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"And now go and cut your own throat," hoarsely whispered an old sheet-anchor-man, a mess-mate of Ushant's. When the master-at-arms advanced with the prisoner's shirt, Ushant waved him off with the dignified air of a Brahim, saying, "Do you think, master-at-arms, that I am hurt? I will put on my own garment.
"Jack Chase cut and run!" cried a sentimental middy. "It must have been all for love, then; the signoritas have turned his head." "Jack Chase not to be found?" cried a growling old sheet-anchor-man, one of your malicious prophets of past events: "I though so; I know'd it; I could have sworn it just the chap to make sail on the sly. I always s'pected him."
"What are you, 'busin' that 'ere garment for?" cried an old sheet-anchor-man. "Don't you see it's a 'uniform mustering jacket' three buttons on one side, and none on t'other?" "Silence!" again cried the auctioneer. "How much, my sea-fencibles, for this superior old jacket?" "Well," said Grummet, "I'll take it for cleaning-rags at one cent." "Oh, come, give us a bid! say something, Colombians."
"Is this the riglar fruits of liberty?" touchingly inquired an Irish waister of an old Spanish sheet-anchor-man. You will generally observe that, of all Americans, your foreign-born citizens are the most patriotic especially toward the Fourth of July. But how could Captain Claret, the father of his crew, behold the grief of his ocean children with indifference? He could not.
I diversified this reading of mine, by borrowing Moore's "Loves of the Angels" from Rose-water, who recommended it as "de charmingest of volumes;" and a Negro Song-book, containing Sittin' on a Rail, Gumbo Squash, and Jim along Josey, from Broadbit, a sheet-anchor-man.
He attempts to bribe the other to secrecy, by promising half the profits of the enterprise; but the sheet-anchor-man's integrity is like a rock; he is no mercenary, to be bought up for a song. The cockswain, therefore, is forced to swear that neither himself, nor any of his crew, shall enter the barge before morning. This done, the sheet-anchor-man goes to his confidants, and arranges his plans.
A remarkably serious, but bigoted seaman, a sheet-anchor-man whose private devotions may hereafter be alluded to once touched his hat to the Captain, and respectfully said, "Sir, I am a Baptist; the chaplain is an Episcopalian; his form of worship is not mine; I do not believe with him, and it is against my conscience to be under his ministry.
"Keep our Yankee nation large before the wind, say I, till you come plump on the enemy's bows, and then board him in the smoke," and with that, there came forth a mighty blast from his pipe. "Who says the old man at the helm of the Yankee nation can't steer his trick as well as George Washington himself?" cried a sheet-anchor-man.
"Muster all hands!" was now the order; when, upon calling the roll, the cooper was the only man missing. "I told you so, men," cried the Captain of the Head; "I said we would lose a man before long." "Bungs, is it?" cried Scrimmage, the sheet-anchor-man; "I told him his buoys wouldn't save a drowning man; and now he has proved it!"
There was an old negro, who went by the name of Tawney, a sheet-anchor-man, whom we often invited into our top of tranquil nights, to hear him discourse. He was a staid and sober seaman, very intelligent, with a fine, frank bearing, one of the best men in the ship, and held in high estimation by every one.
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