White Jacket; Or, The World on a Man-of-War

by Herman Melville

  CHAPTER XIX.

  THE JACKET ALOFT.

  Again must I call attention to my white jacket, which, about this timecame near being the death of me.

  I am of a meditative humour, and at sea used often to mount aloft atnight, and seating myself on one of the upper yards, tuck my jacketabout me and give loose to reflection. In some ships in which. I havedone this, the sailors used to fancy that I must be studyingastronomy--which, indeed, to some extent, was the case--and that myobject in mounting aloft was to get a nearer view of the stars,supposing me, of course, to be short-sighted. A very silly conceit oftheirs, some may say, but not so silly after all; for surely theadvantage of getting nearer an object by two hundred feet is not to beunderrated. Then, to study the stars upon the wide, boundless sea, isdivine as it was to the Chaldean Magi, who observed their revolutionsfrom the plains.

  And it is a very fine feeling, and one that fuses us into the universeof things, and mates us a part of the All, to think that, wherever weocean-wanderers rove, we have still the same glorious old stars to keepus company; that they still shine onward and on, forever beautiful andbright, and luring us, by every ray, to die and be glorified with them.

  Ay, ay! we sailors sail not in vain, We expatriate ourselves tonationalise with the universe; and in all our voyages round the world,we are still accompanied by those old circumnavigators, the stars, whoare shipmates and fellow-sailors of ours--sailing in heaven's blue, aswe on the azure main. Let genteel generations scoff at our hardenedhands, and finger-nails tipped with tar--did they ever clasp truerpalms than ours? Let them feel of our sturdy hearts beating likesledge-hammers in those hot smithies, our bosoms; with theiramber-headed canes, let them feel of our generous pulses, and swearthat they go off like thirty-two-pounders.

  Oh, give me again the rover's life--the joy, the thrill, the whirl! Letme feel thee again, old sea! let me leap into thy saddle once more. Iam sick of these terra firma toils and cares; sick of the dust and reekof towns. Let me hear the clatter of hailstones on icebergs, and notthe dull tramp of these plodders, plodding their dull way from theircradles to their graves. Let me snuff thee up, sea-breeze! and whinnyin thy spray. Forbid it, sea-gods! intercede for me with Neptune, Osweet Amphitrite, that no dull clod may fall on my coffin! Be mine thetomb that swallowed up Pharaoh and all his hosts; let me lie down withDrake, where he sleeps in the sea.

  But when White-Jacket speaks of the rover's life, he means not life ina man-of-war, which, with its martial formalities and thousand vices,stabs to the heart the soul of all free-and-easy honourable rovers.

  I have said that I was wont to mount up aloft and muse; and thus was itwith me the night following the loss of the cooper. Ere my watch in thetop had expired, high up on the main-royal-yard I reclined, the whitejacket folded around me like Sir John Moore in his frosted cloak.

  Eight bells had struck, and my watchmates had hied to their hammocks,and the other watch had gone to their stations, and the _top_ below mewas full of strangers, and still one hundred feet above even _them_ Ilay entranced; now dozing, now dreaming; now thinking of things past,and anon of the life to come. Well-timed was the latter thought, forthe life to come was much nearer overtaking me than I then couldimagine. Perhaps I was half conscious at last of a tremulous voicehailing the main-royal-yard from the _top_. But if so, theconsciousness glided away from me, and left me in Lethe. But when, likelightning, the yard dropped under me, and instinctively I clung withboth hands to the "_tie_," then I came to myself with a rush, and feltsomething like a choking hand at my throat. For an instant I thoughtthe Gulf Stream in my head was whirling me away to eternity; but thenext moment I found myself standing; the yard had descended to the_cup_; and shaking myself in my jacket, I felt that I was unharmed andalive.

  Who had done this? who had made this attempt on my life? thought I, asI ran down the rigging.

  "Here it comes!--Lord! Lord! here it comes! See, see! it is white as ahammock."

  "Who's coming?" I shouted, springing down into the top; "who's white asa hammock?"

  "Bless my soul, Bill it's only White-Jacket--that infernal White-Jacketagain!"

  It seems they had spied a moving white spot there aloft, and,sailor-like, had taken me for the ghost of the cooper; and afterhailing me, and bidding me descend, to test my corporeality, andgetting no answer, they had lowered the halyards in affright.

  In a rage I tore off the jacket, and threw it on the deck.

  "Jacket," cried I, "you must change your complexion! you must hie tothe dyers and be dyed, that I may live. I have but one poor life,White-Jacket, and that life I cannot spare. I cannot consent to die for_you_, but be dyed you must for me. You can dye many times withoutinjury; but I cannot die without irreparable loss, and running theeternal risk."

  So in the morning, jacket in hand, I repaired to the First Lieutenant,and related the narrow escape I had had during the night. I enlargedupon the general perils I ran in being taken for a ghost, and earnestlybesought him to relax his commands for once, and give me an order onBrush, the captain of the paint-room, for some black paint, that myjacket might be painted of that colour.

  "Just look at it, sir," I added, holding it lip; "did you ever seeanything whiter? Consider how it shines of a night, like a bit of theMilky Way. A little paint, sir, you cannot refuse."

  "The ship has no paint to spare," he said; "you must get along withoutit."

  "Sir, every rain gives me a soaking; Cape Horn is at hand--sixbrushes-full would make it waterproof; and no longer would I be inperil of my life!"

  "Can't help it, sir; depart!"

  I fear it will not be well with me in the end; for if my own sins areto be forgiven only as I forgive that hard-hearted and unimpressibleFirst Lieutenant, then pardon there is none for me.

  What! when but one dab of paint would make a man of a ghost, and itMackintosh of a herring-net--to refuse it I am full. I can say no more.