Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 5, 2025
The master shouted to the men to lower the sail, which was bellying and flapping violently, but before his orders could be obeyed there was a crash. The mast snapped off at the slings of the yard, and the wreck fell over the bow of the boat. All hands were employed for some minutes in getting the sail on board and furling it to its yard, which was laid lengthways along the thwarts.
He missed the long talks at the crossing over the dinner, the poor fellow sitting by his side watching every spoonful, his eyes glistening, the old ear furling and unfurling like a toy flag. He missed, too, his scampering after the sparrows and pigeons that often braved the desolation and smoke of this inferno to pick up the droppings from the carts.
One day I watched with no little interest a pitched battle between a wooden-legged sailor and a French stevedore. The sailor, although he was wanting in one of his limbs, was said to be a valuable seaman one who would never shrink from work of any kind. He would go aloft in a gale or in a calm, and lend a hand at reefing or furling as promptly as any man in the ship.
Still, the precaution was of no avail; for hardly had the men on deck handed the clewlines, when the sail, bulging out under our feet like a huge bag, or rather series of bags, as the wind puckered its folds, burst away from its bolt-ropes with a noise like the report of a gun discharged close to our ears, just as if we had cut it from off the yard, thus saving us any further trouble in furling it.
It was received in silence: the men on board every ship were employed aloft in furling sails, and below in tending the braces and making ready for anchoring. A miserable sight for the French; who, with all their skill, and all their courage, and all their advantages of numbers and situation, were upon that element on which, when the hour of trial comes, a Frenchman has no hope.
This course soon restored his appetite and strength; and in ten days after we spoke the Solon, so rapid was his recovery, that, from lying helpless and almost hopeless in his berth, he was at the mast-head, furling a royal.
This being done, the spokesman informed them that they had spent a very jolly night, and after hoisting the Silverspray's topsails to the mast head and furling the sails again, they were to disperse quietly and go each to his own ship. The sails were loosened, a chanty man was selected from among the southern-going seamen, and amid a chorus of sweet song the yards were leisurely mast-headed.
Reefing or furling, or handling a slush tub if a mistake was to be made, he made it. He was a Celt, and all the salt seas that had flowed between him and Connaught these forty years and more had not washed the Celtic element from his blood, nor the belief in fairies from his soul.
By now we should have been together out of reach of this cursed telegram, and far away!" Myra slowly lifted her eyes and looked at him. He, blinded by pain and passion, failed to mark the look, or he might have taken warning. As it was, he rushed on, headlong. Myra, very white, with eyelids lowered, leaned against the mantelpiece; slowly furling and unfurling the ivory fan.
Thus, Sir, I returned to my friends, fit for the newest fashion, after an absence of three years. "For my whole wardrobe I carried on my back, which consisted of a jacket, shirt, and trousers, a pair of old shoes and a handkerchief, which served me for a hat, and had more than two months, for I lost my hat the day we were taken, from the maintop-gallant yard, furling the top-gallant sail.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking