"Tiller" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... smooth, rolling sea that tossed the ship and made the blood run to and fro on the round-house floor, and a heavy rain that drummed upon the roof. All my watch there was nothing stirring; and by the banging of the helm, I knew they had even no one at the tiller. Indeed (as I learned afterwards) there were so many of them hurt or dead, and the rest in so ill a temper, that Mr. Riach and the captain had to take turn and turn like Alan and me, or the brig might have gone ashore and nobody the wiser. It was a mercy the night had ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Ho and you enter the loess country, dear to the tiller of the soil, but the bane of the traveller, for the dust is often intolerable. But there was little change in scenery until toward noon of the following day, when the faint, broken outlines of hills appeared on the northern horizon. As we were delayed by a little accident it was getting dark ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... my readers will smile at the statement that a man in a boat on smooth water can pull himself across with the tiller rope! But it is a fact. If the jester had fastened the end of his rope to the stern of the boat and then, while standing in the bows, had given a series of violent jerks, the boat would have been propelled forward. This has often been put to a practical test, ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... he meditated was not to be, however. Close in shore a little boat glided into view, beating up against stream. In the stern, the sheet in one hand and the tiller in the other, sat Balder's old friend Charon. He nodded up at the young man with a recognizing grin. Then he laid his tiller-hand aside his brown cheek ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... fur cloak she reached out an arm—a bare arm with two jewelled bracelets—and took the tiller. "I can steer you to the quay," she said, and leaning forward in the light of Sergeant Archelaus' lantern, she lifted ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... back luxuriously against her cushions and glanced smilingly across at Michael where he sat with his hand on the tiller of the Bella Donna, the little sailing-yacht which Lady Arabella kept for the amusement of her guests rather than for her own enjoyment, since she herself could rarely be induced ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... which gave 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 at a ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... was on deck—the man at the helm, dozing peaceably with his arm over the useless tiller. Minute by minute the light grew, and the heat grew with it; and still the helmsman slumbered, the heavy sails hung noiseless, the quiet water lay sleeping against the vessel's sides. The whole orb of the sun was visible above the water-line, ...
— Miss or Mrs.? • Wilkie Collins
... was run off the reel, and a two-score of ready hands grasped it. Cole, as was his privilege, jumped on the engine to steer, for he had rigged up a tiller wheel on it, since it had been in his barn, and this made it easier to pull, even with ...
— The Young Firemen of Lakeville - or, Herbert Dare's Pluck • Frank V. Webster
... on board with the first, and leaped to the steering deck, where he grasped the tiller, paying no heed to me. His eyes were on the lane end. I got out of his way, and stood by the stern post, with my arm round the ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... was nearly due south. As the ketch made its way out from the mouth of the river, and the wide expanse of water opened before them, the boys were filled with delight. They had taken their seats, one on each side of the skipper, who was at the tiller. ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... took the oars, Mont grasped the tiller, and Dr. Woddle stood in the bows with a loaded gun ...
— The Wizard of the Sea - A Trip Under the Ocean • Roy Rockwood
... does not result from inequality of condition. Many a poor tiller of the fields enjoys a degree of peace and happiness that those favoured by birth or fortune would envy. Disease visits poor and rich alike; moral suffering is more especially the appanage of the so-called higher classes, and if obscurity and poverty render certain troubles specially severe, wealth ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... examination of all. Open them, and you will find the dark and greasy finger prints of half a century's handling. The quick hand of the land grabber has fluttered the leaves a million times; the damp clutch of the perturbed tiller of the soil has left traces of his calling ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... Capmany, regarding the equipment of galleys, show the same thing, for he is probably mistaken in saying that one of the dos timones specified was a spare one. Joinville (p. 205) gives incidental evidence of the same: "Those Marseilles ships have each two rudders, with each a tiller (? tison) attached to it in such an ingenious way that you can turn the ship right or left as fast as you would turn a horse. So on the Friday the king was sitting upon one of these tillers, when he called ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... else is the development of the broadest sympathy of man for man. The welfare of the wage-worker, the welfare of the tiller of the soil, upon these depend the welfare of the entire country; their good is not to be sought in pulling down others; but their good must be the prime object of all ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... in the art—I mean Henry Fielding—we shall be somewhat puzzled, at the first moment, to state the difference that there is between these two. Fielding has as much human science; has a far firmer hold upon the tiller of his story; has a keen sense of character, which he draws (and Scott often does so too) in a rather abstract and academical manner; and finally, is quite as humorous and quite as good-humoured as the great Scotsman. With all these points ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... manufacturer, the friend of progress, the benefactor of his workmen. There would be Gabriel—the good priest, as they say!—the apostle of the primitive gospel, the representative of the democracy of the church, of the poor country curate as opposed to the rich bishop, the tiller of the vine as opposed to him who sits in the shade of it; the propagator of all the ideas of fraternity, emancipation, progress—to use their own jargon—and that, not in the name of revolutionary ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... "Take the tiller now," she continued, addressing me, "and steer for the light you see on the cliff. Keep her well up, though, or ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... take the tiller this time!" he said. "The bottom seems to be shoal all about here. And if you and Miss Everton will sit a little forward, Hilda, you will be more comfortable; I fear I cannot help dripping like hoary Nereus all ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
... lightly beside him. He held the tiller up with his elbow, pulled in on the sheet, and as the sail filled the boat sprang away over ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... Lester Lee, who was handling the tiller. "And we're a long way off from home! It's up to us to turn about and ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... for the oarsmen; but the seat of honour was in the stern of the boat, and no man filled it better than the transformed Tam. Alert and full of resource, with one hand on the tiller, he leaned over the boat, lengthening or shortening rope for the halter, and regulating the speed of the oarsmen with unerring judgment; giving a staunch swimmer time and a short rope to lean on, or literally dragging the faint-hearted across at full speed; careful then only of one thing: to keep ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... from the Greek [Greek: georgos], an earth tiller, farmer. Spenser borrows the story in this stanza from that of Tages, son of Earth, who was similarly found and brought up. ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... front of these, a clumsy fishing-boat rose and fell on each passing wave. Two sailors sat in the stern, holding the rope and tiller, and in the bow, with their backs turned forever toward Opeki, stood two young boys, their faces lit by the glow of the setting sun and stirred by the sight of the great engines of war plunging past them on their ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... one sees the first step towards a fixed rudder and tiller, a modified form of paddle being fixed securely to one side of the stern, in such a way that the blade can be turned so as either to have its edges fore and aft, or its sides presented at a greater or less ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher
... that you harm not any tiller of the ground, nor any yeoman of the greenwood—no knight, no squire, unless you have heard him ill spoken of. But if bishops or archbishops come your way, see that you spoil them, and mark that you always hold in your mind the ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... sat at the tiller smoking. He was in that mood of vacant obliviousness of the ordinary affairs of life which long drifting on calm seas induces. The helplessness of man in a sailing-ship, when the wind fails him, begets a kind of fatalistic acceptance of the inevitable, which is the nearest thing to peace ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... food and water were stowed on board, the sail raised, and the boat cast off from the pier. Cesare took the tiller and with a light morning breeze the Red Dragon drew proudly away from the beach and headed ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland
... weather with a south-easterly wind and a steady breeze; in the morning, we found our rudder broken at top in the tiller hole; we therefore hauled to windward under reduced sail and fitted a cross beam to either side. By estimation the west side of Nova Guinea must be ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... the rail of the yawl, and I shoved the boat off, and for the next few minutes bent to those oars as I had certainly never bent to any previous labour, mental or physical, in my life. And Miss Raven, seeing my earnestness, said nothing, but quietly took the tiller and steered us in a straight line for the spot which the Chinaman had indicated. Neither of us—strange as it may seem—spoke one single word until, at the end of half an hour's steady pull, the ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... interests at least on a full equality with interests abroad, and of always allowing a sufficient rate of duty to more than cover the difference between the labor cost here and abroad. The well-being of the wage-worker, like the well-being of the tiller of the soil, should be treated as an essential in shaping our whole economic policy. There must never be any change which will jeopardize the standard of comfort, the standard of ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... I replied; "it is a fair summer day, with waves of all blue and silver, dancing in the breeze. A yacht is just off shore; the sail, a creamy bit of color; at the tiller a chap, handsome as yourself, and at his side a girl"—here he stopped playing and looking ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... subtle methods of attack transcended those of the mere devourer of leaf-tissue, as radically as an inventor of most intricate instruments differs from the plodding tiller of the soil. In the center of one leaf, less disfigured than some of its fellows, I perceived four tiny ivory spheres, a dozen of which might rest comfortably within the length of an inch. To my eye they looked quite smooth, although a steady oblique gaze revealed hints ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... hurrah, we're off once more," Shouted the Polar Bear, waving his paw, And the Mermaid Princess laughed in glee As he held the tiller and sailed o'er ...
— The Iceberg Express • David Magie Cory
... oar makes the most powerful, though not the most convenient rudder. In the lakes of North Italy, where the winds are steady, the heavy boats have a bar upon which the tiller of the rudder rests: this bar is full of small notches; and the bottom of the tiller, at the place where it rests on the bar, is furnished with a blunt knife-edge; the tiller is not stiffly joined to the rudder, but admits of a little play up and down. When the boatman finds that the boat steers ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... all very nice," 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 ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... launched the small sailboat and Nora took the tiller. She knew every inch of the harbour. As the sail filled before the wind and the boat sprang across the upcurling waves, her brief sullenness fell away from her. She no longer resented Clark Bryant's presence—she forgot ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... overhauled the oars to see that they were in good condition, or with crooked knives (a species of instrument in the use of which voyageurs and natives are very expert) polished off the top of a mast, the blade of an oar, or the handle of a tiller. Old men, who had passed their lives in similar occupations, looked on in silence—some standing with their heads bent on their bosoms, and an expression of sadness about their faces, as if the scene recalled some mournful ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... he obtains the implements for capturing and subduing them. Man's earliest farinaceous food was likewise the product of trees; for in his nomadic condition he makes his bread from the acorn and the chestnut: he must become a tiller of the soil, before he can obtain the products of the cereal herbs. The groves were likewise the earliest temples for his worship, and their fruits his first ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... troubling in the world was of no use. It was a case of the island or the deep sea, and, putting the boat on the starboard tack, he lit his pipe and leaned back with the tiller in the crook of his arm. His keen eyes had made out from the deck of the brig an opening in the reef, and he was making to run the dinghy abreast of the opening, and then take to the ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... 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 ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... 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 maternal instinct. Sooner or later the mother-soul yearns and cries out for the touch of baby ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... prompt as the commander, and seizing the tiller, he soon had the great ship sailing along under perfect control. She went into the narrow channel, with the great rocks high on both sides. The waves beat up angrily and the breakers threw their spray high over the decks. With eyes fixed on the channel and both hands ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... now; all hands on deck! We can get into New Bedford in two days if this wind holds. Nor' west!" shouted the skipper to the man at the tiller. "We'll sup with our old ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... 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 ...
— Half-Past Seven Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... ship at six bells in the morning watch. Dolly Venn, who was rated as fourth officer, was with me in the launch, and Harry Doe, the boatswain, at the tiller. I left Mister Jacob on the bridge, and gave him my orders to stand in-shore as near as might be, and to look for my coming at sunset—no later. "Whatever passes," said I, "the night will find me on board again. I trust to bring you good ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... sails, instead of being white, were tanned a dull red, that blended perfectly with the colour of the distant shore line. A bright-faced, resolute chap, somewhat younger than Cabot, but of equally sturdy build, held the tiller, and regarded with evident approval the ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... necessary either to mount the grade to Broadway or to ease the machine down to Greenwich Street. It was traces or backing-straps for all that was in you, and at the end a sharp turn which never could have been made had not the tiller-man done his part with the ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... boat-hook, 2 brass guns, one cask of rice, 3 chests belonging to passengers and several things belonging to Mr. Piper and 4 sows, the property of Government, and washed overboard the binnacle, 2 compasses and lamps. At half-past 3 carried away main sheet and broke the tiller, down main-sail: bore up and set the fore-sail not being able to keep the sea found the larboard side of the waist covering board split and leaking a good deal. At 8 heavy gales with squalls and a heavy sea: found the breakers in the hold had raised ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... with a house, or store, or engine. Why, there are no two ships alike, and two were never built just alike. There are lucky and unlucky ships, and ships that almost steer themselves, while others need a whole watch at the tiller in a dead calm. But I think that you are mistaken as to the 'Flying Dutchman' being the only other 'flyer,' as the sailors call them, for they are often seen in the ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... meddle, and generally 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 ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, January 1876 • Various
... watching his new contrivance with interest. His steering-gear was rude, being a single runner under the tender with tiller attachment, but it served the purpose. The road was so nearly a straight line that little steering ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... five, none of the others." Then still lower down he pointed out other barrels, eight of them, filled with the best gunpowder, and showed them too where the slow matches ran to the little cabin, the cook's galley, the tiller and the prow, by means of any one of which it could be fired. After this and such inspection of the ropes and sails as the light would allow, they sat in the cabin waiting till the wind should change, while the two watching men unmoored the vessel and made her sails ready for hoisting. ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... board apprised Spike fully of the state in which he was now placed, and by a desperate effort, he clutched the tiller, and got the yawl again before the wind. This could not last, however. Little by little, his hold relaxed, until his hand relinquished its grasp altogether, and the wounded man sunk into the bottom of the stern-sheets, unable to raise even his head. Again ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... he cried; "no talking," and he took the tiller ropes. As he seated himself he looked toward the bows, and his eyes encountered the calm face ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... acquainted with the theory of sailing; nor did he know, how, or on what principle, a sail-boat moves. About steering he was equally ignorant, nor did he know how a boat obeys its rudder. But he knew that the one who sails a boat sits in the stern, and holds the tiller; so David did the same, holding the tiller in his right hand, and the ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... the old man who was leaning with all his might against the long tiller of the barge. "Come and ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... that no ennui can come; and there is quite enough play of limb and change of position caused by the working of the ship, while he soon learns by practice to steer by the action of any part of his body from head to feet being in contact with the tiller, that delicate and true sensorium of a boat to which all feeling ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... call young Richardson all right?" asked Ponty. "I should say he and his friend are in the same boat, and he's holding the tiller." ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... olden time in the land of Egypt a Fellah, or tiller of the ground, who had a fair woman to wife and she had another man to friend. The husband used to sow every year some fifty faddan[FN467] of seeding-wheat wherein there was not one barley-grain, and grind it in the mill and pass this meal to his spouse who would ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... a weather vane acts in the air. The bow of the boat naturally turns toward the wind, thus relieving the sail of all pressure and keeping it shaking. But if by keeping the main sheet in your hand you hold the sail in a fixed position, and, at the same time, draw the tiller away from the sail, it will gradually fill with air beginning at the hoist or mast end of the sail and impel the boat in the direction in which you are steering. Given a certain direction in which you want to travel, ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... was one drawback—at least, for Henry Burns and Harvey, who were hankering for the grip of a tiller and the thrill of a boat under sail. There wasn't a sailboat to be hired on the pond. There were not many, and they were all engaged. Coombs, who owned the slip and the boats, said he hadn't done such a ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... had so often been committed in sea and tempest. Upon the strand, and close opposite to the small gate which now stood ajar, lay one of her boats, the crew of which had abandoned her with the exception only of a single individual, apparently her cockswain, who, with the tiller under his arm, lay half extended in the stern-sheets, his naked chest exposed, and his tarpaulin hat shielding his eyes from the sun while he indulged in profound repose. These were the only objects that told of human life. Everywhere beyond the eye rested on the faint outline of ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... the tiller in my hand. The end of those men seemed so horrible that I forgot for the ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... the hypocrite I am, I only smiled indulgently at him, as if, for women, marrying was mere reposing on eider-down cushions, with the tiller ropes in their hands, while men did the rowing. I was not going to admit, Tabby, that the most of the girls we know never worked harder in their lives than during that indefinite and mysterious period known as "making up their minds." ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... men answered my hail, and walked quickly aft. In a short space of time, we launched the cutter, into which Mr. Larkin and myself jumped, followed by the two men, who took the oars. I rigged the tiller, and the mate sat beside ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... essential weakness that demanded the 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 has regained it ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... nameless emporium and picked a passage through a crowd of quaint shipping, wondering where I was, and asking myself whether I was mentally rising equal to my extraordinary surroundings, whether I adequately appreciated the immensity of my remove from those other seas on which I had last travelled, tiller-ropes in hand, piloting a captain's galley from a wharf. Good heavens, what would my comrades on my ship say if they could see me now steering a load of hairy savages up one of those waterways which our biggest telescopes magnify but to ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... said David. "I held on to the tiller-ropes though I did go overboard." Then ensued a battle between David and his horse, the one wanting to mount, the other anxious to be unencumbered with sailors. It was settled by David making a vault and sitting on the animal's neck, on which the ladies screamed again, ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... now," said the sailor. "Going to have a big blow afore night." And he threw over the tiller and gave the necessary ...
— The Rover Boys on Land and Sea - The Crusoes of Seven Islands • Arthur M. Winfield
... from the Raker struck the helms-man on board the pirate, shattering at the same time the tiller. In a moment the brig was up in the wind, and taken aback, throwing the pirates ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... once more, her gaze followed a small skiff speeding upstream over the placid surface of the silvery Wye; Medenham was rowing, and Cynthia held the tiller ropes; but Mrs. Devar's thoughts turned her mind's eyes inward, and they surveyed a gray prospect. Dale, the unseen monster who had struck this paralyzing blow, spoke of "the Frenchman." Lord Fairholme had charged both Dale and "the Frenchman" ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... Gallico, vi. 15) says of the Gallic equites, "atque eorum ut quisque est genere copiisque amplissimus, plurimos circum se ambactos clientesque habent.'' Accepting the Celtic origin of the word, it has been connected with the Welsh amaeth, a tiller of the ground. A Teutonic origin has been suggested in the Old High Ger. ambaht, a retainer, which appears in a Scandinavian word amboht, bondwoman or maid, in the Ormulum ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... boat, he sailed over to Tenean, where plenty of clams were to be had, and a bucket full was soon procured. Like a prudent fisherman, he made all his arrangements for the next day. First he repaired the worn-out sail, then made a new sprit, and refitted the tiller to the rudder head. When everything was in ship-shape order about the boat, he took out his perch lines, ganged on a new hook, and rigged an extra sinker for use in case ...
— Little By Little - or, The Cruise of the Flyaway • William Taylor Adams
... the Isles Of Khaledan, I spied one evenfall A black blotch in the sunset; and it grew Swiftly . . . and grew. Tearing their beards, The sailors wept and prayed; but the grave ship, Deep laden with spiceries and pearls, went mad, Wrenched the long tiller out of the steersman's hand, And, turning broadside on, As the most iron would, was haled and sucked Nearer, and nearer yet; And, all awash, with horrible lurching leaps Rushed at that Portent, casting a shadow now That swallowed sea and sky; and then, Anchors and nails and bolts Flew screaming ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... out the words, the steersman sprang from the tiller, and seized Potts' oar just in time to save the boat from capsizing. Then he and the big Kentuckian both ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... the greyish-blue sea and the greyish-green shore, with the brown boulders on the beach, formed a study in grey, whose hypnotic effect was increased by a warm, weary wind. Whoever was not on duty at the tiller lay down on deck, and as in a dream we floated slowly along the coast past lonely islands and bays; whenever we looked up we saw the same picture, only the outlines seemed to have shifted a little. We anchored near a lonely isle, to find out whether its only ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... reassuring—alarming to the student 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 ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... close- fitting skullcap of thick gray felt, that looks wonderfully like a bowl clapped on top of their heads, others sport a huge woolly head-dress like the Roumanians; this latter imparts to them a fierce, war-like appearance, that the meek-eyed Persian ryot (tiller of the soil) is far from feeling. The national garment is a sort of frock-coat gathered at the waist, and with a skirt of ample fulness, reaching nearly to the knees; among the wealthier class the material of this garment is usually cloth of a solid, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... not without difficulty got into my clothes. In the after-cabin, under the superintendence of the able and energetic navigating lieutenant, Mr. Brown, a group of blue-jackets were working at the tiller-ropes. These had become loose, and the helm refused to answer the wheel. High moral lessons might be gained on shipboard, by observing what steadfast adherence to an object can accomplish, and what large effects are heaped up by the addition of infinitesimals. The ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... covered, these birds must scatter themselves over a wide extent of territory, in proportion as their food becomes less abundant. They live principally upon seeds, and hence their forages are made chiefly in the tilled lands, where the weeds afford them an abundance of food. The negligence of the tiller of the soil is, therefore, a great gain to the small birds, by leaving a supply of seeds in the annual grasses that grow ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... banners, and on went Sigmund before, And his sword was the flail of the tiller on the wheat of the wheat-thrashing floor, And his shield was rent from his arm, and his helm was sheared from his head: But who may draw nigh him to smite for the heap and the rampart of dead? White went his hair on the wind like the ragged drift of the cloud, And his dust-driven, blood-beaten ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung • William Morris
... end to the remarks of his refractory seaman by starting up suddenly in fierce anger and seizing the tiller, apparently with the intent to fell him. He checked himself, however, as suddenly, and breaking into a ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... were ever of brave heart, Eloise. But let us not forget we yet remain in reach of Spanish claws, and they are merciless. Go back to the tiller a while, and let me lay hold upon this oar; 'tis heavy work for such soft hands as yours. Point the course direct for the cane island—you must remember it; you ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... Church;—but this resolution I kept faithfully to myself. I had nothing for it now but to forget my sacerdotal prospects, which, as I have said, had already been renounced, or to sink down as many others like me had done, into a mere tiller of the earth,—a character in Ireland far more unpopular than that which the Scotch call ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... confusion. Men were aroused from their 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 ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... your helm!" shouted the captain, and, springing aft, he found the helmsman jammed under the tiller, and the second mate vainly endeavoring to heave it up. Taking hold with him, by their united efforts they at last succeeded; and, after a moment's suspense, the Ocean Star slowly wore off before the wind and, rising out of the water, shook herself ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... secrecy too deep for his perception, cutting at the aloofness logically demanded of one in his position. Stubborn, and not spiritually subtle, though by no means dull in practical matters, he was resolutely letting the waters bear him on, holding the tiller firmly, without perceiving that he was in the vortex of a whirlpool. Indeed, his common sense continually impelled him, against the sort of reactionaryism of which his son Miltoun had so much, to that easier reactionaryism, which, living ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... be sailors whether 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 homes ...
— A Dreamer's Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... and drums was heard, charming their senses by sweet music, and awakening their astonishment and admiration. When they had been over the whole ship, from stern to prow, and had carefully visited the forecastle, the tiller, and the hold, the brother and sister looked at one another in silence; their astonishment being so profound that they had nothing to say. While they were engaged in visiting the ship, the Adelantado ordered the anchor to be raised, the sails set, and ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... again bare his brother Abel, And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Presently the tiller was put up and, as the brig's head paid off, the yards were braced square; and she ran rapidly along towards the southwest, with the wind nearly dead aft. The next morning when Bob went on deck he found that the wind had dropped, ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... tried to defend the Act, but all in vain, so he was glad to change the subject and discuss the crops, politics, and education. This conversation took place at what the captain called "the hellum", against the tiller of which he occasionally allowed his apprentice to lean his back while he attended to other work. Wilkinson was proud. This was genuine navigation, this steering a large vessel with your back; any mere landsman, he now saw, could ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... Cap'n's trembling hands were taking a half-hitch with a rope's end about a tiller-spoke. He understood this as meaning that Cap'n Sproul desired to have his hands free for a moment. He hastened ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... that I like it better than life at Putnam Hall," smiled Sam Rover, as he threw over the tiller of the little yacht. "I'm quite anxious to meet Captain Putnam and Fred, Frank, and ...
— The Rover Boys on the Ocean • Arthur M. Winfield
... appearance, so little headway, that the unlucky Frenchmen began to entertain sweet delusive hopes. At last, after unheard-of efforts, the Saint-Ferdinand sprang forward, Gomez himself directing the shifting of the sheets with voice and gesture, when all at once the man at the tiller, steering at random (purposely, no doubt), swung the vessel round. The wind striking athwart the beam, the sails shivered so unexpectedly that the brig heeled to one side, the booms were carried away, and the vessel was completely out of hand. The captain's face grew whiter ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... side!" called out Dick, and ran for the biggest sweep he could find. "Jam over the rudder!" he called to Songbird, who was at the tiller. ...
— The Rover Boys in Southern Waters - or The Deserted Steam Yacht • Arthur M. Winfield
... 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 sea ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... arranges, that the neighbour is more really benefited than the individual worker toiling only for himself. Who is most truly served—the man who makes a garment, or the man who enjoys its warmth? the builder of the house, or the dweller therein? the tiller of the soil, or he who eats the fruit thereof? Yet, how rarely does the skilful artisan, or he who labours in the field, think of, or care for, those who are to enjoy the good things of life he is producing! His thought is on ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur
... dinner the skipper was in better humor than ever, and took his turn at the helm. Noll, wandering about the deck, stopped to watch him, whereupon the master of the "Gull" good-naturedly answered all his questions, and even allowed him to take the tiller a few minutes, laughing the while at his white hands that could hardly ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord
... "The tiller of the soil is going forth again to his work. Do not turn your eyes from him, and let a feeling of impatience stir in your heart because he is not a soldier rushing to battle, or a brilliant orator holding thousands enchained by the ...
— Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures • T. S. Arthur
... on softly round the tongue of land, being maybe about fifty paces from the mound across the water. And when we saw the other side of Sigurd's resting place, the oars stayed suddenly, and the jarl, who held the tiller, swung the boat away from the shore, and I think I knew then ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler
... age, clad in golden shining bronze scale armour and wearing a silver helm on which were short, black, curving horns; and he bore a double-headed axe, besides the sword at his side. He looked round on us—at the men standing silent, at Kenulf, and at me as I stood on the after deck resting on the tiller, and broke into a ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... seat of the boat Mercer and Anina sat side by side, the girl steering by a small tiller that lay between them. They were well out in the middle of the river now, speeding silently along with its swift current. They made extraordinary speed. Both banks of the river were visible in the twilight—dim, wooded hills stretching ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings
... Jacky, forward with the jib-sheet in his capable little fist and the bail bucket handy, scowled darkly at the gale, being alert as a cat, the while; and the skipper, his mild smile unchanged by all the tumult, kept a hand on the mainsheet and tiller, and a keen, quiet eye on the canvas and on the vanishing rocks whither we were bound. And forth and back she went, back and forth, again and again, without end—beating up ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... on paper, but I assure you it was a time of intense excitement to us; if in the moment of deadly struggle the tiller ropes had broken, or the helmsman had made one false turn of the wheel, we might have got across the boiling rapids, and then good-bye to sublunary friends; our bones might have been floating past Quebec before the news of our ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... the fifth Saturday of our cruise, I waited till the changing of the watch; then I stole noiselessly upon deck, and secreted myself behind a life-boat which hung at the side of the vessel. The helmsman was nodding silently upon his tiller; two seamen sat motionless upon the bow, and the lookout party in the crow's-nest talked mutteringly of our ill-luck as they scanned the horizon. The Northern Lights were pulsing like some great radiating heart, and ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... unable to sleep. I suppose I was over-weary, and after a little feverish slumber by the tiller of the barge I ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... of all this turmoil was a pillar of inky blackness, which, when observed by the writer, who had the tiller, seemed fifty feet high and about ten feet wide. Now it was a hundred feet wide, and growing with ominous speed. The easy quarter breeze that had been fanning us along mysteriously crept away, as if awed by the strange apparition. The laughing gulls that had hovered above the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... the same feeling; they gave way to the feelings inspired by the situation, and gradually each one felt his eyelids grow heavy. It was Hatteras's watch. He took the tiller; the doctor, Altamont, Johnson, and Bell fell asleep, stretched on the benches, and soon were dreaming soundly. Hatteras struggled against his sleepiness; he wished to lose not a moment; but the gentle ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... ship shook as the engines ceased revolving, and then reversed in stopping her. Orders were flung about fast. A man climbed to the lookout as the first officer began to put a boat into the water. The crew of it and the second officer were already at the oars and the tiller as the ropes slid in the blocks. The passengers came crowding from their cabins, where they were dressing for dinner, and there were many expressions of surprise and slight terror. Death aboard ship is terrible in its imminence ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... At the tiller stood our guide and boatman, his sombre eye steady on the south-by-east. Around the horizon of his countenance there spread a dark and six-days' beard, like a slowly rising thunder-cloud; ever and anon ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... to the sou'-westers of the present day, and his rough heavy coat, closed up to the chin, was in texture and form not unlike to the pilot-cloth jackets of modern seamen—only it had tags and loops instead of buttons and button-holes. With his legs wide apart, he stood at the tiller, round which there was a single turn of a rope from the weather-bulwarks to steady it and himself. The boy was clad in miniature costume of much the same cut and kind, and proud was he to stagger about the ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... straight to port, but the breeze was brisker, and she hated the thought of losing it. She had handled the tiller of small craft, but would not have dared to bring around the Savonarola with her vast sweep of sail, even had she cared to regain the original course.... Bedient could not hold these two men at bay all night. He looked as if he might fall any moment. And now he had postponed his talk with Framtree. ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... full and no more till we have stowed all away here." When the chain was stowed below, and the anchor securely fastened, Tripper went aft and hauled in the main-sheet. "Up with the foresail, Tom. That is it. You keep the tiller, Jack." The two men now proceeded to coil down all the ropes, and get everything ship-shape and tidy. By the time they had finished, Harwich was fairly behind them, and they were laying their course a point or two outside the Naze, throwing the spray high each time the ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... stepped from the dory into the boat, and he flung out the dory's anchor and followed. The sail went up with a pleasant clucking of the tackle, and the light wind filled it. Libby made the sheet fast, and, sitting down in the stern on the other side, took the tiller and headed the boat toward the town that shimmered in the distance. The water hissed at the bow, and seethed and sparkled from the stern; the land breeze that bent their sail blew cool upon her cheek and freshened it with ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... from the tiller, down the pilot rolled. Thrice round the billow whirled her, as she lay, Then whelmed below. Strewn here and there behold Arms, planks, lone swimmers in the surges grey, And treasures snatched from Trojan homes away. Now fail the ships wherein Achates ride And Abas; ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... so one of the curtains is drawn aside, and she can see what 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 ...
— Wagner • John F. Runciman
... the eldest son of Adam and Eve (Gen. iv.), was a tiller of the ground, whilst his younger brother, Abel, was a keeper of sheep. Enraged because the Lord accepted Abel's offering, and rejected his own, he slew his brother in the field (see ABEL). For this a curse was pronounced upon him, and he was condemned to be a ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... got Cap'n Jonadab talking "boat," and when Jonadab talks "boat" there ain't no stopping him. He's the smartest feller in a cat-boat that ever handled a tiller, and he's won more races than any man on the Cape, I cal'late. Phil asked him and me if we'd ever sailed on an ice-boat, and, when we said we hadn't he asks if we won't take a sail with him on the river next morning. ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... bade a cheerful good-bye to Marsden, who stood rolling up his shirt-sleeves, and giving copious advice. The amateur skipper cast off from the little dock, lowered the centreboard, and stretched himself lazily in the stern, with one hand on the tiller. Peace was in his heart, and a pipe in his mouth—what could man ask more ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... captain. And Nelson replied: "Yes, my backbone is shot through." But he showed no agitation, and as the men carried him below he covered his decorations with a handkerchief, lest the crew should notice them and realize that they had lost their chief, and he gave Hardy an order to see that tiller-lines were rigged on the rudder-head, to replace the ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... aboard, and Margaret curled herself in the cockpit on a rug, while Falkner ran up the sails. Little waves were dancing across the harbor. Taking the tiller, he ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... other's hands for a long farewell; and, tossed by the tremendous waves, the schooner was on the very point of being hurled upon the cliff, when a ringing shout was heard. "Quick, boys, quick! Hoist the jib, and right the tiller!" ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... down into my old place at the tiller without another word—for the thought went through me like a knife that something had happened to Captain Ravender. I should consider myself unworthy to write another line of this statement, if I had not made up my mind to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth—and ...
— The Wreck of the Golden Mary • Charles Dickens
... time they took a rotten old leaky boat they were poor and could afford no other—they took, I say, a rotten old leaky boat whose tiller was loose and whose sails mouldy, and whose blocks were jammed and creaking, and whose rigging frayed, and they boldly set out together into ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... thirty-two pounds of gunpowder by way of ammunition.(516) The mention of "teleres" and the small amount of ammunition favours the assumption that the instruments were rather hand-guns than heavy pieces, as has been supposed.(517) A "telere" or tiller was a common name for the stock of a cross-bow,(518) and the earliest hand-guns or fire-arms known consisted of a simple tube of metal with touch-hole, fixed on a straight stick or shaft, which when used was passed under the arm so as to afford ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... awful discovery, hesitated between stopping and flying from the room before he should discover her. But she felt no fear of the man himself, and bracing her nerves, struck a light. It showed Gray Michael sitting up and evidently under the impression he was at sea. He grasped the bed-head as a tiller and ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... cynical robber, loved the sea. His ardent temperament, greedy for impressions, never tired of contemplating its infinite, free and powerful immensity. It offended him to receive such a reply to his question concerning the beauty of the sea that he loved. Seated at the tiller, he cleaved the water with his oar and gazed tranquilly before him, filled with the desire to thus continue rowing ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... were coming down the river, we saw something swimming, which proved to be a bear. We had no arms, but we pulled over the beast, and had a regular squaw-fight with him. We were an hour at work with this animal, the fellow coming very near mastering us. I struck at his nose with an iron tiller fifty times, but he warded the blow like a boxer. He broke our boat-hook, and once or twice, he came near boarding us. At length a wood-boat gave us an axe, and with this we killed him. Mr. Osgood had this bear skinned, and said ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... of the rudder," said Rollo. "The rudder is what we steer the boat by, and the tiller is the handle of it. The rudder itself is down below ...
— Rollo in Geneva • Jacob Abbott
... obscurity by personal address and courage to the command of armies. Colleoni fought his way up from the grooms to princely station and the baton of S. Mark. Francesco Sforza, whose father had begun life as a tiller of the soil, seized the ducal crown of Milan, and founded a house which ranked among the ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... an airplane has to be learned mechanically. Once learned the aviator applies his knowledge intuitively. He "senses" the position and progress of the craft by the feel of the controls, as the man at the yacht's tiller tells mysteriously how she is responding to the breeze by "the feel." Even before the 'plane responds to some sudden gust of wind, or drops into a hole in the air, the trained aviator will foresee ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... where the tiller is tilling the hard ground and where the pathmaker is breaking stones. He is with them in sun and in shower, and his garment is covered with dust. Put of thy holy mantle and even like him come ...
— Gitanjali • Rabindranath Tagore
... labour in hot-beds is reared, Secur'd by nice art from the dews and the rains, Unsound at the root may with justice be feared, If it pay not with int'rest the tiller's hard pains. ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb |
