Sometimes, however, they have their revenge, as in the case of a ship carrying an amateur "sails" that meets with a dreadfully sudden squall and "carries away" all her sails. This term does not mean that the sails are stripped entirely from the yards, but that they are rent into ribbons, mere outlines of sails. An enormous amount of construction as well as repairing sailmaking is thus thrown suddenly upon the sailmaker, and every available stitcher on board is then pressed into his service. Then, if he be a regular tradesman, he is in his glory; but if a promoted seaman, he will usually be just a terrified unit of the crew, badgered by the master and flouted by the men. And the ship herself suffers accordingly. It is false economy, saving at the most but a few shillings a month, and should never be indulged in. The sailmaker, poor man, useful though he may be, is never very well paid, fifteen shillings or a pound a month more than the A.B.'s wages being about his maximum. And, like the carpenter, although not so indispensable, he is almost always a good, reliable man whom it is well to have on board a ship in a position of some responsibility. As with the bo'sun, it will be found in American and Canadian vessels that a sailmaker as such is rarely carried. The business of sailmaking, like carpentry, is in those vessels considered tacitly to be part of the education of a thorough seaman, and it would be a rare thing to find one of them without an expert amateur sailmaker among the officers. They get some beautiful patterns to work from when leaving home, and doubtless study them deeply, for, in spite of their habit of not carrying professional sailmakers, it is an unknown thing to meet one of them anywhere with badly-fitting sails. I know of no lovelier sight than a full-rigged American ship on a bright day with a new suit of sails set to a good beam wind. The canvas being of cotton (ours is made of flax unbleached), is dazzlingly white. Catching the glint of the sun, it gleams against the deep blue of the sea or the lighter azure of the sky like the wing of a mighty angel, so pure and clean that the eye cannot bear more than a passing glance at it. Not a thread is slack, not a curve untrue; she has the very poetry of motion induced by a gloriously beautiful arrangement of wings, that make her look like nothing earthly. Alas, that this splendid canvas should, when wet, become like a plank for stiffness, so that in the stormy Atlantic, when searching cold, howling gale, and drenching rain combine, and the hapless sailors are strung aloft to furl those fiercely-straining wings, the task is too terrible for words! The naked hands, torn and bleeding, cannot bend the stiffened canvas, and in the fight many a broken sailor has gone to the rest that was denied him in life. CHAPTER XX. THE STEWARD (IN STEAM).