Some, Indeed, Looked As Though They Thought
The "Old Man" Was Mad, But No One Said A Word.
We had had a new
topmast studding-sail made with a reef in it, - a thing hardly
ever heard of, and which the sailors had ridiculed a good deal,
saying that when it was time to reef a studding-sail, it was time
to take it in.
But we found a use for it now; for, there being
a reef in the topsail, the studding-sail could not be set without
one in it also. To be sure, a studding-sail with reefed topsails
was rather a new thing; yet there was some reason in it, for if
we carried that away, we should lose only a sail and a boom;
but a whole topsail might have carried away the mast and all.
While we were aloft, the sail had been got out, bent to the yard,
reefed, and ready for hoisting. Waiting for a good opportunity,
the halyards were manned and the yard hoisted fairly up to the
block; but when the mate came to shake the catspaw out of the
downhaul, and we began to boom-end the sail, it shook the ship
to her centre. The boom buckled up and bent like a whip-stick,
and we looked every moment to see something go; but, being of
the short, tough upland spruce, it bent like whalebone, and nothing
could break it. The carpenter said it was the best stick he had
ever seen.
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