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Windlass   Listen
verb
Windlass  v. i.  To take a roundabout course; to work warily or by indirect means. (Obs.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Windlass" Quotes from Famous Books



... the greatest interest and value. The stray holiday visitor to Greenwich Park, who feels tempted to look over the wooden paling, sees only a series of deal sheds, upon a rough grass-plat; a mast some eighty feet high, steadied by ropes, and having a lantern at the top, and a windlass below; and if he looks closer, he perceives a small inner inclosure, surrounded by a dwarf fence; an upright stand, with a movable top, sheltering a collection of thermometers; and here and there a pile of planks and unused partitioning, that helps to give the place ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various

... 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 ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll

... the "Royal George"—the Briton who had guarded, a corpse at his feet. The hatches were down. The ship was in possession of the "Repudiator's" crew. They were busy in her rigging, bending her sails to carry her out of the harbor. The well-known heave of the men at the windlass woke up Kempenfelt in his state-cabin. We know, or rather do not know, the result; for who can tell by whom the lower-deck ports of the brave ship were opened, and how the haughty prisoners below sunk the ship and its conquerors rather ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray

... alas! our own 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 first ladder ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various

... picion was aroused, but to allay his she hastened to implore him to adopt that darling also, to which, after some slight hesitation, he consented. Another twelvemonth rolled into eternity, when one evening the lady heard a noise in the back yard, and going out she saw her husband labouring at the windlass of the well with unwonted industry. As the bucket neared the top he reached down and extracted another infant, exactly like the former ones, and holding it up, explained to the astonished matron: "Look at this, ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile

... shortly afterwards gave way, but the captain saw the crash coming, and lashed himself to the windlass, where, drenched and half drowned, he was torn at by the waves which were hurled over the ship ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor

... were worn out with fatigue, and they had not had for many nights or days a dry thing to put on. Captain Fitz Roy gave up the attempt to get westward by the outside coast. In the evening we ran in behind False Cape Horn, and dropped our anchor in forty-seven fathoms, fire flashing from the windlass as the chain rushed round it. How delightful was that still night, after having been so long involved in the ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin

... house 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 aid for ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee

... days long gone by. Ah! 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 of ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole

... About thirty of our Celts attended in costume; and as there was a Highland regiment on duty, with dragoons and artillerymen, the whole made a splendid show. The dexterity with which the last manned and wrought the windlass which raised old Meg, weighing seven or eight tons, from her temporary carriage to that which has been her basis for many years, was singularly beautiful as a combined exhibition of skill and strength. ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... the sailor led them forwards, and as they went she noted that men were hauling on a sail, while other men, who sang a strange, wild song, worked on what seemed to be a windlass. Now they reached a cabin, and entered it, the door being shut behind them. In the cabin a man sat at a table with a lamp hanging over his head. He rose and turned towards them, bowing, and Margaret ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard

... can go, Sir Reginald, and give me a chance to get our heaving line on board. Then, as soon as I wave my hand, go ahead gently until you have brought a strain upon the hawser, when you may increase the speed to about twelve knots—not more, or you will tear the windlass out of the barque. Steer straight out between those two bergs, and remember that moments ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... ways of soft timbers, squaring and smoothing them; we cut down many trees for rollers; we dug and graded the beach. Then, having altogether unloaded her and built a high cache of poles and a platform for her stuff, and having chopped the ice from all around her, we rigged a Spanish windlass and wound that boat out of the water with the half-inch cable she carried, and up on the ways and well into the mouth of the little creek. Then we levelled her up and thoroughly braced her and put her canvas cover all over her, and she lay there ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck

... at the windlass went staggering back from the belch of violently discharged air: it tore the wind-sail to strips, sent stones and gravel flying, loosened planks and props. Their shouts drawing no response, the younger and nimbler of the two—he was a mere ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson

... 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 transport and ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock

... differing, but always agreeing to differ, like Malthus and Ricardo, who hunted together in search of Truth, and huzzaed when they found her, without caring who found her first: indeed, I have seen them both put their able hands to the windlass to drag her up from the bottom of that well in which she so strangely delights ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... and long wooden pipes in other windows. Marine stores jostle one another, shoulder to shoulder, and there is a rich smell of tar, bilge-water, and the hold of a cargo tramp. Almost you expect to hear the rattle of the windlass, as you stand in the badly lighted establishment of Johann Dvensk, surrounded by ropes, old ship's iron, bloodthirsty blades, canvas, blocks, and pulleys. Something in this narrow space seizes you, and you feel that you must "Luff her!" or "Starrrrrb'd yer Helllllllm!" or "Ease 'er!" or ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke

... same is derived from but one source, the owner, lessee or agent shall provide and keep on hand for use in the event of an accident to the hoisting apparatus or the power by which same is operated, a suitable windlass, capable of hoisting ...
— Mining Laws of Ohio, 1921 • Anonymous

... that smote his ears as he opened his eyes were the rhythmic creak of the mine windlass and equally rhythmic, if less tuneful, chant of the men who ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various

... 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 on ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut

... cravatte, with a cork or piece of wood in the fold to act as a pad. The handkerchief is applied round the limb, with the pad over the main artery, and the ends knotted on the lateral aspect of the limb. With a strong piece of wood the handkerchief is wound up like a Spanish windlass, until sufficient pressure is exerted to ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles

... 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 it never failed when 'twas ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown

... Kathlyn signified that she wished to go down to the beach beyond the harbor basin. Bruce accompanied her. Often he caught her staring out at the twinkling lights on board the Simla. By and by they could hear the windlass creaking. A volume of black smoke suddenly poured from the boat's slanting funnel. The ship ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath

... two strong posts, about five feet high, with a cross-piece on the top and another at the bottom, with a strong rail between them, which could be moved from side to side and fixed by means of a peg. Just behind this, but outside the yard, was a windlass, with a rope passing ...
— The Young Berringtons - The Boy Explorers • W.H.G. Kingston

... show. 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, ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens

... Victoires, at St. Sulpice, at St. Severin; but these Virgins were not numerous enough for him to dedicate each set of ten to them, so he evoked the Madonnas of the early masters, and, absorbed before their images, he turned the windlass of his prayers, not understanding what he mumbled, but praying the Mother of the Saviour to accept his paternosters, as she would receive the lost smoke of a censer ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans

... 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 handspikes, ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic

... desire to taste any thing. I now wished for the last friend, death, to relieve me; but soon, to my grief, two of the white men offered me eatables; and, on my refusing to eat, one of them held me fast by the hands, and laid me across I think the windlass, and tied my feet, while the other flogged me severely. I had never experienced any thing of this kind before; and although, not being used to the water, I naturally feared that element the first time I saw it, yet nevertheless, could I have got over the nettings, I would have jumped over the ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano

... on board the shouts and songs of the sailors Heaving the windlass round, and hoisting the ponderous anchor. Then the yards[39] were braced, and all sails set to the west-wind, Blowing steady and strong, and the Mayflower sailed from the harbor, Rounded the point of the Gurnet,[40] and leaving far to the southward 605 Island and cape of sand, and ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson

... to the house was over a drawbridge, the chains and windlass of which had long been rusted and broken. The latest tenants of the Manor House had, however, with characteristic energy, set this right, and the drawbridge was not only capable of being raised, but actually was raised every evening and lowered every morning. ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... expecting every instant to turn on the next and go. Yet he went not. Under the dusty front windows of the counting-room the street was roaring below. Just beyond a glass partition at his back a great windlass far up under the roof was rumbling with the descent of goods from a hatchway at the end of its tense rope. Salesmen were calling, trucks were trundling, shipping clerks and porters were replying. One brawny fellow he saw, through the glass, take a herring from a broken box, and stop to feed ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable

... the wharf, I removed the saddle, and placing a strong rope round his neck, had it attached to the windlass, not to drag him on board, but to make him feel if he refused to advance that he was powerless to resist, an indispensable precaution in breaking horses. Once and once only he attempted escape; he reared and threw himself, but finding the strain irresistible, he yielded and went on board quietly. ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... exclaimed with an aggrieved air. "I'd like to see you stop them, with a rawhide lasso round your neck, and a big Korak hauling like a steam windlass on the other end of it! It's all very well to cry 'stop 'em'; but when the barbarians haul you off the rear end of your sledge as if you were a wild animal, what course would your sublime wisdom suggest? I believe I've got the mark of a lasso ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan

... any wickedness on board this ship, thought Captain Delano, be sure that man there has fouled his hand in it, even as now he fouls it in the pitch. I don't like to accost him. I will speak to this other, this old Jack here on the windlass. ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville

... removal of 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 ...
— Ocean Steam Navigation and the Ocean Post • Thomas Rainey

... 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 ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine

... the quicksand overnight, we changed our tactics. While we were tying up the steer's tail and legs, McCann secreted his team at a safe distance. Then he took a lariat, lashed the tongue of the wagon to a cottonwood tree, and jacking up a hind wheel, used it as a windlass. When all was ready, we tied the loose end of our cable rope to a spoke, and allowing the rope to coil on the hub, manned the windlass and drew him ashore. When the steer was freed, McCann, having no horse at hand, climbed into the wagon, while the rest of us sought safety in our saddles, ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams

... do it easier next time," said Humphrey. "I will make a windlass as soon as I can, and we will soon hoist out another, like they turn a bucket of water up ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat

... 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, for they knew he had a story to tell, and at last the ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge

... chamber of this noble tower is a windlass for lowering the bells in case of repairs becoming necessary, with a trap-door in the floor ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 196, July 30, 1853 • Various

... There was a windlass bolted to the rock, with which she drew the skiff beyond the reach of the waves. Nimbly then she climbed the reef till she reached the door of the tower. A few seconds later all the fishermen saw the warm, yellow glare of the light streaming ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins

... The buttermilk and refuse from the dairy runs by a channel cut in the stone across the court into a vault or well sunk in the ground, from whence it is dipped for the pigs. The vault is closed at the mouth by a heavy wooden lid. There is a well and pump for water here; sometimes with a windlass, when the well is deep. If the water be low or out of condition, it is fetched in yokes from the nearest running stream. The acid or "eating" power of the buttermilk, &c., may be noted in the stones, which in many places are scooped or hollowed out. A portion ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies

... time of intense excitement though for them, and as they watched they saw a windlass turn, and up came the great trawl-irons and the beam, then, dripping and sparkling in the sun, the foot-rope of the trawl-net, and foot after foot emerged ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn

... fatal moment seemed to be at hand, and the familiars already grasped him rudely to hurl him on the rack, when, as if suddenly inspired by a superhuman strength, the young nobleman dashed the men from him; then, with lightning speed, he seized a massive iron bar that was used to move the windlass of the rack, and in another instant, before a saving arm could intervene, the deadly instrument struck down the Count of Arestino at the feet of the grand inquisitor, who started back with a cry of horror! The next moment the marquis was again powerless and secure in the grasp of the familiars—but ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... timbered room, with one large bull's eye window,—an overgrown lens. The thing is a sort of Cyclops. There are ropes, and chains, and a windlass. There is a bell by which the engineer of the first engine can signal the plowman, and a cord whereby the plowman can talk back. There are two sweeps, or arms, worked by machinery, on the sides. You ask their use, and the superintendent ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... might be seen stealing towards the curtain, and gradually filling up the moat with fascines and rubbish, which the workmen flung out at its mouth. It was advanced by two sets of ropes passing round pulleys, and each worked by a windlass at some distance from the cat. The knight burnt the first cat by flinging blazing tar-barrels on it. So the besiegers made the roof of this one very steep, and covered it with raw hides, and the tar-barrels could not harm it. Then the knight made signs with his spear, and a ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... 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

... 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 ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang

... 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 to the door of their cabin, they left ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... 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 ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 35, November 26, 1870 • Various

... roused the town. Crowds came from Coketown. Rope and windlass were brought and two men were lowered into the pit. The poor fellow was there, alive but terribly injured. A rough bed was made, and so at last the crushed and broken form was brought up to the ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives

... began Mr. Ackerman, "you must remember that paddle wheels had long been used, for both the Egyptians and the Romans had built galleys with oars that moved by a windlass turned by the hands of slaves or by oxen. Later there were smaller boats whose paddle wheels were driven by horses. So you see paddle wheels were nothing new; the world was just waiting for something that would turn them around. After the ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett

... children to her side, Te Ava Malu stood out upon the sand and watched the whaler loosen her canvas and heave up anchor. Only when the quick click, click of the windlass pauls reached their listening ears, as the anchor came up to the song of the sailors and the ship's head swung round, did the girls begin to weep. But the mother, pressing them to her side, chid them, and said that a year was ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke

... several coils would have pressed together again. The loose roll was therefore slipped over a vertical iron rod fastened into a circular perforated wooden foot. The upper end of this iron rod ended in a ring, in which the hook of a chain or rope could be fastened. With the aid of a windlass the roll was raised or lowered. When placed in the pan with boiling tar, it was left there until thoroughly saturated. It was then taken out, placed upon a table, and the excess of tar allowed to drip off into a vessel underneath. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various

... presented himself before the pope, without either models or designs, and requested a year to consider it; for this he was most severely reprimanded by the pontiff. Fontana exhibited his wooden model, with a leaden pyramid, which, by means of a windlass and crane, was raised and lowered with the greatest facility; he explained the nature of these machines and movements, and gave a practical proof of their capability by raising a small pyramid in the mausoleum of Augustus, which was in a ruinous condition. After many disputes, ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner

... at lead mining for the summer and purchased some mining tools for the purpose. We camped out and dug holes around all summer, getting just about enough to pay our expenses—not a very encouraging venture, for we had lived in a tent and had picked and shoveled and blasted and twisted a windlass hard enough to have earned a good ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly

... that might work, chief," suggested his aide. "If we can fix ropes and rig up a windlass, we can maybe hoist the car up to ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson

... river near Spring Market used to stand portly merchants, in knee breeches and silver shoe-buckles and plum-colored coats with ruffles at the wrist, waiting for their ships to come up the Narrows; the cries of stevedores and the chants of sailors at the windlass used to echo along the shore where all is silence now. For reasons not worth setting forth, the trade with the Indies abruptly closed, having ruined as well as enriched many a Portsmouth adventurer. This explains the empty warehouses and the unused wharves. Portsmouth ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... all obstructions, I lay the sculls aside, and reclining let the boat drift past a ballast punt moored over the shallowest place, and with a rising load of gravel. One man holds the pole steadying the scoop, while his mate turns a windlass the chain from which drags it along the bottom, filling the bag with pebbles, and finally hauls it to the surface, when the contents are shot out in ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies

... 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

... glass chamber of which we reached, after ascending to a considerable height, by a curious spiral stone stair case. The lantern is composed, of ninety immense reflecting lamps, which are capable of being raised or depressed with great ease by means of an iron windlass. This large lustre, is surrounded with plates of the thickest french glass, fixed in squares of iron, and discharges a prodigious light, in dark nights. A furnace of coal, was formerly used, but this has been judiciously superseded by the present ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr

... what was really a raft of logs, rather than a boat. It was sustained against the current by means of a tackle attached to a block, rove on a large rope that was drawn taut, from bank to bank, and was propelled by a windlass on each bank. When a wagon had been taken aboard this cable ferry, the windlass on the farther side was turned by one of the men, drawing the raft across. After unloading, the raft was drawn back, by operation of the windlass on the opposite shore, where it took on another load. The ...
— Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 - A Narrative of Early Emigrant Tavel to California by the Ox-team Method • William Audley Maxwell

... technically a regular part of mining. The town, or "camp," was a wild one with drunken Mexicans having shooting-bees every pay day and the local jail established at the bottom of an abandoned shaft, not too deep, into which the prisoners were let down by windlass and bucket. It was an operation fairly safe if the sheriff and his assistants were not too exhilarated to manage the windlass properly, or the malefactors, too drunk to hang on to the bucket. Otherwise, more or less regrettable incidents happened. ...
— Herbert Hoover - The Man and His Work • Vernon Kellogg

... as 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 ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins

... 'Five foot ten high, strong as a horse, sound in wind and limb, know the country, know the game, been on three fields, want a mate. Name's Micah Wentworth Burton—Mike for short. Got all traps, pans, shovels, picks, cradle, tub, windlass, barrow. Long Aleck—chap that attacked you—was my mate; he's turning teamster. Take me on, an' here's my hand. We're ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson

... the palisades, drop lightly on the other side, and open it. He steered the financier gingerly round the planes, past the propelling and steering fans, and got him into the car. He set him well forward in the bows of it, and began to let the rope unwind from the windlass which moored the flying-machine. All the while he heard the steady snores of Herr Schlugst, sleeping in ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson

... than he had before conceived. He was invited to get into a rough square bucket, in which there was just room for himself and another to stand; he was specially cautioned to keep his head straight, and his hands and elbows from protruding, and then the windlass began to turn, and the upper world, the sunlight, and all humanity receded from ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope

... fear of her going down with us in the deep water; but as I thought we should be able to run her ashore, either upon the same shoal or upon the main, in case we could not keep her, I resolved at all risks to heave her off if possible, and accordingly tur'nd as many men to the capstan and windlass as could be spar'd from the pumps, and at 20 minutes past ten hove her afloat and into deep water." (He did not do this without losing his anchors, ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery

... consisted of a plank supported by two logs which stood upright in the centre of the circus. In the centre of the plank was a windlass, from which hung an iron ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere

... 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 a little light from a beam that came through a slit in the wall, ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather

... overgrown with fig and olive trees. Where you perceive that red glare—the flame of a smelting furnace—there was an orangery. I ought to know the spot well. There, where a summerhouse stood, on that rocky point, they have got a crane and a windlass. Now, turn to this other side. The road you saw to-day, crossed with four main lines, cut up, almost impassable between mud, rubbish, and fallen timber, with swampy excavations on one side and brick-fields on the other, ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever

... dark when I reached the storehouse at Pungo Ferry; and as Sunday is a sacred day with me, I determined to camp there until Monday. A deformed negro held a lease of the ferry, and pulled a flat back and forth across the river by means of a chain and windlass. He was very civil, and placed his quarters at my disposal until I should be ready to start southward to Currituck Sound. We lifted the canoe and pushed it through an open window into the little store-room, ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop

... the well, its windlass of hard teak charred but otherwise uninjured. It was a different case with the rope. The fibre had smouldered badly; it would be unwise to attempt to raise the ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman

... scarce a sound proceeding either from the ships inshore, or those out in the offing; not even the rattle of a chain dropping or weighing anchor, the chant of a night-watch at the windlass, or the song of jovial tar entertaining his messmates as they sit squatted ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid

... which is the entrance to the engine room. The cross battens, shown between the rails, are for the purpose of horse traffic, when horses are used for hauling the trucks, or for ordinary carts or wagons. The plan below deck shows the arrangement of the bulkheads, with a small windlass at each end for lifting the anchors, and a small hatch at each side for entrance to these compartments. The central compartment contains the machinery, which consists of a pair of compound surface condensing engines, with ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 443, June 28, 1884 • Various

... day of our occupancy, Britton reported to me that he had devised a plan by which we could utilise the tremendous horse-power represented by the muscles of those lazy giants, Rudolph and Max. He suggested that we rig up a huge windlass at the top of the incline, with stout steel cables attached to a small car which could be hauled up the cliff by a hitherto wasted human energy, and as readily lowered. It sounded feasible and I instructed him to have the extraordinary railway built, but to be sure that the safety device clutches ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon

... 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 husband, ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... had been overlooked by the invaders and the bucket was still fastened to the chain that wound around a stout wooden windlass. Inga took hold of the crank and began letting the bucket down into the well, when suddenly he was startled by a muffled ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum

... into its slip, the cab motor shivered, the metallic rattle of windlass and chain proclaimed the return to Manhattan. Up the deserted avenues the vehicle sped, while inside the white- faced bride cowered with fingers locked ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach

... now made fast to the derrick, in such a way that there would be an even haul on both lines. Belting was now connected between the engine and a windlass. ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock

... 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 mouth of ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.

... that would know 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

... to the 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 up to us, ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy

... you have goaded me; he was as merciless as you have been merciless. We were in the shrubbery at the end of the lime-walk. I was seated upon the broken masonry at the mouth of the well. George Talboys was leaning upon the disused windlass, in which the rusty iron spindle rattled loosely whenever he shifted his position. I rose at last, and turned upon him to defy him, as I had determined to defy him at the worst. I told him that if he denounced me to Sir Michael, I would declare him to be a madman or a liar, ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon

... Miss Martin and Miss Vernon started out on their final canvass of the State, "prospecting for votes" in the mines, going underground in the vast mountains by tunnel, ladder or in buckets lowered by windlass to talk to the miners who were "on shift" and could not attend the street or hall meetings. To reach less than 100 voters at Austin, the county seat of Lauder county, required a two days' journey over the desert, and many places were a several days' trip away from a railroad. By automobile, ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various

... slimy mouth and icy breath; and I thought I read, at the bottom of the water, characters of fire traced upon the letter the queen had touched. Then, scarcely knowing what I was about, and urged on by one of those instinctive impulses which drive men to destruction, I lowered the cord from the windlass of the well to within about three feet of the water, leaving the bucket dangling, at the same time taking infinite pains not to disturb that coveted letter, which was beginning to change its white tint ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... canal-boats in shape, and of a dark red-brown color. Will thought them stumpy and heavy-looking; and he did not admire the red sails with crooked gaffs, and smiled at the blue pennants, stretched out on stiff frames that turned with the wind. But when Greta showed him a tiny windlass on the deck, by means of which she easily raised and lowered the mast, he came to the conclusion that a Dutch canal-boat was not ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... it will cost us, whether the gain be greater than the trouble, or how long a time it will take us. It seems to me that the garden may be watered in four ways: by water taken out of a well, which is very laborious; or with water raised by means of an engine and buckets, drawn by a windlass—I have drawn it this way sometimes—it is a less troublesome way than the first, and gives more water; or by a stream or brook, whereby the garden is watered in a much better way—for the soil is more thoroughly saturated, and there is no necessity to water it so often, and the labour ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila

... sounded the death-knell of the shanty. Aboard the steamer there were practically no sails to be manipulated; the donkey-engine and steam winch supplanted the hand-worked windlass and capstan. By the end of the seventies steam had driven the sailing ship from the seas. A number of sailing vessels lingered on through the eighties, but they retained little of the corporate pride and splendour that was once ...
— The Shanty Book, Part I, Sailor Shanties • Richard Runciman Terry

... direction of progress; the hollowed stem is pulled endwise over this track with the aid of rattans, perhaps a hundred or more men combining their strength. If the stem proves too heavy to be moved at any part of the journey by their direct pull and push, a rough windlass is constructed by fixing the stem of a small tree across two standing trees and winding the rattans upon this, the trimmed branches of the tree serving as the arms of the windlass. The Kayans are skilled in this kind of transport of heavy timber; for the building ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall

... with frenzied pantomime of action to Hozier. It was too late. Before the lever controlling the steam windlass that released the anchor could be shoved over, another shell plunged through the thin iron plates in the bows, smashing a steam pipe, and jamming the hawser gear by its impact. The missile burst with a terrific ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy

... Don't let your windlass rattle. Keep quiet, fellows." Suddenly all the lights on deck save that in the binnacle went out, leaving the boat in darkness. Nearby the red flash of the lighthouse glowed periodically, while, ahead, shone the white beacon. In silence the Adventurer drew nearer and nearer ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour

... from the lorries on the railway tracks; the swaying burden is turning round and round in the air, knocking against the railing with a groaning noise, and tearing off large splinters of wood. The overseer is swearing at the men at the windlass and comparing his papers with the slips of the customs officer, the one making a blue check on the bill of lading and the other taking note of each article on his long list. Suddenly a small box comes to ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff

... the windlass, he has loaded in the drift, He has pounded at the face of oozy clay; He has taxed himself to sickness, dark and damp and double shift, He has labored like a demon night and day. And now, praise God, ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service

... if she thought I might be more profitably engaged. I took hold of the handle of the windlass, swung off the great oaken bucket, and watched it descend its often-traveled course, bumping against the wet, slippery rocks with which the ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. 1, Issue 1. - A Massachusetts Magazine of Literature, History, - Biography, And State Progress • Various

... war-time. I tell yew, them is the craft that sails afore the wind, and does the signallin' to all the fleet. When gals is full-rigged an' tonguey, they're reg'lar press-gangs to twist young fellers round, an' make 'em sail under the right colors. Stick to the ship, Miss Sally; give a heave at the windlass now'n then, an' don't let nary one o' them fellers that comes a buzzin' round you the hull time turn his back on Yankee Doodle; an' you won't never hanker to be a man, ef ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... to the land, assisted by the boatswain and the carpenter, he "gets the anchors over" with the men of his own watch, whom he knows better than the others. There he sees the cable ranged, the windlass disconnected, the compressors opened; and there, after giving his own last order, "Stand clear of the cable!" he waits attentive, in a silent ship that forges slowly ahead towards her picked-out berth, for the sharp shout from aft, "Let go!" Instantly bending over, he sees the trusty iron fall ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad

... men forward, and secure them," replied the lieutenant. "Overhaul the boat's falls, and bring to with the windlass." ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat

... 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 the ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton

... tilted the stool and Mr. Sloper fell backwards on to the tarpaulin, which, yielding to his weight, soused him into the water They left him to kick and splash awhile, then pulled him out and ran him forward into the head, where they secured him to the windlass till the sun should ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell

... constructed, of the most durable materials, and inflated with hydrogen gas. It was kept constantly full, so as to be at all times ready for exercise; and, to make it stationary at any given altitude, it was attached to windlass machinery. Balloons were speedily prepared by M. Contel for the different branches of the French army; the Entreprenant for the army of the north, the Celeste for that of the Sambre and Meuse, the Hercule for that of Rhine and Moselle, and the Intrepide for ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various

... vividly they depicted its dangers, the more determined he became to explore its darkened depths. The old well became a part of the child's life. He talked of it by day and dreamed of it by night. The big windlass, with its coil of seemingly never-ending chain, winding and unwinding, lowering and raising the old, oaken bucket green with age, full and flowing; the cooling water oozing between the age-warped staves, nurturing the ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field

... where the shine is; The athletic American matron speaking in public to crowds of listeners, Males, females, immigrants, combinations, the copiousness, the individuality of the States, each for itself—the moneymakers, Factories, machinery, the mechanical forces, the windlass, lever, pulley, all certainties, The certainty of space, increase, freedom, futurity, In space the sporades, the scatter'd islands, the stars—on the firm earth, the lands, my lands, O lands! all so dear to me—what you are, (whatever it is,) I putting ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman

... lever is thus obtained, by means of which the bow is drawn to its proper extent. It seems to me that this is the description of bow of which your correspondent has furnished a drawing. Another mode, and which appears to have been applied to the ancient bows, was by a sort of two-handed windlass, with ropes and pulleys, called a "moulinet," which was temporarily attached to the butt-end of the Cross-bow; of this a drawing is given in the illustrations of Froissart's Chronicles, particularly in that one descriptive of the Siege ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 541, Saturday, April 7, 1832 • Various

... storm, and so, after weeks of listless waiting, doing nothing, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, a very gale of bustle comes on. 'Sail ho!' comes from the lookout aloft. 'One point off our starboard bow!' 'Man the windlass and up anchor!' shouts the officer of the deck, as the strange sail bears down steadily toward us, finally showing signals which tell us she's a friend and brings a mail. The Iroquois steams out to meet her; their anchors drop, and they hold friendly ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... two placid little burros were dreamily blinking at vacancy, their grizzled fronts expressive of that ineffable peace found only in the faces of saints and donkeys. In the middle of the enclosure a rude windlass coiled with rope stood stretching forth a decrepit lever-arm. The whippletree, dangling from the end over the beaten circular track, seemed cracked with heat and age. The stout rope that stretched tautly from the coil passed over a wooden wheel, and disappeared through a broad-framed aperture into ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King

... overhead; orders boomed back and forth; there was running and racing and hauling and swarming up the rigging; and from the windlass came the chanteyman's ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes

... one of our new claims—"Dashaway"—which I don't think a great deal of, but which I am willing to try. We are down, now, 10 or 12 a feet. We are following down under the ledge, but not taking it out. If we get up a windlass to-morrow we shall take out the ledge, and see whether it is worth ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... had gained four miles off shore, and it was evident that the soundings indicated our approach to the bank. Tackles were rove and stretched along forward of the windlass, as well as deck-stoppers hooked on to the ringbolts fore and aft. "Loose the fore-topsail!" shouted Captain G., "we must reach this bank before the tide turns, or, by morning, there will not be left a timber head of this ship, nor one of us, to tell the sad tale of our ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman

... suits, hip-boots, rubber coats, and rubber caps. Then they had some queer-looking machines, a windlass, a force pump, grappling irons, and ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Country • Laura Lee Hope

... crowd began to light their torches. He looked at his watch, at the tide, and gave the word to man the windlasses. Then with a glance towards the cliff he started the working chant—"Ayee-ho, Ayee-ho!" The two gangs—twenty men to each windlass—took it up with one voice, and to the deep intoned chant the chains tautened, shuddered for a ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... one find subjects for sculpture out of men who wear frock-coats and chimney- pot hats?' I would tell him to go to the docks of a great city and watch the men loading or unloading the stately ships, working at wheel or windlass, hauling at rope or gangway. I have never watched a man do anything useful who has not been graceful at some moment of his labour; it is only the loafer and the idle saunterer who is as useless and uninteresting ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde

... an exclamation, and peeped through the broken boards. Then he seized the bucket that was suspended by a windlass over the well ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon

... candles. The walls were faced with bas-reliefs representing scenes in his life done in massive silver. The priest put on a short white lace garment over his black robe, crossed himself, bowed reverently, and began to turn a windlass slowly. The sarcophagus separated in two parts, lengthwise, and the lower part sank down and disclosed a coffin of rock crystal as clear as the atmosphere. Within lay the body, robed in costly habiliments covered with gold embroidery and starred with scintillating gems. The decaying head was ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... gear wheel is propelled horizontally by a lever worked by a horse. The primary gear impels a pinion keyed to the shaft of a windlass, upon which is wound the elevating rope, whenever the clutch, A, is made to operate through the cord and lever, B. This cord runs over a pulley on the under side the wood framework at C, and its further end may be held in the hand of the workman ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various

... the piling in thirty feet of water that—as one veteran expressed it—"ran like the mill tails of hell," he fancied he could hear above the roar of the river against the structure, the blows of the heavy driver, the rattle of cable and chain and windlass, the grinding and squeaking of the straining timbers and the shouts of the men—the menacing thunder of that moving cataract a few miles away. While he paced the embankments, studying the set of the currents, observing the form and action of the eddies or receiving ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright

... acquaintances here in camp—the friends to whom he had said he was going that day to the "See Saw" property, far over the Mahogany range, near the Indian reservation. He determined to go. Perhaps the shack and the shaft-house on the claim, with the windlass and tools included by Briggs in the bill of sale, might fetch a ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels

... other, a stone parapet; and below, in the bed of the ravine, an orange orchard. Beyond rises a precipice; and, at its foot, men and boys were quarrying stone, which workmen raised a couple of hundred feet to the platform above with a windlass. As we came along, a handsome girl on the height had just taken on her head a large block of stone, which I should not care to lift, to carry to a pile in the rear; and she stopped to look at us. We stopped, and looked at her. This attracted the attention of the men and boys in the quarry below, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... season, may be seen in the northeastern sky at 9 o'clock in the evening. As the line of this motion makes an angle of fifty odd degrees with the plane of the earth's orbit, it follows that the earth is not like a horse at a windlass, circling around the sun forever in one beaten path, but like a ship belonging to a fleet whose leader is continually pushing its prow into ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XV., No. 388, June 9, 1883 • Various

... stone-cutting yard. After a little while he could not conceal his impatience with the mere dressing of coping stones or the chiselling out of tombstones to a pattern. Then he saw the man killed in the quarry. He was standing quite near to him. The chain of the windlass went and the poor man had no escape. Martin Cosgrave had heard the crunch of the skull on the boulder, and some of the blood was spattered upon his boots. He was a man of tense nerves. The sight of blood sickened him. He put on his coat, left the quarry, and went ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly

... event of the 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 Chancellor was ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne

... not been 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, ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille

... he reaches a point where he wishes to bring the water out upon the surface of the plain. Here and there, at the foot of his shafts, he digs wells, from which the fluid can readily be raised by means of a bucket and a windlass; and he thus brings under cultivation a considerable belt of land along the whole line of the kanat, as well as a large tract at its termination. These conduits, on which the cultivation of the plateau depends, were established at so remote a date that they were popularly ascribed ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson

... sturdy Welshman—Jonas Evans by name—a Methodist 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

... I was a little girl back on the farm in the Souris Valley, I used to water the cattle on Saturday mornings, drawing the water in an icy bucket with a windlass from a fairly deep well. We had one old white ox, called Mike, a patriarchal-looking old sinner, who never had enough, and who always had to be watered first. Usually I gave him what I thought he should have and then took him back to ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung

... 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

... use my own all but exhausted lagoon. At length things became so threatening that I decided to sink a well. Choosing a likely spot near the foot of a precipitous hill, I set to work with only Yamba as my assistant. Confidently anticipating the best results, I erected a crude kind of windlass, and fitted it with a green- hide rope and a bucket made by scooping out a section of a tree. My digging implements consisted solely of a home-made wooden spade and a stone pick. Yamba manipulated the windlass, lowering and raising the bucket and disposing of the gravel which ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont

... twenty-five degrees. To us it appeared ice-cold, and we felt ourselves much refreshed by washing our heads and faces with it. The machine weighed forty pounds, and might contain about a moderate pail-full; but the pressure of the column of water over it was such, that six sailors with a windlass were hardly able to draw it up. We made an attempt to sink it to a thousand fathoms' depth, but the line broke, and we lost the machine; fortunately, however, we were provided ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue

... whole sail without a wrinkle. As soon as each sail was hauled up and the bunt made, the jigger was bent on to the slack of the buntlines, and the bunt triced up, on deck. The mate then took his place between the knight-heads to "twig'' the fore, on the windlass to twig the main, and at the foot of the mainmast for the mizzen; and if anything was wrong,— too much bunt on one side, clews too taut or too slack, or any sail abaft the yard,— the whole must be dropped again. When all was right, the bunts were triced well up, the yard-arm gaskets ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... coming after them who come to take them, they need have no fear for aught, for never to do them harm or injury would they come within the distance that one could shoot with a strong crossbow stretched by windlass. ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes

... yonder. You wouldn't think it, maybe, but I love pictures. I've spent a lot of time looking for them and at them. I remember one collection—many pictures of the martyrs, horrors in art, nightmares. Here was a man disemboweled—they wound his very bowels about a windlass, before his eyes, and at each turn—I could see it written in the picture—they asked him, did he yield at last, did he agree, did he consent. . . . Then they wound again. Here another man was on an iron chair, flames under ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough

... ground they cover, almost as far as the eye can reach up the lead, and imagine the busy scene which the place must have presented in the earlier days of the rush, when each of these shafts was fitted with its windlass, and each mound was covered with toiling men. In one place a couple of engine-sheds still remain, a gaunt erection supporting the water-tanks; the poppet-heads towering above all, still fitted with the wheels ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles

... running gear, and the halliards had been severed and lay on the deck, ready to be taken on shore with the other loot littered about, though the sail itself had not been damaged. The jib and staysail, also, I could not hoist: they were lying in a heap on the windlass with a dead nigger on top, and, further aft, were another two of the gentry, one dead and one with a smashed thigh bone. I slung the wounded man overboard to the sharks, and then began to consider what was ...
— Yorke The Adventurer - 1901 • Louis Becke

... sinking through stiff clay, stained with iron, cobalt, manganese, and cinnabar, was reported easy. But where the hanging and foot walls should have been, fragments of clay, iron, and mica-slate showed that the former lie still deeper. My companion proposed a descent into the shaft by bucket and windlass. I declined, greatly distrusting such deserted pits, especially in this region, where they appear unusually liable to foul. Two days afterwards a Kruboy went down and was brought to grass almost insensible from the choke-damp; his hands clenched the rope so tightly that their ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron

... 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



Words linked to "Windlass" :   winch, yard donkey, yarder



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