THS AMERICAN WHALEMAN. 31 



away overhead: all this was food for the mind of the lad 

 fresh from the little saw-mill quietly nestled in the shelter 

 of the Gulf Valley. But presently, as I held some secure 

 rope, admiring the agility with which the sailors squirmed 

 out of sight into the whistling, howling darkness overhead, 

 I saw the mad second mate coming for me with a rope's end 

 in his hand, and with some ugly expletives, in sea lingo, be- 

 tween his teeth. I took in the whole situation in a moment, 



as S again yelled to me, " Lay aloft, and reef top^sails, 



you infernal lubber !" 



The tui-moil and confusion of the gale had subsided be- 

 fore this new storm came, and unhappy I found it compara- 

 tively easy to creep up the ratlines. My pride then led me 

 to avoid the " lubber's hole " and to mount the terrible f ut- 

 tock-shrouds. Here, in some way, I found myself close in to 

 the bunt on the weather foretop-sail yard. The roll, pitch, 

 and sway of that yard, and the gyrations of the foot-rope 

 supporting me; the darkness, wet, and howl, the hoarse or- 

 ders and naughty oaths of the men, banished the little sense 

 which the premonitions of sea-sickness had left me.* I won- 

 der if any sailor ever forgot his first reef at night. I don't 

 remember to have knotted a point. In sheer desperation I 

 hugged the shivering spar, repeating the beautiful prayer, 

 •" Here I lay me down," etc. 



I was very loath to let go, and even allow the impatient 

 sailors to lay in from the yard-arm. " Goodness gracious !" 

 thought I ; " can I ever go clear out on that yard in such a 

 night ?" By some means all hands got safely on deck, all 

 was bowsed taut, and we stood on our course again. For 

 the remainder of this miserable night we were hauling and 

 letting go, belaying, making fast, coiling, reefing, and furling, 

 and doing many things which I never so much as heard of 

 in the whole twenty-seven volumes of Mavor's voyages. The 

 pitch of our little uneasy bark, the spraying seas which over- 



