"Windlass" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... from other kinds of comedy—(1) in having no proper plot; (2) in not being presented primarily on the stage; (3) in having but one actor. Eudicos imitated the gestures of boxing; Theodorus the creaking of a windlass; Parmeno did the grunting of a pig to perfection. Any one who raised a laugh by such kinds if imitation was properly said mimum agere. Mimes are thus defined by Diomedes (p. 491, 13 k), sermones cuiuslibet et molus sine reverentia vel factorum et dictorum turpium cum lascivia imitatio. Such ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... and rose, making his way forward about the narrow deck-space outside the cabin. Halvard was seated on a coil of rope beside the windlass and stood erect as Woolfolk approached. The sailor was smoking a short pipe, and the bowl made a crimson spark in his thick, powerful hand. John Woolfolk fingered the wood surface of the windlass bitts and found it rough ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer
... of the bucket against the stones, the rumble of the windlass, and then Dilly came in with a brimming bright tin dipper. She offered it first to the parson, and though she refilled it scrupulously for each pair of lips, it seemed a holy loving-cup. They sat there in the darkening room, and Dilly ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... certain vessel whose familiar rigging had quickly caught his eye. Her gaskets were off, her sails unfurled; she was just starting back to the United States. As he came closer, a crowd of sailors sprang upon the forecastle head, and the windlass-bars rose and fell as the anchor was torn from ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... windlass went staggering back from the belch of violently discharged air: it tore the wind-sail to strips, sent stones and gravel flying, loosened planks and props. Their shouts drawing no response, the younger ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... spacious and timbered room, with one large bull's eye window,—an overgrown lens. The thing is a sort of Cyclops. There are ropes, and chains, and a windlass. There is a bell by which the engineer of the first engine can signal the plowman, and a cord whereby the plowman can talk back. There are two sweeps, or arms, worked by machinery, on the sides. You ask ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... into that fearful abyss into which we were soon to descend. We could eat no breakfast, and could drink no coffee, and so we were soon ready for our day's journey. We followed a narrow footpath until we reached a shelf, where we were seated in a skid, and let down by a windlass 500 feet or so, to a landing-place, from which we clambered downward to a second windlass and a second skid, which was the most fearful of all, because we were dangling about without any thing to steady ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... discoveries of the greatest interest and value. The stray holiday visitor to Greenwich Park, who feels tempted to look over the wooden paling, sees only a series of deal sheds, upon a rough grass-plat; a mast some eighty feet high, steadied by ropes, and having a lantern at the top, and a windlass below; and if he looks closer, he perceives a small inner inclosure, surrounded by a dwarf fence; an upright stand, with a movable top, sheltering a collection of thermometers; and here and there a pile of planks and unused partitioning, that helps to give ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... gale nearly the whole length of the hempen cable, of 120 fathoms, was veered out, besides the chain-moorings, and, for its preservation, the cable was carefully "served", or wattled, with pieces of canvas round the windlass, and with leather well greased in the hawse-hole, where ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... enough to be quit of him so soon, but I noticed that, as I stripped and packed my clothes to carry in a bundle on my head, the holy man set his foot in the stirrup of his weapon, and was winding up his arbalest with a windlass, a bolt in his mouth, watching at the same time a heron that rose from a marsh on the further side of the stream. On this bird, I deemed, he meant to try his ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... looked wildly about him. His eyes fell on a heavy piece of iron, left on the deck by some seaman who had been repairing the windlass. Like a ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick
... Look round; see the immense quantity of heaps, and the extent of ground they cover, almost as far as the eye can reach up the lead, and imagine the busy scene which the place must have presented in the earlier days of the rush, when each of these shafts was fitted with its windlass, and each mound was covered with toiling men. In one place a couple of engine-sheds still remain, a gaunt erection supporting the water-tanks; the poppet-heads towering above all, still fitted with the wheels that helped to bring the gold to the surface. How deserted and desolate the place ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... flagellations are quite sickening in detail, as distinguished from the tidy, decorous executions of the early Italians; and one feels that they do enjoy seeing, as in one of their prints, the bowels of St. Erasmus being taken out with a windlass, or Jael, as Altdorfer has shown her in his romantic print, neatly hammering the nail into the head of the sprawling, snoring Sisera. There is a good deal of grossness, too (of which, among the Italians, even Robetta and similar, there is so little), in the details of village fairs ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... were faced with bas-reliefs representing scenes in his life done in massive silver. The priest put on a short white lace garment over his black robe, crossed himself, bowed reverently, and began to turn a windlass slowly. The sarcophagus separated in two parts, lengthwise, and the lower part sank down and disclosed a coffin of rock crystal as clear as the atmosphere. Within lay the body, robed in costly habiliments covered with gold embroidery and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... 1805] 25th of February Monday 1805 we fixed a Windlass and Drew up the two Perogues on the upper bank and attempted the Boat, but the Roap which we bade made of Elk Skins proved too weak & broke Several times night Comeing on obliged us to leave her in a Situation but little advanced- we were Visited by the Black ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... fig and olive trees. Where you perceive that red glare—the flame of a smelting furnace—there was an orangery. I ought to know the spot well. There, where a summerhouse stood, on that rocky point, they have got a crane and a windlass. Now, turn to this other side. The road you saw to-day, crossed with four main lines, cut up, almost impassable between mud, rubbish, and fallen timber, with swampy excavations on one side and brick-fields on the other, led—ay, and not four years ago—along the margin of ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... get the anchor up to the bows; and the ship was drifting finely towards the beach, when the cable, not being stopped abaft the bitts, began suddenly to run out with great velocity; but a bight having by accident been thrown forward of the windlass, a riding turn was the consequence, and the anchor, in its descent, was suddenly checked about fifteen fathoms from the hawse. A squall soon after coming on, the vessel drifted obliquely towards the shore, and grounded upon a ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... to be so good. So, at last, they put a ladder into the pit, one man carrying the gravel up in a hod, while the other dug it; and when they had gone down so deep that this was no longer practicable, they rigged up a derrick and windlass and drew up the gravel ...
— My Terminal Moraine - 1892 • Frank E. Stockton
... early one morning. It was the 10th of September. The enemy was coming. Sails were sticking out of the misty dawn a few miles away. In a moment our decks were black and noisy with the hundred and two that manned the vessel. It was every hand to rope and windlass then. Sails went up with a snap all around us, and the creak of blocks sounded far and near. In twelve minutes we were under way, leading the van to battle. The sun came up, lighting the great towers of canvas. Every vessel was now feeling for the wind, some with oars and sweeps to ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... his body, than his hands. I am describing the indescribable, and compelled to make it too definite for belief. In colder speech, an experience had come to the child; a link in the chain of his development glided over the windlass of his uplifting; a change passed upon him. In after years, when Gibbie had the idea of God, when he had learned to think about him, to desire his presence, to believe that a will of love enveloped his will, as the brooding hen spreads her wings over her eggs—as often as the thought of ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... anywhere—at any rate none could be found from our small boat. They kept at this kedging till midnight, and later, dropping the anchor ahead from the small boat, then hauling the ship up to it by the chain and steam windlass—with the variations splendid exercise ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... four miles of plank road and driving it through the pulsating heart of a colored camp-meeting. The calf had forgotten to remember the well, and while my respected sire was chasing the kettle to the bottom, the calf was chasing him. Half a dozen robust neighbors armed with a windlass and a two-inch rope dragged the youthful ox and his unfortunate companions from the pit, and the volunteer fire brigade was sent for to turn the hose on them. I haven't forgotten the sequel to this little story; but it would not possess that lively interest for the great public ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... trees for rollers; we dug and graded the beach. Then, having altogether unloaded her and built a high cache of poles and a platform for her stuff, and having chopped the ice from all around her, we rigged a Spanish windlass and wound that boat out of the water with the half-inch cable she carried, and up on the ways and well into the mouth of the little creek. Then we levelled her up and thoroughly braced her and put her canvas cover all over her, and she lay there until ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... California. (See note to plate 3.) In the foreground, on the left, a miner washes dirt in a pan. Above, and to the left, a miner washes in a rocker or cradle, the pay-dirt coming in a tram-car from the tunnel, in which are drift-diggings. The men at the windlass are sinking a shaft, prospecting for drift-deposits. To the right, in the foreground, three men are working a long-tom, which, in point of time, followed the rocker. One of the miners is keeping the ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... for an hour shifting what was movable to the stern, but without result. Next, an anchor was carried a hundred feet up stream and imbedded in the oozy bed of the river, while sturdy arms on board tugged at the connecting hawser by means of a windlass, with the screw desperately helping, but the hull would not yield an inch. Finally the efforts were given up. Nothing remained but to wait till the rising tide should lift the mountainous burden and swing ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... before me, my thoughts touched upon other happenings of that boyhood voyage—the long, tedious beat through the straits against light head winds and a continuous head tide; the man-killing log windlass, round which we hove, and lightened, chain of an eight-inch link; the natives, with their welcome fruit in exchange for trinkets; and, lastly, the white-haired old pilot, who came forward to visit me ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... and way down we could hear an awful splashing. Sailor Bill yelled down, "Look out below; stand from under; bucket coming!" With that he loosed the windlass. In a few seconds a spluttering voice from the depths yelled up to us, ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... and shouts of warning. He looked back in time to see the huge stone turn part way round on the chute and rush, end first, earthward. Expectant silence fell, broken only by the vicious snarl of a flying windlass crank. But in an instant the great slab struck the earth with a thunderous sound that reverberated again and again from the barren hills about. A vast all-enveloping cloud of dust and earth filled the hollow quarry like smoke from an explosion. But there was no ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... mile away—were at work in the old shipyard across the Maas at Papendrecht. Marny was painting a Dutch lugger with a brown-madder hull and an emerald-green stern, up on the ways for repairs. Pudfut had the children of the Captain posed against a broken windlass rotting in the tall grass near the dock, and Malone and Schonholz, pipe in mouth, were on their backs smoking. "It wasn't their kind of a mornin'," ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... nail, which may be held in a small retort clip, and fasten a stout wire crank handle into the other one. Support the neck of the handle by means of a second clip. In this way we easily get a sort of windlass quite strong ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall
... but as much by a new idea that had entered my mind, I stepped upon the staging and glided cautiously aboard. I caught a glimpse of the sailors far off in the forward part of this ship—some seated upon the windlass, others squatted upon the deck itself, with their tin plates before them, and their jack-knives in their hands. Not one of them saw me—not one was looking in my direction: their eyes were too busy with the cook and his ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... and when they are both used at once the cable is said to be double-bitted. Since the introduction of chain-cables, bitts are coated with iron, and vary in their shapes. There are several other smaller bitts; as, the topsail-sheet bitts, paul-bitts, carrick-bitts, windlass-bitts, winch-bitts, jear-bitts, riding-bitts, ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... heard tell. His coat was black samite, and his hat was goodly sable. His quiver was richly laced, and covered with a panther's hide for the sake of the sweet smell. He bare, also, a bow that none could draw but himself, unless with a windlass. His cloak was a lynx-skin, pied from head to foot, and embroidered over with gold on both sides. Also Balmung had he done on, whereof the edges were so sharp that it clave every helmet it touched. I ween ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown
... thing Willie did was to construct a small windlass in the garden, with which to wind up or let out the string of the kite; and when the next fit morning arrived, Mona and he went out together. The wind blowing right through the garden, they did not go to the open field, but sent up the kite from ...
— Gutta-Percha Willie • George MacDonald
... The windlass creaked protestingly and the heavy chain dropped slowly into the river. The barge steered to the center of the channel, gathering speed as it passed ...
— Millennium • Everett B. Cole
... his watch, at the tide, and gave the word to man the windlasses. Then with a glance towards the cliff he started the working chant—"Ayee-ho, Ayee-ho!" The two gangs—twenty men to each windlass—took it up with one voice, and to the deep intoned chant the chains tautened, shuddered for a ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... more than an hour the two boys were wandering about the dock-yards of the sea-port town, and deeply engaged in examining the complicated rigging of the ships. While thus occupied, the clanking of a windlass and the merry "Yo heave O! and away she goes," of the ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... lances, &c., all were ready to throw in, and start away at a moment's notice. The man in the "crow's-nest", as they call the cask fixed up at the masthead, was looking anxiously out for whales, and the crew were idling about the deck. Tom Lokins was seated on the windlass smoking his pipe, and I was sitting beside him on an empty cask, sharpening ...
— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne
... an interval of half a minute between the time I reached the windlass, and that in which I saw a tremendous white foaming sea rolling down upon the vessel. At this ominous sight, I instinctively seized the bitts for protection. I can remember the rushing of the water down upon me, and have some faint impressions of ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... With the Willie Meena still sinking on high-grade ore, Judson Eells had taken a good deal for granted when he had set out to develop the Stinging Lizard. He had squared out his shaft and sunk on the vein only as far as the muckers could throw out the waste; and then, instead of installing a windlass or a whim, he had decided upon a gallows-frame and hoist. But to bring in his machinery he must first have a road, for the trail was all but impassable; and so, without sinking, he had blasted his way up the canyon, only to find his efforts wasted. The ore had been dug out before his engine ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... and the workmen left the pits, with the exception of those in charge of the mines. They ascended by means of little tubs hanging by ropes, and were raised by a windlass. It is a terrible sight to see the men soaring up on the little machine, especially when two or three ascend at once; for then one man stands in the centre, while the other two ride on ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... I gave the order to heave anchor at 8.45 a.m. on December 5, 1914, and the clanking of the windlass broke for us the last link with civilization. The morning was dull and overcast, with occasional gusts of snow and sleet, but hearts were light aboard the 'Endurance'. The long days of preparation were over and the adventure ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... the second mate and Jack Reeves started on this mission of mercy, and were soon followed by nearly all the crew. Upon reaching the forecastle we found the body of a man lying across the heel of the bowsprit, jammed against the windlass pawl. The insensible form was lifted from its resting place, and, by the captain's order, finally deposited in the cabin on the transom. The skipper, steward, and myself, remained below to try and resuscitate ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... Jose and the traitorous Indian stood over the windlass, by means of which the rope was worked, and as I ran to their side, one of the Spanish soldiers uttered a cry of alarm. Instantly all was tumult and confusion. Shots were fired at random, men shouted wildly, "We are betrayed!" while, above all, Jose's ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... thought them stumpy and heavy-looking; and he did not admire the red sails with crooked gaffs, and smiled at the blue pennants, stretched out on stiff frames that turned with the wind. But when Greta showed him a tiny windlass on the deck, by means of which she easily raised and lowered the mast, he came to the conclusion that a Dutch canal-boat was not to ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... cents a week. His business was to lower great packages of boxes from the upper story to the ground floor. He thought how delightful it would be to go down himself on the rope. One day he induced a small boy who worked near, pasting, to mind the windlass while he descended by hanging on above the usual pits of boxes. The sensation was novel and pleasing and it became exciting when the boy above leaned over and shouted: "The boss is coming, look out for yourself. I'll have to go." An instant later Paul and the boxes crashed together ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... vine give, as if uncoiling itself from a windlass. Down, down he fell until his feet touched the soggy earth of the island. Still the vine uncoiled; the island crashed into the boulder. Desperately Piang tried to climb the vine, but its slackness offered no resistance. Slowly the island began to tip, to slide over the falls, ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... a slowness of movement Wallie never had seen equalled. Whenever he looked through the window, it was to see one or the other resting from the exertion of emptying a bucket of dirt or turning the windlass. ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... struggle continued, until the turtle gave in, when, passing a rope round one of its flippers to prevent its sinking, we towed it alongside the schooner. The turtle, however, was not dead. As we hoisted it on board, by means of the windlass and a couple of tackles fastened to a rope secured round its flippers, its huge jaws, large enough to bite a man in two, opened and shut, biting furiously at everything near it. We calculated that the monster weighed fully six ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... have the same things to eat they used to have, or, if they do, it all tastes different. Do you remember the old well, with the windlass and the chain fastened to the rope just above the bucket, the chain that used to cluck-cluck when the dripping bucket came within reach to be swung upon the well-curb? How cold the water used to be, right out of the northwest corner of the well! It made the roof of your mouth ache when you drank. ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... hastened to implore him to adopt that darling also, to which, after some slight hesitation, he consented. Another twelvemonth rolled into eternity, when one evening the lady heard a noise in the back yard, and going out she saw her husband labouring at the windlass of the well with unwonted industry. As the bucket neared the top he reached down and extracted another infant, exactly like the former ones, and holding it up, explained to the astonished matron: "Look at this, now; did you ever see such a sweet young ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... the ill-starred family left it, was destroyed by fire a few years before the time of the picnic excursion. Near the low foundation walls of blackened stone stood the wooden curb surrounding the mouth of a deep well. The old windlass, below which a leaky bucket still swung, was kept in repair by unknown hands. Upon looking for the man whom Eva had discovered, Mrs. Arlington saw leaning upon the curb, in a posture of meditation, ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... moment seemed to be at hand, and the familiars already grasped him rudely to hurl him on the rack, when, as if suddenly inspired by a superhuman strength, the young nobleman dashed the men from him; then, with lightning speed, he seized a massive iron bar that was used to move the windlass of the rack, and in another instant, before a saving arm could intervene, the deadly instrument struck down the Count of Arestino at the feet of the grand inquisitor, who started back with a cry of horror! ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... alongside Adelaide Creek, till we come to a high range of rocks, which we cross, and then find ourselves near the head-waters of Fryer's Creek. Following that stream towards the Loddon, we pass the interesting neighbourhood of Golden Gully, Moonlight Flat, Windlass and Red Hill; this latter which covers about two acres of ground is so called from the colour of the soil, it was the first found, and is still considered as the richest auriferous spot near Mount Alexander. In the wet season, ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... alti-rilievi in gold and silver, delicately wrought by skilful hands, and representing the principal events in the life of the saint. Jewels, and precious metals, shine and sparkle on every side. A windlass slowly removes the front of the altar; and, within it, in a gorgeous shrine of gold and silver, is seen, through alabaster, the shrivelled mummy of a man: the pontifical robes with which it is adorned, ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... chain winding up around it. The chain came in through a round hole in the ship's side, with a loud 'click, click,' and I learned that they called it a 'cable,' while the machine we were working was called a 'windlass.' The cable was of course fast to the anchor, and it was very evident to me that we were going to put to sea immediately. The idea of it was now as dreadful to me as it had before been agreeable, when I had contemplated it from ...
— Cast Away in the Cold - An Old Man's Story of a Young Man's Adventures, as Related by Captain John Hardy, Mariner • Isaac I. Hayes
... second day Gifford had built our rude windlass, and the work of shaft sinking was begun. The gravel layer varies in thickness in different parts of the district, ranging from a few inches in some places to many feet in others. In our case we were less than waist-deep in the hole, and ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... so," Bristles hastened to admit, as he cast a quick glance at the almost ropeless wooden windlass; "don't you see the bucket's away down? Whoever it is, Fred, they just can't climb up again. It takes you to get on the inside ...
— Fred Fenton on the Track - or, The Athletes of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... these runnels and supplied the basins with drinking water. The mangers have holes bored in the stone through which passed the halters. There are indications that the cattle were hauled up by means of a windlass. ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... kind of Paul you mean," said Tom with a laugh. "It's spelled differently. A pawl is a sort of catch that fits into a ratchet wheel and pushes it around, or it may be used as a catch to prevent the backward motion of a windlass or the wheel on a derrick. I'll have it fixed ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-cycle • Victor Appleton
... forward and secure them," replied the lieutenant. "Overhaul the boat's falls, and bring to with the windlass." ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... what the seamen were about; they appeared to be pumping, instead of heaving, at the windlass. I forced my way through the heterogeneous mixture of human beings, animals, and baggage which crowded the decks, and discovered that they were working a patent windlass, by Dobbinson—a very ingenious ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... dreams, sat silent, balancing the sack of ore in a bronzed and rock-scarred hand. He was a powerful man, with the broad, square-set shoulders that come from much swinging of a double jack or cranking at a windlass. The curling beard of youth had covered his hard-bitten face and his head was unconsciously thrust forward, as if he still glimpsed his vision and was eager to follow it further. The crowd settled down and gazed at him curiously, for they knew he had a story to tell, and at last the ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... windlass rattle. Keep quiet, fellows." Suddenly all the lights on deck save that in the binnacle went out, leaving the boat in darkness. Nearby the red flash of the lighthouse glowed periodically, while, ahead, shone the white beacon. In silence the Adventurer drew nearer and nearer to the ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... chance to get our heaving line on board. Then, as soon as I wave my hand, go ahead gently until you have brought a strain upon the hawser, when you may increase the speed to about twelve knots—not more, or you will tear the windlass out of the barque. Steer straight out between those two bergs, and remember that moments ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... a triangular frame, on which the prisoner was stretched and bound, so that he could not move. Cords were attached to his arms and legs, and then connected with a windlass, which, when turned, dislocated the joints of the wrists ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard
... priests could sit and meditate on the latter end of things; the paths were brick paved, and the naked feet of thousands had worn them into gutters. Clumps of mangoes sprouted from between the bricks; great pipal trees overhung the well-windlass that whined all day; and hosts of parrots tore through the trees. Crows and squirrels were tame in that place, for they knew that never a priest ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... to exist in an old house in the Hradschin in Prague—one communicating from the foundation to the roof "by a windlass or turnpike." A subterranean passage extends also from the house beneath the street and the cathedral, and is said to have its exit in the Hirch Graben, or vast natural moat which bounds the chateau ...
— Secret Chambers and Hiding Places • Allan Fea
... Harris when she went there to see Cousin Rose. All day long they wandered over the farm with Uncle John, first to feed the chickens, then to the well so dark and deep Nellie shuddered when she looked far, far down into it, and held tight to Rose for fear of falling. Uncle John turned the windlass to let Rose and Nellie see the bucket rise all ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... and cattle swimming to and from the vessel, their noses projecting over the sides of rowboats, is interesting. Even trained circus animals are subject to this moist ordeal. By crude tackle and steam-turned windlass, suspended in midair, the poor beasts find ship asylum a most welcome port of entry. One passenger is both amusing and annoying. This odd-geared Teuton hails from Hamburg. Like most stuttering unfortunates, he is a chronic talker. He stutters ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... took the helm and laid her bow across the stream, but the swift current swept them downward. After incredible labor they made the opposite bank, but far below the steamboat. Closely hugging the shore, they now crept up the stream, and fastening the line to a tree, rigged a windlass, and finally warped the vessel again into ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... an aggrieved air. "I'd like to see you stop them, with a rawhide lasso round your neck, and a big Korak hauling like a steam windlass on the other end of it! It's all very well to cry 'stop 'em'; but when the barbarians haul you off the rear end of your sledge as if you were a wild animal, what course would your sublime wisdom suggest? ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... hotel, he was assured that there were at least a couple of dozen. But the place was bewildering. There seemed to be no beginning to it and no end. There were many tracks about here and there,—but nothing which could be called a road. The number of holes was infinite,—each hole covered by a rough windlass used for taking out the dirt, which was thrown loosely anywhere round the aperture. Here and there were to be seen little red flags stuck upon the end of poles. These indicated, as Mick informed them, those fortunate adventures in which gold had been found. At those ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... medicine. It paid him better than his salts and rhubarb. That was before the hotels opened, and while all the grog was sold on the sly. They marched in, dressed up as if they'd been in George Street, though everybody knew one of 'em had been at the windlass all day with the wages man, and the other two below, working up to their knees in water; for they'd come on a drift in their claim, and were puddling back. However, that says nothing; we were all in good clothes ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... wharf, I removed the saddle, and placing a strong rope round his neck, had it attached to the windlass, not to drag him on board, but to make him feel if he refused to advance that he was powerless to resist, an indispensable precaution in breaking horses. Once and once only he attempted escape; he reared and threw himself, but finding the ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... was not yet finished; masons and stone-cutters were engaged in covering the strong walls with dark serpentine and black marble. The huge windlass stood ready to raise a masterpiece of Alexandrian art. This was intended for the pediment, and represented Venus Victrix with helmet, shield, and lance, leading a band of winged gods of love, little archers at whose head Eros himself was discharging ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the rattle of the windlass letting go the anchor chain. On the deck of the schooner men ran about as the sails were lowered. The vessel swung gently until the bow headed into the current of the ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... Pioneer, which on three consecutive occasions attacked the Yeh T'an when at its worst, and, though steaming a good fourteen knots, failed to ascend. She was obliged to lay out a long steel-wire hawser, and heave herself over by means of her windlass, the engines working at full speed at the same time. Hard and heavy was the heave, gaining foot by foot, with a tension on the hawser almost to breaking strain in a veritable battle against the dragon of the river. Yet so complete are the changes which are wrought ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... exclaimed, as he stepped ashore, "it has taken as much out of me as working a windlass for a day. I am blamed if I did not think the hull boat was coming to pieces. I thought it was all over with us for sure, Harry; when she first felt the rope, the water came in right over ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... also several "helmets." These "helmets" were strange looking contrivances, fastened over the head and shoulders, air-tight, and provided with oxygen sufficient to last for an hour or more. The men who wore them sat in a big bucket which was let down the shaft with a windlass, and every now and then they pulled on a signal-cord to let those on the surface know they were alive. When the first of them came back, he reported that there were bodies near the foot of the shaft, but apparently all dead. There was heavy black smoke, indicating a fire somewhere ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... up to his work though taking it easily, in so light a boat that the Rogue remarked: 'A little less on you, and you'd a'most ha' been a Wagerbut'; then went to work at his windlass handles and sluices, to let the sculler in. As the latter stood in his boat, holding on by the boat-hook to the woodwork at the lock side, waiting for the gates to open, Rogue Riderhood recognized his 'T'other governor,' Mr Eugene Wrayburn; who was, however, too indifferent or ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... obediently made a few turns on the windlass, and as the bag came up, two terrapin of the then common diamond-back variety rolled on the deck, and ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... be employed, the long end of the shaft was drawn down by a windlass; the sling was laid forward in a wooden trough provided for it, and charged with the shot. The counterpoise was, of course, now aloft, and was so maintained by a detent provided with a trigger. On pulling this, the counterpoise falls and the shaft flies upwards drawing ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... Through the noisome and smoke-grimed city, Turning the wheels and the spindles, And the great looms that have no pity,— Weight, and pulley, and windlass, And steel that flashes and kindles, And hears no forest-learnt ditty, Not even in dreams ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... at the castle gate. A crowd of their assailants were close upon their heels. Walter glanced round; dashing across the courtyard he ran through some passages into an inner yard, in which, as he knew, was the well. The bucket hung at the windlass. ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... cuts indicating the line along which ran the early cars on stones in which grooves were cut for the guidance of the wheels instead of the steel rail and the flange wheel of the present day. These early cars were drawn by mules, after they had been pulled by a windlass up the cliff from the boat landing at Frankfort. The mules and the rock rails were soon replaced by two locomotives and iron rails. One engine brought the train from Frankfort to a point half way, by noon, and after the passengers had eaten dinner at Midway, the other ...
— The story of Kentucky • Rice S. Eubank
... having learned little discretion afield, I cantered off, through a trampled tillage of wheat, and an interminable woods. In a half hour I rode into the familiar yard; but the place was so ruined that I hardly recognized it. Not a panel of fence remained: the lawn was a great pool of slime; the windlass had been wrenched from the well; a few gashed and expiring soldiers lay motionless beneath the oaks, the fields were littered with the remains of camps, and the old dwelling stood like a haunted thing upon a blighted plain. The idlers, the teamsters, and the tents were ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... on deck, the mate stretched me out on the windlass and commenced examining my limb; and then doctoring it after a fashion with something from the medicine-chest, rolled it up in a piece of an old sail, making so big a bundle that, with my feet resting on the windlass, ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... occasion, when she was becalmed and practically surrounded by a powerful British fleet, by "kedging"—in other words, sending a row-boat out with an anchor, which was dropped as far ahead as the boat could take it, and the ship pulled up to it by means of the windlass. As soon as the British saw him doing this, they tried it too, but Hull managed to get away from them by almost superhuman exertions. He served in the navy for many years after his memorable victory over the Guerriere, but ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... d—ning one of our new claims—"Dashaway"—which I don't think a great deal of, but which I am willing to try. We are down, now, 10 or 12 a feet. We are following down under the ledge, but not taking it out. If we get up a windlass to-morrow we shall take out the ledge, and see whether it is worth anything ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... there be any wickedness on board this ship, thought Captain Delano, be sure that man there has fouled his hand in it, even as now he fouls it in the pitch. I don't like to accost him. I will speak to this other, this old Jack here on the windlass. ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... raised up by the sliding frame, and the frame is raised by long screws turned round by a winch purchase on deck. A chain or rope, however, is better for the purpose of raising this frame, than long screws; but the frame should in such case be provided with pall catches like those of a windlass, which, if the rope should break, will prevent ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne
... sacks and threw them into the sea. Maria, too, took her part in these affairs, and once stabbed to the heart, with her own little dirk, the captain of a Liverpool brig, the Lion, and on another occasion, to indulge her whim, a captain and his two mates were tied up to the windlass while Maria shot them with her pistol. Maria always wore naval uniform, both at sea and when in port; in fact, she entered thoroughly into the ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... the friend they once could trust to serve their eager wish, Shall show no more the golden dust that hides in many a dish; And through the dismal mullock-heaps she threads her mournful way Where here and there some gray-beard keeps his windlass-watch to-day; Half-flood no more she looses her reins as once of old To wash the busy sluices and whisper through the gold. She sees no wild-eyed steers above stand spear-horned on the brink; The brumby mobs she used to love come down no more to ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... busiest sight in the village. Pretty young women chatter, laugh, and talk, and assume all sorts of picturesque attitudes as they fill their waterpots; the village matrons gossip, and sometimes quarrel, as they pull away at the windlass over the deep cool well. On the platform are a group of fat Brahmins nearly nude, their lighter skins contrasting well with the duskier hue of the lower classes. There are several groups. With damp ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... sufficiently to think clearly he realized that it was certain death for any one to attempt going down the ladder, and that his must be a waiting game. He glanced at his crew, thirteen good men, all armed with windlass bars and belaying pins, and gave them orders. Two were to watch the hatch and break the first head to appear, while the others returned to work. Hunger and thirst would do the rest. And what joy would be his when they ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... going to bring my ropes, my windlass, and set it up, and go down there with my boy and let myself be bitten, perhaps, by your cursed dog for the pleasure of giving it back to you? You should not ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... old man roaring, Johnny, One more day? Don't you hear that pilot bawling, One more day? Only one more day, my Johnny, One more day! O come rock and roll me over, One more day. —Windlass Song. ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... came," began Mr. Ackerman, "you must remember that paddle wheels had long been used, for both the Egyptians and the Romans had built galleys with oars that moved by a windlass turned by the hands of slaves or by oxen. Later there were smaller boats whose paddle wheels were driven by horses. So you see paddle wheels were nothing new; the world was just waiting for something that would turn them around. After the Marquis of Worcester had made ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... line, and Nelson and Bowen, with life-lines about them, bent the stubborn end of it around the windlass. It was heavy work, even for two men, on the tumbling, slippery deck, and, that done, they turned, anxiously, to see how the man in the stern of the tug was making out. He was there, back to, bending the thick stubborn bight about the ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... parade ground which was formerly the Constable's Garden. Here Sir Walter Raleigh was allowed to walk during his long imprisonment, and could sometimes converse over the wall with the passers-by. Observe the grooves for working the massive portcullis, which was raised by chains and a windlass. These still exist on the upper floor. Immediately adjoining the gateway on the east ...
— Authorised Guide to the Tower of London • W. J. Loftie
... sun and under the transparent shadows of the clouds, that it was hard to imagine the bay otherwise, for years past or to come, than it was that very day. The Tug-steamer lying a little off the shore, the Lighter lying still nearer to the shore, the boat alongside the Lighter, the regularly-turning windlass aboard the Lighter, the methodical figures at work, all slowly and regularly heaving up and down with the breathing of the sea, all seemed as much a part of the nature of the place as the tide itself. The tide was on the flow, and had been for some two hours and a half; there ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... even the simple task of conveying the Dobbins dwelling uphill and then down again. A house-moving firm from Pentonville, however, had engaged to perform the work. They had jacked up the house on screws, chained it securely to a log frame, and, setting a portable windlass at the top of the hill, ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... was the discussion they had that evening around the windlass on this subject. Some held that it was absurd to blame men for not being able, "when p'raps they couldn't if they wor to try." Others thought that they might have tried first before saying that "p'raps ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... to the house was over a drawbridge, the chains and windlass of which had long been rusted and broken. The latest tenants of the Manor House had, however, with characteristic energy, set this right, and the drawbridge was not only capable of being raised, but actually was raised every evening and lowered every morning. By ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... the Schachtmeister's office to another portion of the same building. Here are heaps of dark grey "macadamised" stones;—silver and lead ores just raised from the pit; over whose very mouth we are unknowingly standing. A windlass is in the centre of the chasm; and it is by means of this windlass that the metalliferous substance is raised to the surface in square wooden boxes. Here the dressing of the ores commences; boys cluster in all directions, under the wooden shed, ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... said, "we will run back to Bath—from which it will be easy for you to train to Falmouth. We will go by Monmouth and then turn back through the Forest of Dean, where you will get glimpses of primitive coal mines still worked by two men and a boy with a windlass and a pail. Perhaps we will go through Cirencester. I don't know. Perhaps it is better to go straight to Bath. In the very heart of Bath you will find yourselves in just the same world you visited at Pompeii. Bath is Pompeii overlaid by Jane ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... put on. Captain Fitz Roy gave up the attempt to get westward by the outside coast. In the evening we ran in behind False Cape Horn, and dropped our anchor in forty-seven fathoms, fire flashing from the windlass as the chain rushed round it. How delightful was that still night, after having been so long involved in the din of the ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... read, at the bottom of the water, characters of fire traced upon the letter the queen had touched. Then, scarcely knowing what I was about, and urged on by one of those instinctive impulses which drive men to destruction, I lowered the cord from the windlass of the well to within about three feet of the water, leaving the bucket dangling, at the same time taking infinite pains not to disturb that coveted letter, which was beginning to change its white tint for the hue of chrysoprase,—proof ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... romantic speculations of the kind. The pilot at the helm quietly smoked his pipe, thinking of nothing either past, present, or to come; those of his comrades who were not industriously smoking under the hatches were listening with open mouths to Antony Van Corlear, who, seated on the windlass, was relating to them the marvelous history of those myriads of fireflies, that sparkled like gems and spangles upon the dusky robe of night. These, according to tradition, were originally a race of pestilent sempiternous beldames, who peopled these parts long before the memory ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... averred they were not to be trusted, but I liked and trusted them. They carried me on their broad shoulders, stuffed me with lollies and made a general pet of me. Without the quiver of a nerve I swung down their deepest shafts in the big bucket on the end of a rope attached to a rough windlass, which brought up the ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... who four days previous, had stood erect—a pillar of life—with an arm like a royal-mast and a thigh like a windlass. But the slightest conceivable finger-touch of a bit of crooked trigger had eventuated in stretching him out, more helpless than an hour-old babe, with a blasted thigh, utterly drained of its brawn. And who was it that now stood over him like a superior being, and, as if clothed himself ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... description of the mechanical equipment of this era we are largely indebted to Agricola. He classifies hauling machines into four types; the ordinary bucket windlass, the piston (suction) pump, the chain of dippers, and the rag and chain pump. Although the first three had been known in antiquity, and the last perhaps a century before his time,[6] their use in mining would appear to date from the mid-14th century or later. His is not an historical account, ...
— Mine Pumping in Agricola's Time and Later • Robert P. Multhauf
... stillness and repose at 3 o'clock this morning sent me forth to see why the windlass was not being manned. A thing like a big grey bat flapping about, proved, on inspection, to be that rascal the Lord High Admiral Satarah. He said he could not start, as the hired coolies from Kunis had been so terrified by the horrors of yesterday that they had departed in the night, sacrificing ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... slipped over a vertical iron rod fastened into a circular perforated wooden foot. The upper end of this iron rod ended in a ring, in which the hook of a chain or rope could be fastened. With the aid of a windlass the roll was raised or lowered. When placed in the pan with boiling tar, it was left there until thoroughly saturated. It was then taken out, placed upon a table, and the excess of tar allowed to drip off into a vessel underneath. After partially drying, the roll was spread out ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various
... sister on the quay, very quiet but too upset to wave their handkerchiefs at the ship that glides out gently between the pier-heads; or perhaps some decent middle-aged father who had come early with his boy to see him off, and stays all the morning, because he is interested in the windlass apparently, and stays too long, and has got to scramble ashore at last with no time at all to say good-bye. The mud pilot on the poop sings out to me in a drawl, "Hold her with the check line for a moment, Mister Mate. There's a gentleman wants to get ashore. . . ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad |
