When the
noise had ceased, and the passions had calmed into surly silence, he
stood up at the head of the swathed body, lifting both arms on
high, cried with pained indignation:--"You ought to be ashamed of
yourselves!..." We were.
Belfast took his bereavement very hard. He gave proofs of
unextinguishable devotion. It was he, and no other man, who would help
the sailmaker to prepare what was left of Jimmy for a solemn surrender
to the insatiable sea. He arranged the weights carefully at the feet:
two holystones, an old anchor-shackle without its pin, some broken links
of a worn-out stream cable. He arranged them this way, then that. "Bless
my soul! you aren't afraid he will chafe his heel?" said the sailmaker,
who hated the job. He pushed the needle, purring furiously, with his
head in a cloud of tobacco smoke; he turned the flaps over, pulled at
the stitches, stretched at the canvas.--"Lift his shoulders.... Pull
to you a bit.... So--o--o. Steady." Belfast obeyed, pulled, lifted,
overcome with sorrow, dropping tears on the tarred twine.--. "Don't
you drag the canvas too taut over his poor face, Sails," he entreated,
tearfully.
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