- end_line
- 1887
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:15.149Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 1815
- text
- The night after the holding of the council, I happened to go on deck in
the middle watch, and found the yards braced sharp up on the larboard
tack, with the South East Trades strong on our bow. The captain was no
better; and we were off for Tahiti.
CHAPTER XIV.
ROPE YARN
While gliding along on our way, I cannot well omit some account of a
poor devil we had among us, who went by the name of Rope Yarn, or
Ropey.
He was a nondescript who had joined the ship as a landsman. Being so
excessively timid and awkward, it was thought useless to try and make a
sailor of him; so he was translated into the cabin as steward; the man
previously filling that post, a good seaman, going among the crew and
taking his place. But poor Ropey proved quite as clumsy among the
crockery as in the rigging; and one day when the ship was pitching,
having stumbled into the cabin with a wooden tureen of soup, he scalded
the officers so that they didn’t get over it in a week. Upon which, he
was dismissed, and returned to the forecastle.
Now, nobody is so heartily despised as a pusillanimous, lazy,
good-for-nothing land-lubber; a sailor has no bowels of compassion for
him. Yet, useless as such a character may be in many respects, a ship’s
company is by no means disposed to let him reap any benefit from his
deficiencies. Regarded in the light of a mechanical power, whenever
there is any plain, hard work to be done, he is put to it like a lever;
everyone giving him a pry.
Then, again, he is set about all the vilest work. Is there a heavy job
at tarring to be done, he is pitched neck and shoulders into a
tar-barrel, and set to work at it. Moreover, he is made to fetch and
carry like a dog. Like as not, if the mate sends him after his
quadrant, on the way he is met by the captain, who orders him to pick
some oakum; and while he is hunting up a bit of rope, a sailor comes
along and wants to know what the deuce he’s after, and bids him be off
to the forecastle.
“Obey the last order,” is a precept inviolable at sea. So the
land-lubber, afraid to refuse to do anything, rushes about distracted,
and does nothing: in the end receiving a shower of kicks and cuffs from
all quarters.
Added to his other hardships, he is seldom permitted to open his mouth
unless spoken to; and then, he might better keep silent. Alas for him!
if he should happen to be anything of a droll; for in an evil hour
should he perpetrate a joke, he would never know the last of it.
The witticisms of others, however, upon himself, must be received in
the greatest good-humour.
Woe be unto him, if at meal-times he so much as look sideways at the
beef-kid before the rest are helped.
Then he is obliged to plead guilty to every piece of mischief which the
real perpetrator refuses to acknowledge; thus taking the place of that
sneaking rascal nobody, ashore. In short, there is no end to his
tribulations.
The land-lubber’s spirits often sink, and the first result of his being
moody and miserable is naturally enough an utter neglect of his toilet.
The sailors perhaps ought to make allowances; but heartless as they
are, they do not. No sooner is his cleanliness questioned than they
rise upon him like a mob of the Middle Ages upon a Jew; drag him into
the lee-scuppers, and strip him to the buff. In vain he bawls for
mercy; in vain calls upon the captain to save him.
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