{"id":"01KG8AMHTSWV7QA5JG8QSTB4YV","cid":"bafkreibg5oyjdocggzdjcmitkswo5crpftkrztegvmageurf7b2uh6vrbe","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":10980,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:36.274Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","start_line":10926,"text":"The _main-mast-man_ of the Neversink was a very aged seaman, who well\r\ndeserved his comfortable berth. He had seen more than half a century of\r\nthe most active service, and, through all, had proved himself a good\r\nand faithful man. He furnished one of the very rare examples of a\r\nsailor in a green old age; for, with most sailors, old age comes in\r\nyouth, and Hardship and Vice carry them on an early bier to the grave.\r\n\r\nAs in the evening of life, and at the close of the day, old Abraham sat\r\nat the door of his tent, biding his time to die, so sits our old\r\nmast-man on the _coat of the mast_, glancing round him with patriarchal\r\nbenignity. And that mild expression of his sets off very strangely a\r\nface that has been burned almost black by the torrid suns that shone\r\nfifty years ago—a face that is seamed with three sabre cuts. You would\r\nalmost think this old mast-man had been blown out of Vesuvius, to look\r\nalone at his scarred, blackened forehead, chin, and cheeks. But gaze\r\ndown into his eye, and though all the snows of Time have drifted higher\r\nand higher upon his brow, yet deep down in that eye you behold an\r\ninfantile, sinless look, the same that answered the glance of this old\r\nman’s mother when first she cried for the babe to be laid by her side.\r\nThat look is the fadeless, ever infantile immortality within.\r\n\r\n\r\nThe Lord Nelsons of the sea, though but Barons in the state, yet\r\noftentimes prove more potent than their royal masters; and at such\r\nscenes as Trafalgar—dethroning this Emperor and reinstating that—enact\r\non the ocean the proud part of mighty Richard Neville, the king-making\r\nEarl of the land. And as Richard Neville entrenched himself in his\r\nmoated old man-of-war castle of Warwick, which, underground, was\r\ntraversed with vaults, hewn out of the solid rock, and intricate as the\r\nwards of the old keys of Calais surrendered to Edward III.; even so do\r\nthese King-Commodores house themselves in their water-rimmed,\r\ncannon-sentried frigates, oaken dug, deck under deck, as cell under\r\ncell. And as the old Middle-Age warders of Warwick, every night at\r\ncurfew, patrolled the battlements, and dove down into the vaults to see\r\nthat all lights were extinguished, even so do the master-at-arms and\r\nship’s corporals of a frigate perambulate all the decks of a\r\nman-of-war, blowing out all tapers but those burning in the legalized\r\nbattle-lanterns. Yea, in these things, so potent is the authority of\r\nthese sea-wardens, that, though almost the lowest subalterns in the\r\nship, yet should they find the Senior Lieutenant himself sitting up\r\nlate in his state-room, reading Bowditch’s Navigator, or D’Anton “_On\r\nGunpowder and Fire-arms_,” they would infallibly blow the light out\r\nunder his very nose; nor durst that Grand-Vizier resent the indignity.\r\n\r\nBut, unwittingly, I have ennobled, by grand historical comparisons,\r\nthis prying, pettifogging, Irish-informer of a master-at-arms.\r\n\r\nYou have seen some slim, slip-shod housekeeper, at midnight ferreting\r\nover a rambling old house in the country, startling at fancied witches\r\nand ghosts, yet intent on seeing every door bolted, every smouldering\r\nember in the fireplaces smothered, every loitering domestic abed, and\r\nevery light made dark. This is the master-at-arms taking his\r\nnight-rounds in a frigate.\r\n\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJTJYW8SP05V127JMN8BA","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AMHTS36R368R65N5JSQYS","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AMHV0DK17CT384W77BSC6","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:40.793Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:51.986Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}