“And this is a hard lee shore you’ve beached upon; I’ll lend ye a hand to get in the head sail, and get the craft trimmed up a little. A dash of the same brine will help keep the ballast right, then a skysail-yard breakfast must be carefully stowed away, in order to give a firmness to the timbers, and on the strength of these two blocks for shoring up the hull, you must begin little by little, and keep on brightening up until you have got the craft all right again. And when you have got her right you must keep her right. I say, Tom!—it won’t do. You must reef down, or the devil ’ll seize the helm in one of these blows, and run you into a port too warm for pea-jackets.” For a moment, Spunyarn seems half inclined to grasp Tom by his collarless coat and shake the hydrophobia, as he calls it, out of him; then, as if incited by a second thought, he draws from his shirt-bosom a large, wooden comb, and humming a tune commences combing and fussing over Tom’s hair, which stands erect over his head like marline-spikes. At length he gets a craft-like set upon his foretop, and turning his head first to the right, then to the left, as a child does a doll, he views him with an air of exultation. “I tell you what it is, Tom,” he continues, relieving him of the old coat, “the bright begins to come! There’s three points of weather made already.” “God bless you, Spunyarn,” replies Tom, evidently touched by the frankness and generosity of the old sailor. Indeed there was something so whole-hearted about old Spunyarn, that he was held in universal esteem by every one in jail, with the single exception of Milman Mingle, the vote-cribber. “Just think of yourself, Tom—don’t mind me,” pursues the sailor as Tom squeezes firmly his hand. “You’ve had a hard enough time of it—” Tom interrupts by saying, as he lays his hands upon his sides, he is sore from head to foot. “Don’t wonder,” returns the sailor. “It’s a great State, this South Carolina. It seems swarming with poor and powerless folks. Everybody has power to put everybody in jail, where the State gives a body two dog’s-hair and rope-yarn blankets to lay upon, and grants the sheriff, Mr. Hardscrable, full license to starve us, and put the thirty cents a day it provides for our living into his breeches pockets. Say what you will about it, old fellow, it’s a brief way of doing a little profit in the business of starvation. I don’t say this with any ill-will to the State that regards its powerless and destitute with such criminal contempt—I don’t.” And he brings water, gets Tom upon his feet, forces him into a clean shirt, and regards him in the light of a child whose reformation he is determined on perfecting. He sees that in the fallen man which implies a hope of ultimate usefulness, notwithstanding the sullen silence, the gloomy frown on his knitted brow, and the general air of despair that pervades the external man.