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Pillion   Listen
noun
Pillion  n.  
1.
A panel or cushion saddle; the under pad or cushion of saddle; esp., a pad or cushion put on behind a man's saddle, on which a woman may ride. "His (a soldier's) shank pillion without stirrups."
2.
A saddle or seat behind the driver's saddle on a motorcycle, used by passengers.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Pillion" Quotes from Famous Books



... greatly amused and interested in all she saw. At the end of that time, having purchased a stout horse, and a sword to defend himself against any robbers he might meet with on the way, Roger started to ride down to Plymouth, with Amenche behind him on a pillion. ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty

... for me," exclaimed the housemaid, who was admired by Benjamin. "It's bad enough to have little victuals and no wages; but as for being burnt to death—Benjamin, put a pillion behind your saddle, and I'll go to Lymington with you. I won't be long in getting ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat

... in guarded whispers from mine host of the tavern, and was but a moment free of the tap-room, when I first saw Margery Stair and so drank of the cup of trembling with madness in its lees. She was riding, unmasked, down the high road, not on a pillion as most women rode in that day, but upon her own mount with a black groom two lengths in the rear. I can picture her for you no better than I could for Richard Jennifer; but this I know, that even this first sight of her moved ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde

... was turned in a homeward direction), I rode slowly through the park, my state of mind affording a practical illustration, that Quintus Horatius Flaccus was about right in his conjecture that Care sometimes indulged herself with a little equestrian exercise on a pillion.{1} ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... this, and make her escape the more probable, when matters were ripe for my plot, I came in one night, and examined all the servants, and Mrs. Jervis, the latter in my mother's hearing, about a genteel young man, whom I pretended to find with a pillion on the horse he rode upon, waiting about the back door of the garden, for somebody to come to him; and who rode off, when I came up to the door, as fast as he could. Nobody knew any thing of the matter, and they were much surprised at what ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... man look angry, so chose to drop the subject; but I do aver, now he is out of sight, that haws and a pillion, with such a noble fellow as your brother, are preferable to ortolans and a coach and six, with such a piece of still life and ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke

... is Achard. He has excellent horses, which I have borrowed before now; we shall want five, of course, and he has one powerful beast that will do for me, as I shall have, in addition to my own weight, which is considerable, to take the child with me on the pillion. Now you, Hastings and Armand, will have to start early to-morrow morning, leave Paris by the Neuilly gate, and from there make your way to St. Germain by any conveyance you can contrive to obtain. At St. Germain you must at once find Achard's farm; disguised as labourers ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy

... because you're a man. But they can to Dorothea, and they will. This is just one of those queer situations in which you'll get the credit and she'll get the blame. You can always make a poem on Young Lochinvar, when it's less easy to approve of the damsel who springs to the pillion behind him. I don't pretend to account for this idiosyncrasy of human nature; I merely state it as a fact. Society will forget that you ran away with Dorothea, but it will never forget that she ran ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King

... behind him, towards Bapaume and Lille. And so there we have the head of one faction, who had just made himself the most formidable man in France, engaged in a remarkably hurried journey, with black care on the pillion. And meantime, on the other side, the widowed duchess came to Paris, in appropriate mourning, to demand justice for her husband's death. Charles VI., who was then in a lucid interval, did probably all that he could, when he raised up the kneeling suppliant with kisses ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... wooer. So, without a word having been spoken on the subject, nor any caress exchanged, except, perhaps, an occasional momentarily clasped hand, or the necessary and proper contact, when Hannah rode, sometimes, behind Jason on the pillion (one arm around him to keep her in her seat), they became lovers, and none the less so that they had given no verbal or labial ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... themselves the two sat silent. The sound of the horse's hoofs died away down the road towards Kelstein. Had Hetty known, her father was the horseman, with Patty riding pillion behind him. Over the frozen floods came the note of a church clock, borne on ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... Dacker unleashed Bran, the keen-scented terrier hound, and put a pearl-embroidered pillion on Enbarr of the Flowing Mane, and the two dauntless maidens leaped upon her back, each bearing a broad shield and a long polished, death-dealing spear. When Enbarr had been given a free rein she set out for the labyrinth, ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... mysterious Zanoni, am I compelled to bid a short farewell to Naples. Mount behind me,—mount on my hippogriff, reader; settle yourself at your ease. I bought the pillion the other day of a poet who loves his comfort; it has been newly stuffed for your special accommodation. So, so, we ascend! Look as we ride aloft,—look!—never fear, hippogriffs never stumble; and every ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... was now less thronged. The river, up and down, was white with sailboats, and across the neck of the peninsula went a line of horsemen, each with his purchase upon a pillion behind him. The Governor, the Councilors, and the commanders had betaken themselves to the Governor's house, where a great dinner was to be given. But Master Piersey, the Cape Merchant, remained to see the Company reimbursed to the last leaf, and the four ministers still found ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston

... is dead," said Sally, slowly. "Long! I must go to Lexington to-night, on the pillion, and you must go with me. Father's got too much rheumatiz to ask it ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... then he heard a great sound of horses' feet, and of bells jingling, and a lady rode up, the very lady he had seen in the well. She had a white horse, and she was dressed in green, and she beckoned to Randal to mount on her horse, with her before him on the pillion. And the bells on the bridle rang, and the horse flew faster than ...
— The Gold Of Fairnilee • Andrew Lang

... always a time of festival. If there was a church anywhere near, the bride rode thither on horseback behind her father, and after the service her pillion was shifted to the bridegroom's steed.[37] If, as generally happened, there was no church, the groom and his friends, all armed, rode to the house of the bride's father, plenty of whisky being drunk, and the men racing recklessly along the narrow bridle-paths, ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt

... but he had only spent one evening over the trying task, when just as the supper bell was ringing, with Master Hope and his wife as guests, there were horses' feet in the court, and Master Tiptoff appeared, with a servant on another horse, which carried besides a figure in camlet, on a pillion. No sooner was this same figure lifted from her steed and set down on the steps, while the master of the house and his daughter came out to greet her, than she began, "Master Alderman Headley, I am here to know what you have done ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Edward Phillips John Phillips (2) Samuel Phillips James Phimmer Joseph Phipise Nathaniel Phippin Thomas Phippin Jean Picher Juan Picko Pierre Pickolet Richard Pierce (2) Stephen Pierce Jeremiah Pierel Jean Pierre Jesse Pierre Jucah Pierre Joseph Pierson Amos Pike John Pike George Pill Joseph Pillion Truston Pilsbury John Pimelton Simeon Pimelton James Pine (2) Charles Pinkel Jonathan Pinkman Robert Pinkman Augustus Pion Henry Pipon Jean Pisung Elias Pitchcock Sele Pitkins John Pitman Jonathan Pitman (2) Thomas Pitt John Pittman W. Pitts Nathaniel Plachores Elton Planet Etena Planett ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge

... familiar thumping sound became audible in the distance. Yes, it was that dear boy Stephen, and someone was riding on the pillion-seat of his cycle. ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici

... apt to think of the Puritan times as all rigor and strictness. And yet here, nearly sixty years ago, was a play acted in the meeting-house: the church turned into a theatre. And I remember my mother's telling me that when she was a girl her father carried her on a pillion to the raising of a church in Pittsfield; and the occasion was celebrated by a ball in the evening. Now, all dancing is proscribed by the church ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey

... the Metropolis! Commercial travellers, then called "riders," travelled with their packs of samples on each side of their horses. Farmers rode from the surrounding villages to the Royston Market on horseback, with the good wife on a pillion behind them with the butter and eggs, &c., and a similar mode of going to Church or Chapel, if any distance, was used on a Sunday. Among the latest in this district must have been the one referred to in a note by Mr. Henry Fordham, who says: "I remember ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston

... with you," said Margaret. "Betty you are right; order the two horses to be saddled mine and the groom's, with a pillion on which you can ride, for I will not send you or go alone, understand that this sailor ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard

... soldiers on horseback, with another, cloaked to the eyes and bearing himself proudly, riding at their heels; a negro following on, also mounted, with a huge bundle in his arms before him, and a shivering, yellow-haired lad of about my own age on a pillion behind him; clustering about these, a motley score of poor people, young and old, some bearing household goods, and all frightened out of their five senses—this is what we saw on ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic

... chair, rocking chair; couch, fauteuil [Fr.], woolsack^, ottoman, settle, squab, bench; aparejo^, faldstool^, horn; long chair, long sleeve chair, morris chair; lamba chauki^, lamba kursi^; saddle, pannel^, pillion; side saddle, pack saddle; pommel. bed, berth, pallet, tester, crib, cot, hammock, shakedown, trucklebed^, cradle, litter, stretcher, bedstead; four poster, French bed, bunk, kip, palang^; bedding, bichhona, mattress, paillasse^; pillow, bolster; mat, rug, cushion. footstool, hassock; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... are evidently happy, and the standard of beauty among them will compare favourably with the women of any other nation. I once witnessed an interesting episode during a motor-ride in the country. A robust and comely Gallegan woman was riding a ancas (pillion fashion) with a young caballero, probably her son. The passing of our motor-car frightened the steed, with the result that both riders were unhorsed. Neither was hurt, but it was the woman who pursued the runaway horse. She caught it without assistance and with surprising skill. ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley

... laden donkey; a hurdy-gurdy troupe on its way to the barbecue; a stage-coach drawn by six half-broken wild horses; an old Spanish settler on a beautiful, black thoroughbred; a late arrival from Oregon, mounted upon a sturdy mule with his young wife upon a pillion behind him, and a whole drove of China-men being taken out to work a white man's ...
— Down the Mother Lode • Vivia Hemphill

... with some warmth. "Those blue eyes might easily win a man to gentler employments than this trade of ours. In sober truth, I can easily imagine such a girl might tempt even me to quit the broadsword and saddle, for a darning-needle and pillion." ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper

... of 1812, fearing for his little family, my grandfather started her back to Connecticut on horse back with her four little children, the youngest, my father, only six months old. The two older children walked part of the way; whoever rode had to carry the baby and the next smallest child rode on a pillion that was tied to the saddle. In this way she accomplished the long journey from Cleveland, Ohio, to Connecticut. When she used to tell me of the wonderful things that happened on this tedious journey, ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger

... the glory of God; And that He who esteems the Virginia reel A bait to draw saints from their spiritual weal, And regards the quadrille as a far greater knavery Than crushing his African children with slavery,— Since all who take part in a waltz or cotillon Are mounted for hell on the Devil's own pillion, 500 Who, as every true orthodox Christian well knows, Approaches the heart through the door of the toes,— That He, I was saying, whose judgments are stored For such as take steps in despite of his ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... at a startling pace— A suitor poor, with a homely face— No doubts appeared to bind him. He kissed her lips and he pressed her waist, And off he rode with the maiden, placed On a pillion safe behind him. And she heard the suitor bold confide This golden hint to the priest who tied The knot there's no undoing; With pretty young maidens who can choose, 'Tis not so much the gallant who woos, As the gallant's ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert

... riding with Osbert to the first hostel on their way, to make arrangements for the relay of horses that was to meet them there, and for the reception of Veronique, Eustacie's maid, who was to be sent off very early in the morning on a pillion behind Osbert, taking with her the articles of dress that would be wanted to change her mistress from the huntress maid of honour to ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... his heart he preferred the pedestrian even to the vehicular expedition." All matters being now settled, the chariot, in which rode Adams and Pounce, moved forwards; and Joseph having borrowed a pillion from the host, Fanny had just seated herself thereon, and had laid hold of the girdle which her lover wore for that purpose, when the wise beast, who concluded that one at a time was sufficient, that two to one were odds, ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding

... not gone far, or reached the open fields beyond the town, when I perceived, grazing at the roadside, a horse with saddle and pillion, such as market folk rode, which had evidently broken tether while its riders were away on some errand at a ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed

... did not fire. He waited till the last of the party appeared, a man in fringed buckskin breeches and hickory shirt riding pillion behind a young woman. ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine

... "But," she said, "you promised to marry the one that could wear the golden shoe." And the Prince could say nothing, but offered to take her on his horse to his father's Palace, for in those days ladies used to ride on a pillion at the back of the gentleman riding on horseback. Now as they were riding towards the Palace her foot began to drip with blood, and the little bird from the hazel tree that had followed ...
— Europa's Fairy Book • Joseph Jacobs

... sight of the house most of the party came up at a canter, Mr. Ford cheerfully saluting his wife, and the others waving their hats and showing off a few tricks of their steeds—while Dorothy was handed down from riding-pillion behind her host. Everybody's tongue was loosened at once and such a hubbub arose that Mrs. Ford clapped her hands to her ears, then caught hold of Leslie as he slid to the ground and ran like a girl to the house. ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond

... blue cloth, with a little cap of the same colour on her head, under which her countenance, beaming with exercise and anxiety, looked, in both Roland's and Edith's eyes, extremely pretty; much more so, indeed, than either had deemed it to be; while, secured behind the cushion or pillion, on which she rode,—for not a jot of saddle had she,—was a little bundle containing such worldly comforts as were necessary to one seriously bent upon a journey. She was mounted upon a sprightly pony, which ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird

... saddle of modern times. Side-saddles for ladies are an invention of comparatively recent date. The first seen in England was made for Anne of Bohemia, wife of Richard the Second, and was probably more like a pillion than the side-saddle of the present day. A pillion is a sort of a very low-backed arm-chair, and was fastened on the horse's croup, behind the saddle, on which a man rode who had all the care of managing the horse, while the lady sat at her ease, supporting herself by grasping a belt which ...
— The Arabian Art of Taming and Training Wild and Vicious Horses • P. R. Kincaid

... Upon a pillion behind her father, Major Miles Carrington, Surveyor-General to the Colony, came Mistress Betty Carrington, bosom friend to Mistress Patricia Verney. Her sweetly serious face, pensive eyes, and smooth, dark ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston

... to this country by Ann of Bohemia, differed, materially, from that now used by British ladies; having, no doubt, been a mere pillion, on which the rider sate, as ...
— The Young Lady's Equestrian Manual • Anonymous

... eye followed his gallant figure till it disappeared. At the Conduit beyond Shoreditch, a pack of young girls, who were drawing water, suspended their task to look after him; and so did every buxom country lass he encountered, whether seated in tilted cart, or on a pillion behind her sturdy sire. To each salutation addressed to him the young man cordially replied, in a voice blithe as his looks; and in some cases, where the greeting was given by an elderly personage, or a cap was respectfully doffed to him, he uncovered his own proud head, and displayed ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth

... lived then than now—her grandmother was at that time a young wife. It was the day of arduous, if not of long, courtship before marriage, when every wedding celebrated the close of an original romance; and when young couples, for bridal trips, went out to settle new States, riding on a pillion generally, with their trousseaux following as best they could on sumpter mules; to hear the grandmother describe it made one long to be a bride ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King

... for causing us to think and scheme! Only there are men who won't be set right unless we do. My husband used to say, change is such a capital thing in life's jogtrot; that men find it refreshing if we now and then, reverse the order of our pillion-riding for them. A spiritless woman in a wife is what they bear least of all. Anything rather. Is Mr. Morsfield haunting Mrs. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... best inn, then and since, upon the great northern road; and an introduction from Mrs. Bickerton, added to her own simple and quiet manners, so propitiated the landlady of the Swan in her favour, that the good dame procured her the convenient accommodation of a pillion and post-horse then returning to Tuxford, so that she accomplished, upon the second day after leaving York, the longest journey she had yet made. She was a good deal fatigued by a mode of travelling to which she was less accustomed than to walking, and it was considerably ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... anchor and get to sea. Everybody was as good to me as they could be, and a maid of honor gave me the stirrup-cup her own self. There was nothing more to do now, but for that damsel to get up behind me on a pillion, which she did, and put an arm or so ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... Bolland were little more than cart-ruts; indeed, the way up to the house lay along a ploughed field before you came to the deer-park. Madam, as the country-folk used to call Mrs. Starkey, rode on a pillion behind her husband, holding on to him with a light hand by his leather riding-belt. Little master (he that was afterwards Squire Patrick Byrne Starkey) was held on to his pony by a serving-man. A woman past middle age walked, ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell

... there was not a steamboat, nor a railroad, nor even a stagecoach, in North America. Men went from one colony to another by sailing vessel; overland they traveled on horseback; and if a wife went with her husband, she rode behind him on a pillion. The produce of the farms was drawn to the village ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster

... bare boarded floor; at the far end, fleeces of wool stacked up; in the middle of the floor, some empty corn-bags. That is the furniture of the dining-room. And what through the left-hand window? Several clothes-horses, a pillion, a spinning-wheel, and an old box wide open, and stuffed full of colored rags. At the edge of this box there lies a great wooden doll, which so far as mutilation is concerned bears a strong resemblance to the finest Greek sculpture, and especially in the total loss of its nose. Near ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various

... well, and consult later on the ransom ye will pay us. Jock, discharge the young sumpter mule; put its load on the black one. We have no better equipment for thee, lady; but the first haquenee we find shall replace the mule, and meanwhile my knaves will heap their cloaks for a pillion." ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... following day, Don Emillo Cortez came again and asked me to ride with him as a scout. He had brought a young man to drive the team in my stead. Gladly I accepted his invitation. He arranged a pillion for his saddle and mounted me behind him, facing the horse's tail. Then he passed a broad strap around his waist and my body and armed me with a Henry repeating rifle, then a new invention and a very serviceable gun. In this manner I had both hands free and made him the best ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann

... which Master Sastre was to deliver his homily was one of those delicious spring days which seem the immediate harbingers of summer. Margery, in her black dress, and with a warm hood over her cote-hardie, was assisted by her father to mount her pillion, Richard Pynson being already seated before her on the grey palfrey; for in the days of pillions, if the gentleman assisted the lady on her pillion before he mounted himself, he ran imminent risk of knocking ...
— Mistress Margery • Emily Sarah Holt

... people. Secondly, Travellers enough, but seven in ten wanting shirts and cravats; nine in ten going bare foot, and carrying their brogues and stockings in their hands; one woman in twenty having a pillion, the rest riding bare backed: Above two hundred horsemen, with four pair of boots amongst them all; seventeen saddles of leather (the rest being made of straw) and most of their garrons only shod before. I went into one of the principal farmer's houses, out of curiosity, and his whole ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift

... straw bonnets of their own handiwork, and sometimes with scarlet cardinals lightly flung over their shoulders, sprang over the wagon-thills to the ground. Now and then the more remote dwellers came on horseback, each Jack with his Gill on a pillion behind, and holding him with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various

... Moreover, in those days some of the lighter kinds of carriage now in vogue, such as the modern dog-cart, were unknown. The chaise and the gig, large or small, were the conveyances in common use, the days not being yet past when the farmer’s wife rode to market on a pillion behind ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter

... his feathered hat, and his managed horse, to pay much regard to anything else; but he afterwards remembered to the hour of his death, that when the hand of his sister, by which she supported hersel on the pillion behind him, touched his own, it felt as wet and cold as ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott

... of six years old sat astride on the end of one of the benches, round which he had thrown a bridle of plaited rushes, and, with a switch in his other hand, was springing himself up and down, calling out, "Come, Eleanor, come, Lucy; come and ride on a pillion behind me to Worcester, to see King Charles and ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge

... mouths as well as legs, and that they could not use the latter without being at the expense of suffering the beasts themselves to use the former. This was the method in use in those days when, instead of a coach and six, a member of parliament's lady used to mount a pillion behind her husband; and a grave serjeant at law condescended to amble to Westminster on an easy pad, with his clerk kicking his heels ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding

... but a stone's throw to Ballynavogue. But I don't like to be going into the fair on foot, when I been always used to go in upon my pillion behind my husband when living, and my son Randal, after his death. Wait, who comes here?—'Tis Gerald O'Blaney's, the distiller's, young man, Pat Coxe: now we'll larn all—and whether O'Blaney can lend me the loan of a horse or no. ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth

... Such turnouts are frequent by the side of bridges over small streams. They are refreshing and useful, cooling the feet and cleansing the fetlocks of horses, and washing the wheels of carriages. One afternoon, Edward Bishop, with his wife behind him on a pillion, was riding home from Salem. Two women, mounted in the same way, joined them; and they chatted together pleasantly as their horses ambled along. When they came to the bridge, Bishop, probably merely for the fun of the thing, dashed down into ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... colouring matter readily to any fluid in which it may be immersed. It feeds on vegetable juices, and is perfectly innocuous. Its European representative, similarly tinted, and found in garden mould, is commonly called the "Little red pillion." ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent

... is coming!" Let him bring Mirth to the toiling million. What is't he bears—a gracious thing— Behind him on the pillion? Her snowy garb, and smile benign, Make sunshine in dark places; The gentlest, rarest, most divine Of all the Christian graces. Her eyes are full of loving light, Her hands with gifts are laden; True Yule-tide Almoner, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 24, 1892 • Various

... other in their chamber, and she looked calm and tranquil as she mounted her horse; for, having been accustomed from a child to ride with her father hunting and hawking, she could sit a horse well, and scorned to ride, as did so many ladies, on a pillion. Guy rode by her side, with Agnes on a pillion behind him. Long Tom, with Charlie perched in front of him, followed them, and the three men-at-arms brought up the rear. Charlie was in high spirits; he regarded the trip ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty

... most of the carcass, with the skin in the bargain. Marky, tell Tom to give him the skin too, and in the morning bring the skin to me and I will give you half a dollar for it, or at least three-and-sixpence. I want just such a skin to cover the pillion that I ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper

... matchlock, or a dagger. They were seated upon coarse wooden saddles, without cushions or stirrups, a fine saddle-cloth alone denoting a chief. The women emulated the men; they either guided their own dromedaries, or sitting in pillion, they clung to their husbands; veils they disdained, and their countenances certainly belonged not to a "soft sex." These Wahhabis were by no means pleasant companions. Most of them were followed by spare dromedaries, either unladen or carrying water-skins, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... will you plague me about such nonsense?—Now the plays are begun I shall have no peace.— Isn't it sufficient to make yourself ridiculous by your passion for the theatre, without continually teasing me to join you? Why can't you ride your hobby-horse without desiring to place me on a pillion behind you, Mr. Dangle? Dang. Nay, my dear, I was only going to read— Mrs. Dang. No, no; you will never read anything that's worth listening to. You hate to hear about your country; there are ...
— Scarborough and the Critic • Sheridan

... know nothing about it, look you." And upon this hint the elopement took place: which, indeed, was peaceably performed early one Sunday morning about a month after; Mrs. Hall getting behind Mr. Hayes on a pillion, and all the children of the parsonage giggling behind the window-blinds to see ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray

... to the advice of his friend, carried me in a box the next market-day, to the neighboring town, and took along with him his little daughter, my nurse, upon a pillion[48] behind him. The box was close on every side, with a little door for me to go in and out, and a few gimlet holes to let in air. The girl had been so careful as to put the quilt of her baby's bed into it, for me to lie down ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift

... and ripe, giving to the lines of the mouth warmth, tenderness, and trust; the eyes were blue and large, and shaded by drooping lids and long lashes; and, in harmony with all, a flood of golden hair, in the style permitted to Jewish brides, fell unconfined down her back to the pillion on which she sat. The throat and neck had the downy softness sometimes seen which leaves the artist in doubt whether it is an effect of contour or color. To these charms of feature and person were added others more—an indefinable air of purity which only the soul can impart, and of ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks

... sure as the Lord's in heaven, you will discover yourself; and, after all, how do you know that Sir Robert has found out Mr. Reilly? Sure it's nothing but bare suspicion on both your parts. At any rate, I'll saddle Paudeen O'Rafferty wid my own hands, and I'll put on Molly Crudden's big pillion, for you know she's too fat to walk to mass, and you will feel yourself quite easy and ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... noble lady of Turin or Asti (for it was the favourite pilgrimage of the Sardinian court), attended by her physician and her cicisbeo, to the half-naked goatherd of Val Sesia or Salluzzo; the cheerful farmers of the Milanese, with their wives, in silver necklaces and hairpins, riding pillion on plump white asses; sick persons travelling in closed litters or carried on hand-stretchers; crippled beggars obtruding their deformities; confraternities of hooded penitents, Franciscans, Capuchins and Poor Clares in dusty companies; jugglers, pedlars, Egyptians and sellers of drugs and amulets. ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton

... in Porto Rico. The mule's the thing here. The women ride a great deal. The better class use the English side saddle, although a few prefer the more picturesque and safer, but less graceful, Spanish saddle. In the country districts the pillion is occasionally employed, while among the lower classes many women ride astride without exciting comment. When the natives are both pretty and good riders they display considerable coquetry in ...
— Porto Rico - Its History, Products and Possibilities... • Arthur D. Hall

... suspension of the edicts, and once more the hell-fires will be lit on the parvis of every church in Paris. I am off to grow pears at Besme. My office is for sale; but I will give it to you, with my cap and bells and baton, as a free gift if within two days you do not place a certain fair lady on a pillion behind you and ride ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats

... however, that they remonstrated on the misalliance he was about to make; he was not to be swayed from his determination. Arraying himself in his best, and saddling a gaunt steed that might have rivalled Rosinante, and placing a pillion behind his saddle, he departed to wed and bring home the humble lassie who was to be made mistress of the venerable hovel of Lauckend, and who lived in a village on the opposite side ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving

... better start at once," said Arkwright, "before the first falling drops frighten the women." So the mules were brought out, and he lifted his uncomplaining wife on to the blankets which formed her pillion. The file again formed itself, and slowly they wound their way out from the small enclosure by which the hut was surrounded;—out from the enclosure on to a rough scrap of undrained pasture ground from which the trees had been cleared. In a few minutes ...
— Returning Home • Anthony Trollope

... is my husband. And now ride back to your uncle's. I left the piece of embroidery upon which I was working on your aunt's table. It will be a good excuse for you to ride over with it this evening." So saying, she sprang lightly from the pillion on which she had been riding behind Archie. The lad rode back in wild excitement at the thought that before night he was to see his hero whose deeds had, for the last three years, excited his ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty

... an early morning, all the party set forth for the country, namely, my lord viscount and the other gentleman; Monsieur Blaise, and Harry on a pillion behind them, and two or three men with pistols leading the baggage-horses. And all along the road the Frenchman told little Harry stories of brigands, which made the child's hair stand on end, and terrified him; so that at the great gloomy inn on the road where they lay, he besought to ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... yet in the stable, fair Mistress," said William, "and there be likewise the strong sorrel from the farm, whereupon Bridget can ride pillion behind me. Shall I have them ready at break of day tomorrow? We shall then gain the town before the day's ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green

... and the bustle of preparing her wardrobe. The main body of it was to be sent in the carrier's waggon, for she was to ride on a pillion behind Mr. Dove, and could only take a valise upon a groom's horse. There was no small excitement in the arrangement, and in the farewells to the neighbours, who all agreed with Harriet in congratulating the girl on her promotion. Betty did her part with all her might, washed ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... found Dorothy Ratcliffe being lifted from the pillion by a serving man, attired in a smart riding-robe of crimson with gold buttons and a hood of the same material to protect her head from the sun and the keen east wind which had set in during the ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall

... own, the man being nearly his own size. For Jacob, who was much shorter, a dress, cloak and bonnet of the farmer's wife was procured, and for Mike the clothes of one of the farmer's sons. One of the horses was left here, and a pillion obtained for the other. Putting on these disguises, Harry mounted his horse, with Jacob seated behind him on a pillion, while Mike rode by his side. They started amid the good wishes of the farmer and his family, who were favorable to the Royalist cause. Harry had cut off his ringlets, ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty

... had been before Queen Victoria. She also had visited a Cecil. The Maiden Queen had travelled under difficulties. The country roads of her day had been so nearly impassable that her only means of transit had been to use a pillion behind her Lord Steward. Her seat in the chapel was pointed out to the Queen and Prince Albert when they went there for morning prayers. Whether or not both queens whiled away a rainy day by going over the whole ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler

... year, Yves de Cornault went to the pardon at Locronan, and saw there a young lady of Douarnenez, who had ridden over pillion behind her father to do her duty to the saint. Her name was Anne de Barrigan, and she came of good old Breton stock, but much less great and powerful than that of Yves de Cornault; and her father had squandered his fortune at cards, and lived ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton

... young men, therefore, could be spared to carry a message to Dumfries. My father could not leave his school, and so it came to pass that I was dispatched to saddle my grandfather's horse. He would ride to Dumfries with me on a pillion behind him, one hand tucked into the pocket of his blue coat, while with the other I held the belt about his waist to make sure. I had to walk up the hills, but that took little of the pleasure away. Indeed, best of all to me seemed ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett

... Then Manuel rode pillion with a king who was unwilling to let Manuel out of his sight, and they went thus to the castle called Brunbelois. They came to two doors with pointed arches, set side by side, the smaller being for foot passengers, and the other for horsemen. Above was an equestrian statue in a niche, ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell

... those below to prepare for Amabel's descent, again embraced her, kissed her pale brow, and, placing her carefully in the basket, lowered her slowly to the ground. She was received in safety by Leonard, who carried her in his arms, and placed her on the pillion. The pulley was then drawn up, and her luggage lowered by Mr. Bloundel, and placed in the saddle-bags by the apprentice. Every one saw the necessity of terminating this painful scene. A kindly farewell was taken of Hodges. Amabel waved her hand to her father, when at this moment Patience ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth

... more genteel than such a paltry conveyance, as Blackberry was wall-eyed and the colt wanted a tail; that they had never been broke to the rein, but had a hundred vicious tricks; and that we had but one saddle and pillion in the whole house. All these objections, however, were overruled; so that I was obliged to comply. The next morning I perceived them not a little busy in collecting such materials as might be necessary for the expedition, but as ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various

... settled by our manager, That we, to please great Johnny Bull, should plan a jeer, Dance a bang-up theatrical cotillion, And put on tuneful Pegasus a pillion; That every soul, whether or not a cough he has, May kick like Harlequin, and sing like Orpheus. So come, ye pupils of Sir John Gallini, {74} Spin up a tetotum like Angiolini: {75} That John and Mrs. Bull, from ale and tea-houses, May ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith

... began to doubt that they could possibly succeed in doing so. The shades of evening were coming on them. The poor brutes which carried them were barely able to lift their legs, and, Madame de Lescure was so overpowered with fatigue and anxiety, that she could hardly sustain herself in the pillion on which ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope

... religion, with its terraced steeple, with its classic porches north and south. Behind it is the long shed, and in front, rising out of the milkweed and the flowering thistle, the horse block of the first meeting-house, where many a pillion has left its burden in times bygone. Honest Jock Hallowell built that second meeting-house—was, indeed, still building it at the time of which we write. He had hewn every beam and king post in it, and set every plate and slip. And Jock Hallowell ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... deserves: I certainly think it, and will ratify it, when I have learnt the language of the nineteenth century; but I really am so ancient, that as Pythagoras imagined he had been Panthoides Euphorbus[1] in the Trojan war, I am not sure that I did not ride upon a pillion behind a Gentleman-Usher, when her Majesty Elizabeth went into procession to St. Paul's on the defeat of the Armada! Adieu! the postman puts an end to my idle speculations—but, Scarborough ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole

... the million" Came out "neatly bound in boards;" When like Care upon a pillion Matrons rode behind their lords: Rarely, save to hear the Rector, Forth did younger ladies roam; Making pies, and brewing nectar From the ...
— Verses and Translations • C. S. C.

... daughter of Colonel Lane. A pass had been obtained for her and her groom to go to Abbot's Leigh, near Bristol. The plan was arranged that the king should act as groom; so Charles mounted his horse, and Mistress Lane sat behind him on a pillion, and together they rode through Warwickshire to Bristol. The king was nearly captured at Long Marston, for some troopers of Cromwell suspected the party, and came to examine the house where they rested. The cook, ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield

... Hob Miller arrived on his strong-built mare, bearing on a pillion behind him the lovely Mysie, with cheeks like a peony-rose, (if Dame Glendinning had ever seen one,) spirits all afloat with rustic coquetry, and a profusion of hair as black as ebony. The beau-ideal which Dame ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... castle, crowning a wooded height near the Sussex coast. There were two persons seated on horseback: the one a youth of some twenty years, in a page's dress; the other a woman, who sat behind him on the pillion. Standing about were two men and a woman, the last holding a child in her arms. The woman on the pillion was closely veiled, and much muffled in her wrappings, considering the season of the year and the warmth ...
— The Well in the Desert - An Old Legend of the House of Arundel • Emily Sarah Holt

... the advice of his friend, carried me in a box the next market-day to the neighboring town, and took along with him his little daughter, my nurse, upon a pillion behind him. The box was close on every side, with a little door for me to go in and out, and a few gimlet-holes to let in air. The girl had been so careful as to put the quilt of her baby's bed into it for me to lie down on. However, I was terribly shaken and ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey

... So my sweet young damosel hath made friends, quotha! Prithee, was it my Lady's Grace of Suffolk thou wentest forth to see, or my Lady of Norfolk, trow? Did she give thee a ride o' her velvet pillion, bestudded ...
— For the Master's Sake - A Story of the Days of Queen Mary • Emily Sarah Holt

... of my enemy. Justice is satisfied, and all is quite as it should be. For you must understand that I have fallen heir to a fine steed, whose bridle is marked with a coronet,—prophetically, I take it,—and upon this steed you will ride pillion with me to Lisuarte. There we will find a priest to marry us. We will go together into Gatinais. Meanwhile, there is a bit of neglected business to be attended to." And he drew the ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell

... Willington Quay, whither they went in a manner quite common before travelling by railway came into use. Two farm horses, borrowed from a neighbouring farmer, were each provided with a saddle and pillion, and George having mounted one, his wife seated herself behind him, holding on by his waist. The bridesman and bridesmaid in like manner mounted the other horse; and in this wise the wedding party rode across the country, passing through the old streets of Newcastle, ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles

... the market is something marvellous. Asses in small carts driven by old women in mutch caps, asses with panniers, the harness entirely made of straw, asses with burdens on their backs laid over a sort of pillion of straw. I thought asses flourished at Cairo and Dover, but certainly Enniskillen has its own share of them. The faces of the people are changed, the tongues are changed. The people do not seem of the same race as they that ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall

... certainly is a public benefactor. There is a scene in that remarkable poem which I think might suit us. You remember where, after much wild careering in the foreground, the principal idiots decide upon riding home together, pillion fashion?" ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown

... parted from that excellent woman, even for so short a period of time; but Master George Sprowles of this parish having it in mind to travel into the village where the said Mr William Snowton kept his abode, I availed myself of his friendly offer to conduct my wife thither upon a pillion; and thereupon having sent forward her luggage two days before by a heavy waggon which journeyeth through Sarum, I took leave of the excellent woman, commending her heartily unto the care of Providence and Master George, which (Providence I mean) will not let a sparrow fall to the ground, ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various

... Rigby had been that orders were issued for our pursuit, and Master Freake had left the town not very far in advance of the squad of horse sent on our track. He had thus been unable to procure horses for us, but at Eccleshall he had managed to obtain a pillion for ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough

... reign travelers had no choice but to ride on horseback or to walk. Goods were transported on strings of pack-horses. When Elizabeth rode into the city from her residence at Greenwich, she placed herself behind her lord chancellor, on a pillion. The first improvement made was in the construction of a rude wagon a cart without springs, the body resting solidly on the axles. In such a vehicle Elizabeth rode to the opening of her fifth Parliament. In 1583, on a certain day, Sir ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... he treated her as a gentleman should treat his wife, and did his best to make her a lady. She was always clad in a rich fashion; and a fine show she made in her scarlet petticoat and white hat with a streaming scarlet feather in it, riding high on her pillion behind Willan Blaycke on his great black horse, or sitting up straight and stiff in the swinging coach with gold on the panels, which he had bought for her in Boston at a sale of the effects of one of the disgraced and removed governors of the province of Massachusetts. If there had been ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson

... morning, Uncle Dick was sitting on the porch, when he saw a horse passing over the trail toward the south. In the saddle was the erect, spruce figure of the one-armed veteran, Seth Jones. And, on a blanket strapped behind the saddle to serve as pillion, rode a woman, with her arms clasped around the man's waist. It was the Widow Brown, dressed all in ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily

... an early morning, all the party set forth for the country, namely, my Lord Viscount and the other gentleman; Monsieur Blaise and Harry on a pillion behind them, and two or three men with pistols leading the baggage-horses. And all along the road the Frenchman told little Harry stories of brigands, which made the child's hair stand on end, and terrified him; so that at the great gloomy ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray

... the husband would fly with one child, the wife with another, and, perhaps, one only escape; the village cavalcade, making its way to meeting on Sunday in files on horseback, the farmer holding the bridle in one hand and a child in the other, his wife seated on a pillion behind him, it may be with a child in her lap, as was the fashion in those days, could not proceed safely; but, at the moment when least expected, bullets would whizz among them, sent from an unseen enemy by the wayside. The forest ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... slowly ambling mule bore an entire family; the father managing the reins with one hand and holding a baby with the other, while his rifle lay balanced across his pommel and his wife sat solemnly behind him on a sheepskin or pillion. Many of the men rode side-saddles, and sacks bulky at each end hinted of such baggage as is carried in jugs. Lescott realized from the frank curiosity with which he was regarded that he had been a topic of discussion, and that he ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck

... guardian was equally decisive as to the future, when the subject was taken up after the meal. "I must stay here two days for some despatches Congress wishes me to bear, and 't is fortunate, for I shall have time to procure a second horse and a pillion, so that you may ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... bottom, young Phelipson quickly removed the ladder and hid it under the bushes. The pair disappeared; till, in a few minutes, Tupcombe could discern a horse emerging from a remoter part of the umbrage. The horse carried double, the girl being on a pillion behind ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy

... he said sternly in a quiet, decisive voice that rang with the virility of his youth, "when the first of us Alloways came along that wilderness trail a slip of an English girl walked by him when he walked and rode the pillion behind him when he rode. She finished that journey with bleeding feet in moccasins he had bought from an Indian squaw. When they came on down into this Valley and found this spring he halted wagons and teams and there on that hill she dropped down to sleep, worn out with the journey. And ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess

... a sort of army officer in a gold-laced hat, whose martial courage was more than doubtful, amused Frank Osbaldistone by clinging desperately to a small but apparently very heavy portmanteau, which he carried on the pillion before him, never parting from it for a moment. This man's talk was all of well-dressed highwaymen, whose conversation and manners induced the unwary to join company with them. Then in some shady dell whistling up their men, the unlucky traveller ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... Jason, on the circuit rider's old nag, rode through camp with Mavis on a pillion behind in laughing acceptance of the old pioneer custom, women and children waved at them from doorways and the miners swung their hats and cheered them as they passed. There was an old-fashioned gathering at the old Hawn home that night. Old Aaron and young Aaron and many Honeycutts ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.

... is in readiness for your departure tomorrow. Madame will, I suppose, ride behind you upon a pillion; and her maid behind ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty

... in the picture. But she stopped here once—for lunch—quite by chance and unattended, save for a poor fool she had found in the forest. Hunting she had been, and had lost her horse, and he brought her on her way on a pillion. Be sure he rode with his chin on his shoulder all the time. She never said who she was, but he knew her for some great lady, for all his dullness. Ah, Nell, you—she was very sweet to him: let him see the stars in her eyes, let him mark the blue cloud of her ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates

... and saddled, and dresses prepared; and when Cuthbert with Lady Margaret arrived there, no time was lost. Dressed as a yeoman, with the Lady Margaret as his sister, he mounted a horse, with her behind him on a pillion. The other damsels also mounted, as it would not have been safe for them to remain near Evesham. They therefore purposed taking refuge in a convent near Gloucester for the present. Bidding a hearty adieu to Cnut, and with ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty

... three horses, one equipped with the pillion on which she was to ride behind a burly stableboy. The other two were mounted by a couple of stalwart and well-armed men, one of whom carried a funnel-mouthed musketoon with a swagger that promised ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini



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