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This rope's-end he deftly threw in the form of a half-hitch round the quaintly carved figure-head of the canoe, taking the end aft and making it fast round the heel of the mast, thus effectually securing the craft to the catamaran in a manner convenient for the towage of the former. This done, he strode aft, until he came to where Flora lay.
I was therefore very much surprised, and considerably annoyed, when, as we were all gathered together on the poop that same evening, during the first dogwatch, I heard the sounds of a violent altercation proceeding on the fore-deck, and, on looking round, discovered that the disputants were one of my own men and the boatswain, the latter of whom was threatening the other with a rope's-end.
What's the good of curfew, and poor devils of bell-ringers jumping at a rope's-end in bell-towers? What's the use of day, if people sit up all night? The gripes to them!" He grinned as he saw where his logic was leading him. "Every man to his business, after all," added he, "and if they're awake, by the lord, I may come by a supper honestly for this once, and cheat the devil."
It reminded me of evil birds I've read of, that stun a man with their wings; strike you to the bottom, Tom, before you could say Jack Robinson. Kent stuck bravely as far as the cross-trees. There he slipped and struggled and clung in the dark and noise awhile, then comes sliding down the back-stay. "I'm not afraid, sir," says he; "but I cannot do it." For answer Whitmarsh takes to the rope's-end.
No, the colliding ship had made a "clean sweep" of all their spars and rigging and everything; hardly a rope's-end remaining attached to the cutter, beyond a part of the mainsheet and a bit of the forestay, which latter was hanging down from the bowsprit, the only spar the yacht had left.
"The skipper 've got a very queer temper, as you may see, sir; and if you don't come he'll lay the blame on to us; and'll think nothin' of takin' it out of us with a rope's-end." "Come up here into the top, both of you," commanded Leslie. "Never trouble about your skipper and his temper.
For the slightest offence he was "drubbed at the gears"; for serious offences, from ship to ship. If, when reefing topsails on a dark night or in the teeth of a sudden squall, he did not handle the canvas with all the celerity desired by the officer of the watch, he and his fellow yardsmen were flogged en bloc. If he had a lame leg or a bad foot, he was "started" with a rope's-end as a "slacker."
"Look here," he growled, in a deep, angry voice, "I've been marking o' you youngsters with my hye, and I gives you doo warning, the fust one on yer as shies any o' that orfull at young Master Donne, or inter his little boat, I marks with what isn't my hye, but this here bit of well-tarred rope's-end as I've got hitched inside my jacket; so look out."
"You have got those two English boys on board; give them the rope's-end," shouted the French captain, who, apparently, had only just then discovered that Harry and David had escaped him. The French lieutenant replied that he would see to it, and again the vessels separated.
Delectable the sensation that we don't care a rope's-end "how many knots" we are going, and that our ears are so far away from that eternal "Ay, ay, Sir!" "The whales," says old Chapman, speaking of Neptune, "exulted under him, and knew their mighty king." Let them exult, say we, and be blowed, and all due honor to their salt sovereign! but of their personal acquaintance we are not ambitious.
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