"Windlass" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... answered: "Still twelve feet shy." There was a scramble for the buckets, but no one offered to man the windlass and hoist them up the air shaft. Grant was only a carpenters' boss. The men around the buckets were miners. But he called: "Get out of there, Hughey and Mike—none of that. We must make that ladder first—get some timbers—put the rungs three ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... the life of the seas no more. The gloom of the forest fell on her, mournful like a winding sheet. The bushes of the bank tapped their twigs on the bluff of her bows, and a pendent spike of tiny brown blossoms swung to and fro over the ruins of her windlass. ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... his friend, by torchlight above the wall, had struck him dumb. Now that he spoke, his companions saw, exposed in the field to the view of the nunnery, a white body lying on a framework as on a bier. Near the foot stood a rough sort of windlass. Above, on the crest of the field, where a band of men had begun to scramble at the sentinel's halloo, there sat on a white pony the bright-robed figure of the tall fanatic, Fang ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... cried the girl, cheerfully, and while uncle Nathan was polishing his broad face with the towel, she seized a heavy iron tea-kettle, and carried it to the well, which, surrounded by plantain and dock leaves, was near a corner of the house. She had some little difficulty in managing the windlass, and when the old mossy bucket fell with a dash into the water twenty feet below, it made her start and shiver all over as ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... clang of the bucket against the stones, the rumble of the windlass, and then Dilly came in with a brimming bright tin dipper. She offered it first to the parson, and though she refilled it scrupulously for each pair of lips, it seemed a holy loving-cup. They sat there in the darkening room, ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... we'll not," was the answer, "unless we can get him near enough to stun him with a hatchet. Even on board a big ship the men often have to attach the rope to a windlass to draw the big fellows in while they're still full of fight. Even if he were stunned, I don't think that all of us pulling together could lift his dead weight on ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... them all. Parties ascend on horseback to the snow line, and from thence the distance to the summit is accomplished on foot. Some adventurous people make the descent into the crater by means of the bucket and windlass used by the sulphur-gatherers, but the most inquisitive can see all that they desire from the northerly edge of the cone. The expeditions for the ascent are made up at Amecameca. The time necessarily occupied is about three days, and ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... frightened the men into the launch, where Hillson was already in person, and that the boat either struck adrift under the power of the roller, or that the painter was imprudently cast off in the confusion of the moment. He had got in as far as the windlass himself, when the sea came aboard; and, as soon as he recovered his sight after the ducking he received, he caught a dim view of the launch, driving off to leeward, on the top of a wave. Hailing was useless, and he stood gazing at the helpless boat ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... Terrace. There, any day, you might see a coachman curry-combing his satin-skinned horses, hissing between his teeth by way of encouragement, after the time-honoured custom. Or you might see a load of hay lifted up by a windlass into the loft above the stables. Or you might assist at the washing of a carriage. Sometimes the gate at the farther side of the stable was open, and a gardener would come through with a barrowful of rubbish to add to the ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... camps—which it would take too much space here to enumerate. With the exception of the few modern installations most of the mines are worked by the primitive Mexican system of winding up the ore in raw-hide sacks, hauled by means of cables made from maguey fibre, upon a mule-actuated windlass—the malacate. In some cases the miners carry huge pieces of ore on their backs, from 100 lbs. to 200 lbs. in weight, along the galleries to the shaft. Interior ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... the follower after big dreams, sat silent, balancing the sack of ore in a bronzed and rock-scarred hand. He was a powerful man, with the broad, square-set shoulders that come from much swinging of a double jack or cranking at a windlass. The curling beard of youth had covered his hard-bitten face and his head was unconsciously thrust forward, as if he still glimpsed his vision and was eager to follow it further. The crowd settled down and gazed at him curiously, ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... sleep he had had, he dozed off as he sat on the deck with his back against the bulwark, watching the shore as they drifted slowly past it, and wondering vaguely, how it would all end. They had been anchored but half an hour when the captain ordered the men to the windlass. ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... glad enough to be quit of him so soon, but I noticed that, as I stripped and packed my clothes to carry in a bundle on my head, the holy man set his foot in the stirrup of his weapon, and was winding up his arbalest with a windlass, a bolt in his mouth, watching at the same time a heron that rose from a marsh on the further side of the stream. On this bird, I deemed, he meant to try his skill with ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... around as one gets nearer and nearer the bays and cliffs of this lonely island; and now one hears the sound of breakers on the rocks. Hamish and his men are on the alert. The topsail has been lowered. The heavy cable of the anchor lies ready by the windlass. And then, as the Umpire glides into smooth water, and her head is brought round to the light breeze, away goes the anchor with a rattle that awakes a thousand echoes; and all the startled birds among the rocks are calling through the night—the sea-pyots screaming shrilly, the ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... arms, with their as yet untried muscles, must be our only windlass to bring us to the surface again! Down, down, down, deeper, deeper, deeper! Will this ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... furiously against the poop-deck. Suddenly, that terrible cry, 'A man overboard!' I lost no time. I bore down on the taffrail threw the cook overboard, and soon had the satisfaction of seeing our noble craft lay over abaft the wind. Then, quick as thought, I belayed the windlass and lowered a gaff. It struck something soft. I heard JEFF cry: 'Don't hit my head again.' I was careful. The gaff slid along his back, and finally settled firmly into the seat of his trousers. He was hoisted aboard. The first thing he did was to see if his tobacco was safe. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 35, November 26, 1870 • Various
... Cardite in this small motor first," said Mr. Roumann, as he pointed to a machine in the projectile used for winding a cable around a windlass when there was necessity for hauling the Annihilator about, without sending ...
— Lost on the Moon - or In Quest Of The Field of Diamonds • Roy Rockwood
... The tapers which are lighted down there, flash and gleam on alti-rilievi in gold and silver, delicately wrought by skilful hands, and representing the principal events in the life of the saint. Jewels, and precious metals, shine and sparkle on every side. A windlass slowly removes the front of the altar; and, within it, in a gorgeous shrine of gold and silver, is seen, through alabaster, the shrivelled mummy of a man: the pontifical robes with which it is adorned, radiant with diamonds, emeralds, rubies: ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... not to be seen. Neither was MacDonald. There seemed to be no one. The day shift were going back in the tunnels below. The windlass handle hung prone as a disused well. It had not flown back broken. The cable had been cut. Then, he heard a groan. It was Calamity lying on her face at the foot of the windlass, weeping and reaving her hair. Stretched ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... picture before me, my thoughts touched upon other happenings of that boyhood voyage—the long, tedious beat through the straits against light head winds and a continuous head tide; the man-killing log windlass, round which we hove, and lightened, chain of an eight-inch link; the natives, with their welcome fruit in exchange for trinkets; and, lastly, the white-haired old pilot, who came forward to visit me one evening on ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... on my father's wharf—what on the deck of the sloop while he moored his dog to the windlass for a beating—what he flung back while she gathered way—strangely moved Tom Tot, who hearkened, spellbound, until the last words of it (and the last yelp of the dog) were lost in the distance of North Tickle: it impelled the old man (as he has ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... the far distant future. From this tackle-block at the top of the structure, the cable passed down to another smaller pulley which was fastened at the base of the apparatus. Through this pulley, the cable passed to the cylinder of a windlass which was held to the ground by massive beams. This windlass which can be operated by only two hands, multiplies man's strength by means of a series of cog-wheels. Although there is a gain in force, there is of course a ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... in the rocks, near the south-easterly corner of the bay. Punctually to our use, the blow-hole spouted; the schooner turned upon her heel; the anchor plunged. It was a small sound, a great event; my soul went down with these moorings whence no windlass may extract nor any diver fish it up; and I, and some part of my ship's company, were from that hour the bondslaves of the ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... cannot be easily worked on a large scale. Their extraordinary richness may be inferred from the fact that many claims were profitably worked in them by sinking shafts to a depth of 200 feet or more, and hoisting the dirt by a windlass. Should the dip of this ancient channel be such as to make the Stanislaus Canon available as a dump, then the grand deposit might be worked by the hydraulic method, and although a long, expensive tunnel would be required, the scheme ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... wanted to soar, Thorpe and I preferred Mother Earth; to Jim was offered the casting vote. He spun a dollar to decide, and within a few minutes the five of us were seated in the wicker-car. I remember that our aeronaut inspired confidence in Angela because he wore the Grand Army medal. A windlass and a donkey-engine controlled the big rope which held us captive. We went aloft in a series of disagreeable and upsetting jerks. This may be an unusual experience, but it was ours. I am a bad sailor, and so is Ajax. Neither of us smiled when Thorpe ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... deck. Close by these was the most astonishing part of the vessel, the colossal rudder, not hung with pintles and gudgeons, the vessel having no stern-post, but suspended to two windlasses by three large ropes made of cane and hemp; one round a windlass on the next deck, and two round a windlass on the upper deck of all, so that it could be raised or lowered according to the depth of water. When lowered to its full extent it drew about twenty-four feet, ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan
... passages, to a hollow place near the descending shaft, where I saw a most extraordinary monster fitted up. In form it was like a great coffee-mill, such as I had seen in London, only a thousand times larger, and with heavy windlass ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... has been here this morning to ask whether you wish the windlass to be left in the yard, and whether you will want him and his mate any more, and, if so, when? Of course he says (rolling something in the form of a fillet in at one broken tooth all the while, and rolling it out at another) that they could wish fur to have the windlass if it warn't ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... point in hickory propagation work consists in the employment of the Spanish windlass for fastening graft and stock together. The old time wrapping of twine or of raffia had to be released in order to allow growth at the point of union of scion and stock. When cord is used it cuts deeply into the new growth, and raffia, which is placed on flat, will be burst ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... modern Persian, who is really a marvellous expert—when he chooses to use his skill—at conveying water where Nature has not provided it. I watched some men making one of these kanats. They had bored a vertical hole about three feet in diameter, over which a wooden windlass had been erected. One man was working at the bottom of the shaft. By means of buckets the superfluous earth was gradually raised up to the surface, and the hole bored further. The earth removed in the excavation is then embanked all round the aperture of the ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... it is evident that a dozen men could not by hand alone accomplish this if the kites were sent as high as might be. It is likely, therefore, that, as the importance of scientific kite-flying becomes more widely understood, some simple dummy engine will be devised for rapidly turning the windlass on which the main line ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... the mate stretched me out on the windlass and commenced examining my limb; and then doctoring it after a fashion with something from the medicine-chest, rolled it up in a piece of an old sail, making so big a bundle that, with my feet resting on the windlass, I might have been taken for a sailor with the gout. While this was going ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... ship on one occasion, when she was becalmed and practically surrounded by a powerful British fleet, by "kedging"—in other words, sending a row-boat out with an anchor, which was dropped as far ahead as the boat could take it, and the ship pulled up to it by means of the windlass. As soon as the British saw him doing this, they tried it too, but Hull managed to get away from them by almost superhuman exertions. He served in the navy for many years after his memorable victory over the Guerriere, but ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... visit, they will at least be not a little amused by the apt performance of a docile ass, whose task it is to draw up water from a well 300 feet deep! This office he performs by treading rapidly inside of an immense windlass-wheel (15-1/2 feet in diameter,) whereby he gives it the necessary rotatory motion. The natural longevity of these patient laborers is here exemplified by the instances on record; one done the duty for above 50 years, another 40, and another nearly 30. To afford some idea of the depth of the well, ...
— Brannon's Picture of The Isle of Wight • George Brannon
... heave in the chain cable, and get the anchor up to the bows; and the ship was drifting finely towards the beach, when the cable, not being stopped abaft the bitts, began suddenly to run out with great velocity; but a bight having by accident been thrown forward of the windlass, a riding turn was the consequence, and the anchor, in its descent, was suddenly checked about fifteen fathoms from the hawse. A squall soon after coming on, the vessel drifted obliquely towards the shore, ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... wind-buffeted face of the cliff, until sea and sky were hid together. At such times the populous city beyond and the nearer settlement seemed removed to an infinite distance. An immeasurable loneliness settled upon the cliff. The creaking of a windlass, or the monotonous chant of sailors on some unseen, outlying ship, came faint and far, ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... the sloop. Quickly battening down the prisoners, I had the sails spread, the windlass going, and the anchor apeak quickly, and we soon were moving down upon the schooner, which was now all confusion, commands ringing out on the quiet air. But when, laying alongside, we gave her a dose, and then another, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... walk. He came to me there, goaded me beyond endurance, and I called him a madman and a liar. I was going to leave him when he seized me by the wrist and sought to detain me by force. You yourself saw the bruises. I became mad, and drew the loose iron spindle from the shrunken wood of the windlass. My first husband sank with one horrible cry into the black ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... an old mine shaft, perhaps fifty feet deep, with an ancient hand-made windlass still at the top. Then just to one side and entering the mountain was a great log door, put together with bolts. The lock was a strong powder-house lock, made of heavy brass. The place gave no appearance of having seen a man in many years. The hinges ...
— Buffalo Roost • F. H. Cheley
... of the drifting vessels came to an anchor. Our own lads were very quiet, the watch below having turned in, while those on deck, with the exception of the lookout, had arranged themselves in a group about the windlass, and were conversing in suppressed tones well befitting the exceeding quiet of the night. Lady Desmond, well wrapped up in a fur-lined cloak, occupied a large wicker reclining chair placed close to the after skylight, where it was ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... from a long cable, formed of two conducting wires, which winds around a windlass with metallic journals which are electrically insulated. These journals communicate, through the intermedium of two friction springs, with the conductors on the one hand and, on the other, with the poles of an automatic ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 787, January 31, 1891 • Various
... until their feet actually trod the rude planks and thatch that formed the roof of their habitation; for their cabin half burrowed in the mountain, and half clung, like a swallow's nest, to the side of the deep declivity that terminated the northern limit of the summit. Had it not been for the windlass of a shaft, a coil of rope, and a few heaps of stone and gravel, which were the only indications of human labor in that stony field, there was nothing to interrupt its monotonous dead level. And, when they descended a dozen well-worn steps ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... altitude of two thousand feet the observer 'phoned down to the men at the windlass to stop. A stiff wind was blowing, but the "sausage" behaved itself well until, as the observation officer turned to Dennis with a cheery laugh, something passed ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... the cables, slowly lowered, and landed at last on the outside of the hut. Many an anxious glance was cast at the slate-gray sky. An inopportune flurry of snow, a flaw of wind:—and even now all would be lost. Dusk too impended, and as the rope began to coil on the windlass at the signal to hoist every eye was strained to discern the identity of the first voyagers in this aerial journey,—the two children, securely lashed to the chair. This was well,—all felt that both parents might best wait, might risk the added delay. The chair ...
— The Christmas Miracle - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... shapeless figure, by the wheel, with his face darkened and roughened by cold and stinging brine. There was an open sore upon one of his elbows, and both his wrists were raw. Forward, a white man and two Siwash were standing about the windlass, and when the bows went up a dreary stretch of slate-grey sea opened up beyond them beneath the dripping jibs. Then the bows would go down again, and all that was visible was the fore-shortened slope of deck and the breast of the big undulation that hove itself up ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... was pulling a bucket of water up out of the well fur us with a windlass. The doctor says ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... swinging upon another tall vertical one forked at the top; a chain depends from one end of the horizontal beam or bar, to which the bucket is attached, whilst the other end is counterpoised by means of stones. Some of the wells are worked with a windlass and fly-wheel, but the one just described frequently ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... fro across the river Plies the little mercy-craft, While from ambushed gun and quiver On it falls the fatal shaft. Trembling from the burning village, Still the terror-stricken fly, For the Indians' love of pillage Stays the bloody tragedy. At the windlass-bar bare-headed— Bare his brawny arms and throat— Brave and ready—grim and steady, Mauley ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... people kneeling around a newly opened well. I asked a man who was digging beside the dusty path what this might mean. He straightened himself for a moment, wiping the sweat from his brow, and answered, sullenly, "They are worshipping the windlass: how else should they bring water into their fields?" Then he fell furiously to digging again, and I passed on into ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... there will not," answered I; and, dashing forward to the windlass bitts, I proceeded to throw off turn after turn of the stiff hempen cable that held the felucca to her anchor, until the last turn was gone and the flakes went writhing and twisting out through the hawse-hole; ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... the windlass! Stream both buoys! Easy, astern. Let go, all!" The slip-rope flew out, the two buoys bobbed in the water to mark where anchor and cable had been left, and the flat- iron waddled out into midstream with the white ensign at her ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... couple of pulleys, and rigged a rope through them, and then made a windlass, and put the rope round it," ...
— Harper's Young People, June 22, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... course of the gale nearly the whole length of the hempen cable, of 120 fathoms, was veered out, besides the chain-moorings, and, for its preservation, the cable was carefully "served", or wattled, with pieces of canvas round the windlass, and with leather well greased in the hawse-hole, where the ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... to heave up the anchor with a windlass, Mr. Graines," said he to the engineer. "We had better get the hang of it while we have time to do so. Ship the ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... frontal sinuses. What was the use of losing his temper and throwing away his place, and so, among the consequences which would necessarily follow, leaving the poor lady-teacher without a friend to stand by her ready to lay his hand on the grand-inquisitor before the windlass of his rack had taken one turn ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... it to mingle with the bay, And softened bars of mountain stand glowing o'er the way; The wild game flock the offing; the great seine-barges go— From battery to windlass, and singing as ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... o'clock nothing was to be heard but the tick-tack of mallets in the ship-building yards, the puffing of the steam-tug, the rattle of hawsers among the vessels out in the harbour, and the melodious "Woo-hoo!" of a crew at capstan or windlass. Troy in carnival and Troy sober are as opposite, you must know, as the poles. Fun is all very well, but business is business, and Troy is a trading port with a character to keep up: for who has not heard the bye-word— "Working like ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... have a regular jollification to-morrow, it being his birthday. Along the rigging were white trowsers, check shirts, and all the other paraphernalia of a sailor's wardrobe, hung up to swing to the wind, and dry; and, as Jerome sat on the windlass, scraping and screwing his fiddle by way of tuning, I could plainly be made to understand that Friday, the 21st of May, was not intended to be passed over with the indifference of any ordinary day,—at least, not on board the Iris. In a few minutes, while I ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... the deck-houses, spar or upper deck, forward and abaft the paddle-wheel boxes, fitting the after and forward bulwarks in sections, cutting port-holes, fitting hammock cloths or nettings, putting in extra beams and knees, and stanchions, moving the windlass below, building magazines, shell-rooms, officers' rooms, etc., etc. The cost of all these alterations and fixtures would not exceed ($15,000 or $20,000) twenty thousand dollars each ship. These ships would then be relieved of about one hundred and fifty tons weight, or ...
— Ocean Steam Navigation and the Ocean Post • Thomas Rainey
... and that was why they so often came to the ground. He logged up his windlass platform a little higher, bent about eighty feet of rope to the bole of the windlass, which was a new one, and thereafter, whenever a suspicious-looking party (that is to say, a digger) hove in sight, Dave would let down about forty feet ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... line, and Nelson and Bowen, with life-lines about them, bent the stubborn end of it around the windlass. It was heavy work, even for two men, on the tumbling, slippery deck, and, that done, they turned, anxiously, to see how the man in the stern of the tug was making out. He was there, back to, bending the thick stubborn bight about the towing bitts with slow, heavy ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... three front doors, the real entrance to the house was at the rear, to which access was had by a side gate. A path, moss-grown at the edges, led between shrubs and flowers to a small circle of brickwork, in the midst of which was a well with rope and windlass above it, and thence continued to the door, which led to an antique, low-browed kitchen. A small dark passage led from the kitchen to a front room with a great fireplace, which rose so high that there was but just enough room ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... new twigs, of every hue, were allowed to bend and to intertwine in such a way as to form two rows of green fence. Beyond this fence and below the white mound, was a well, by the side of which stood a well-sweep, windlass and such like articles; the ground further down being divided into parcels, and apportioned into fields, which, with the fine vegetables and cabbages in flower, presented, at the first glance, the ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... the seamen were about; they appeared to be pumping, instead of heaving, at the windlass. I forced my way through the heterogeneous mixture of human beings, animals, and baggage which crowded the decks, and discovered that they were working a patent windlass, by Dobbinson—a very ingenious and superior invention. The ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... "I'll sue Farmer Windlass for the damage his pesky goats have done, so I will, for the hateful things have eaten up all ...
— Billy Whiskers - The Autobiography of a Goat • Frances Trego Montgomery
... dwelt near the harbor heard the clank of a windlass as the crew of the Royal James hove the cable short, and the melodious, deep-throated refrain of a farewell chantey floated across the quiet water. With the flood of the tide and a landward breeze, the brig stole out across the bar while the topsails were sheeted home. When ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... frantic as she, looked wildly about him. His eyes fell on a heavy piece of iron, left on the deck by some seaman who had been repairing the windlass. Like a ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick
... travel where a woman may, in the New World, or the Old, she meets this old, old tale everywhere. It is the one bond of sympathy which I have found existing in three quarters of the world alike. So on, until the cable rattles over the windlass, as the good ship's anchor plunges down fathoms deep into the blue waters ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... the yellow—postured in extravagant angular attitudes drying their wings. Above the rim of the silver-blue sea—patched with purple stains in the middle distance—webs of steamer smoke lay along the southern sky. Occasionally a sound of voices, the creak of a wooden windlass and grind of a boat's keel upon the pebbles as it was wound slowly up the foreshore, came from the direction of the ferry and of Faircloth's Inn. The effect was languorous, would have been enervating to the point of mental, ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... the ships he was concerned in, for he never piloted any other craft—Bildad, I say, might now be seen actively engaged in looking over the bows for the approaching anchor, and at intervals singing what seemed a dismal stave of psalmody, to cheer the hands at the windlass, who roared forth some sort of a chorus about the girls in Booble Alley, with hearty good will. Nevertheless, not three days previous, Bildad had told them that no profane songs would be allowed on board the Pequod, particularly in getting under weigh; and Charity, ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... the entrance Jose and the traitorous Indian stood over the windlass, by means of which the rope was worked, and as I ran to their side, one of the Spanish soldiers uttered a cry of alarm. Instantly all was tumult and confusion. Shots were fired at random, men shouted wildly, "We are betrayed!" while, ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... women and shouts of warning. He looked back in time to see the huge stone turn part way round on the chute and rush, end first, earthward. Expectant silence fell, broken only by the vicious snarl of a flying windlass crank. But in an instant the great slab struck the earth with a thunderous sound that reverberated again and again from the barren hills about. A vast all-enveloping cloud of dust and earth filled the hollow quarry like ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... dyke in the new shaft at a shallower depth than Dick's Mount of Gold drive, and here Harry expended those turbulent emotions that welled within him, working furiously. Whether handling pick or shovel, toiling at the windlass, or ringing the heavy hammer on the drill, he wrought with a feverish energy that amazed his mates, who ascribed it all to an excusable but rather insane anxiety to test the value of their mine in the mill. For their part they were very well satisfied with the golden prospects, ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... well, and way down we could hear an awful splashing. Sailor Bill yelled down, "Look out below; stand from under; bucket coming!" With that he loosed the windlass. In a few seconds a spluttering voice from the depths yelled ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... Mississippi's mouth that he realized his plan of fortifying the rock on the Illinois River. He and Tonty delighted in it, calling it Fort St. Louis of the Illinois. Storehouses and quarters for a garrison rose around its edges, protected by a palisade. A windlass was rigged to draw water from the river below. On the northeast corner of the rock a low ...
— Heroes of the Middle West - The French • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... characters of fire traced upon the letter the queen had touched. Then, scarcely knowing what I was about, and urged on by one of those instinctive impulses which drive men to destruction, I lowered the cord from the windlass of the well to within about three feet of the water, leaving the bucket dangling, at the same time taking infinite pains not to disturb that coveted letter, which was beginning to change its white tint ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... urging the herd down the slope, but after a while they reached the welcome shadow of the trees, and Edgar broke into a shout when he saw a rude wooden platform with a windlass upon it and a trough ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... hesitation, the second mate and Jack Reeves started on this mission of mercy, and were soon followed by nearly all the crew. Upon reaching the forecastle we found the body of a man lying across the heel of the bowsprit, jammed against the windlass pawl. The insensible form was lifted from its resting place, and, by the captain's order, finally deposited in the cabin on the transom. The skipper, steward, and myself, remained below to try and resuscitate the apparently lifeless body. The means we used were effectual; ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... making his way forward about the narrow deck-space outside the cabin. Halvard was seated on a coil of rope beside the windlass and stood erect as Woolfolk approached. The sailor was smoking a short pipe, and the bowl made a crimson spark in his thick, powerful hand. John Woolfolk fingered the wood surface of the windlass bitts and found it rough ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer
... he felt the vine give, as if uncoiling itself from a windlass. Down, down he fell until his feet touched the soggy earth of the island. Still the vine uncoiled; the island crashed into the boulder. Desperately Piang tried to climb the vine, but its slackness offered no resistance. Slowly the island began to tip, ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... dug by one man in the hole, and one or two are employed at a windlass in hauling up the dirt. Mining-shafts in placer diggings are rarely over one hundred feet deep; but one was dug in Trinity county to the depth of six hundred feet, for the purpose of prospecting, but it found ...
— Hittel on Gold Mines and Mining • John S. Hittell
... could run, and Jack was mad with pain, when he stumbled, half-blinded, over the brickwork of a well. Jack could not stop his pitching into the well, but he seized the iron chain as it struck him across the face. Down went Jack, and round went the windlass, and after a rapid descent of forty feet our hero found himself under water, and no longer troubled with the bees, who, whether they had lost scent of their prey from his rapid descent, or being notoriously ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... to him so lazy, so intolerable. Sometimes he felt as if, seeing or guessing his impatience, they were trying to irritate him by moving the bales with the utmost slowness, and walking with unbearable laziness around with the windlass. ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... Sam. This is the real thing" came from the depths of the well. Sam Cleghorn stumbled in the gloom towards the windlass, avoiding on the way a rude handpump and two heaps of dirt and broken pottery that sloped threateningly upon the low curb, where balanced a perforated disc of marble, the great bottom-stone of the well. All these properties caught ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... Pioneer, which on three consecutive occasions attacked the Yeh T'an when at its worst, and, though steaming a good fourteen knots, failed to ascend. She was obliged to lay out a long steel-wire hawser, and heave herself over by means of her windlass, the engines working at full speed at the same time. Hard and heavy was the heave, gaining foot by foot, with a tension on the hawser almost to breaking strain in a veritable battle against the dragon of the river. Yet so complete are the changes which are wrought ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... other with a sneer. He drew his moulinet from his girdle, and fixing it to the windlass, he drew back the powerful double cord until it had clicked into the catch. Then from his quiver he drew a short, thick quarrel, which he placed with the utmost care upon the groove. Word had spread of what was going forward, and the rivals were already ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... final. No attempt was made to put out a kedge anchor and to "haul off" with the windlass. We simply walked around the houseboat on the guard taking soundings. Finding that the boat was settling upon fairly level bottom, and feeling that the farther she went the worse she would fare, we took our chances as to what might be under her ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... the boats were fired with cord wood purchased of the planters and delivered on the bank of the river. All boats plying on the Missouri River at that time were flat bottom with paddle wheel at the stern. Two long heavy poles were carried at the bow and worked with a windlass, being used to raise the bow of the boat when becoming fast on a sand bar. The pilot was obliged to keep a continuous lookout for these bars, as the channel ...
— Dangers of the Trail in 1865 - A Narrative of Actual Events • Charles E Young
... to be employed, the long end of the shaft was drawn down by a windlass; the sling was laid forward in a wooden trough provided for it, and charged with the shot. The counterpoise was, of course, now aloft, and was so maintained by a detent provided with a trigger. On pulling this, the counterpoise falls and the shaft flies ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... then they carr'd our Fan all roun', 'Ithin a mawn, till zome girt stump Upset en over on the groun', An' drow'd her out along-straight, plump. An' in the cider-house we zot Upon the windlass Poll an' Nan, An' spun 'em roun' till they wer got So giddy that they ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... the towing cable to a windlass on the platform of the Sea Lion, turned on the power, and the sinking craft soon lay alongside. She was indeed in a bad predicament. Another half hour would see the last ...
— Boy Scouts in a Submarine • G. Harvey Ralphson
... turned round by a winch purchase on deck. A chain or rope, however, is better for the purpose of raising this frame, than long screws; but the frame should in such case be provided with pall catches like those of a windlass, which, if the rope should break, will ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne
... the Berwickshire coast having been made. When the wind blows hard from the north, the landing on that side is useless, and the boats, having no shelter, are hauled up the steep slope with the help of a steam windlass. Under these circumstances the South Landing is used. It is similar in most respects to the northern one, but, owing to the cliffs being lower, the cove is less picturesque. At low tide a beach of very rough shingle is exposed between ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... said the sexton, 'right underneath the belfry; a deep, dark, echoing well. Forty year ago, you had only to let down the bucket till the first knot in the rope was free of the windlass, and you heard it splashing in the cold dull water. By little and little the water fell away, so that in ten year after that, a second knot was made, and you must unwind so much rope, or the bucket swung tight and empty at the end. In ten years' time, the ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... wagon. He tried them with bridles and bits, but the buffaloes refused to work with them. With tight-fitting halters, and the exercise of much-muscle, he was able for a time to make them "gee" and "haw." But not for long. When they outgrew his ability in free-hand drawing, he rigged an upright windlass on each side of his wagon-box, and firmly attached a line to each. When the team was desired to "gee," he deftly wound up the right line on its windlass, and vice ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... contrivances save their muscle wherever it is possible. A great plate of iron or a bundle of deck flooring is picked up, by a hand which swings down from aloft, like a visiting-card by a lady: a single man turning a windlass, it sails into the air, gets up as high as it chooses to, and drops delicately just where it is wanted along the length of the structure. Out on the wharf a double "hoister," working by steam, and able ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... men were about to let him down with cords, in the usual manner, when his attention was caught by the shrill sound of a scolding woman's voice. He looked, and saw at some paces distant this female fury, who stood guarding the windlass of a well, to which, with threatening gestures and most voluble menaces, she forbade all access. The peasants—men, women and children, who had come with their pitchers to draw water at this well—were held at bay by the enraged female. Not one dared to be the first to advance; ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... nearly we come down to hearty nature, and the further we go from, the artificial and conventional, the nearer do we come to truth. Truth is indeed at the bottom of this well, and not in the artificial wall that rises above it, nor the buckets that go up and down as caprice or selfishness turns the windlass. ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... We were surrounded by so many evidences of expense and toil, we lived so entirely in the wreck of that great enterprise, like mites in the ruins of a cheese, that the idea of the old din and bustle haunted our repose. Our own house, the forge, the dump, the chutes, the rails, the windlass, the mass of broken plant; the two tunnels, one far below in the green dell, the other on the platform where we kept our wine; the deep shaft, with the sun-glints and the water-drops; above all, the ledge, that great gaping ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in time the habit of playing on the steps or around the old windlass well in the backyard. Herr Carovius procured forthwith a mean dog and named him Caesar. Caesar was tied to a chain, to be sure, but his snarls, his growls, his vicious teeth were hardly calculated to inspire the child ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... sit on a small stool, undressed her, pulled off her shoes, tied her hands behind her back, fastened them to a rope passed over a pulley bolted into the ceiling of the aforesaid chamber, and wound up at the other end by a four lever windlass, worked ...
— Quotes and Images From "Celebrated Crimes" • Alexander Dumas, Pere
... about five minutes, and was only reopened by the smugglers' treachery. One of the Badger's mariners named William Cullum, was in consequence shot dead by a musket aimed at him by one of the smugglers. Cullum was standing by the windlass at ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... roll, and pitched into the seething deep. Yard-arms came splintering to the deck. There was a roaring of waters over us, under us, round us—then M. de Radisson, Jean, and I went slithering forward like water-rats caught in a whirlpool. My feet struck against windlass chains. Jean saved himself from washing overboard by cannoning into me; but before the dripping bowsprit rose again to mount the swell, M. de Radisson was up, shaking off spray like a water-dog and muttering ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... has its well. Sometimes there are only two or three to a block. Sometimes the well is merely a shallow hole, uncemented, to catch the seepage of the upper strata. Sometimes it is a very deep stone-walled cavity. Rarely is there a pump or a windlass or any other fixed ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... junk, beside the cumbersome rudder windlass, leaning nonchalantly against the great carved rail, were Captain Nathan Falk and Chief Mate Kipping. That the slow craft could not cross our bows, they saw as well as we. Indeed, I question if they cared a farthing whether ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... motionless. Then, when a sudden rush of cool water poured over us, I came to my senses and started to my feet. In another moment I had passed a line around the desperado, and was dragging him under the lee of the windlass, where I finally made him ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... no more heard of Pierre Canot; as it was, I was sorely bruised by the fall, and didn't recover myself for full ten minutes after. Then I discovered that I was sitting in a large wooden trough, hooped with iron, and supported by two heavy chains that passed over a windlass, about ten feet above ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... are a whole series of rooms deep underground. One of them in particular struck me. The room itself is of considerable size, but the masonry is more than massive. In the middle of the room is a sunk well, built up to floor level and evidently going deep underground. There is no windlass nor any trace of there ever having been any—no rope—nothing. Now, we know that the Romans had wells of immense depth, from which the water was lifted by the 'old rag rope'; that at Woodhull used to be nearly a thousand feet. Here, then, we have simply an enormously deep well-hole. The door of ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... also the rack, with the windlass and chains, upon which the sufferer was laid. About his ankles were fastened chains, and about his wrists also, and then priests began turning this windlass, and they kept turning until the ankles, the shoulders and the wrists were all dislocated, ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... disappeared further on. We left behind us an undulating luminous wake, resembling a long bright snake following us, which was gradually in the distance engulfed by the ocean. This luminous track seemed to be reeled off from a windlass at the stern of ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu
... attempt being unsuccessful, it would be necessary to bring the ship back to her present moorings. Two more anchors were next carried outside the passage, which was not more than two hundred feet in length. The chains were attached to the windlass, the sailors worked at the hand-spikes, and at four o'clock in the afternoon the ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... from a long voyage, invited his nephew to visit him on board of the ship. The young gentleman went on board, and was highly pleased with everything he saw. Wishing to give his uncle an idea of his superior knowledge, he tapped him on the shoulder, and pointing to the windlass, asked, "Quid est hoc?" His uncle, being a man who despised such vanity, took a chew of tobacco from his mouth, and throwing it in his nephew's face, ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... of February Monday 1805 we fixed a Windlass and Drew up the two Perogues on the upper bank and attempted the Boat, but the Roap which we bade made of Elk Skins proved too weak & broke Several times night Comeing on obliged us to leave her in a Situation but little advanced- we were Visited by the Black ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... silky cloth and a hat of sable: rich enow it was. Ho, what costly bands he wore upon his quiver! A panther's skin was drawn over it for its sweet fragrance' (4) sake. He bare a bow, which any but the hero must needs draw back with a windlass, and he would bend it. His vesture was befurred with otter skin (5) from head to toe. From the bright fur shone out on both sides of the bold master of the hunt many a bar of gold. Balmung (6) he also bare, a good broad sword, that was so sharp that ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown
... I am going to bring my ropes, my windlass, and set it up, and go down there with my boy and let myself be bitten, perhaps, by your cursed dog for the pleasure of giving it back to you? You should not ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... salutin' six-pounder and lash it for'ard o' the windlass. Lash her hard so she won't kick overboard ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... primarily to sail. But incidentally, as an auxiliary, a seventy-horse-power engine was installed. This is a good, strong engine. I ought to know. I paid for it to come out all the way from New York City. Then, on deck, above the engine, is a windlass. It is a magnificent affair. It weighs several hundred pounds and takes up no end of deck-room. You see, it is ridiculous to hoist up anchor by hand-power when there is a seventy-horse-power engine on board. So we installed the windlass, transmitting power ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... honoured, and respected, ain't going to let such a small thing as this here cottage come betwixt us, and our honouring and respecting of them two ladies. If, therefore, we are due to quit this anchorage, why then it's all hands to the windlass with a heave yo ho, and merrily! say I. Messmate,—my fist!" Hereupon, with a very jerky movement indeed, the Sergeant reached out his remaining arm, and the soldier and the sailor shook hands very solemnly over the muffins (already vastly diminished in ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... derrick, which was provided with a rude windlass, constructed by Ethan, the stone post was hoisted up, and then dropped down on the skids. The sinker had been rigged with slings, and the hogshead was attached to it by a contrivance of Lawry, upon which the success of the operation wholly depended, ...
— Haste and Waste • Oliver Optic
... six o'clock the next morning by the men chorussing at the windlass, and the quick clank of the pawls that showed how thoroughly Jack was putting his heart into his work, and how quickly he was walking the ship up to her anchor. I scrambled out of my bunk, and took a peep through the port in the ship's side, to see what the weather was like; it was ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... of the Lady Huntingdon connexion. The other, Jim Larkins, was Canadian born, the son of a neighbouring farmer. About four o'clock in the morning they emerged from their spruce booth and began hauling with their rude windlass upon the ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... sloop with the first boatload and there Job Howland set him to work passing water-kegs into the hold. He had had no rest in over twenty hours and his whole body ached as the last barrel bumped through the hatch. All the crew were aboard and a knot of swaying bodies turned the windlass to the rhythm of a muttered chanty. The chain creaked and rattled over the bits till the dripping anchor came out of water and was swung inboard. The mainsail and foresail went up with a bang, as a dozen stalwart pirates ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... house was over a drawbridge, the chains and windlass of which had long been rusted and broken. The latest tenants of the Manor House had, however, with characteristic energy, set this right, and the drawbridge was not only capable of being raised, but actually was raised every evening and ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... Victor XV had arranged—a great Prince but too fond of pleasure—and which I am told is a perfect wonder of licentious elegance. It is painted with the story of Bacchus and Ariadne, and the table works in and out of the room by means of a windlass, so that the company was served without any intervention of domestics. But the place was shut up by Barbara, Aurelius XV's widow, a severe and devout Princess of the House of Bolkum and Regent of the Duchy during her son's glorious minority, and after the death of her ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... kind of Paul you mean," said Tom with a laugh. "It's spelled differently. A pawl is a sort of catch that fits into a ratchet wheel and pushes it around, or it may be used as a catch to prevent the backward motion of a windlass or the wheel on a derrick. I'll have it fixed in ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-cycle • Victor Appleton
... years or more, and his name don't matter. She had been laid up in Shadwell basin for ever so long. You may imagine her state. She was all rust, dust, grime—soot aloft, dirt on deck. To me it was like coming out of a palace into a ruined cottage. She was about 400 tons, had a primitive windlass, wooden latches to the doors, not a bit of brass about her, and a big square stern. There was on it, below her name in big letters, a lot of scroll work, with the gilt off, and some sort of a coat of arms, with the motto 'Do or Die' underneath. I remember it took my fancy immensely. There was a touch ...
— Youth • Joseph Conrad
... done, and could hardly wait to get at it next morning. They hurried out right after breakfast, and Mr. 'Possum had Mr. 'Coon and Mr. Crow sawing, and boring, and shaving with Mr. Man's drawing-knife, making the crank, which was a sort of double windlass that stood up in the car over the back axle, built so two people could turn it; and there would be a strong strap that went down through a hole in the bottom of the car and around the axle to make that turn, too, which would drive the ...
— Hollow Tree Nights and Days • Albert Bigelow Paine
... asleep for more than two hours, when they were awakened by an uproar on deck, and rousing themselves from sleep, they heard the rattle of the chains and the crank of the windlass. As their night attire was singularly simple, and consisted largely of the dress which they wore by day, being the same, in fact, with the exception of the hat, it was not long before they were up on deck, and making inquiries as to the unusual noise. That the anchor was being hoisted they already ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille
... corduroy, red shirts, and big boots, balance themselves skillfully on some of the slippery trunks, while with pole and boat-hook propelling other great ones to the gaping mouths in the bow of the vessel. Then horse, rope, pulley, and windlass are brought into play to draw the log into the hold and place it properly among other monarchs of the forest, thus ignominiously laid low, and become what "Mantalini" would style "a damp, moist, unpleasant lot." From the wharf above we look down into the hold, and, seeing this ...
— Over the Border: Acadia • Eliza Chase |
