The Empire is always shot through with a certain amount of politics and with different men pulling this way and that.

Lighters were moored there, and other boats were pulling this way and that like water-beetles, vanishing and reappearing suddenly in the mist.

She tried to wrench herself free, pulling this way and that with more strength than might have been expected from one so slight.

If it's not the goat pulling this way and that, then it must be I'm still thinking of some foolishness that was said between us.