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Behind them all, slowly, and as though against his will yet determined to see it out, came a tall man of middle age, like the rest half farmer, half fisherman, but of a finer and sadder countenance than any there. When all the rest poured noisily through the tunnel and spread out along the shingle, he stood back among the capstans under the cliff and watched quietly.
Stay-sails, braces, top-gallants, clews, and capstans they hurled at each other like bon bons at a carnival; and this naval engagement lasted from daylight to dark.
In capstans, and other machines, there is a mechanical device, with which every person is acquainted, termed a pall or catch, by which the work gained in the effort last made shall be secured, and the machine prevented from turning back again.
Thus, this carpenter was prepared at all points, and alike indifferent and without respect in all. Teeth he accounted bits of ivory; heads he deemed but top-blocks; men themselves he lightly held for capstans. But while now upon so wide a field thus variously accomplished and with such liveliness of expertness in him, too; all this would seem to argue some uncommon vivacity of intelligence.
The next day a large ship was to be moved across the dike by means of capstans and rollers, a difficult operation, in which Peter took deep interest. A place was reserved for him to see it, but the crowd became so great as to drive back the guards, break down the railings, and half fill the reserved space. Peter, seeing this, refused to leave his house.
He took his place upon the brig with the schooner's carpenter, the two lads bargaining that they might stay too, and as the tide sank the brig, which had been hauled in close to the bank at high water, soon touched bottom, her keel settling down steadily into the mud, and in due time began to careen over more and more, her progress being governed by a couple of capstans that had been arranged upon the shore.
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