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It's all child's play on a fore-and-after compared with reefing topsails in anything like weather, but the gear of a schooner sometimes does unhandy things that you don't expect, and those everlasting long halliards get foul of everything if they get adrift. I remember thinking how unhandy that particular job was.
Any one who has seen an outward-bound clipper ship getting under way and heard the "shanty-songs" sung by the sailors as they toiled at capstan and halliards, will probably remember that rhymeless but melodious refrain "I'm bound to see its muddy waters Yeo ho! that rolling river; Bound to see its muddy waters Yeo ho! the wild Missouri."
The crew swarm aloft; the soldiers, under proper guidance, are stationed at the halliards, and the tacks and sheets. The cable is slipped, single-reefed topsails, courses, topgallant sails, jibs, and driver set. Few among even the brave seamen who do not hold their breath and offer up a silent prayer that the ship may cast the right way. Hurra! round she comes. The sails fill.
We clewed up the mizzen royal, we lashed the foretop to make it spin upon its heels. The second dog watch barked his shins to the bone, and a tail of men hauled upon the halliards to mast-head the yard. Nothing availed.
The ship being now over her anchor, and the top-sails set, the capstan bars were shipped again, the men all heaved with a will, the messenger grinned, the anchor was torn out of China with a mighty heave, and then ran up with a luff tackle and secured; the ship's head cast to port. "Up with the jib man the taupsle halliards all hands make sail."
"Carry on!" sang the bugle; and the ship's company, their animation suspended while the colours crept up the jackstaff, proceeded to "breakfast and clean." The signalman whose duty it was to hoist the Ensign at 8 a.m. turned up the halliards to his satisfaction, and departed forward in the wake of the band. The Captain had "cleaned" already, and his breakfast was on the table in his fore-cabin.
"Let go your topgallant bowline, and lee sheet and halliards," he roared out, holding on with both hands to the rail and bending over the bridge cloth as he shouted to the men forward who had tumbled out of the forecastle on the boatswain's warning hail. "Stand by your clewlines and by your boat lines!"
"Hoist the foresail!" the skipper shouted, and the men sprang forward and seized the halliards; but at this moment the wind seemed to blow with a double fury, and the moment the sail was set it too split into ribbons. "Get up another jib!" Joe Chambers shouted, and one of the men sprang below. In half a minute he reappeared with another sail. "Up with it quick, Bill.
The consequence was that, as soon as the sailors gained the top, where he and the midshipman were standing, Dick seized one of the halliards and, with a merry laugh, came down hand over hand. A minute later, he stood on the deck. "Well done, youngster," said the boatswain's mate, who happened to be standing by, as Dick's feet touched the deck.
I felt the flag's toggle jam chock-a-block against the truck of the staff, and gave a tug, shaking out the flag to the still morning breeze. A second later something thudded on the turf close at my feet. I stared at it; but the halliards were in my hand, and before picking it up I must wait and make them fast on the cleat. Still I stared at it, there where it lay on the dim turf.
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