This passage is excerpted from Herman Melville’s “Redburn: His First Voyage,” originally published in 1849. It describes the life of a young sailor during his first voyage across the Atlantic Ocean.
The order was given to loose the main-skysail, which is
the fifth and highest sail from deck. it was a very small sail,
and from the forecastle looked no bigger than a cambric
pocket-handkerchief. But I have heard that some ships carry
still smaller sails, above the skysail; called moon-sails, and
skyscrapers, and cloud-rakers. But I shall not believe in them
till I see them; a skysail seems high enough in all conscience;
and the idea of anything higher than that, seems
preposterous. Besides, it looks almost like tempting heaven,
to brush the very firmament so, and almost put the eyes of
the stars out; when a flaw of wind, too, might very soon take
the conceit out of these cloud-defying cloud-rakers.
Now, when the order was passed to loose the skysail, an
old Dutch sailor came up to me, and said, “Buttons, my boy,
it’s high time you be doing something; and it’s boy’s business,
Buttons, to loose de royals, and not old men’s business, like
me. Now, d’ye see dat leelle fellow way up dare? dare, just
behind dem stars dare: well, tumble up, now, Buttons, I zay,
and looze him; way you go, Buttons.”
All the rest joining in, and seeming unanimous in the
opinion, that it was high time for me to be stirring myself,
and doing boy’s business, as they called it, I made no more
ado, but jumped into the rigging. Up I went, not daring to
look down, but keeping my eyes glued, as it were, to the
shrouds, as I ascended.
It was a long road up those stairs, and I began to pant and
breathe hard, before I was half way. But I kept at it till I got to
the Jacob’s Ladder; and they may well call it so, for it took me
almost into the clouds; and at last, to my own amazement, I
found myself hanging on the skysail-yard, holding on might
and main to the mast; and curling my feet round the rigging,
as if they were another pair of hands.
For a few moments I stood awe-stricken and mute. I could
not see far out upon the ocean, owing to the darkness of the
night; and from my lofty perch, the sea looked like a great,
black gulf, hemmed in, all round, by beetling black cliffs. I
seemed all alone; treading the midnight clouds; and every
second, expected to find myself falling-falling-falling, as I have
felt when the nightmare has been on me.
I could but just perceive the ship below me, like a long
narrow plank in the water; and it did not seem to belong at all
to the yard, over which I was hanging. A gull, or some sort of
sea-fowl, was flying round the truck over my head, within a
few yards of my face; and it almost frightened me to hear it;
it seemed so much like a spirit, at such a lofty and solitary
height.
The order was given to loose the main-skysail, which is
the fifth and highest sail from deck. it was a very small sail,
and from the forecastle looked no bigger than a cambric
pocket-handkerchief. But I have heard that some ships carry
still smaller sails, above the skysail; called moon-sails, and
skyscrapers, and cloud-rakers. But I shall not believe in them
till I see them; a skysail seems high enough in all conscience;
and the idea of anything higher than that, seems
preposterous. Besides, it looks almost like tempting heaven,
to brush the very firmament so, and almost put the eyes of
the stars out; when a flaw of wind, too, might very soon take
the conceit out of these cloud-defying cloud-rakers.
Now, when the order was passed to loose the skysail, an
old Dutch sailor came up to me, and said, “Buttons, my boy,
it’s high time you be doing something; and it’s boy’s business,
Buttons, to loose de royals, and not old men’s business, like
me. Now, d’ye see dat leelle fellow way up dare? dare, just
behind dem stars dare: well, tumble up, now, Buttons, I zay,
and looze him; way you go, Buttons.”
All the rest joining in, and seeming unanimous in the
opinion, that it was high time for me to be stirring myself,
and doing boy’s business, as they called it, I made no more
ado, but jumped into the rigging. Up I went, not daring to
look down, but keeping my eyes glued, as it were, to the
shrouds, as I ascended.
It was a long road up those stairs, and I began to pant and
breathe hard, before I was half way. But I kept at it till I got to
the Jacob’s Ladder; and they may well call it so, for it took me
almost into the clouds; and at last, to my own amazement, I
found myself hanging on the skysail-yard, holding on might
and main to the mast; and curling my feet round the rigging,
as if they were another pair of hands.
For a few moments I stood awe-stricken and mute. I could
not see far out upon the ocean, owing to the darkness of the
night; and from my lofty perch, the sea looked like a great,
black gulf, hemmed in, all round, by beetling black cliffs. I
seemed all alone; treading the midnight clouds; and every
second, expected to find myself falling-falling-falling, as I have
felt when the nightmare has been on me.
I could but just perceive the ship below me, like a long
narrow plank in the water; and it did not seem to belong at all
to the yard, over which I was hanging. A gull, or some sort of
sea-fowl, was flying round the truck over my head, within a
few yards of my face; and it almost frightened me to hear it;
it seemed so much like a spirit, at such a lofty and solitary
height.