Hawthorne of Salem, had but
served on board a man-of-war in his time, that he might give us the
reading of a "_rill_" from the scuttle-butt.

* * * * *

As in all extensive establishments--abbeys, arsenals, colleges,
treasuries, metropolitan post-offices, and monasteries--there are many
snug little niches, wherein are ensconced certain superannuated old
pensioner officials; and, more especially, as in most ecclesiastical
establishments, a few choice prebendary stalls are to be found,
furnished with well-filled mangers and racks; so, in a man-of-war,
there are a variety of similar snuggeries for the benefit of decrepit
or rheumatic old tars. Chief among these is the office of _mast-man_.

There is a stout rail on deck, at the base of each mast, where a number
of _braces, lifts_, and _buntlines_ are belayed to the pins. It is the
sole duty of the mast-man to see that these ropes are always kept
clear, to preserve his premises in a state of the greatest attainable
neatness, and every Sunday morning to dispose his ropes in neat
_Flemish coils_.

The _main-mast-man_ of the Neversink was a very aged seaman, who well
deserved his comfortable berth. He had seen more than half a century of
the most active service, and, through all, had proved himself a good
and faithful man. He furnished one of the very rare examples of a
sailor in a green old age; for, with most sailors, old age comes in
youth, and Hardship and Vice carry them on an early bier to the grave.

As in the evening of life, and at the close of the day, old Abraham sat
at the door of his tent, biding his time to die, so sits our old
mast-man on the _coat of the mast_, glancing round him with patriarchal
benignity. And that mild expression of his sets off very strangely a
face that has been burned almost black by the torrid suns that shone
fifty years ago--a face that is seamed with three sabre cuts. You would
almost think this old mast-man had been blown out of Vesuvius, to look
alone at his scarred, blackened forehead, chin, and cheeks. But gaze
down into his eye, and though all the snows of Time have drifted higher
and higher upon his brow, yet deep down in that eye you behold an
infantile, sinless look, the same that answered the glance of this old
man's mother when first she cried for the babe to be laid by her side.
That look is the fadeless, ever infantile immortality within.

* * * * *

The Lord Nelsons of the sea