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Updated: May 22, 2025
The river has been uniformly grey of late, with no wind to ruffle its surface or to speed the barges dropping slowly and sullenly down with the tide through a blurring haze. I watched one yesterday, its useless sails half-furled and no sign of life save the man at the helm.
Sharp jibs and staysails cut their white outlines keenly against the afternoon blue of the summer heaven; the topsails and courses dripped, half-furled, from the yards stretching across the yellow masts that sprang so far aloft; the hull glistened black with new paint. When Lydia mounted to the deck she found it as clean scrubbed as her aunt's kitchen floor.
Away there tall thin masts stand out, rising straight up above the red roofs. There is a faint colour on them; the yards are dark being inclined, they do not reflect the light at an angle to reach us. Half-furled canvas droops in folds, now swelling a little as the wind blows, now heavily sinking.
The long kid gloves, almost dazzling in their whiteness, were new, the fan borrowed, and the touch of something blue was furnished by a broad back-comb of blue enamel surmounted by rhinestones. One white glove rested airily on "Mistah Robinson's" coat-sleeve, the other carried a half-furled fan edged with white feathers.
But this did not continue: it fell calm, and remained so for nearly three days, during which not a breath of wind was to be seen on the wide expanse of water; all nature appeared as if in repose, except that now and then an albatross would drop down at some distance from the stern of the vessel, and, as he swam lazily along with his wings half-furled, pick up the fragments of food which had been thrown over the side.
Masts to the right, masts to the left, masts in front, masts yonder above the warehouses; masts in among the streets as steeples appear amid roofs; masts across the river hung with drooping half-furled sails; masts afar down thin and attenuated, mere dark straight lines in the distance. They await in stillness the rising of the tide.
But this did not continue: it fell calm, and remained so for nearly three days, during which not a breath of wind was to be seen on the wide expanse of water; all nature appeared as if in repose, except that now and then an albatross would drop down at some distance from the stern of the vessel, and, as he swam lazily along with his wings half-furled, pick up the fragments of food which had been thrown over the side.
"Master, the rudder is gone, the rudder is lost," cried many voices, as after a sudden lurch forward the ship righted again, and as they cried out, a fresh blast struck her, and the half-furled sails were torn into ribbons, and hung useless over the ship's side.
"Bless my soul! What's happened? Where's Captain Whidden? Bless my soul! Who are you?" The speaker was big, well dressed, comfortably well fed. He stared at the six of us sprawled out grotesquely on the deck, where we had thrown ourselves when the ship swung at her anchor. He looked up at the loose, half-furled sails. He turned to Roger, who stood gaunt and silent before him. "Bless my soul!
A yellow light streamed sharply down across the frost-whitened meadows, the smouldering ruins of Grand Pré village, and out upon the glittering expanse of Minas Basin. The beams tinged brightly the cordage and half-furled sails of two ships that rode at anchor in the Basin, near the shore.
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