stem to stern.  The flaps of the mad canvas were like successive thumps of a giant’s fist upon a mighty drum.  The sheets were jerking at the belaying-pins, the blocks rattling in sharp snappings like castanets.  You could hear the hiss and seething of the sea alongside, and see it flash by in sudden white patches of phosphorescent foam, while all overhead was black with the flying scud.  The English second-mate was stamping with vexation, and, with all his ills misplaced, storming at the men:—­“’An’somely the weather main-brace,—­’an’somely, I tell you!—­’Alf a dozen of you clap on to the main sheet here,—­down with ’im!—­D’y’see ’ere’s hall like a midshipman’s bag,—­heverythink huppermost and nothing ’andy.—­’Aul ’im in, Hi say!” —­But the sail wouldn’t come, though.  All the most forcible expressions of the Commination-Service were liberally bestowed on the watch.  “Give us the song, men!” sang out the mate, at last,—­“pull with a will! —­together, men!—­haltogether now!”—­And then a cracked, melancholy voice struck up this chant: 

  “Oh, the bowline, bully bully bowline,
  Oh, the bowline, bowline, HAUL!”

At the last word every man threw his whole strength into the pull,—­all singing it in chorus, with a quick, explosive sound.  And so, jump by jump, the sheet was at last hauled taut.—­I dare say this will seem very much spun out to a seafarer, but landsmen like to hear of the sea and its ways; and as more landsmen than seamen, probably, read the “Atlantic Monthly,” I have told them of one genuine sea-song, and its time and place.

Then there are pumping-songs.  “The dismal sound of the pumps is heard,” says Mr. Webster’s Plymouth-Rock Oration; but being a part of the daily morning duty of a well-disciplined merchant-vessel,—­just a few minutes’ spell to keep the vessel free and cargo unharmed by bilge-water,—­it is not a dismal sound at all, but rather a lively one.  It was a favorite amusement with us passengers on board the ——­ to go forward about pumping-time to the break of the deck and listen.  Any quick tune to which you might work a fire-engine will serve for the music, and the words were varied with every fancy.  “Pay me the money down,” was one favorite chorus, and the verse ran thus:—­

  Solo. Your money, young man, is no object to me.

  Chorus. Pay me the money down!

  Solo. Half a crown’s no great amount.

  Chorus. Pay me the money down!

  Solo and Chorus. (Bis) Money down, money down, pay me the money down!

Not much sense in all this, but it served to man and move the brakes merrily.  Then there were other choruses, which were heard from time to time,—­“And the young gals goes a-weepin’,”—­“O long storm, storm along stormy”; but the favorite tune was “Money down,” at least with our crew.  They were not an avaricious set, either; for their parting ceremony, on embarking, was to pitch the last half-dollars of their advance on to the wharf, to be scrambled for by the land-sharks.  But “Money down” was the standing chorus.  I once heard, though not on board that ship, the lively chorus of “Off she goes, and off she must go,”—­