Little did the good souls who nursed them, and sung pious songs
over their cradles, fancy the hardships they were bringing them up to! But
we never know our fates, or miserable dogs most of us would be. Is it not
so, Sir George?"
The baronet started at this appeal, which crossed the quaint mind of the
captain as a cloud darkens a sunny view, and he muttered a hasty
expression of hope that there was now no particular reason to expect any
more serious obstacles to their reaching the ship.
"It is not an easy thing to tow a heavy raft in light boats like these,
exactly in the direction you wish it to go," returned the captain, gaping.
"He who trusts to the winds and waves, trusts an uncertain friend, and one
who may fail him at the very moment when there is most need of their
services. Fair as things now seem, I would give a thousand dollars of a
small stock, in which no single dollar has been lightly earned, to see
these spars safely on board the Montauk, and snugly fitted to their proper
places. Sticks, gentlemen, are to a ship what limbs are to a man. Without
them she rolls and tumbles about as winds, currents, and seas will; while
with them she walks, and dances, and jumps Jim Crow; ay, almost talks. The
standing rigging are the bones and gristle; the running gear the veins in
which her life circulates; and the blocks the joints.
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