Blue Peter sitting on the coamings of the hatch, his feet hanging down within. He was lost in the book he was reading. Curious to see, without disturbing him, what it was that so absorbed him, Malcolm dropped quietly on the tiller, and thence on the deck, and approaching softly peeped over his shoulder. He was reading the epistle of James the apostle. Malcolm fell a-thinking. From Peter's thumbed bible his eyes went wandering through the thicket of masts, in which ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... sitting down in the stern of his boat, and grasping the tiller, "it has pleased the Almighty to sink our ship and to spare our lives. Let us be thankful that we didn't go to the bottom along with her. To the best of my knowledge we're a long way from land, and all of us will have to take ...
— Sunk at Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... weak, stepped into the boat which carried the body of his humble friend. For it was decided that Tom Corbin should rest far out in the bay of Biscay. The officer took the tiller and, turning his head for the last look at the shore, saw on the grey hillside something moving, which he made out to be a little man in a yellow hat mounted on a mule—that mule without which the fate of Tom Corbin would have remained ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... not go back for them while I'm aboard this boat," said Miss Sackett, quietly, from her seat beside me, and she seized the tiller firmly ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... us confidence was Hall's coolness, now that the danger was unmistakable. He neither allowed himself to get flurried nor alarmed, but sat with closed lips watching the sail—one hand on the tiller and the other grasping the sheet, ready to let it go ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... in some smooth water under shelter and put out our towline; three of my boys jumped ashore and laid hold of it; another with his bamboo boat-hook stood on the bow; the laoban was at the tiller; and I was cooped up useless in the well under the awning. The men started hauling as we pushed out into the sea of waters. The boat quivered, the water leapt at the bow as if it would engulf us; our ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... 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 ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... our view of the whole question. Cheat the peasant no longer with scraps of paper—be the sums inscribed upon them ever so large; but offer him in exchange for his produce the very things of which he, the tiller of the soil, stands in need. Then the fruits of the land will be poured into the towns. If this is not done there will be famine in our cities, and reaction and despair will ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... unwisely, with the proper labours of others. Nothing, for instance, is more annoying and dangerous even than to put forth your hand by way of helping a driver in managing his horses, or to interfere with the tiller of a boat at which a perfectly competent man is already seated. We have known the saying just quoted scores of times suffice to stop the unwise and gratuitous intermeddling of such as were disposed to interfere with what did not properly belong to them. "Bidh ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, January 1876 • Various
... wine, and poured forth some of the wine before his gods. Lastly he dragged up the heavy stone with which the ship was moored, a stone heavier far, they say, than two other men could lift. He took the tiller in his hand; the steady north wind, the Etesian wind, kept blowing in the sails, and he steered straight southward for the ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang
... February, 1800, sleeping nature dreamed of spring; a brilliant, almost joyous sun made the grass in the ditches on either side of the road sparkle with those deceptive pearls of the hoarfrost which vanish at a touch, and rejoice the heart of a tiller of the earth when he sees them glittering at the points of his wheat as it pushes bravely up through the soil. All the windows of the diligence were lowered, to give entrance to this earliest smile of the Divine, as though all hearts were saying: "Welcome back, traveller long lost in the ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... 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 ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... earnestly advised the propriety of anchoring here for the night, saying, "It is too rough to go on;" but the temptation held out by the proximity to Sorel determined me to take the risk and drive on. Again we bounded out upon rough water, with the screeching tempest upon us. David took the tiller, while I sat upon the weather-rail to steady the boat. The Mayeta was now to be put to a severe test; she was to cross seas that could easily trip a boat of her size; but the wooden canoe was worthy of her builder, ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... 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
... with the 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 of sailing with the wind and the ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... near," said Moorshed, slowing down. "Out with the Berthon. (We'll sell 'em fish, too.) And if any one rows Navy-stroke, I'll break his jaw with the tiller. Mr. Hinchcliffe (this down the tube), "you'll stay here in charge with Gregory and Shergold and the engine-room staff. Morgan stays, too, for signalling purposes." A deep groan broke from Morgan's chest, but he said nothing. "If the fog thins and you're seen by any one, keep'em quiet with the ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... than their own heads. A little vacant space was left near the stern, in which it was possible for the party who occupied that part of the deck to move, though in sufficiently straitened limits, while the huge tiller played in its semicircle behind. At the other extremity, as is absolutely necessary in all navigation, the forecastle was reasonably clear, though even this important part of the deck was bristling with the flukes of no less than nine ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... do," grinned the red-headed, former Bowery waif, Noddy Nipper, as, with a dexterous motion, he jerked over the tiller of the fine, speedy sloop in which the boys were enjoying a sail on Alexandria Bay, ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... horrid accident has just occurred. As the gig was coming alongside, under sail, the tiller broke, and the coxswain who was steering, fell overboard. He was a good swimmer, and struck out for the ship, not thirty yards distant, while the boat fell off rapidly to the leeward. In less than half a minute, ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... 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 ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen
... great refuge of living creatures. Hence, the man who makes the gift of a cow is regarded as making the gift of what is the high refuge for all creatures. The cow should never be given away for slaughter (i.e., unto one who will kill her); nor should the cow be given unto a tiller of the soil; nor should the cow be given unto an atheist. The cow should not also, O chief of the Bharatas, be given unto one whose occupation is the keeping of kine.[344] The wise have said that a person who gives away the cow unto any of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... their hands always on their tillers, fellows with cool heads and calm passions never can understand us who fly off at every spark that's set to us. All I can promise you is this—help me now and, by God! I'll let your hand rest on my tiller till I get into smooth waters again and—I've learned my lesson! What I've got to tell you sounds like a yarn, Sand. All the time I was coming up The Way I kept repeating 'it's not true!' but good Lord—it is! Morley, I'm married. I ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... replied Mr. Buller, who sat by the tiller to keep the boat away from the bank, "and I am glad to see you in a boat under any circumstances. Do you know, William, that although I did not plan it, there could not have been a better way to begin your sailing education. Here we glide along, ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... make fast the little boat astern, after which Binnacle Bill seized the tiller, the sails filled, and the boat began to glide through the sunny sea, while Bob and I picked out the sunniest spot we could find, and watched old Jonas as he bent over Bigley and poured a few drops of spirit between his teeth from a bottle he had fetched ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... 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 ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... she wants to see: Tristan standing on what seems to be the prow, but is really the stern, of the vessel. There he stands, the man she hates and loves, and shows no sign of discomposure, although the helmsman invariably holds the tiller at such an angle that the ship must be gyrating like a teetotum, thus offering a simple, if coarse, explanation of Isolda's qualms. The music up till now has been made up of the fragment last quoted of the sailor's song, and one of the love themes—a simple phrase of four notes, ...
— Wagner • John F. Runciman
... not last longer than it would take me to count five, but in that time I saw four figures that will always haunt me. Two sailors in yachting costume were struggling hopelessly with the tiller, and the wild terror of their faces as they saw the huge destruction that hung over them is ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... the rope which held the dinghy to a stanchion beside the tiller. Then he and his father proceeded to hoist the foresail so as to get the ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... 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
... Lee, who was handling the tiller. "And we're a long way off from home! It's up to us to turn about and make ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... and strength had continued to improve. His adventures by sea had served, seemingly, to complete that change for the better, in his physical man, which had been so happily begun on land; and, subduing his roving inclinations, we hear of him only, in a period of ten years, as a tiller of the earth. In this vocation he betrayed that diligent attention to his duties, that patient hardihood, and calm, equable temper, which distinguished his deportment in every part of his career. He ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... this reservoir is available for specific ends only by use in connection with the material means which accomplish them. Vigor will enable a man to play tennis or golf or to sail a boat better than he would if he were weak. But only by employing ball and racket, ball and club, sail and tiller, in definite ways does he become expert in any one of them; and expertness in one secures expertness in another only so far as it is either a sign of aptitude for fine muscular coordinations or as the same kind of coordination is involved in all of them. ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... skilled husbandsmen, such as their reputed forefathers, the old inhabitants of Judaea, must have been before them, for of that strain presumably some trace was still present in their veins. However far he may have drifted from such pursuits, originally the Jew was a tiller of the soil, and here, where many of his other characteristics had evaporated under pressure of circumstances—notably the fierce courage that Titus knew—this taste remained to him, ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... stood in the bow with an oar, to keep her head out, and I took the tiller. We would start the men, and all would go well until the yawl would bring us on a heavy cake of ice, and then the men would drop like so many tenpins, while Brown assumed the horizontal in the bottom of the boat. After an hour's hard work ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... le camarade," cried the old man who was leaning with all his might against the long tiller of the barge. "Come ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... the breast flung wide to the horizon, swept by wholesome salt airs, void perhaps, but so beatifically clean! Then it was that we learned her worth, drinking in the knowledge without effort, lulled hour after hour by her whisperings which asked for no answer, by the pulse of her tiller soft against the palm. Patter of reef-points, creak of cordage, hum of wind, hiss of brine—I think at times that she has found a more human language. Who that has ever steered for hours together cannot report of a mysterious voice 'breaking the silence of ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... From all accounts the Boer went about with the Bible in one hand and the sjambok in the other, instructing himself assiduously with the Word, while asserting himself liberally with the deed. Yet he was a first-rate sporting man, a shrewd trafficker, and at times an energetic tiller of the soil. The early settlements were Rondebosch, Stellenbosch, and Drakenstein, in the valley of the Berg River. Here the Dutch community laboured, and smoked, and married, multiplying itself with amazing rapidity, and expanding well beyond the ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... natives. That was evident. That boat going off in the night. . . . Carter swore heartily to himself. His perplexity became positive bodily pain as he sat, wet, uncomfortable, and still, one hand on the tiller, thrown up and down in headlong swings of his boat. And before his eyes, towering high, the black hull of the brig also rose and fell, setting her stern down in the sea, now and again, with a tremendous and foaming splash. Not a sound from her reached Carter's ears. ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... 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 long ...
— Half-Past Seven Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... Kirk still towers aloft—the highest building in Holland, they say; the lazy, red-sailed luggers drift up and down, their decks gay with potted plants; swiss curtains at the cabin windows, the wife holding the tiller while the man trims the sail. The boys still clatter over the polished cobbles—an aggressive mob when school lets out—and a larger crop, I think, than in the years gone by, and with more noise—my umbrella being the target. ...
— The Parthenon By Way Of Papendrecht - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... for the oarsmen; but the seat of honour was in the stern of the boat, and no man filled it better than the transformed Tam. Alert and full of resource, with one hand on the tiller, he leaned over the boat, lengthening or shortening rope for the halter, and regulating the speed of the oarsmen with unerring judgment; giving a staunch swimmer time and a short rope to lean on, or literally dragging the faint-hearted across at full speed; careful ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... steer!" cried Freddie, crawling back toward the tiller, which was the last thing Bert had let go of, as he shot from ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in a Great City • Laura Lee Hope
... singlehanded can sail his boat and manage five mackerel lines at once—one on the thwart to lew'ard and one to wind'ard; a bobber on the mizzen halyard and two bobbers on poles projecting from the boat. He must keep his hands on five lines, the tiller and the sheet; his eyes on the boat's course, the sea, the weather and the luff of the sail. Probably I know rather more of the theory of sailing than he does; but, when a squall blackens the sea to wind'ard, whilst I am thinking whether to run into ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... side of the passage; then an open space with a dining-table, a stove, and some chairs; beyond that a pantry with shelves, and a great chest for provisions. A door at the back opens into the kitchen, and from that another door opens into a sleeping-room for the boatmen. A huge wooden tiller curves over the stern of the boat, and the helmsman stands upon the kitchen-roof. Two canoes are floating behind, holding back, at the end of their long tow-ropes, as if reluctant to follow so clumsy a leader. This is an accurate description ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... the hint," said the lieutenant, as he took his place at the tiller-ropes, "but I shall have a look at the Gaylet Cove, I ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... 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 a signal service to his country, and is entitled to its special ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... 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 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 things for our troops. The red pirate's flag has ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... towards the French Coast before she could be hove to to take a pilot aboard. This having been done, orders were given to square away for the harbour. The sea was breaking a good distance off, and the prospects for entering looked very ugly. The captain was at the tiller and was unusually agitated. The pilot's excitement remained subdued until the sinister commotion of seas was within easy distance. He then became voluble in his orders. The little vessel rushed into the merciless liquid breakers at great speed. One of them broke ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... The skipper wass very trunk, an' Tuncan, who wass steerin', said they should put in to shelter for the night. But the skipper wass quarrelsome, an' called Tuncan a coward an' a nameless man from Skye, an' they came to plows. Tuncan let go the tiller, an' the small boat came broadside on, and shipped a big sea, an' when Tuncan got to the tiller an' put it up, the skipper was gone. They never saw him, so they came on to the Clyde, where Tuncan left the poat. An' they were askin' questions from him, an' Tuncan was afraid; ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... lake (Pontchartrain), as the tow-line was cast off, he hoisted sail, and, skimming out by lighthouse and breakwater, tripped away toward Pointe-aux-Herbes and the eastern skyline beyond, he and Sweetheart alone, his hand clasping hers—the tiller, that is—hour by hour, and the small waves tiptoeing to kiss her southern cheek as she leaned the other away from the saucy north wind. In time the low land, and then the lighthouse, sank and vanished behind them; on the left the sun went down in the purple black swamps of Manchac; ...
— Strong Hearts • George W. Cable
... was bracing and animating, bringing with it the flavour that a seaman loves. After fully fifteen minutes' severe tugging at the oars, the barge drew near enough to permit the black mass of the Caesar to be seen. For some time, Lord Geoffrey, who had seated himself at the tiller,—yoke-lines were not used a century since,—steered by the top-light of the rear-admiral; but now the maze of hamper was seen waving slowly to and fro in the lurid heavens, and the huge hull became visible, heaving and setting, as if the ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... shore we 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 errand which was taking me to the ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... had only one seaman, and as Captain Smith had enforced the rule of "Women and children only," ladies had to row. Later in the night, when little progress had been made, the seaman took an oar and put a lady in charge of the tiller. This boat again was in the midst ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley
... dreaming cots to experience the hot air of the approaching fire. The pilot, being elevated on the hurricane deck, at the instant of perceiving the flames, put the head of the boat shoreward. She had scarcely got under good way in that direction, than the tiller ropes were burnt asunder. Two miles at least, from the land, the vessel took a sheer, and, borne upon by the current, made several revolutions, until she struck off across the river. A [sand] bar brought her ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... wasn't; nor of being out at night, nor of startin' a strange engine. You should have seen her spin that wheel and juggle the tiller ropes. Some girl! ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... 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 officers gathering about us were mighty curious ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... under arms. Apparently there were about 300 people—not more—in the fortification. Steaming close in without being hailed, the vessels hove to opposite the works. A row-boat manned by Senegalese pushed from the shore and made for the "Dal." From the stern staff drooped the French flag, and by the tiller sat Major Marchand and an officer, M. Germain. The Major was dressed in a suit of white ducks. Below the medium height, of spare habit, with something like Dundreary side whiskers, he looked elderly and worn, almost twice his years, ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... unfolding. Had he gone to sea, his awaking power would have come violently into contact with the hostile conditions of sailor-life: he would have revolted against them, and have made his way into literature against head-wind or reluctant tiller-rope alike. It may, of course, be said that this prediction is too easy. But there are evidences of the mastering bent of Hawthorne's mind, which show that it would have ruled ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... were occupied in field work and more field work; he cleared new bits of ground, getting out roots and stones; ploughing, manuring, harrowing, working with pick and spade, breaking lumps of soil and crumbling them with hand and heel; a tiller of the ground always, laying out fields like velvet carpets. He waited a couple of days longer—there was a look of rain about—and then he ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... 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 ...
— Burke • John Morley
... Skallagrim sprang to the tiller and put his strength on it, and but just in time, for one big sea came aboard them and left much water in ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... of individual endeavour, reassuring to the historian of impersonal issues. It would have presented a countenance that was unerringly Anglo-Saxon, though modified by the conditions of centuries of changes. One would have recognised instinctively the tiller of the soil—the single class which has refused concessions to the making of a racial cast of feature. The farmer would have stamped his impress indelibly upon the plate—retaining that enduring aspect which comes from contact with ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... time standing well aft on the larboard side of the deck, close abaft of the tiller—rope, so that, with no earthly disposition to be an eavesdropper, I could neither help seeing nor hearing what was going on in the cabin, as the small open skylight was close to my All vestiges of the cockpit had been ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... first note John 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, too, was white ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and to that subordinate position to which woman is always consigned where civilization and religion are not, she was little less than a beast of burden, busy with cooking, the manufacture of pottery, mats, baskets, moccasins, etc., a tiller of the ground, a nurse for her own children, and at all times a servant to the commands and passions ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... 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 even when legally independent. Also that the servant ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... devoted stay of unselfish constancy. Were woman the ever-selfish, Eve would have abandoned Adam to himself while she tripped to solitary pastures new. But the same quality that sustains the secluded farmer and his household in the hills supported the timid tiller of the first garden as the sword flamed behind him over the closing gate of Eden. If Adam plained that Eve had lost him Paradise, does not every son of Adam own that she ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... keep the cutter just without the breakers, Mr. Effingham," Captain Truck continued, after standing up a while and examining the shore, "I will pull into the channel, and land in yonder bay. If you feel disposed to follow, you may do so by giving the tiller to Mr. Blunt, on receiving a signal to that effect from me. Be steady, gentlemen, at your oars, and look well to the arms on landing, for we are in a knavish part of the world. Should any of the monkeys or ouran-outangs claim ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... steering-oar and hit Thorvald a clout on the ear, so that he fell from his place at the helm in a swoon; and Cormac's ship hove to, when she lost her rudder. Steingerd had been sitting beside Thorvald; she laid hold of the tiller, and ran Cormac down. When he saw what she was ...
— The Life and Death of Cormac the Skald • Unknown
... advantages which the abundant supply of Irish milk afforded, and the green pastures of the "Golden Vein" were studded with snow white creameries which proclaimed the transfer of this great Irish industry from the tiller of the soil to the man of commerce. The new-comers secured the milk of the district by giving the farmer much more for his milk than it was worth to him, so long as he pursued the old methods of home manufacture. ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett
... At the same time I seized my musket, which thus far I had not fired, and, kneeling down, with one of the poop hencoops as a rest, aimed straight at the body of the junk's helmsman, just as he was thrusting the tiller hard down. I pulled the trigger the instant that I had the man covered, and down he dropped, motionless, the ponderous tiller escaping from his grasp and swinging heavily back amidships, with the result that the junk, ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... with a south-easterly wind and a steady breeze; in the morning, we found our rudder broken at top in the tiller hole; we therefore hauled to windward under reduced sail and fitted a cross beam to either side. By estimation the west side of Nova Guinea must ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... like a girl's and big grey eyes—was the hero of the lower deck. Eager questioners crowded round him. He narrated: 'I just saw his head bobbing, and I dashed my boat-hook in the water. It caught in his breeches and I nearly went overboard, as I thought I would, only old Symons let go the tiller and grabbed my legs—the boat nearly swamped. Old Symons is a fine old chap. I don't mind a bit him being grumpy with us. He swore at me all the time he held my leg, but that was only his way of telling me to stick to the boat-hook. Old Symons is awfully excitable—isn't ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... tiller in my hand. The end of those men seemed so horrible that I forgot for the ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... still more sylvan gentleness than the Avon. The other passengers seemed to have no eyes for the picturesque—perhaps they had seen the scenery till they were tired of it; and some of them were more pleasantly engaged than gaping and gazing at rocks and trees. Grouped at the tiller-chains were four or five people, very happily employed in looking at each other—a lady and gentleman, in particular, seemed to find a peculiar pleasure in the occupation; and were instructing each other in the art and mystery of tying the sailor's knot. Time after time the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • 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 cleat, ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... 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 ...
— Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of William H. F. Lee (A Representative from Virginia) • Various
... of river or sea: whether their way be dark or whether through storm: whether their peril be of beast or of rock: or from enemy lurking on land or pursuing on sea: wherever the tiller is cold or the helmsman stiff: wherever sailors sleep or helmsmen watch: guard, guide and return us to the old land, that has known us: to the far ...
— A Dreamer's Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... no grander, more noble, or higher calling for a healthy, sound-minded woman than to become the mother of children. She may be the colaborer of the business man, the overworked housewife of the tiller of the soil, the colleague of the professional man, or the wife of the leisure man of wealth; nevertheless, in every normal woman in every station of life there lurks the conscious or sub-conscious ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... himself. He laid his hand on the tiller and was about to change his course when he made a ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump
... 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, ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... afterwards a fine breeze sprang up from the north-east, and, putting the boat before it, George seated himself in the stern, tiller in hand, and steered as near a southerly course as the boat, without canvas, ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... glistened wet with a recent shower, the man who steered her looked over his shoulder at the waning moon, and decided that the dawn would be a fine one. A furlong below the Town Quay he left the tiller and lowered sail: two furlongs above, he dropped anchor: then, having made all ship-shape, he lit a pipe and pulled an enormous watch from his fob. The vessels he had passed since entering the harbour's mouth seemed one and all asleep. But a din of horns, kettles, and tea-trays, and a wild ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... tiller had been expropriated from the soil Wallace says: "The ingenuity of lawyers and direct landlord legislation steadily increased the powers of great landowners and encroached upon the rights of the people, till at length the monstrous doctrine arose that a landless ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... night; yet, with all this precaution, I found myself accompanied only by the brigantine Vengeance in the morning, the Granville having remained astern with a prize, as I have since understood the tiller of the Pallas broke after midnight, which disabled her from keeping up, but no apology has yet been made in behalf of ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... its motor chug-chugging noisily, slipped unostentatiously behind one of the tiers of lighters. To my untrained eyes it was incredible that in the labyrinth of craft, amid the darkness, we should be able to pick our way. Yet deftly, unerringly, the inspector moved the tiller, while two constables kept keen eyes on the motley assembly ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... made a dip, the green seas would make a rush over her quarter, and sweep the deck a foot deep; luckily there was nothing to hold the water; but for fourteen hours the old man's hand never left the tiller. ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... 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 turned her ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... hear the rhythmic crash and roar of breakers and watch the sea-weed rise and fall where the green waves lift against the rocks. Once in so often I must ride those waves with cleated sheet and tugging tiller, and hear the soft hissing song of the water on the rail. And 'my day of mercy' is not complete till I have seen some old boat, her seafaring done, heeled over on the beach or amid the fragrant sedges, a mute and wistful witness to the romance of the deep, the blue and restless deep where ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... sitting amidships, but she came aft at once, and nestled by him as he sat holding the tiller. She put her face against his knee, like a tired child, and shut her eyes; her hair was lifted by the summer breeze; a scent of roses came from her; the mere contact of anything so fresh and pure was a delight. He put his arm around her, and all the first ardor of passion came back to ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... her, willed the master of the Sunshine to stand to seawards and see if we could descry them, we bearing in with the shore for Plymouth. At length we descried her, bore with her, and demanded what the cause was; they answered that the tiller of their helm was burst, so shaping our course west-south-west, we went forward, hoping that a hard beginning would make a good ending; yet some of us were doubtful of it, failing in reckoning that she was a clincher; nevertheless, we put our ...
— Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage • Richard Hakluyt |
