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He wore square-toed shoes, with foretops, as they are called; and his silk stockings were rolled up over his knee, as you may have seen in pictures, and here and there on some of those originals who seem to pique themselves on dressing after the mode of Methuselah.
Had elected that he would not have wealth and station, that he would go about tellin' of the love of God, urgin' men to accept Him, goin' about doin' good. As we listened to him, everything seemed possible, the right seemed possible to do, it almost seemed as if we felt the crown restin' on our tired foretops.
Before a uniform, they feel the humble and servile enthusiasm of the female of the lower animals before the crests, foretops and gay plumes of the fighting males. Look out, master! . . . We shall have to follow the new course of events or resign ourselves to everlasting obscurity. The tango is dead."
But what can be the end of those that are proud in the decking of themselves after their antic manner? Why are they for going with their bull's foretops, with their naked shoulders, and paps hanging out like a cow's bag? Why are they for painting their faces, for stretching out their neck, and for putting of themselves unto all the formalities which proud fancy leads them to?
Of course Adams and Larkyns and Popplethorne had to scramble up to their posts in the mizzen and main and foretops, much to my admiration and envy; for, being only a cadet, I was not allowed to go aloft except for drill, and then only under special supervision, as I will presently tell.
Those who sat on each side, nearest the president, were generally distinguished by venerable ties, the foretops of which exhibited a surprising diversity; some of them rose slanting backwards, like the glacis of a fortification; some were elevated in two distinct eminences, like the hills Helicon and Parnassus; and others were curled and reflected, as the horns of Jupiter Ammon.
But jest as we would think in a nautical way: "Land ahoy! land ahoy! oh, heave out and walk afoot," jest as these nautical terms would be passin' through our alarmed foretops, the boat would turn its prow slowly but graceful, round to a port-the-helm, or starboard ditto, and we would glide out through a narrow way onbeknown to us, onto a long, glassy road layin' fair and serene ahead.
Now, you shrewd judges, who the boxes sway, Leading the ladies' hearts and sense astray, And for their sakes, see all and hear no play; Correct your cravats, foretops, lock behind: The dress and breeding of the play ne'er mind; For the coarse dauber of the coming scenes To follow life and nature only means, Displays you as you are, makes his fine woman A mercenary jilt and true to no man, Shows men of wit and pleasure of the age Are as dull rogues as ever cumber'd stage.
Here we separated, the carpenter boldly making his way forward past the noisy, jabbering, drunken crowd who were grouped about the main-hatchway, engaged in hoisting on deck the goods that the boatswain, down in the hold, was selecting from the ship's heterogeneous cargo, while the rest excepting Simpson and myself quietly stole up the mizen rigging, three of them concealing themselves in the top, while the rest, continuing on up the topmast rigging, made for the main and foretops by way of the stays; the lanterns which were being used to light the pirates at their work about the main-hatchway so effectually dazzling the drunken ruffians' eyes, that there was not the slightest fear of any of the silent, sober figures stealthily moving about aloft being seen by them; indeed so deep was the gloom created between the masts by the towering expanses of the Indiaman's canvas that even I, far away as I was from the dazzling light of the lanterns, was unable to follow with my eye the dusky, indistinctly-seen figures any further than the rim of the mizen-top.
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