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- 4554
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- 2026-01-30T20:48:14.838Z
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- 4484
- text
- vitality to the vessel; so that the difference in being aloft in a ship
at sea, and a ship in harbor, is pretty much the same, as riding a real
live horse and a wooden one. And even if the live charger should pitch
you over his head, _that_ would be much more satisfactory, than an
inglorious fall from the other.
I took great delight in furling the top-gallant sails and royals in a
hard blow; which duty required two hands on the yard.
There was a wild delirium about it; a fine rushing of the blood about
the heart; and a glad, thrilling, and throbbing of the whole system, to
find yourself tossed up at every pitch into the clouds of a stormy sky,
and hovering like a judgment angel between heaven and earth; both hands
free, with one foot in the rigging, and one somewhere behind you in the
air. The sail would fill out like a balloon, with a report like a small
cannon, and then collapse and sink away into a handful. And the feeling
of mastering the rebellious canvas, and tying it down like a slave to
the spar, and binding it over and over with the _gasket,_ had a touch
of pride and power in it, such as young King Richard must have felt,
when he trampled down the insurgents of Wat Tyler.
As for steering, they never would let me go to the helm, except during
a calm, when I and the figure-head on the bow were about equally
employed.
By the way, that figure-head was a passenger I forgot to make mention
of before.
He was a gallant six-footer of a Highlander _“in full fig,”_ with
bright tartans, bare knees, barred leggings, and blue bonnet and the
most vermilion of cheeks. He was game to his wooden marrow, and stood
up to it through thick and thin; one foot a little advanced, and his
right arm stretched forward, daring on the waves. In a gale of wind it
was glorious to watch him standing at his post like a hero, and
plunging up and down the watery Highlands and Lowlands, as the ship
went roaming on her way. He was a veteran with many wounds of many
sea-fights; and when he got to Liverpool a figure-head-builder there,
amputated his left leg, and gave him another wooden one, which I am
sorry to say, did not fit him very well, for ever after he looked as if
he limped. Then this figure-head-surgeon gave him another nose, and
touched up one eye, and repaired a rent in his tartans. After that the
painter came and made his toilet all over again; giving him a new suit
throughout, with a plaid of a beautiful pattern.
I do not know what has become of Donald now, but I hope he is safe and
snug with a handsome pension in the “Sailors’-Snug-Harbor” on Staten
Island.
The reason why they gave me such a slender chance of learning to steer
was this. I was quite young and raw, and steering a ship is a great
art, upon which much depends; especially the making a short passage;
for if the helmsman be a clumsy, careless fellow, or ignorant of his
duty, he keeps the ship going about in a melancholy state of indecision
as to its precise destination; so that on a voyage to Liverpool, it may
be pointing one while for Gibraltar, then for Rotterdam, and now for
John o’ Groat’s; all of which is worse than wasted time. Whereas, a
true steersman keeps her to her work night and day; and tries to make a
bee-line from port to port.
Then, in a sudden squall, inattention, or want of quickness at the
helm, might make the ship _“lurch to”—or “bring her by the lee.”_ And
what those things are, the cabin passengers would never find out, when
they found themselves going down, down, down, and bidding good-by
forever to the moon and stars.
And they little think, many of them, fine gentlemen and ladies that
they are, what an important personage, and how much to be had in
reverence, is the rough fellow in the pea-jacket, whom they see
standing at the wheel, now cocking his eye aloft, and then peeping at
the compass, or looking out to windward.
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