White Jacket; Or, The World on a Man-of-War Read online

  CHAPTER II.

  HOMEWARD BOUND.

  "All hands up anchor! Man the capstan!"

  "High die! my lads, we're homeward bound!"

  Homeward bound!--harmonious sound! Were you _ever_ homewardbound?--No?--Quick! take the wings of the morning, or the sails of aship, and fly to the uttermost parts of the earth. There, tarry a yearor two; and then let the gruffest of boatswains, his lungs allgoose-skin, shout forth those magical words, and you'll swear "the harpof Orpheus were not more enchanting."

  All was ready; boats hoisted in, stun' sail gear rove, messengerpassed, capstan-bars in their places, accommodation-ladder below; andin glorious spirits, we sat down to dinner. In the ward-room, thelieutenants were passing round their oldest port, and pledging theirfriends; in the steerage, the _middies_ were busy raising loans toliquidate the demands of their laundress, or else--in the navyphrase--preparing to pay their creditors _with a flying fore-topsail_.On the poop, the captain was looking to windward; and in his grand,inaccessible cabin, the high and mighty commodore sat silent andstately, as the statue of Jupiter in Dodona.

  We were all arrayed in our best, and our bravest; like strips of bluesky, lay the pure blue collars of our frocks upon our shoulders; andour pumps were so springy and playful, that we danced up and down as wedined.

  It was on the gun-deck that our dinners were spread; all along betweenthe guns; and there, as we cross-legged sat, you would have thought ahundred farm-yards and meadows were nigh. Such a cackling of ducks,chickens, and ganders; such a lowing of oxen, and bleating of lambkins,penned up here and there along the deck, to provide sea repasts for theofficers. More rural than naval were the sounds; continually remindingeach mother's son of the old paternal homestead in the green old clime;the old arching elms; the hill where we gambolled; and down by thebarley banks of the stream where we bathed.

  "All hands up anchor!"

  When that order was given, how we sprang to the bars, and heaved roundthat capstan; every man a Goliath, every tendon a hawser!--round andround--round, round it spun like a sphere, keeping time with our feetto the time of the fifer, till the cable was straight up and down, andthe ship with her nose in the water.

  "Heave and pall! unship your bars, and make sail!"

  It was done: barmen, nipper-men, tierers, veerers, idlers and all,scrambled up the ladder to the braces and halyards; while like monkeysin Palm-trees, the sail-loosers ran out on those broad boughs, ouryards; and down fell the sails like white clouds from theether--topsails, top-gallants, and royals; and away we ran with thehalyards, till every sheet was distended.

  "Once more to the bars!"

  "Heave, my hearties, heave hard!"

  With a jerk and a yerk, we broke ground; and up to our bows cameseveral thousand pounds of old iron, in the shape of our ponderousanchor.

  Where was White-Jacket then?

  White-Jacket was where he belonged. It was White-Jacket that loosedthat main-royal, so far up aloft there, it looks like a whitealbatross' wing. It was White-Jacket that was taken for an albatrosshimself, as he flew out on the giddy yard-arm!