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I've been thinkin' for some time that you ain't got Lucy straight, and this last kick-up of hers makes me sure of it. Some timber is growed right and some timber is growed crooked; and when it's growed crooked it gits leaky, and no 'mount o' tar and pitch kin stop it. Every twist the ship gives it opens the seams, and the pumps is goin' all the time.
"You seem to be anxious to outrun that feller," he said at last. Patrick Deever, for it was he, nodded his head and set his teeth. The old sailor looked long and earnestly at their pursuer. "Wall, ye ain't doin' of it," he said, at last. "Is she gaining?" asked Deever, nervously. "She be," said the tar, calmly. "I thought this was the fastest of Redwood's boats."
In a minute or thereabouts, the military gentlemen made their appearance one by one on the quarter-deck, scrutinising their gloves as they bade adieu to the side-ropes, to ascertain if they had in any degree been defiled by the adhesive properties of the pitch and tar. Captain Oughton advanced to receive them. "Welcome, gentlemen," said he, "welcome on board. We trip our anchor in half an hour.
Many houses have collapsed, but the village still retains its ancient outline of peaked roofs, and on all sides orderly piles of bricks, fresh plaster and new tar paper give an aspect of thrift and optimism. Vauchelles has met the challenge of devastation and is setting things aright. Is the town asleep? The healing July sun softly warms the silent houses and their broken walls and closed doors.
"Here," said another and younger workman, "if we give each of you a little on a stick will you promise to go off and leave us in peace?" There was an eager chorus of promises, and the good-natured young roofer actually stuck a little ball of the soft tar on each stick thrust at him and watched the small army of boys and girls march up the street, smiling.
They cow-hided him, then treated him to a light coat of tar and feathers and sent him home with most moral and solemn admonitions against future brutalities. There the victims of that harshness for which he had been "regulated" wept over him and swore that a better husband and father had never lived.
"You want to be a sailor, my lad, and I never knew one who did not dip his hand in the tar bucket, and you will now have to put yours in very often," he exclaimed. He then ordered Owen to black down some of the rigging. It was a seaman's duty, and Owen was ready to perform it.
One of these females, having been taken into the boat, began to ingratiate herself into the favour of an honest tar, who, nothing loath, seated her near him, with his arm around her neck.
This has been also the case with the methods in the roofing paper industry, which are at present gradually being reduced to a practical basis. The method gradually adopted has been described in the preceding. The pan is of a certain length, whereby it becomes possible to saturate the paper by slowly drawing it through the heated tar. This is the chief feature.
VI, page 111, I find an account of one Quackensalber, who gave a new twist to the fire-eating industry by making a "High Pitch" at the fairs and on street corners and exhibiting feats of fire-resistance, washing his hands and face in melted tar, pitch and brimstone, in order to attract a crowd.
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