{"id":"01KG8AKYGVR5QVF0N4G93HRBH1","cid":"bafkreidy5lubdpcllostlgxe74nqcl73wnbykbezu7iov4r4jurexutwta","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":11021,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:14.843Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J1GP71YDJ60P8SRH97MF","start_line":10956,"text":"CHAPTER LVI.\r\nUNDER THE LEE OF THE LONG-BOAT, REDBURN AND HARRY HOLD CONFIDENTIAL\r\nCOMMUNION\r\n\r\n\r\nA sweet thing is a song; and though the Hebrew captives hung their\r\nharps on the willows, that they could not sing the melodies of\r\nPalestine before the haughty beards of the Babylonians; yet, to\r\nthemselves, those melodies of other times and a distant land were as\r\nsweet as the June dew on Hermon.\r\n\r\nAnd poor Harry was as the Hebrews. He, too, had been carried away\r\ncaptive, though his chief captor and foe was himself; and he, too, many\r\na night, was called upon to sing for those who through the day had\r\ninsulted and derided him.\r\n\r\nHis voice was just the voice to proceed from a small, silken person\r\nlike his; it was gentle and liquid, and meandered and tinkled through\r\nthe words of a song, like a musical brook that winds and wantons by\r\npied and pansied margins.\r\n\r\n“_I_ can’t sing to-night”—sadly said Harry to the Dutchman, who with\r\nhis watchmates requested him to while away the middle watch with his\r\nmelody—“I can’t sing to-night. But, Wellingborough,” he whispered,—and\r\nI stooped my ear,— “come _you_ with me under the lee of the long-boat,\r\nand there I’ll hum you an air.”\r\n\r\nIt was _The Banks of the Blue Moselle._\r\n\r\nPoor, poor Harry! and a thousand times friendless and forlorn! To be\r\nsinging that thing, which was only meant to be warbled by falling\r\nfountains in gardens, or in elegant alcoves in drawing-rooms,—to be\r\nsinging it _here—here,_ as I live, under the tarry lee of our\r\nlong-boat.\r\n\r\nBut he sang, and sang, as I watched the waves, and peopled them all\r\nwith sprites, and cried _“chassez!” “hands across!”_ to the\r\nmultitudinous quadrilles, all danced on the moonlit, musical floor.\r\n\r\nBut though it went so hard with my friend to sing his songs to this\r\nruffian crew, whom he hated, even in his dreams, till the foam flew\r\nfrom his mouth while he slept; yet at last I prevailed upon him to\r\nmaster his feelings, and make them subservient to his interests. For so\r\ndelighted, even with the rudest minstrelsy, are sailors, that I well\r\nknew Harry possessed a spell over them, which, for the time at least,\r\nthey could not resist; and it might induce them to treat with more\r\ndeference the being who was capable of yielding them such delight.\r\nCarlo’s organ they did not so much care for; but the voice of my Bury\r\nblade was an accordion in their ears.\r\n\r\nSo one night, on the windlass, he sat and sang; and from the ribald\r\njests so common to sailors, the men slid into silence at every verse.\r\nHushed, and more hushed they grew, till at last Harry sat among them\r\nlike Orpheus among the charmed leopards and tigers. Harmless now the\r\nfangs with which they were wont to tear my zebra, and backward curled\r\nin velvet paws; and fixed their once glaring eyes in fascinated and\r\nfascinating brilliancy. Ay, still and hissingly all, for a time, they\r\nrelinquished their prey.\r\n\r\nNow, during the voyage, the treatment of the crew threw Harry more and\r\nmore upon myself for companionship; and few can keep constant company\r\nwith another, without revealing some, at least, of their secrets; for\r\nall of us yearn for sympathy, even if we do not for love; and to be\r\nintellectually alone is a thing only tolerable to genius, whose\r\ncherisher and inspirer is solitude.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJT5SDHGB7VJ4ZTE6NX8P","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1GP71YDJ60P8SRH97MF","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKZ9RGG1EQ6D36PM6E6DC","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:21.019Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:34.489Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}