Archibald the Cat; And Other Sea Yarns (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1878 Excerpt: ...from the east'ard and the ship a-fannin' along two or three knots an hour, we seed a big shark a-follerin' along lazily in the wake. "Twas the second mate's watch on deck, and he got out the shark-hook and baited it with a piece of pork, and bent it on to the deepsea lead line and hove it over for to try to catch Mister Shark. He hadn't had it over more than fifteen minutes afore he had him hooked, and, all hands clappin' on to the line, we soon had the fish under the lee quarter, and we got a bo'lin' round his tail and run it through a snatchblock on the lee mizzen topmast backstay and run him up and got him landed on to the poop-deck. He was a terrible large fellow and no mistake, fully fifteen feet long, and with a mouth that would have taken a full-sized man in with all ease. The old man was below when we hauled him up, but hearing the shindy which the fish made a-floppin' on deck, he come up, and says he to the second mate, 'Don't cut him up on deck, Mr. Payne; it'll make too much of a mess; git a spar and bridle him solid, and let him go ag'in.' So we gits a piece of a topmast stu'n'sail boom what we had carried away a few days previous, about ten foot long, and we claps this in Mr. Shark's mouth athwart-ships and lashes it solid with some nine-thread stuff, and hysts him over the side ag'in and lowers him down to the water's edge, and then one of the chaps gits down in the lower mizzen channels and cuts the bo'lin' round his tail and lets him go. The funniest part of this was the goin's-on of little Eddie Burns. All the while we was a-bridlin' the shark Eddie kept a-cryin' out, 'Don't hurt the poor fish, Mr. Payne, don't hurt the poor fish, ' but nobody paid much attention to the little fellow, and we jist went on, as I've told you, a-bridlin' th...