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More "Steersman" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that the dead steersman has been reverently removed from the place where he held his honourable watch and ward till death, a steadfastness as noble as that of the young Casabianca, and placed in the mortuary ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... sea-breeze arising; And I felt a chain broken, a sickness put from me As the sails drew, and merchant-folk, gathered together On the poop or the prow, 'gan to move and begone, Till at last 'neath the far-gazing eyes of the steersman By the loitering watch thou and I were left lonely, And we saw by the moon the white horses arising Where beyond the last headland the ocean abode us, Then came the fresh breeze and the sweep of the spray, ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris
... now," protested Colfax, born a Sims but living it down and feeling that never more than at this minute, when rudely the steersman's helm had been snatched from his grasp, was there greater need that he should be a Colfax through and through——"but, Mr. Lobel, it was my idea that up to this point anyway the action should be played with restraint to sort of prepare ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... navigator, and the standard compass, owing to its remoteness from iron in this position, is placed on the top of the ice-house. The steersman, however, steers by a binnacle compass placed aft in front of his wheel. But these two compasses for various reasons do not read alike at a given moment, while the standard is ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... The steersman answered with firmness, but with great civility of expression, that his orders were positive to bring no more than four into the island, but he offered to row back to obtain a ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... quiet in the lugger; no one spoke, except when the steersman was relieved, or when the master wished something done among the rigging. The men settled down on the weather side with their pipes and quids, and all through the short summer night we lay there, huddled half asleep together, running to the south like a stag. At ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... well as any pilot. No one who has not seen a rapid can realise the nerve this requires. Seats had been roughly put in for us to sit on, otherwise, as a rule, except for the oarsmen's bench and the barrels, these boats are absolutely empty. Our friend, the steersman, sat at the bow, and with a sort of oar, held in position by a rope of plaited straw fixed a little on one side, guided the fragile bark. First we had to go into a lock. Any one acquainted with a nice wide shallow Thames lock may think ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... it. There were little sliding windows, which with the open door afforded fairly decent ventilation. But the helm was just behind the deck house, and the helmsman either sat or stood on the roof, so that all night his responses to the steersman on the Blanco interfered with my sleep. Then, too, they kept their spare lanterns and their cocoanut oil and some coils of rope in there. At intervals soft-footed natives came in, and I was never certain whether it was to slay me or to get some ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... benefices, M. de Tressan dreamed of the cardinal's hat, and aspired to obtain it from the Court of Rome at the cost of a persecution. The government was at that time drifting about, without compass or steersman, from the hands of Madame de Prie to those of Paris-Duverney. Little cared they for the fate of the Reformers. "This castaway of the regency," says M. Lemontey, "was adopted without memorial, without examination, as an act of homage to ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... forged ahead with a tremble and start into the open sea. The red portlight of the waiting gunboat gleamed in the darkness a few points off her port bow. O'Connor swung her head around until the light was off the Mariella's quarter. Then he turned the wheel over to the steersman who stood ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... party, who assumed the office of helmsman, and pushed the boat off from the pier; whilst the others took the oars, which were muffled, and rowed with all precaution till they attained the middle of the river; they then ceased their efforts, lay upon their oars, and trusted to the steersman for ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... his work was done; and we must turn round and face a few land-going problems not quite so easy of solution. So Claude and I thought, as we leant over the sloop's bows, listening neither to the Ostend story forwards nor the forty-stanza ballad aft, which the old steersman was moaning on, careless of listeners, to keep himself awake at the helm. Forty stanzas or so we did count from curiosity; the first line of each ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... playing seesaw, as he closed his eyes to the heaving blue sea. Land was conspicuous by its absence, and with a groan he turned and looked about him—at the white scrubbed deck, the snowy canvas towering aloft on lazily creaking spars, and the steersman leaning against the wheel regarding the officer who ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... stern, much as boats are rounded off towards the bows at the present day. It did not possess either mast or sail, but was propelled wholly by oars, which were of the same shape as those used anciently by the rowers in the round boats. In the steersman's hand is seen an oar of a different kind. It is much longer than the rowing oars, and terminates in an oval blade, which would have given it considerable power in the water. [PLATE CXXXIII., Fig. 4.] The helmsman steered with both hands; and it seems that his oar was ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... ground, And swine are plenty as rats. And now, when they fare to the sea, The men of the Namunu-ura glean from under the tree And load the canoe to the gunwale with all that is toothsome to eat; And all day long on the sea the jaws are crushing the meat, The steersman eats at the helm, the rowers munch at the oar, And at length, when their bellies are full, overboard with the store!" Now was the word made true, and soon as the bait was bare, All the pigs of Taiarapu raised their snouts ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ship's quarter before they knew we were there. Alfred's men had yet somewhat to learn of fighting in a sea way, as it seemed, for we were on their deck aft before they had risen from their oar benches. There were but one or two men on the quarter deck, besides the steersman, to oppose us. Odda thought we should lay our ship alongside his towering sides if we fought, as I suppose, for ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler
... night on the borders, gossiping round their fires, and bivouacking in the open air. They are dextrous boatmen, vigorous and adroit with the oar and paddle, and will row from morning until night without a murmur. The steersman often sings an old traditionary French song, with some regular burden in which they all join, keeping time with their oars; if at any time they flag in spirits or relax in exertion, it is but necessary to strike up a song of the kind to put them all in fresh spirits ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... sail'd in to Bethlehem, To Bethlehem, to Bethlehem; Saint Michael was the steersman, Saint ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... sides of the boat. The forward part was covered by a deck which afforded shelter for her hands. The after-part was fitted up in a rough manner for passengers. The entrance into the cabin was from the stern in front of the steersman, who worked a tiller as ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... tumbled them bodily aboard a small boat with a lateen sail, and we followed and got under way. The deck was closely packed with donkeys and men; the two sailors had to climb over and under and through the wedged mass to work the sails, and the steersman had to crowd four or five donkeys out of the way when he wished to swing his tiller and put his helm hard-down. But what were their troubles to us? We had nothing to do; nothing to do but enjoy the trip; nothing to do but shove the donkeys off our corns and look at the charming ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... clutching a very hot smoke-stack. He chose the latter, recovered his balance with an easy grace, punctiliously saluted the tiny flag of the Zaire as he whizzed past her, and under the very eyes of Hamilton, with all the calmness in the world, took the wheel from the steersman's hand and ran the ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... there's nothing in the moon noteworthy? Nay: for if that moon could love a mortal, Use, to charm him (so to fit a fancy), All her magic ('tis the old sweet mythos) She would turn a new side to her mortal, Side unseen of herdsman, huntsman, steersman— Blank to Zoroaster on his terrace, Blind to Galileo on his turret, Dumb to Homer, dumb to Keats—him, even! Think, the wonder of the moonstruck mortal— When she turns round, comes again in heaven, Opens out anew for worse or better! Proves ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... day, or year of his activity. The long periods of human life are spent in elaborating the means to some unquestioned end. Here one meets the curious truth that we wake up in the middle of life, already making headway, and under the guidance of some invisible steersman. When first we take the business of life seriously, there is a considerable stock in trade in the shape of habits, and inclinations to all sorts of things that we never consciously elected to pursue. Since we do not begin at the beginning, our first ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... the tiller from the steersman, and bade him go below and fill himself. Will Cary went down, and returned in five minutes, with a plate of bread and beef, and a great jack of ale, coaxed them down Amyas' throat, as a nurse does with a child, and then scuttled below again with ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... the steersman, peering forward through the dark. "We come every moment somewhat clearer of these sandbanks; with every moment, then, the sea packeth upon us heavier, and for all these whimperers, they will presently be on their backs. For, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the moonlight, when all were asleep, except the steersman who stood at the helm, she sat at the side of the ship trying to pierce the clear water with her eyes, and fancied she saw her father's palace, and above it her old grandmother with her silver crown on her head, looking up through the cross currents towards the keel of the ship. Then her ...
— Stories from Hans Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... the chain of islands behind, and one morning struck out from the shore into the waste of waters, the prows of the canoes turned westward, the steersman guiding our course by the sun. For several hours we were beyond view of land, with naught to rest the eye upon save the gray sea, and then, when it was nearly night, we reached the shore, and beached ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... frequent coils, and spires immense; Entering a temple of his sire that stood Close by the yellow beach. The ocean calm'd, The Epidaurian god his father's fane Now leaves; a deity to him close join'd Thus hospitable found: the sandy shore Ploughs in a furrow with his rattling scales: Then, in the steersman confident, he rests On the high poop his head, till they approach Lavinium's city, and her sacred seat, And Tiber's mouth. The people rush in heaps, And crowds of matrons and of fathers rush, Confus'dly hither; ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... breaks over a ship and gives the sailors no respite Amycus came on at Polydeuces. He pushed in upon him, thinking to bear him down and overwhelm him. But as the skillful steersman keeps the ship from being overwhelmed by the monstrous wave, so Polydeuces, all skill and lightness, baffled the rushes of Amycus. At last Amycus, standing on the tips of his toes and rising high above him, ...
— The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles • Padraic Colum
... time he hit the bird, and struck it to the deck.... This strange fact made him uneasy, and he thought it betokened danger; he went to the binnacle, saw the course he was steering, and without any particular reason he ordered the steersman to alter the course ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... single paddle is quite beyond my present skill. Mr. Thoreau had assured me that it was only necessary to will the boat to go in any particular direction, and she would immediately take that course, as if imbued with the spirit of the steersman. It may be so with him, but it is certainly not so with me. The boat seemed to be bewitched, and turned its head to every point of the compass except the right one. He then took the paddle himself, and, though I could observe nothing peculiar in his management ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and look'd sideways up! Fear at my heart, as at a cup, My life-blood seem'd to sip! The stars were dim, and thick the night, The steersman's face by his lamp gleam'd white; From the sails the dew did drip— Till clomb above the eastern bar The horned Moon, with one bright star ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... band round the neck, to match the one on the narrow-brimmed thick straw hat; white trousers; couleur de rose silk collar, fastened to the throat by a golden clasp; and stockings of the same colour. How joyously did the gig hold her course! What a thrilling sensation expanded the soul, as the steersman, a handsome little fellow with large black whiskers, gave the encouraging word, "Stroke! my good ones!" Then were exerted all the energies of the body—then was developed each straining muscle—then were the arms thrown back in sympathy, to give a long pull, and a strong pull—till ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... night. About midnight I struggled on deck, to get a breath of fresh air before turning in. The night was fine and clear, but the sea around black as ink, with great foaming white rollers. The decks, a foot deep in snow, were deserted save by Z—— and the steersman, whose silhouettes stood out black and distinct against the starlit sky as they paced the rickety-looking little bridge flanked by red and green lights. The Enzelli lighthouse was no longer visible. The latter is under the care of Persians, who light it, or not, as the humour takes them. This is, ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... Next winter the steersman of a yacht came a wooing. For two years he had gone about and hugged his misery for her sake, and he got ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... two hours each at the helm. The sailor trusted Herbert as he would himself, and his confidence was justified by the coolness and judgment of the lad. Pencroft gave him his directions as a commander to his steersman, and Herbert never allowed the "Bonadventure" to swerve even a point. The night passed quickly, as did the day of the 12th of October. A south-easterly direction was strictly maintained. Unless the "Bonadventure" fell ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... he were not so old. If she must break up her bark on the rocks, he could take the place of steersman with pleasure. But he was a courteous gentleman and he said none of ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... fall. At others, advantage is taken of the eddies which are found at the base, and huge rocks that intercept the stream. The Indians pass from rock to rock by leaping, wading, or swimming, and, by means of a hawser, haul the boat through the rushing water from one resting-point to another, the steersman keeping his seat, and—sometimes lashed to it—striving with his large paddle to guide in some degree her course. The roar of the water dashing and foaming against the surrounding rocks renders this operation as exciting as it is difficult. Still more exciting and difficult is the task ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... in the navigation of the trekschuit. Meeting another boat, the steersman shouted "Huy!" indicating that the other craft was to go to the right. When the tow-boy of the approaching boat reached a certain point, he stopped his team, and the trekschuit horses passed ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... our own," was the answer of the steersman, "and I think we're catching up to the yellow car again. If we pass that I'm not so sure but what we can come in a ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young
... newcomer silently brought the vessel round, steering it towards the place where the waves dashed highest, and in an incredibly short space of time they came to an island, where the steersman motioned them to disembark. In awestruck silence the twelve men obeyed; and their surprise was further excited when they saw the stranger fling his battle-axe, and a limpid spring gush forth from the spot on the greensward ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... fighting on a field which women may rightly claim for their own. He really loved Etta. He was trying to gauge the meaning of a little change in her tone toward him—a change so subtle that few men could have detected it. But Claude de Chauxville —accomplished steersman through the shoals of human nature, especially through those very pronounced shoals who call themselves women of the world—Claude de Chauxville knew the value of the slightest change of manner, should that change manifest itself more ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... husband follows, equally pale, and she clings indifferently to his hand and to mine, her eyes still shut, a pretty image of white courage. The boat pushes off; the rowers smite the waves with their long oars and sing "Halli—yallah—yah hallah"; the steersman high in the stern shouts unintelligible (and, I fear, profane) directions; we are swept along on the tops of the waves, between the foaming rocks, drenched by spray and flying showers: at last we bump alongside the little quay, and climb out on ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... six or seven Indians; two of which are placed in the head and stem, who steer the vessel alternately with a paddle, according to the tack she goes on, be in the stern being the steersman; the other Indians are employed either in baling out the water which she accidentally ships, or in setting and trimming the sail. From the description of these vessels it is sufficiently obvious, how dexterously they are fitted for ranging this collection of islands called the Ladrones: ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... boy was on the canal-packet speeding homeward at the highest pace of the three-horse team, and the Boy's Town was out of sight. He could not sleep for excitement that night, and he came and spent the time talking on quite equal terms with the steersman, one of the canalers whom he had admired afar in earlier and simpler days. He found him a very amiable fellow, by no means haughty, who began to tell him funny stories, and who even let him take the helm for a while. The rudder-handle was of polished iron, very different from the clumsy ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... and knighted the steersman of his boat in the morning, and hanged him in the evening of the same day. Fifty thousand people stood around the columns of the national capitol, shouting themselves hoarse at the presidential inaugural, ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... observed that each of them carried between their talons stones, or rather rocks, of a monstrous size. When they came directly over my ship, they hovered, and one of them let fall a stone; but, by the dexterity of the steersman, who turned the ship with the rudder, it missed us, and falling by the side of the ship into the sea, divided the water so that we could almost see to the bottom. The other roc, to our misfortune, threw the stone so exactly upon the middle of the ship, that it split it in ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... swan's belly, and is connected with a wheel below the water. This rudder, which is made of metal and covered with hippopotamus hide, is sharp and slightly rounded. The mode in which it is fixed gives the steersman great control over the vessel, the more so as it moves the swan's head as well as the tail ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... fugitive armament exactly when it was too late. Ere then Napoleon had encountered almost an equal hazard. A French ship of war had crossed his path; but the Emperor made all his soldiery lie flat on the decks, and the steersman of the Inconstant, who happened to be well acquainted with the commanding officer, had received and answered the usual challenge without exciting any suspicion. Thus narrowly escaped the flotilla which carried "Caesar and ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... Pele-honua-mea o'ermounts them; The god rides the waves, sails about the island; The host of little gods ride the billows; 15 Malau takes his seat; One bales out the bilge of the craft. Who shall sit astern, be steersman, O, princes? Pele of the yellow earth. The splash of the paddles dashes o'er ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... two bobsleds, each steersman doing his best to guide his sled where running might ...
— The Rover Boys on a Hunt - or The Mysterious House in the Woods • Arthur M. Winfield (Edward Stratemeyer)
... worked through a hole pierced in the side of the vessel. To prevent his oar from slipping he had a leathern strap, which he twisted round it, and fastened to the thole, probably by means of a button. The remainder of the crew comprised the captain, the steersman, the petty officers, and the sailors proper, or those whose office it was to trim the sails and look to the rigging. The trireme of Persian times had, in all cases, a mast, and at least one sail, which was of a square shape, hung across the mast by means ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... same man, but each seems to come into possession of an indescribable confidence that departs from us - from Monied Interest, for instance, and from me. Just what they gain, we lose. Certain British 'Gents' about the steersman, intellectually nurtured at home on parody of everything and truth of nothing, become subdued, and in a manner forlorn; and when the steersman tells them (not exultingly) how he has 'been upon this station now eight year, and never see the old town ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... have I rowed joyously with these same maidens beneath these steep and garlanded shores; many a time have they pulled the heavy four-oar, with me as coxswain at the helm,—the said patient steersman being oft-times insulted by classical allusions from rival boats, satirically comparing him to an indolent Venus drawn by doves, while the oarswomen in turn were likened to Minerva with her feet upon a tortoise. Many were the disasters in the earlier ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... Thrand Gialdkere was the steersman of King Inge's ship. It was come so far, that Inge's men were rowing in small boats between the ships after those who were swimming in the water, and killed those they could get hold of. Sigurd Slembe threw himself overboard ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... seized his glass and turned it toward the island. The sombre shades of twilight had already gathered over the scene; but he saw through them quite distinctly a boat pulled by four men, while a fifth sat in the stern holding the tiller. The steersman kept the small island between them and the vessel Captain Parson ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... Gentile. In the Jewish people we see Nature steering one of her cargoes of differentiated humanity between the Scylla and Charybdis of the modern sea of industrial civilization. And race instinct is her steersman. ...
— Nationality and Race from an Anthropologist's Point of View • Arthur Keith
... experience that befell us. The sea was strewn with blocks and bergs, all hurrying onwards in the strong currents, as if in haste to escape the pursuing demon of frost that should re-fetter them; and their multitude kept the steersman's arms spinning till the man would fall half-fainting ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... was to be hauled upon the forecastle, the sailors flung it not rudely down, as by day, .. but with some cautiousness dropt it to its place, for fear of disturbing their slumbering shipmates; when this sort of steady quietude would begin to prevail, habitually, the silent steersman would watch the cabin-scuttle; and ere long the old man would emerge, griping at the iron banister, to help his crippled way. Some considerating touch of humanity was in him; for at times like these, he usually abstained from patrolling the quarter-deck; because to his wearied mates, ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... design to give any description of the galatea's crew. There were nine of them,—all Indians,—four on each side acting as rowers, or more properly "paddlers," the ninth being the pilot or steersman, ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... song: "Whee yo ee.—Whee yo ee." The steersman gave "Whee," and was followed by the other men with a repetition of ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... himself, received the suggestion with approval. Usually—for the craft, though, sturdy, was a small one—he was his own steersman and engineer. Now, he could enjoy the luxury of a crew, and the driver, who was a fairly good mechanic, was quite competent to handle ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... no second Alan, and no second shipwreck and spare yard to be expected now; and I saw myself hoe tobacco under the whip's lash. The thought chilled me; the air was sharp upon the water, the stretchers of the boat drenched with a cold dew; and I shivered in my place beside the steersman. This was the dark man whom I have called hitherto the Lowlander; his name was Dale, ordinarily called Black Andie. Feeling the thrill of my shiver, he very kindly handed me a rough jacket full of fish-scales, with which I ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... then thy bravest, with what speed thou may'st, Hard by the gates, to dash on them, for now, Full-armed, the onward ranks of Argos come! The dust whirls up, and from their panting steeds White foamy flakes like snow bedew the plain. Thou therefore, chieftain! like a steersman skilled, Enshield the city's bulwarks, ere the blast Of war comes darting on them! hark, the roar Of the great landstorm with its waves of men! Take Fortune by the forelock! for the rest, By yonder dawn-light will I scan the field Clear and aright, and surety of my ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... close to hand. The steersman rose to throw his entire weight on the paddle. The canoe swung abruptly for the shore. Those in it did not relax their exertions, but continued their vigorous strokes until within a few yards of ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White
... few minutes later Lavinia saw his trim brown launch, with its awning and steersman in gleaming white, rushing through ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... the hoists and ropes, so that the ships ran swiftly out to sea. Then they made the ropes secure, each in its wonted place. The captain who was charged with the safety of the ship set his course carefully, whilst pilot and steersman needfully observed his word. At his bidding they put the helm to port, to lee, as they might better fill their sails with the wind. As need arose the shipmen drew upon the cords and bowlines, or let the canvas fall upon the deck, that the vessel might be ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace
... glanced up at the imperturbable steersman, who kept the yacht's head straight out to sea. By this time they were about a couple of miles ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... miles off Point Venus the night before last, at eleven o'clock, we hoped for a bit of wind to reach port by morning. It was calm, and we were all asleep but the man at the wheel, when a waterspout came right out of the clear sky,—so the steersman said,—and struck us hard. We were swamped in a minute. The water fell on us like your Niagara. Christ! We gave up for gone, all of us, the other five all kanakas. We heeled over until the deck was under ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... With liberal hand his poppies shed; Each head, by Dulness render'd fit Sleep and his empire to admit. Through the whole passage not a word, Not one faint, weak half-sound was heard; Sleep had prevail'd to overwhelm The steersman nodding o'er the helm; The rowers, without force or skill, Left the dull barge to drive at will; 1030 The sluggish oars suspended hung, And even Beardmore held his tongue. Commerce, regardful of a freight On which depended ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... saw that her beauty was still greater than the picture had represented, and thought nothing else but that his heart would jump out of his mouth. Presently she stepped on board, and the King conducted her below; but the faithful John remained on deck by the steersman, and told him to unmoor the ship and put on all the sail he could, that it might fly as a bird through the air. Meanwhile the King showed the Princess all the golden treasures—the dishes, cups, bowls, the birds, the wild ...
— Grimm's Fairy Stories • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... morning dawned, the viking saw a goodly vessel making gallant headway. As she drew near the land with streamer flying and broad sails flapping in the wind, the viking saw that there was no soul on board of her; and yet, without steersman to guide her, the vessel avoided the shoals and held her way straight to the spot where he ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... than by day, that assistance so important as Gladding's had been secured, and that without additional expense. He was confident now of an easy victory. The associates jumped into the boat, the painter was cast off, the constable, as principal, took the steersman's seat, and Tom and Primus ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... upon him; now, in obedience to the steersman, the boat sheered out a bit and we were abreast 25 of his laboring flukes; now the mate hurls his quivering lance with such hearty good will that every inch of its slender shaft disappears ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... for the steersman at once began to slew her round, and then he too went down as a bullet from Tematau took him fair and square in the chest, and we saw the blood pouring from him as he fell across the gunwale. In another ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke
... arrived. Dionysus assumed the form of a lion, whilst beside him appeared a bear, which, with a terrific roar, rushed upon the captain and tore him in pieces; the sailors, in an agony of terror, leaped overboard, and were changed into dolphins. The discreet and pious steersman was alone permitted to escape the fate of his companions, {128} and to him Dionysus, who had resumed his true form, addressed words of kind and affectionate encouragement, and announced his name and dignity. They now set sail, ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... applies: As in pursuit along the aerial way, With ardent eye the falcon marks his prey, Each motion watches of the doubtful chase, Obliquely wheeling through the fluid space; So, govern'd by the steersman's GLOWING hands, The regent ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... broke into the song with the order to let go the anchor. As the ship swung to the tide the steersman, who wore neither coat nor waistcoat, could be seen idly handling the wheel still, though his duties were necessarily at an end. He was a young man, and a gay salutation of his unemployed hand toward the assembled people—as ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... apart, there is a wild river scene. Far ahead the paddlers can hear the roar of the swirl. Now the surface of the river rounds and rises in the eddies of an undertow, and the canoe leaps forward; then, a swifter plunge through the middle of a furious overfall. The steersman rises at the stern and leans ...
— The "Adventurers of England" on Hudson Bay - A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North (Volume 18 of the Chronicles of Canada) • Agnes C. (Agnes Christina) Laut
... the first time I saw him, and how I was startled at his eye, which was even then fixed upon me. He was standing at the ship's helm, being the first man that got there, when a steersman was called for by the pilot; for this Jackson was always on the alert for easy duties, and used to plead his delicate health as the reason for assuming them, as he did; though I used to think, that for ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... them as things underneath. He covers not his body with delicacies, nor excuseth these delicacies by his body, but teacheth it, since it is not able to defend its own imbecility, to show or suffer. He licenseth not his weakness to wear fate, but knowing reason to be no idle gift of nature, he is the steersman of his own destiny. Truth is the goddess, and he takes pains to get her, not to look like her. He knows the condition of the world, that he must act one thing like another, and then another. To these he carries his desires, and not his ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... so expert a Thames waterman, that he was quite able to manage the boat without a steersman, and Charley was nearly his equal. But there is some amusement in steering, and Katie was allowed ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... already submerged, only the tip of our conning staff being out of the water. But by an ingenious system of tiny mirrors the steersman was able to see his way as plainly as if he had been on deck ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... priest always remains by the steersman, to ward off the spells of the sea demons." Ladro paused, pointing overside. "See," he said in a pleased tone, "here is an ...
— The Players • Everett B. Cole
... Archilochus too, deserved to be hooted from the platform and thrashed. Even the main purport of his writings was differently interpreted. Some named his work 'The Muses,' as though it were chiefly a poetic vision; others named it 'The sure Steersman to the Goal of Life'; others, more ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... on the top of a slope; and when all is ready, the gentleman sets the affair in motion by a vigorous kick from his rudder leg. Of course the velocity increases as they rush down the slope; and unless he is a skilful steersman, they may have a grand upset or be embosomed in a drift; however, the toboggin and its freight generally glides like an arrow from the summit, and has received impetus enough to carry it a long distance over the smooth surface of the valley ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... called the order to the steersman. The ship's bows swung around, and the little steamer was soon scuttling upcoast towards the headland, along the outer line of reefs, at a speed of ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... Cornelius Linquoint and commanded the Ship in English called the Commonwealth, of 20 peice of Ordnance. then hee tooke our master, merchant and ten seamen more out of our Ship and left seven of us aboard and soe went aboard his man of war againe and ordered the Dutch Steersman, whome hee left with Eleven Dutchmen more on board of our Ship, to Steere after the man of War, and in case wee should bee parted by weather to Saile with our Ship to the Groyne in Galecia, as the said Steeresman informed mee: the same night following wee lost the ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... her to the ship joyfully, and the King, when he saw that her beauty was even greater than the picture had set forth, felt his heart leap at the sight. Then she climbed up into the ship, and the King received her. Faithful John stayed by the steersman, and gave orders for the ship to push off, saying, "Spread all sail, that she may fly like ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... what you are driving at, Bill. Next the steersman got down with the mumps, then you took the shingles, and another sailor got lumbago, while the third mate had to crawl around with a boil on his foot as large as a cabbage. I heard about that affair—read about it in the last monthly number of the ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... brought into use in the changeable mountain rivers. They were a canoe-shaped open boat, sixty feet long by eight wide, and were pushed up the stream by quants or poles. They required a crew of five men,—four to do the poling, and a steersman. In the swiftest "chutes" they carried a line ashore and made fast to a tree, then warped the boat up to quieter water and resumed the poling. Each boat would carry eight tons, and, compared with teaming over roads of which the "bottom had dropped ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... at the risk of suffocating the unfortunate engineers and stokers in the almost insufferable atmosphere below. But it was absolutely imperative that not a glimmer of light should appear. Even the binnacle was covered, and the steersman had to see as much of the compass as he could through a conical aperture carried almost up to ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... man at their wheel's our meat, and anyone else who comes to take his place. Minus a steersman they're helpless; and then, Gates, if we can run alongside and batten down (is that what you call it?) their hatches, ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... strong Tahitian rum always on tap in the cabin. Here we sat to eat and remained to drink and read and smoke. There was Bordeaux wine at luncheon and dinner, Martinique and Tahitian rum and absinthe between meals. The ship's bell was struck by the steersman every half hour, and McHenry made it ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... alert O steersman, you mind the loud admonition, The bows turn, the freighted ship tacking speeds away under her gray sails, The beautiful and noble ship with all her precious wealth speeds ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... he went down to his dinner. In his spare moments Frank, who wisely regarded it as the duty of every officer to acquaint himself with every part of the management of a vessel, had learned to handle the wheel, and he was an excellent steersman. He could make a landing or get a boat under way, as well as the most experienced pilot; and in the present instance he was fully capable of steering the boat, for as the water in the river was high, there was no danger of ...
— Frank on the Lower Mississippi • Harry Castlemon
... not," answered the steersman of the Black Hawk, who was dividing his attention between managing the craft and ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton
... I didn't care?" asked the other boy. "If you mean a real old batteau steersman, I never saw one either. I reckon I'd have gone a few hundred yards to see one of 'em if he's the real goods. Since the steamboats came in, I thought they'd all played out. Are ...
— On the Edge of the Arctic - An Aeroplane in Snowland • Harry Lincoln Sayler
... taken to boats of an amazing length, forty feet and upwards, which, manned with eight oars, move with great celerity. Every Saturday evening the scholars are permitted to assume fancy dresses; but the practice is now principally confined to the steersman; the rest simply adopting sailors' costume, except on the fourth of June, or election Saturday, when there is always a grand gala, a band of music, and fireworks, on ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... moment. They were driving into blankness which had shut down with that smothering density which mariners call "a dungeon fog." Saturday Cove's entrance was a distant and a small target. In spite of steersman and mate, ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... field, had noted, as he stepped out in the street, the intangible shifting of relations in his surroundings incident to the mere passage of time in the few days of his obliteration, now felt, as a blind man feels the mountain in his approach, or as the steersman in a Newfoundland fog apprehends the nearing of the iceberg, some subtle alteration in the attitude toward him of the young woman by his side. Instantly he was on guard ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... the rest, save one thing, O stranger lady, for 'tis a heavy weight upon me that this man should be slain. For I was steersman of the vessel to these ills,[78] but he is a fellow-sailor because of mine own troubles. In no wise then is it right that I should do thee a favor to his destruction, and myself escape from ills. ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... old, and when I loved thee first and found thee My lord and leader down the ways of war, My master born by right of manfulness And steersman through the surf of battle, time Gaped as a gulf between us: sire and son We might be: now I bid thee hold thy peace, Lest all these memories perish, and their death Give life more strong than theirs to wrath, and leave thee Shelterless as a ...
— Rosamund, Queen of the Lombards • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... far sailing then,— St. Michael was the steersman; St. John sate in the horn; Our Lord harped; Our Lady sang, And all ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... these blasts was blowing with all its violence, and the darkness was so thick that we could not see from one part of the ship to the other, we suddenly discovered, by a flash of lightning, a large vessel close aboard of us. The steersman instantly put the helm a-lee, and the ship answering her rudder, we just cleared each, other. This was the first ship we had seen since we parted with the Swallow; and it blew so hard, that not being able to understand any thing that was said, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... on a cargo of potatoes and beets. Some barges laden with wood were being pulled through the locks by men harnessed to a long tow rope, and a savage dog on one of these barges menaced me with dripping fangs and bloodshot eyes when I stopped to talk to the steersman, who sat on the tiller smoking a short, evil-smelling pipe, while his "vrouwe" was hanging out a heavy wash of vari-colored garments on a line from the staff on the bow to a sweep fastened upright ...
— Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders • George Wharton Edwards
... Professors and Students of Girtham,—We have embarked upon a stormy sea of speculation, on a voyage of grand discovery, and the dangerous waves of adverse criticism, and the deceptive under-current of prejudice, often make the steersman's lot by no means an enviable one. But our vessel is sound and perfectly equipped, and therefore I do not fear to guide her across the ...
— The Romance of Mathematics • P. Hampson
... approached, the steersman in the first canoe stood up to look over the course. The sea was high. Was it too high? The canoes were heavily loaded. Could they leap the waves? There was a quick talk among the guides as we slipped along, undecided which way to turn. Then the question ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... our souls to the height of the darkling day. If the wind in our eyes blow blood for spray, Be the spirit that breathes in us life more strong, Though the prow reel round and the helm point wrong, And sharp reefs whiten the shoreward way. 1290 For the steersman time sits hidden astern, [Ant. 1. With dark hand plying the rudder of doom, And the surf-smoke under it flies like fume As the blast shears off and the oar-blades churn The foam of our lives that to death return, ...
— Erechtheus - A Tragedy (New Edition) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... which boat she forthwith got, and being, like most of the women of the island, not altogether without nautical skill, she rowed some distance out to sea, and then hoisted sail, and cast away oars and tiller, and let the boat drift, deeming that a boat without lading or steersman would certainly be either capsized by the wind or dashed against some rock and broken in pieces, so that escape she could not, even if she would, but must perforce drown. And so, her head wrapped in a mantle, she stretched herself weeping on the floor of the boat. But it fell out quite otherwise ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... attentive timoneer applies: As in pursuit along the aerial way, With ardent eye the falcon marks his prey, Each motion watches of the doubtful chase, Obliquely wheeling through the fluid space; So, govern'd by the steersman's GLOWING hands, The regent helm her ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... of one of our canoes, containing all our papers, instruments, medicine, and almost every article indispensable for the success of our enterprise. The canoe being under sail, a sudden squall of wind struck her obliquely and turned her considerably. The man at the helm, who was unluckily the worst steersman of the party, became alarmed, and, instead of putting her before the wind, luffed her up into it. The wind was so high that it forced the brace of the square-sail out of the hand of the man who was attending it, and instantly upset the canoe, which would have been turned bottom upward but for the ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... went quietly until after we had our midday meal. We were all amidships on the wide deck, except my father and Arngeir, who sat side by side on the steersman's bench on the high poop. There was no spray coming on board, for we were running, and the ship was very steady. Raven and I were forward with the men, busy with the many little things yet to be done to the rigging and such like that had been left in the haste at last, and there ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler
... a draught of water. Jack had taken the bearing of the island just after starting, and laying a small pocket-compass before him, kept the head of the canoe due south, for our chance of hitting the island depended very much on the faithfulness of our steersman in keeping our tiny bark exactly and constantly on its proper course. Peterkin and I paddled in the bow, and Avatea worked ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... voyageurs, is esteemed the post of honour, and the bowsman is usually styled "Captain" by the rest of the crew. It is also the post that requires the greatest amount of skill on the part of its occupant, particularly where there are rapids or shoals to be avoided. The post of "steersman" is also one of honour and importance; and both steersman and bowsman receive higher wages than the other voyageurs who pass under the name of "middlemen." The steersman sits in the stern, and that place was ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... pierced thy father's breast. Go—and shout it even to yon portal: "Brutus is 'mongst Romans deemed immortal, For his steel hath pierced his father's breast." Go—thou knowest now what on Lethe's strand Made me a prisoner stand.— Now, grim steersman, push ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... and Boat Racing is the popular sport of crew rowing or sculling, where each college appoints a crew of eight strong scull pullers or oarsmen and one small coxswain or steersman to pilot a long narrow boat called a skiff or shell. The coxswain calls the strokes and is generally the coach and commander of the crew. Unlike in a canoe, the pullers face backwards, and the one nearest the coxswain is called the "stroke oar", because all the other oars watch ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... there was plenty of room for it. There were little sliding windows, which with the open door afforded fairly decent ventilation. But the helm was just behind the deck house, and the helmsman either sat or stood on the roof, so that all night his responses to the steersman on the Blanco interfered with my sleep. Then, too, they kept their spare lanterns and their cocoanut oil and some coils of rope in there. At intervals soft-footed natives came in, and I was never certain whether ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... a railing, below which protruded, from the level of the lower deck, the prow proper of the boat. Upon this prow, in a small compartment of which the roof, as well as the walls, was of hardened glass, stood the steersman amid his wheels. But the wheels were unlike anything that the bewildered man who looked down had ever dreamed of. First, they were not more than six inches in diameter; and next, they were arranged, like notes on a keyboard, with their ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... hull, which was built on a curved keel, was narrow, had a sharp stem and stern, was decked from end to end, low forward and much raised aft, and had a long deck cabin: the steering apparatus consisted of one or two large stout oars, each supported on a forked post and managed by a steersman. It had one mast, sometimes composed of a single tree, sometimes formed of a group of smaller masts planted at a slight distance from each other, but united at the top by strong ligatures and strengthened ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... from this was Gautama Rishi's view of human life. According to him, man is a lone, helpless creature tossed on the sea of destiny. He is the only captain and steersman of his barque, and his own reason is his only compass; he must battle alone with the waves of circumstances and find for himself the unknown harbour of peace. There is no heaven above to hear his cry, ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... steersman of a yacht came a wooing. For two years he had gone about and hugged his misery for her sake, and ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... teeth as he steered so as to get every foot of speed possible out of the cutter, while, sheet in hand, Tom May sat eagerly watching the steersman, ready to obey the slightest sign as the boat's crew sat fast with the oars in the rowlocks ready to dip together and pull for all they were worth, should the ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... returned, and we observed that each of them carried between its talons rocks of a monstrous size. When they came directly over my ship, they hovered, and one of them let fall a stone, but by the dexterity of the steersman it missed us. The other roc, to our misfortune, threw his burden so exactly upon the middle of the ship, as to split it into a thousand pieces. The mariners and passengers were all crushed to death, or sank. I myself was of the number of the latter; ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... attention of all the natives. They called out Eige-ea Eige, and hastened to give place to the new-comers. The canoe, rowed by ten men, large and elegantly embellished with muscle-shells, soon approached us. The heads of the rowers and of the steersman were decorated with green boughs, probably in ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... was barely twice its length from the scow when Boyd saw Big George cease his violent antics and level a revolver directly at the wheel-house of the opposing craft. Two puffs of smoke issued from weapon, then out from the glass-encased structure the steersman plunged, scrambled down the deck and into the shelter of the house. Instantly the bow of the tug swung off, and she came on sidewise, striking Balt's scow a glancing blow, the sound of which rose above the shouts, while its force ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... that it can be moved independently of the rear sled, for a turn to the right or the left causes the "bob" to take the direction indicated by the front runners; but double-runners steered with a wheel, lever or yoke in front, are very dangerous, as the steersman, in case of an accident, is thrown against the steering ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... quivering haze in the air everywhere, but no fog. We were sitting up here and looking out to sea. Just beyond the end of Dunker Rock a large motor-boat came in sight through the haze. She was about sixty feet long, with a low cabin forward, a cockpit aft, and a raised place for the steersman amidship—a good-looking craft, and evidently very speedy. She carried no flag or pennant. She came driving on, full tilt, straight toward us. We supposed of course she would turn east through the narrow channel to Winterport, or sheer off to the west into the Southern ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... forty feet long, ten feet wide, and extending five feet above the gunwale of the ship. The cabin had four windows on each side, a companionway fore and aft, and a sort of look-out or conning tower forward, which, the professor explained, was the place for the steersman. ...
— Through the Air to the North Pole - or The Wonderful Cruise of the Electric Monarch • Roy Rockwood
... blessed, because the very attitude of confident dependence takes the strain off a man. To feel that I am leaning hard upon a firm prop, to devolve responsibility, to put the reins into another's hand, to give the helm into another steersman's grasp, whilst I may lie down and rest, that is blessedness, though there be a storm. In the story of frontier warfare we read how, day by day, the battalion that had been in the post of danger, and therefore of ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... in the palace formerly Libo's and now the property of Rufius. He, on succeeding to his uncle's estate, at once rewarded with a huge donation the steersman of the boat in which we had been saved, saying that the other steersmen did their best, but that, if the others had been as dexterous as he, his aunt and uncle would not have perished by so deplorable and so untimely ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... they rushed on, with the rock nearer and nearer, as if coming out of the mist, till it stood out bright in the setting sunlight, and the mental vapour was dispersed by the feeling of exultation which surged through the steersman's breast. For all at once it seemed that safety was within touch; and, turning the boat head to wind, she glided slowly up to the opening in the rock, while the sail flapped and the two boys quickly lowered and furled it, unstepped the mast, and then thrust her in with the boat-hook, ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... large canoe, made from the straight trunk of a mahogany tree, is described as having been five feet in width and seventy-five feet long. This craft was propelled by twenty-five oarsmen on each side, a steersman in the stern, and a lookout at the prow. This was a cacique's barge, in which he made visits of state along shore and ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... needless to say that the dead steersman has been reverently removed from the place where he held his honourable watch and ward till death, a steadfastness as noble as that of the young Casabianca, and placed in the mortuary ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... burning embers as if in a reverie, and as he gazed he thought he had seen, either by actual vision or by the 'second sight,' in which he was a firm believer, the form of a canoe with a single sable steersman coming to his rescue. He felt tempted to communicate the vision to his sleeping partner; but, thinking it unkind to disturb her slumbers, he desists from his resolution, reclines on the ground, and without intending it, he falls fast asleep. But imagine his astonishment and alarm ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... caught the trick of paddling in unison. Each had his own side of the craft on which to paddle. Dick, alone, as steersman, paddled on either side at will, according as he wished ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock
... Ole spoke again to the steersman, but without any better result. The boatswain was not to be thwarted. Going forward, he took the little wheel into his own hands, and headed the steamer towards the Rensdyr. Indicating by his signs what he wanted, the man at the helm seemed to be quite willing to obey ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic
... up! Fear at my heart, as at a cup, My life-blood seemed to sip! The stars were dim, and thick the night, The steersman's face by his lamp gleamed white; From the sails the dew did drip— Till clomb above the eastern bar The horned Moon, with one bright star Within the ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... and we observed that each of them carried between its talons an enormous rock. When they came directly over my ship, they hovered, and one of them let go his rock; but by the dexterity of the steersman it missed us, and fell into the sea. The other so exactly hit the middle of the ship as to split it into pieces. The mariners and passengers were all crushed to death, or fell into the sea. I myself was of the number of the latter; but, as I came up again, I ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... harbor-bar of Aclan, the little boat was overturned, so that the father lost everything, and was able to save only the clothes on his back. Thus that boat, which withstood so many buffetings of the sea without any harm, happened to overturn four brazas from shore, through the carelessness of its steersman. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various
... which was going to turn pirate. Well, they got to the boats, and one lot got off safe to the ship which hoisted the black flag, and sailed away to the Indies, and is sailing there, murdering and ruining, to this day, I reckon. But the other boat was over full, and the steersman was drunken, and she capsized before she got to the middle of the channel. Some were drowned, and those that got ashore we hung next morning. But Trail was in ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... in the keenness of his remembered emotion: the church faded into a far horizon, he felt the slight heave of the ship and heard the creaking of the wheel as the steersman shifted his hands; from aloft came the faint slapping of the bunt lines on rigid canvas, the loose hemp slippers of the crew sounded across the deck, the water whispered alongside, the ship's bell was struck and repeated in a diminished note on the topgallant ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... passage in George Sand's diary describing a voyage with Chopin to the island of Majorca. "The night was warm and dark, illumined only by an extraordinary phosphorescence in the wake of the ship; everybody was asleep on board except the steersman, who, in order to keep himself awake, sang all night, but in a voice so soft and so subdued that one might have thought he feared to arouse the men of the watch. We did not weary of listening to him, ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb
... and almost every article indispensable for the success of our enterprise. The canoe being under sail, a sudden squall of wind struck her obliquely and turned her considerably. The man at the helm, who was unluckily the worst steersman of the party, became alarmed, and, instead of putting her before the wind, luffed her up into it. The wind was so high that it forced the brace of the square-sail out of the hand of the man who was attending ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... had cast anchor, says he, in the spot designated to us, I landed with midshipman Moor, the steersman, Chleb Nikow, four sailors, and Alexis, a native of the Kuriles, who acted as interpreter. So deceived were we by the apparent friendliness of the Japanese, that we took no arms with us, except our swords. In ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... load and reserve fire," said the captain; "and hand me a musket, Fred. Load again as fast as I fire." So saying, the captain took aim and fired at the steersman of the largest boat, which pulled towards the stern. ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... Malays took them at their word and carried them there instead of to Dungally, which was a lucky escape to them for that time.—Whilst residing at Sawyah the old priest carried Captain Woodward to an island in the bay of Sawyah, which he granted to him, and in compliment called it Steersman's Island, steersman being the appellation by which Captain Woodward was distinguished by the natives. After staying some time in Sawyah and making sago, which they bartered for fish and cocoa-nuts, ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... "Rupe was too valuable to be shot down for missing a man with a knife. Such a canoe-steersman as Rupe never was known before or since: he knew every rock in every rapid from the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... indeed, you bell by the sea-reefs ringing, Ringing, ringing, to warn the ship from its wreck-place. For, as on the alert, O steersman, you mind the bell's admonition, The bows turn,—the freighted ship, tacking, speeds away under her grey sails; The beautiful and noble ship, with all her precious wealth, speeds ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... the navigator, and the standard compass, owing to its remoteness from iron in this position, is placed on the top of the ice-house. The steersman, however, steers by a binnacle compass placed aft in front of his wheel. But these two compasses for various reasons do not read alike at a given moment, while the standard is ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... roving; and when Omund heard he was back, he set to and built a vast ship, whence, as from a fortress, he could rain his missiles on the enemy. To manage this ship he enlisted Homod and Thole the rowers, the soils of Atyl the Skanian, one of whom was instructed to act as steersman, while the other was to command at the prow. Ring lacked neither skill nor dexterity to encounter them. For he showed only a small part of his forces, and caused the enemy to be attacked on the rear. Omund, ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... brought to bear, the thicket was cleared by discharges of canister and grape, and the fire of the enemy was silenced. No other casualties occurred on board of the steamer, but many of the crew narrowly escaped harm, particularly those who were near the wheel house. The sailing master and the steersman had their clothes pierced by bullets, and the sides and decks of the steamer were similarly marked in many places. The river, becoming still narrower and more crooked above Gainesville, it was found entirely impossible to force the Sachem higher up. Captain Renshaw ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... his head away towards the sea, with tears of rage in his eyes—and saw the steersman ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... stout Hibernians immediately formed a plan of insurrection, and executed it with success. Four of the French mariners being below deck, three aloft among the rigging, one at the helm, and another walking the deck, Brian, who headed the enterprise, tripped up the heels of the French steersman, seized his pistol, and discharged it at him who walked the deck; but missing the mark, he knocked him down with the but-end of the piece. At the same time hallooing to his confederates below, they assailed the enemy with their own broadswords; and, soon compelling them to submit, came upon ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... asleep and no longer visible. All that stood out with any distinctness of outline was the lug sail, stiff as a board. I endeavored to turn my head, without disturbing the slumbering girl, to gain view of the steersman. ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... I were on our way home from Troy, on good terms with one another. When we got to Sunium, which is the point of Athens, Apollo with his painless shafts killed Phrontis the steersman of Menelaus' ship (and never man knew better how to handle a vessel in rough weather) so that he died then and there with the helm in his hand, and Menelaus, though very anxious to press forward, had to wait in order to bury his comrade and give him his due funeral rites. Presently, when ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... Even there, the water that sometimes fell upon our decks as the great waves broke, poured aft and even broke about the cabin, drenching everything above deck. It was man's work that was to be done now, yet none could bear a hand in it save the engineer and the steersman. I was, therefore, ready sternly to reprove Jean Lafitte when, presently, I saw him making the perilous passage forward, clinging to the rail and wet to the skin before he could reach the forward deck. But he protested so earnestly and seemed withal so fit and keen, that I relented and ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... holder of seventy-six benefices, M. de Tressan dreamed of the cardinal's hat, and aspired to obtain it from the Court of Rome at the cost of a persecution. The government was at that time drifting about, without compass or steersman, from the hands of Madame de Prie to those of Paris-Duverney. Little cared they for the fate of the Reformers. "This castaway of the regency," says M. Lemontey, "was adopted without memorial, without examination, as an act of homage to the late king, and a simple executive formula. ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... the lugger; no one spoke, except when the steersman was relieved, or when the master wished something done among the rigging. The men settled down on the weather side with their pipes and quids, and all through the short summer night we lay there, huddled half asleep together, running to the south like a stag. At dawn the wind breezed ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... which now did as it liked. Some of the small craft got up into the willows and waited; some seemed to narrowly escape being crushed against a wall on the opposite bank. The bright white sails of a yacht shook and quivered as its steersman tried all he knew to coax his vessel an inch more into the wind out of the monster's path. In vain! He had to drop down the stream, and lose what it had taken him half an hour's skill to gain. What a pleasing monster to ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... launch split her way swiftly toward the north. By the vague, ghostly shimmer of light upon the waters, a tense smile appeared on the steersman's lips. In his dark eyes gleamed the joy which to some men ranks supreme above all other joys—that of bending others to his will, of dominating them, of making them the puppets of ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... this, however, was more than enough, for we did not dare to hoist a rag of sail on it. For five days the tempest raged in all its fury. Everything was swept off the decks except one small boat. The steersman was lashed to the wheel, lest he should be washed away, and we all gave ourselves up for lost. The captain said that he had no idea where we were, as we had been blown far out of our course; and we feared much that we might get among the ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... sufficient to disturb those sleeping below, but in a twinkling Jackson, the mate, appeared on deck in his pajamas, and after a swift glance toward the familiar shore turned to me with the same dumfounded look that had frozen upon the face of the steersman. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... are driving at, Bill. Next the steersman got down with the mumps, then you took the shingles, and another sailor got lumbago, while the third mate had to crawl around with a boil on his foot as large as a cabbage. I heard about that affair—read about it in the last monthly number of the Gasman's Gazette—how ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... of the south-west wind are widened; the breath of his fervent lips, More keen than a sword's edge, fiercer than fire, falls full on the plunging ships. The pilot is he of their northward flight, their stay and their steersman he; A helmsman clothed with the tempest, and girdled with strength to constrain the sea. And the host of them trembles and quails, caught fast in his hand as a bird in the toils; For the wrath and the joy that fulfil him are mightier than man's, whom he slays and spoils. And vainly, with heart ...
— Poems and Ballads (Third Series) - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... knew by personal test that he was entirely capable of assisting his son Allen in the trading expedition to New Orleans. For Abraham, on the other hand, it was an event which must have opened up wide vistas of future hope and ambition. Allen Gentry probably was nominal supercargo and steersman, but we may easily surmise that Lincoln, as the "bow oar," carried his full half of general responsibility. For this service the elder Gentry paid him eight dollars a month and his passage home on a steamboat. ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... sang out Captain Brisco angrily to the steersman. At the same time there rang out ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope
... "Well," the steersman said finally, "I've told ye all I can tell ye. That other schooner that had a tug to sta'bo'd like this, the Marlin B., got a bad name from the Georges to Monomoy P'int. You ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... nothing in the moon noteworthy? Nay: for if that moon could love a mortal, Use, to charm him (so to fit a fancy), All her magic ('tis the old sweet mythos), 160 She would turn a new side to her mortal, Side unseen of herdsman, huntsman, steersman— Blank to Zoroaster on his terrace, Blind to Galileo on his turret, Dumb to Homer, dumb to Keats—him, even! 165 Think, the wonder of the moonstruck mortal— When she turns round, comes again in heaven, Opens out anew for worse or ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... singing at the stem, a following wind, a great bellying sail behind, and all around wet air and splashing grey sea, the stem ploughing it up silver and white and green, and away aft under the bend of the sail there would be Jason and the steersman, possibly Medea, with the curl out of her hair, and perhaps just a touch of the golden fleece, just a fleck of pale yellow to enliven the minor tints! Round the bows there would be men listening to the song, watching the stem pound into the green hollows—now, ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... enveloped the scene. Dick Herron rose suddenly to his feet and shot. The bear collapsed into the muddied water, his head doubled under, a thin stream of arterial blood stringing away down the current. Haukemah and his steersman rose dripping. A short pause of ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... through the bottom. There was a standing order that no man was to go into it with shoes on. She was to pull six oars, and her crew were the captains of the tops, the primest seamen in the ship, and the steersman no less a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 579 - Volume 20, No. 579, December 8, 1832 • Various
... Pencroft and Herbert took turns for a spell of two hours each at the helm. The sailor trusted Herbert as he would himself, and his confidence was justified by the coolness and judgment of the lad. Pencroft gave him his directions as a commander to his steersman, and Herbert never allowed the "Bonadventure" to swerve even a point. The night passed quickly, as did the day of the 12th of October. A south-easterly direction was strictly maintained. Unless the "Bonadventure" fell in with some unknown current ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... wherefore it is worth warning that, when a man dies with unpared nails, he supplies a large amount of materials for the building of this ship, which both gods and men wish may be finished as late as possible. But in this flood Naglfar gets afloat. The giant Hrym is its steersman. The Fenris-wolf advances with wide open mouth; the upper jaw reaches to heaven and the lower jaw is on the earth. He would open it still wider had he room. Fire flashes from his eyes and nostrils. The Midgard-serpent vomits forth venom, defiling all the air and the sea; he is very terrible, ...
— The Younger Edda - Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda • Snorre
... was launched, not without great difficulty, in the face of such a sea. The men stoutly took their oars, casting a look forward at the rocks, then at the quay, and on the face of their young steersman. Little they guessed the intense emotion that swelled in his breast as he took the helm, to save life or to lose it; enjoying the enterprise, yet with the thought that his lot might be early death; glad it was right thus to venture, earnest to save those who had freely trusted to him, and ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in motion before Tristram began to snore. Nor did he awake till the sun was up and shining in through the little opening by the stern, through which he could see the legs of the fat steersman on deck. While he rubbed his eyes his father appeared at the cabin door with a bundle in one hand and a ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... gathered round her to try to divert and console her. But she, growing sadder, and not being able to respond, so overcome was she with tears, could hardly eat; and, having had a bed got ready on the stern deck, she sent for the steersman, and ordered him if he still saw land at daybreak, to come and wake her immediately. On this point Mary was favoured; for the wind having dropped, when daybreak came the vessel was still within ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... replied the steersman. "But we're going quite in the wind's eye, and I'm afeared ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... a calm along the deep, Like a mirror sleeps the ocean, And the anxious steersman sees Round him neither stir ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... in the Indian tongue was shouted at them that they must not attempt to land. A shot was fired over their heads to emphasise the fact that the savages were in earnest, and with no alternative, and taken wholly by surprise, Shad at the steersman's paddle astern, swung the canoe out into the stream, ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... up again, and succeeded without undue faintness. He could not wait, but must know his fate immediately. He found the door was unlocked, and when he slipped out into the cabin, he found that there was only one man on board, the steersman, who was sitting in the engine pit, and steering with the rail wheel instead ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... must have gone through the bottom. There was a standing order that no man was to go into it with shoes on. She was to pull six oars, and her crew were the captains of the tops, the primest seamen in the ship, and the steersman, no less a character ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... who assumed the office of helmsman, and pushed the boat off from the pier; whilst the others took the oars, which were muffled, and rowed with all precaution till they attained the middle of the river; they then ceased their efforts, lay upon their oars, and trusted to the steersman for ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... absolutely necessary to clean the engine, and while one of the boys kept the launch in the middle of the river as it drifted, with an oar, the others rolled up their sleeves, and with the knowledge gained from their aeroplane motors, aided the steersman to disconnect and clean the machinery. Meantime the engineer arrayed himself in ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Yukon • Ralph Victor
... number of exogamous sections or vargas, the names of which in some cases indicate a military calling, as Dalai, from Dalpati, commander of an army, and Senapati, commander-in-chief; while others are occupational, as Maharana (painter), Dwari (gatekeeper) and Mangual (steersman of a boat). The latter names show, as might be expected, that the caste is partly of functional origin, while as regards the military names, the Hatwas say that they formerly fought against the Bhonslas, under one of the Uriya chiefs. They say that they have the perpetual ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... the changeable mountain rivers. They were a canoe-shaped open boat, sixty feet long by eight wide, and were pushed up the stream by quants or poles. They required a crew of five men,—four to do the poling, and a steersman. In the swiftest "chutes" they carried a line ashore and made fast to a tree, then warped the boat up to quieter water and resumed the poling. Each boat would carry eight tons, and, compared with teaming over roads of which the "bottom had dropped out," it proved a most economical ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... and Tom Cameron were the best pilots. The small iceboats were built so that two passengers could ride beside the steersman and sheet tender. So the girls took turns in racing up and down the smooth ice on the south side ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... rapid can realise the nerve this requires. Seats had been roughly put in for us to sit on, otherwise, as a rule, except for the oarsmen's bench and the barrels, these boats are absolutely empty. Our friend, the steersman, sat at the bow, and with a sort of oar, held in position by a rope of plaited straw fixed a little on one side, guided the fragile bark. First we had to go into a lock. Any one acquainted with ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... to stand aside. I felt that, after all, Miss Fraenkel's crystal-clear bromidity would be a delightful change after so much intense living and introspection. For that evening, after dinner, as I listened to the music of the Steersman's Song from the Flying Dutchman, it seemed only too likely that even after all these years, so deathless is passion in some hearts, the skilled hand of Frank Carville might set a woman's soul vibrating with ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... she could run the passage a night like this," Captain Glass remarked regretfully, as he watched the wheel lashed hard down by the steersman. ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... a picture that is of the state of unrest and conflict into which such half-and-half impressions of duty cast a man. Such a one is like a vessel with its head now East, now West, because there is some weak or ignorant steersman at the helm. I know nothing more sure to produce inward unrest and disturbance and desolation than that a man's knowledge of duty should be clear, and his obedience to that knowledge partial. If we ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... breath of fresh air before turning in. The night was fine and clear, but the sea around black as ink, with great foaming white rollers. The decks, a foot deep in snow, were deserted save by Z—— and the steersman, whose silhouettes stood out black and distinct against the starlit sky as they paced the rickety-looking little bridge flanked by red and green lights. The Enzelli lighthouse was no longer visible. The latter ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... the surf-beaten islands, Nor yet upon Morven's land, Does she drive, for her rudder, unshattered, Is firm in the steersman's hand. ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... right. One priest always remains by the steersman, to ward off the spells of the sea demons." Ladro paused, pointing overside. "See," he said in a pleased tone, "here is an ...
— The Players • Everett B. Cole
... relieve him while he went down to his dinner. In his spare moments Frank, who wisely regarded it as the duty of every officer to acquaint himself with every part of the management of a vessel, had learned to handle the wheel, and he was an excellent steersman. He could make a landing or get a boat under way, as well as the most experienced pilot; and in the present instance he was fully capable of steering the boat, for as the water in the river was high, there was no danger of getting out of ...
— Frank on the Lower Mississippi • Harry Castlemon
... oars. Aboard which boat she forthwith got, and being, like most of the women of the island, not altogether without nautical skill, she rowed some distance out to sea, and then hoisted sail, and cast away oars and tiller, and let the boat drift, deeming that a boat without lading or steersman would certainly be either capsized by the wind or dashed against some rock and broken in pieces, so that escape she could not, even if she would, but must perforce drown. And so, her head wrapped in a mantle, she stretched herself weeping on the floor of the boat. But it fell out ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... arrived at this conclusion a cry from the steersman roused him. He sprang to his feet. Alas! the sloop had run too far on the northerly tack, and simultaneously the wind had shifted a point to the southward. In the open water this had advantaged her; but she had been allowed to run into a bight of the north shore and a line of foam cut her ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... rested the head of a third man—one of the three I had first seen sitting amidships. When the other two toppled overboard this one had slid off the thwart and fallen against the steersman. He was an oldish man, yellow and thin and marked with the small-pox; the only one in the boat who might have come from some other country than Norway. His eyes were cast down in a quiet way, and he seemed to be smiling. He wore a seaman's loose ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... device and it is used at Davos and St. Moritz for jolly family parties on the straight courses. There they equip it with a bugle to herald its approach with joyous tootings, a bridle of steel wire by which it is steered in combination with pressure on a lever by means of the feet of the steersman, and also with a curious brake which consists of a nail studded board so rigged to the rear sled that the last man can drop it down to the ice and anchor it by the grip of the nails, thereby retarding ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... could not have paddled herself across, two men were taking her over; and for the steersman she had Jaffir. Though he had assented to Jorgenson's plan Jaffir was anxious to accompany the ring as near as possible to its destination. Nothing but dire necessity had induced him to part with the talisman. Crouching in ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... by contrast. Bixby returned, made a trip or two, then left and transferred him again, this time to a man named Brown. Brown had a berth on the fine new steamer Pennsylvania, one of the handsomest boats on the river, and young Clemens had become a fine steersman, so it is not unlikely that both men at first were ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... eleve of the marine, as deserving of praise for his knowledge, as for the courage he displayed on this occasion; both of them, as long as the bad weather lasted, remained at the helm, and guided the boats. One Thomas, steersman, and one Lange, the boatswain's mate, also shewed great courage, and all the experience of old seamen. These two boats, reached the Echo corvette, on the 9th, at 10 o'clock in the evening, which had been ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard
... The current thrusts against its hinder end, and the buoyant wood answers to it like the tail of a fish, slipping sideways round; the steersman sways, but with a swing of his pole recovers his balance, ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski
... rudely down, as by day, .. but with some cautiousness dropt it to its place, for fear of disturbing their slumbering shipmates; when this sort of steady quietude would begin to prevail, habitually, the silent steersman would watch the cabin-scuttle; and ere long the old man would emerge, griping at the iron banister, to help his crippled way. Some considerating touch of humanity was in him; for at times like these, he usually abstained ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... those starboard braces there, and haul in to leeward?" cried out Captain Billings, directing the man at the wheel by a wave of his hand to put the helm down slightly, so as to bring her head more up to the wind; but this was more than the steersman could do unaided, the vessel—carrying out the analogy I recently used—resembling a vicious charger that had taken the bit between his teeth—so, Mr Macdougall at once sprang to help the steersman, when the two together managed, by exerting all their united ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... most satisfying and enjoyable meal that had passed my lips for many a day. Shortly afterward, the strength of the ebb current increasing so greatly that we were able to make scarcely any headway against it, our steersman headed the canoe in toward the western bank of the river, and we presently entered a narrow creek up which we passed for a distance of about a quarter of a mile until we reached a practicable landing-place, when the canoe was secured to a stout mangrove root, and all hands stepped ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... fare to the sea, The men of the Namunu-ura glean from under the tree And load the canoe to the gunwale with all that is toothsome to eat; And all day long on the sea the jaws are crushing the meat, The steersman eats at the helm, the rowers munch at the oar, And at length, when their bellies are full, overboard with the store!" Now was the word made true, and soon as the bait was bare, All the pigs of Taiarapu ...
— Ballads • Robert Louis Stevenson
... (of white American cotton) ready, and joined Mareko. His canoe (the best on the island, of course) was already in the water and manned by his two sons, boys of eight and twelve respectively. I sat for'ard, the two youngsters amidships, the father took the post of honour as tautai or steersman, and with a chuckle of satisfaction from the boys, off we went in the wake of about ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... perceptibly, but as unseen and unanalyzed, as the kiss of the breeze at evening. Sans doute, Monsieur, 'tis very wonderful, all this,—and then, also, 'tis very convenient. Our ships must have a steersman, you know. And, par exemple, unless we call it sympathetic, that strange susceptibility which we see in many persons, detect in ourselves sometimes, what name have we to give it at all? Unless we call it sympathy, how shall we define those mysterious premonitions, shadowy warnings, solemn ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... may rightly claim for their own. He really loved Etta. He was trying to gauge the meaning of a little change in her tone toward him—a change so subtle that few men could have detected it. But Claude de Chauxville —accomplished steersman through the shoals of human nature, especially through those very pronounced shoals who call themselves women of the world—Claude de Chauxville knew the value of the slightest change of manner, should that change ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... hearts in song, [Str. 1. And our souls to the height of the darkling day. If the wind in our eyes blow blood for spray, Be the spirit that breathes in us life more strong, Though the prow reel round and the helm point wrong, And sharp reefs whiten the shoreward way. 1290 For the steersman time sits hidden astern, [Ant. 1. With dark hand plying the rudder of doom, And the surf-smoke under it flies like fume As the blast shears off and the oar-blades churn The foam of our lives ...
— Erechtheus - A Tragedy (New Edition) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... princes, and they came from all their valleys to the yellow sands of Pagasai. And first came Heracles the mighty, with his lion's skin and club, and behind him Hylas his young squire, who bore his arrows and his bow; and Tiphys, the skilful steersman; and Butes, the fairest of all men; and Castor and Polydeuces the twins, the sons of the magic swan; and Caeneus, the strongest of mortals, whom the Centaurs tried in vain to kill, and overwhelmed him with trunks of pine-trees, but even so he would not die; and ...
— The Heroes • Charles Kingsley
... of the vessel was divided into an engine-room, a kitchen, combination dining-room and parlor, bunk rooms, and a conning tower, or place for the steersman. ...
— Under the Ocean to the South Pole - The Strange Cruise of the Submarine Wonder • Roy Rockwood
... in her when the first canoe came under her hand. It was quite easy to manipulate the painter-rope. The stem had a notched knob provided for this very purpose, and there was a stern-post against which a steersman might press a paddle and thus swerve the canoe in any direction. But it was slow work. The craft were moored without any semblance of order, yet Suarez was forced to secure them in a definite sequence, or a string of half-a-dozen ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... visit Guacanagari, whose residence was four or five leagues from the port of St Thomas. After his return to the ships, he went to bed, the weather being quite calm, as he had not slept during two days and a night. The weather being so fine the steersman left the helm in charge of a grummet, although the admiral had expressly commanded, whatever should be the weather, that he who was entrusted with the helm should never leave it to any other person. In truth, no danger was apprehended ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... with two smoke-stacks raking aft, and with one or two masts for showing signals, for they never hoisted a sail. Two huge paddle-boxes towered above the deck amidships, the wheels being of enormous size. No structure of any kind encumbered the deck. Even the steersman stood unsheltered at a wheel in the bow. They were painted dark gray, and at night could slip unseen along the water within a stone's-throw of the most watchful lookout on a man-of-war. They burned great quantities of a kind of coal that gave out no smoke, and when steaming at night not a light ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... Palinurus, sleeping at the helm, fell into the sea and was drowned. The name is employed as a generic word for a steersman or pilot, and sometimes for a chief minister. Thus, Prince Bismarck might have been called the palinurus of William, emperor of ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... At a distance one hears only the wild high syncopated chanting; but as the affair draws slowly nearer, he catches the undertone of the responses. These latter are cast in the regular swing and rhythm of effort; but the steersman throws in his bit at odd ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... continued. He praised the construction of the boat; it was so convenient, he said, because one person could so easily manage it with a pair of oars. She should herself learn how to do this; there was often a delicious feeling in floating along alone upon the water, one's own ferryman and steersman. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... water, which roared and broke over the bows. “It will be a short run,” said the steersman, “if the ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... then," replied Jacob Farnum. He passed the word for Andrews, who came on deck. The ventilators were quickly shipped. Jack Benson shifted to the steersman's seat inside the conning tower. Sailing lights were turned off; the manhole cover was battened down securely. They were dependent, now, on the air-compressing equipment whenever the air aboard ...
— The Submarine Boys on Duty - Life of a Diving Torpedo Boat • Victor G. Durham
... less fortuitous than it seemed to be. As a reward of merit for having saved the mate's life, he had been told off to serve temporarily as man-of-all-work for the day pilot, who chanced to be without a steersman. His watch in the pilot-house was over, and he was on his way to the crew's quarters below when he stumbled upon Miss Farnham. Mindful of his earlier slip, he passed her as if she had been invisible. She let him go until her opportunity ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... towns and villages, who seldom came to Para themselves, but entrusted vessels and cargoes to the care of half-breeds or Portuguese cabos. Sometimes, indeed, they risked all in the hands of the Indian crew, making the pilot, who was also steersman, do duty as supercargo. Now and then, Portuguese and Brazilian merchants at Para furnished young Portuguese with merchandise, and dispatched them to the interior to exchange the goods for produce among the ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... and moved slowly night and day, to invade the forests of Michigan. Sometimes when we came to a lock father got off and walked a mile or two. On one of these occasions I accompanied him, and when we came to a favorable place, father signaled to the steersman, and he turned the boat up. Father jumped on to the side of the boat. I attempted to follow him, did not jump far enough, missed my hold and went down, by the side of the boat, into the water. However, father caught my hand and lifted ...
— The Bark Covered House • William Nowlin
... ee.—Whee yo ee." The steersman gave "Whee," and was followed by the other men with a repetition of ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... watched through the night. The silent steersman heard him frequently rustling papers on the chart table or clumping to the bridge or lolling on the port sills—a restlessness that had about it something of ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... boards, the tremulous fluttering of the flying jib, and occasional gybing of the spanker, showing how close up to the wind the vessel was being steered. "You couldn't luff her a bit more, McCarthy, could you?" he added, after another glance at the compass and a murmured "steady!" to the steersman. ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... Make fast and belay—Heisa! Heisa! One long pull! One long pull! Young blood! More mud! There, there! Yellow hair! Great and small! One and all!" The "yellow hair" refers to the fair-haired Norsemen. What the master told the steersman might have been said by any skipper of our own day: "Keep full and by! Luff! Con her! Steady! Keep close!" But what he told the "Boatswain" next takes us back three hundred years and more. "Bear stones and limepots full of lime to the top" (whence they would ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... impetuous flies, The helm the attentive timoneer applies: As in pursuit along the aerial way, With ardent eye the falcon marks his prey, Each motion watches of the doubtful chase, Obliquely wheeling through the fluid space; So, govern'd by the steersman's GLOWING hands, The regent ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... their respective shafts, which projected over the sides of the boat. The forward part was covered by a deck which afforded shelter for her hands. The after-part was fitted up in a rough manner for passengers. The entrance into the cabin was from the stern in front of the steersman, who worked a tiller as in an ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... sate beside the Steersman then, and gazing Upon the west, cried, "Spread the sails! Behold! 3200 The sinking moon is like a watch-tower blazing Over the mountains yet;—the City of Gold Yon Cape alone does from the sight withhold; The stream is fleet—the north breathes steadily Beneath the stars; they tremble with ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... startled Percival Ford, and it reminded him of Dr. Kennedy's phrase. Down by the outrigger canoes, where they lay hauled out on the sand, he saw men and women, Kanakas, reclining languorously, like lotus-eaters, the women in white holokus; and against one such holoku he saw the dark head of the steersman of the canoe resting upon the woman's shoulder. Farther down, where the strip of sand widened at the entrance to the lagoon, he saw a man and woman walking side by side. As they drew near the light lanai, he saw ...
— The House of Pride • Jack London
... our guide, the captain, steersman, and ballaster of our vessel. We struck our bargain with him at once, and at once proceeded to make preparations. Chiefly we prepared by stripping ourselves bare of everything except "must-haves." A birch, besides three men, will carry only the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... short voyage he entered into some conversation with the steersman, who was also owner of the boat, a jolly old man, who had occasionally been engaged in the smuggling trade, like most fishers on the coast. After talking about objects of less interest, Brown endeavoured to turn the discourse ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... the following morning, Jack mounted the steersman's seat, and sent the Terror rolling to the place where the bandits were ...
— Jack Wright and His Electric Stage; - or, Leagued Against the James Boys • "Noname"
... not soar very high; it skimmed a few hundred feet above the banked darknesses of cumulus that hid the world, ready to plunge at once into their wet obscurities should some hostile flier range into vision. The tense young steersman divided his attention between the guiding stars above and the level, tumbled surfaces of the vapour strata that hid the world below. Over great spaces those banks lay as even as a frozen lava-flow and almost as still, and then they were rent by ragged areas of translucency, ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... his head, took the tiller from the steersman, and bade him go below and fill himself. Will Cary went down, and returned in five minutes, with a plate of bread and beef, and a great jack of ale, coaxed them down Amyas's throat, as a nurse does with a child, and then scuttled below again with tears ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... drummer-boy: all the Kraoh tribes end their names in bo, e.g. Worebo, from "wore," to capsize a canoe; Grebo, from the monkey "gre" or "gle;" and many others. Bo became "boy," even as Sipahi (Sepoy) became Sea- pie, and Sukhani (steersman) Sea-Coney. ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... endeavoured, by hoisting the sails, and by practising all possible manoeuvres, to preserve the ship from impending destruction; but all was of no avail, we were hard on a lee shore, to which the howling tempest was impelling us. About this time I was standing near the helm, and I asked the steersman if there was any hope of saving the vessel, or our lives. He replied, "Sir, it is a bad affair, no boat could live for a minute in this sea, and in less than an hour the ship will have her broadside on Finisterre, where the strongest man-of-war ever built must go to ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... o'ermounts them; The god rides the waves, sails about the island; The host of little gods ride the billows; 15 Malau takes his seat; One bales out the bilge of the craft. Who shall sit astern, be steersman, O, princes? Pele of the yellow earth. The splash of the ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... neared the beach we perceived that even during 103the short time which had elapsed since we quitted it, the sea had become considerably rougher, and the line of surf now presented anything but an encouraging appearance. As we approached the breakers the steersman desired us to back with our oars till he saw a favourable opportunity; and the moment he gave us the signal to pull in as hard as we were able. After a short pause the signal was given, and we attempted to pull in as he had directed; but, in doing this, we did not act exactly ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... kindred. Well! the amiable conjecture does no harm, and may therefore be safely left uncontradicted. Far from saying nay, indeed, I will permit the reader to picture me, for the next eight years, as a bark slumbering through halcyon weather, in a harbour still as glass—the steersman stretched on the little deck, his face up to heaven, his eyes closed: buried, if you will, in a long prayer. A great many women and girls are supposed to pass their lives something in that fashion; why not I ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... my reception of, and response to, that timeless love, am a saint belonging to God, then not only shall I be secure, but I must be submissive. 'All His saints are in Thy hand.' Do not try to get out of it; be content to let it guide you as the steersman's hand turns the spokes of the wheel and directs ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
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