Various - Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891
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Various >> Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891
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"Oh, _nobody_ pretends to know all about the allusions in poetry. He
lived somewhere in England, in the dark ages, didn't he--and refused to
pay taxes, or something? I forget exactly what."
John smiled. He had recovered a little from his embarrassment.
"Why, old Mr. Hunt refuses to pay his taxes every year; but they make
him do it, just the same."
The girls laughed.
"Oh, but John Hampden protested against a great act of tyranny," said
Margaret. "He must have been very brave to do it, or Gray wouldn't have
put him in his poem."
"Such a lovely poem!" sighed Miss Kirke. "I've heard that the author was
seven years writing it."
"Seven years!" John echoed. "Well!"
"He kept pruning it, and re-writing some of the verses," Margaret
explained. "He wanted to make it a perfect poem."
"It's very fine," said John. Then he added, blushingly, "If I had any
fields to keep tyrants away from, I'd like to be a village Hampden
myself, even if I couldn't become famous like the other one."
"Oh, I don't think one need take that line of the poem literally," said
Margaret. "I like to have poetry suggest things to me that are not found
in the mere words. That is why I'm so fond of Shakespeare--he admits of
so many interpretations. Perhaps," she went on, softly and timidly, "if
we keep the little tyrants of selfishness and wickedness away from our
hearts, we can all become village Hampdens. Such things are often harder
to drive away than human tyrants--don't you think so?"
"Yes," replied John, gravely, "I'm sure it is true--though I've had no
contests with human tyrants."
"I know what _my_ greatest tyrant is," said Celia Kirke, who had grown
serious with the others; "and whenever I see him trying to get into my
fields," she added, more lightly, "I shall 'off with his head' with
scant ceremony."
As John walked home alone in the frosty night, he vowed half aloud to
the silent, listening stars that he _would_ be a "village Hampden," that
the tyrant within him should be laid low for all time.
John had no need to mention the tyrant by name--he knew very well that
it was Carelessness with a capital C. How often had this little tyrant
brought him into trouble, and how often had his employer warned him to
break his bad habit before it was too late.
What a pleasant, sensible girl Margaret Shirley was--not a bit spoiled
by her studies in Boston!
Matilda Haines would have laughed more and talked more, but she would
never have given a second thought to the poem they had just read. John
was rather glad she had walked home with some one else that
evening--even though his old tyrant of Carelessness had brought about
this result.
John Hampden saw a good deal of Margaret Shirley and her cousin that
winter at the meetings of the literary society, at choir practice, and
in Margaret's own home, where they often discussed the poems and essays
they were reading.
Youth has a frank and sometimes harsh way of passing judgment upon
people. John had decided the first evening he met her that Celia Kirke
was a frivolous girl, but when he got to know her better, he found that
she could be as sensible as Margaret herself when occasion required it.
They had confessed to one another what each one's particular tyrant was,
and had agreed to help each other to suppress him. Of course they had a
good deal of fun about it, but under it all there was a general feeling
that it was a serious matter they had undertaken.
John really began to feel that he was getting to be master of his own
fields at last. He attended to his duties at the drug store with such
punctilious care that his employer, Mr. Wyatt, nodded approval more than
once.
After all, John might become a safe druggist yet, if he didn't suffer
himself to lapse into his old ways. He did not stop to dream, as
formerly, when compounding pills, and he washed all his dingy bottles so
thoroughly that they began to shine like cut glass.
"He would be a credit to the business," said old Mr. Wyatt, who always
spoke of his business as if it were spelled with a capital B, and
thought it the very finest business in the world for a man to be in.
One afternoon in March Doctor Pratt came hurriedly into the store and
said to Mr. Wyatt:
"Put up half a dozen of these powders, will you, Wyatt? Here's the full
prescription. Squire Shirley has got one of his acute attacks of
neuralgia again, and my medicine-chest was empty. I'll call for them in
fifteen minutes."
Then the overworked little doctor jumped into his gig, and was off like
a flash.
"You'd better do it, John," said Mr. Wyatt. "I can't see in this poor
light."
"Very well, sir," said John.
And, as he began to neatly fold the white slips of paper, he wondered if
the squire were really as ill as Doctor Pratt pretended he was.
The good doctor was fond of making a fuss about trifles, to add to his
own importance.
Margaret and Celia had been out driving that afternoon, for John had
seen them from the drug-store windows.
If they had come home, they were probably rushing distracted about the
house, trying all the possible and impossible remedies they had ever
heard of to relieve him. John hoped they were not feeling too unhappy
about it--the squire would doubtless be all right in a few hours.
John lived with his aunt, not far from Squire Shirley's, and, as he
passed the large brick mansion, he noticed that there were many lights
there that night.
Usually there was a light only in the library so late as this. None of
the curtains had been drawn, which was certainly an unusual state of
affairs.
A broad flood of light streamed from one of the front windows toward the
gate. A girlish, uncovered head was leaning dejectedly against the cold,
icy gate-post, and the light turned the fluffy blonde hair into a
shining aureole.
"Miss Kirke!" John exclaimed, in amazement. "What is the matter? Is--is
Squire Shirley worse?"
"Noth--nothing is the matter," faltered Celia, making a few
ineffectual dabs at her tear-swollen eyes with her handkerchief. "That
is--everything is the matter. They have given my uncle an over-dose of
opium. There was too much in the powders, the doctor says--a great deal
more than the prescription calls for. Doctor Pratt is with him now, and
they are trying to keep him awake. If he is allowed to go to sleep, he
will die. They are walking him back and forth, though he implores them
to let him sleep. I couldn't bear to see it any longer, it was too, too
dreadful! Oh, how _can_ people be so criminally careless?"
John turned pale and leaned against the gate for support. Celia's face
became a mere blur before his eyes. What had he done--what _had_ he
done? For, at that moment, the conviction came with terrible force upon
him that he, and he alone, would be responsible for Squire Shirley's
death.
He might blame the poor light--Doctor Pratt's miserable scrawl; but
these were but cowardly subterfuges. John _knew_ that he had been able
to decipher Doctor Pratt's handwriting well enough, but that he had been
thinking of something else while putting up the powders, and so had put
too much opium into them.
Celia looked at his agitated face in wonder. Then she uttered a little
cry.
"You--_you_ did it! It is your fault," she said. "And he was your
friend, and always spoke so well of you."
Then she turned and walked swiftly toward the house.
It was true he and Squire Shirley had become excellent friends that
winter, and the squire had only a few days before asked him if he
thought he should like law better than the drug business.
He expected a vacancy in his office soon; in the meantime he had offered
to read a little law with John in the evenings. John had been more than
pleased, for circumstances had placed him in the drug store, not his own
inclinations.
And now he had blotted out all his hopes for the future, and perhaps
killed his friend and benefactor at the same time, all because he had
lacked manliness enough to cure himself of his small and odious
besetting sin.
John wandered like one distraught through the freezing slush and mud of
the country roads that night, feeling no fatigue and no discomfort. His
brain was on fire with horror and self-condemnation.
It never occurred to him to ask himself how the law would look upon his
carelessness; he only knew that he was ruined and disgraced, and that he
had brought a crushing sorrow upon those who had trusted him and treated
him as a good and welcome friend.
When daylight dawned upon John Hampden's haggard eyes he found himself
upon his own doorstep, his clothes smeared with frozen mud, his body
shivering and quaking in the grip of a dreadful chill.
He had walked for hours at a breakneck pace, and he was so exhausted
that he could hardly lift his hand to fumble at the door-knob.
His aunt opened the door for him. Her eyes were red, as if she had been
crying. She had been kneeling by a chair in the corner of the kitchen.
"John, John!" she cried, opening her arms wide.
"Don't touch me!" said John, in a hoarse voice. "You don't know what I
am--what I have done, Aunt Martha."
"I know it all, John," said Aunt Martha, the tears gushing from her
pitying eyes. "How you must have suffered, my dear, dear boy! The
squire's daughter and niece were here at three o'clock this morning.
They thought you might be worried a good deal about it. The squire will
be all right in a few days."
Without a word, John laid his tired head on Aunt Martha's motherly bosom
and wept like a child. So pillowed, he fell asleep, as he had done so
many a time in years gone by.
John Hampden learned a lesson that night which he never forgot. He is
twice eighteen years old now, and his life has brought him much honor
and prosperity.
If he has one fault, people say, it is that he is almost too inflexibly
exact in all his dealings--almost too conscientious and fearful lest he
should make a mistake, and so do another an injury, however slight. But,
they add, the world would be a happier place if more people were like
him in this respect.
* * * * *
--For several years a pair of storks built their nest annually in the
park of the Castle Ruheleben, in Berlin. A few years ago one of the
servants placed a ring, with the name of the place and date, on the leg
of the male bird, in order to be certain that the same bird returned
each year. Last spring the stork came back to its customary place, the
bearer of two rings. The second one bore the inscription: "India sends
greetings to Germany."
RIGGING AND RIGS.
by W. J. GORDON.
Though steam is now the pride of the ocean, there are a few points in
which its advantages over sail have not been great enough to crowd out
the clippers, and in long voyages the sailing ship is far from
obsolete.
A drawing of one of these clippers affords an opportunity for saying
something about a ship's rigging, and thereby meeting the wishes of a
large number of amateur sailors.
Let it be clearly understood, however, that we are dealing with one
particular class of ship, and that all ships are not rigged exactly
alike.
There is a general notion that a full-rigged ship is of the same pattern
all the world over, and this notion has been supported by the diagrams
usually published which have taken a war ship as an example.
Now a man-of-war has an enormous crew compared to a merchant vessel,
and her rigging is set up accordingly. The things that are done on a
man-of-war in spar-drill make a merchant sailor's hair stand on end.
The rigging of a merchantman is designed for a much smaller crew to get
along with, and in many respects differs from that of a full-rigged
man-of-war.
Complicated as a ship's rigging may look, it becomes intelligible enough
when attacked in detail. There are three masts and the bowsprit, which
is simply the old bowmast that has gradually increased its angle until
it is now almost horizontal.
These four spars are built into the ship, and all the other spars and
the rigging and sails are fixed on to them.
The three masts, known also as the lower masts, are the foremast,
mainmast and mizzenmast, and each of these carries two masts
by way of continuations. Thus we have foretopmast, maintopmast and
mizzentopmast, and over them foretopgallantmast, maintopgallantmast
and mizzentopgallantmast.
The part of the topgallantmast above the topgallant-rigging is
called the royal-mast or royal-pole, and the continuation above the
royal-rigging, if any, is the skysail-pole. Answering to the topmasts on
the three masts is the jibboom on the bowsprit, and in continuation of
that the flying-jibboom.
The jibboom and flying-jibboom are generally in one spar, as are the
topgallantmast, royal-pole and skysail-pole, but sometimes they are
fitted into each other on much the same principle as a fishing-rod, and
in some of the newer ships, bowsprit, jibboom and flying-jibboom are all
one steel spar.
Crossing the masts are the yards. On the mainmast we have, beginning
below, main-yard, lower maintopsail-yard, upper maintopsail-yard, lower
maintopgallantsail-yard, upper maintopgallantsail-yard, main royal-yard
and skysail-yard; on the foremast we have the fore-yard, then the
topsail-yards, topgallantsail-yards and royal; and on the mizzenmast we
have a similar series of yards, beginning with the mizzen or crossjack.
Up to the close of the last century, in very old ships, there was
no sail hung on this lower yard of the mizzenmast, it having been
introduced only for setting the mizzen topsail; and instead of the gaff
spanker we now have there was a huge lateen sail which extended some
distance forward of the mast and worked under this yard.
This lateen was the crossjack. When the gaff came in, the projecting
corner of the lateen disappeared so as to make room for the sail hanging
from this lower yard, and the yard took the name of the old lateen boom.
As representing, then, the after half of this huge boom, we have the
modern gaff, set at the same angle as the boom used to be; and at the
foot of the sail hung on this gaff, now called a spencer or spanker,
from the original inventor, we have the spanker boom, the same sort of
thing as we should call the mainboom were the vessel a fore-and-aft
yacht.
Each mast is held in its place by stays and backstays. The stays reach
from the mastheads to the centre line of the ship forward; and the
backstays come down to the sides of the ship, just behind the masts.
The stays and backstays are named from the mast-head from which they
descend. Thus the forestay comes from the foremast-head to the bows; the
foretopmast-stay from the foretopmast-head to the bowsprit-head; the
foretopgallant-stay from the foretopgallant-rigging to the jibboom-head;
and the foreroyal-stay from the top of the royal mast to the end of the
flying-jibboom.
From the bowsprit-head to the vessel's cutwater runs the bobstay,
generally of chain, which takes the pull of the foretopmast-stay;
and from the bowsprit-head there hangs the spar known as the
dolphin-striker, to give the purchase for continuing the pull of the
foretopgallant and foreroyal stays round to the cutwater; so that really
all the staying starts from the hull, as does the backstay-staying.
Round the lower mastheads are platforms called tops; and round the
topmast-heads are skeleton platforms called crosstrees. These platforms
are required not only to take the lower ends of the topmast and
topgallant rigging, but also to enable the crew to strike and get up
the masts and yards and work the sails. The crosstrees are fitted with
outriggers pointing outward aft to enable the topgallant-backstays to
give a better support to the topgallantmast than they otherwise would
do.
Besides stays and backstays, the masts have "shrouds" to
strengthen them. The topgallant shrouds come from the head of the
topgallant-rigging to the crosstrees, the topmast shrouds come from
the hounds just under the crosstrees to the top, and the main, fore or
mizzen shrouds, as the case may be, come from just under the tops to the
vessel's side.
To take the pull off the tops, the shrouds are continued round to the
mast as "futtock" shrouds, on the same principle as the foretopmast-stay
finds its continuation in the bobstay.
The shrouds are "rattled down;" that is to say, thin lines are fastened
across them to make a ladder for the men to go aloft. These lines are
the "rattle-lines" or "ratlines." The foremost shroud of the lower
rigging has only a "catch ratline;" that is, one ratline in about six
continued to the shroud that lies furthest forward.
And this is one of the signs by which you can tell a man-of-war from
a merchantman, for in war-ships the catch ratline is on the aftermost
shroud instead of on the foremost. In a man-of-war, too, the
topgallant-rigging is never rattled down, as a Jacob's ladder leads from
the topgallantmast-head down to the crosstrees; but this Jacob's ladder
arrangement is found in many clippers.
Another detail in which a man-of-war differs from a merchantman is in
the rigging of the bowsprit, the man-of-war generally having whiskers,
and the merchantman taking the pull of the shroud direct from the
forecastle along the catheads, the whiskers being the spars across the
bowsprit, which take the purchase of the bowsprit shrouds as the
dolphin-striker takes the purchase of the stays.
On each mast the lower yard, lower topsail-yard, and lower
topgallantsail-yard do not hoist up and down; the others do.
The "lifts" by which the yard is hung and "topped" run from the
yardarms--the ends of the yards--to the head of the mast which the
yard crosses.
From the yardarms also come the "braces," by means of which the yards
are swung so as to set the sails at the proper angle. These braces come
down to the ship's sides, or to the heads of the masts fore and aft of
those on which the yard is swung; all the mizzen-braces working on the
mainmast; the maintopgallant, mainroyal and skysail braces working on
the mizzenmast; and the foretopgallant and foreroyal braces working on
the mainmast, as is clearly shown in our illustration. The yards and
jibboom and flying-jibboom are fitted with foot-ropes for the men to
stand on.
The sails on the lower yards are the foresail, mainsail and
crossjack, or, as they are often called, fore-course, main-course and
mizzen-course--the course being the sail, just as a sheet is a rope and
not a piece of canvas. Above the courses come the lower topsails, above
them the upper topsails, above them the lower topgallant-sails, then
the upper topgallant-sails, then the royals, and, on the mainmast, the
skysail, though sometimes there are skysails to all masts, and over the
main skysail comes a "scraper" or moon-raker. On the outer edges of the
plain-sails come the studding-sails spread on booms.
[Illustration:
A FULL-RIGGED SHIP.]
In our illustration the vessel has set her fore studding-sail,
her fore-topmast studding-sail and her fore-topgallant studding-sail--
studding-sail being pronounced stu'nsail, just as topgallant-sail is
telescoped into topgantsail.
A man-of-war sets her stu'nsails abaft the sail at their side; a
merchantman sets hers "before all"--that is, in front of the adjacent
sail, as shown in our illustration.
That part of a square sail which is secured to the yard is the "head,"
the lower part is the "foot," the outer edge is the "leech," the two
lower corners are the "clews," the middle of the sail when furled is the
"bunt." The "sheet" pulls the sail out to its full extent down to the
yard below, the clewlines and buntlines bring it up under the yard for
furling.
The courses, having no yards below them, have both "tack" and "sheet,"
the tack enabling the clew of the sail to be taken forward, and the
sheet enabling it to be taken aft. The clewlines for these sails are
double, and are called "clew-garnets." A glance at the picture will
show the clew-garnets and clewlines coming down to the corners and the
buntlines coming straight down the sails.
The sails along the centre line of the ship are the fore-and-aft
sails; these are the triangular jibs, staysails and trysails, and the
trapezoidal spanker we have already mentioned, which sometimes has a
gaff topsail over it and a "ringtail" behind it, as shown in our figure.
"Watersails," by the way, are not carried now; they used to be set below
the lower booms, but, as we have seen, there are now no lower booms, the
lower stu'nsails being triangular, like the staysails.
These staysails take their names from the stays on which they run.
Working from the deck upward, the clipper we show is flying her mizzen
staysail, her mizzen topmast staysail, her mizzen topgallantmast
staysail and her mizzen royal staysail; and she has a similar series off
the main. But on the fore we have the head-sails. The extreme outer one
we cannot see; it comes down from the fore-royal and ends half-way down,
being a mere "kite;" it is called the "jib topsail." The outer one we
can see is the "flying-jib," on the flying-jibboom. Then come the "outer
jib" and the "inner jib" and the "foretopmast staysail."
The "trysails" are gaff or jib-headed sails sometimes carried on the
fore and main, as the spanker is carried on the mizzen. The gaff is held
up by the throat and peak halliards, and kept in position by "vangs,"
which come down to the rail as shown. The spanker is sheeted home not by
a sheet, but by an "outhaul," and kept in position not by a "brace," but
by the "sheet," and thereby differs from the square sails.
It will be noticed how neat and clean the ship is. There is nothing
outside to catch the wash of the sea or check the speed. The boat's
davits and the dead-eyes of the lower rigging are all inside the
bulwarks. The cables have been unshackled and stowed in the lockers
below, and the hawse-pipes are all plugged; the anchors are all inboard,
and everything that could possibly act as a brake on her is removed.
Several large vessels now have four masts, in which case they are called
"four-masters." When all the masts are square-rigged, the names are
bowmast, foremast, main and mizzen. If the aftermost mast is not
square-rigged, the order is foremast, main, mizzen and jigger. In some
four-masters the masts are named fore, first-main, second-main and
mizzen.
Should the vessel be three-masted, and have yards only on the two
front masts, she is a "bark;" and, by-the-way, the spanker of a bark is
her "mizzen." Should she have yards only, as the foremast, she is a
"barkentine;" should she be a two-master, and have yards on both, she
is a "brig;" should she have yards on the foremast only, she is a
"brigantine."
With regard to this, however, a few words of explanation are necessary.
A century or so ago, a favorite rig was the "snow," pronounced so as to
rhyme to "now." The snow was a bark with a lateen mizzen, or rather a
brig with the "driver," a lateen one, on a jigger mast, just a little
abaft the mainmast.
When this jigger was abolished the sail retained its lateen shape,
got on to the mainmast, and became what we may call a main crossjack,
thereby rendering a square mainsail impossible.
When the crossjack was replaced by a gaff, the larger vessels started
the square mainsail, and became "brigs," while the smaller kept the
spanker as their mainsail, and became "brigantines," so that a genuine
old brigantine is a brig without a square mainsail.
Soon, however, vessels appeared with no yards at all on their mainmasts,
and these were called "hermaphrodite brigs," and were found to be so
handy that they crowded the old brigantines off the sea and took their
name.
But here a qualification must come in. Perhaps you have seen a
two-masted vessel with yards on her foremast and none on her main. She
is a "topsail-schooner." In what does she differ from the brigantine?
The brigantine has a foremast of three spars from the old snow, and a
mainmast of two from the hermaphrodite; the topsail-schooner has both
foremast and mainmast of two spars, and the foresail on a gaff instead
of on a yard, and in other ways is different, but a glance at the
foremast is enough to distinguish her from a brigantine.
A "three-masted schooner" has only lower masts and topmasts, and each
mast is rigged for fore-and-aft sails, but more often than not these
vessels carry yards at the fore and sometimes at the main.
With the "ketch" begins what has been called the mast-and-a-half
division of sailing vessels. The tall mast is the mainmast, the short
mast is the mizzen; some ketches carry square sails on the main, some
carry a topsail on the mizzen--the distinctive mark of the ketch being
that the mizzen is a pole-mast and stepped in front of the stern-post.
If the mizzen be stepped abaft the stern-post the vessel becomes a
"dandy" or "yawl."
In the cutter the mizzen is dispensed with, and in a sloop of the old
rig the difference between the two is that the cutter has two headsails,
the jib and foresail, while the sloop has but one, the foresail.
Sometimes the sloop has a standing bowsprit, while the cutter has a
running one; but this distinction is not essential. Indeed, the words
cutter and sloop have begun to be used indiscriminately, except,
perhaps, that a cutter is for pleasure and a sloop for trade.
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