by him, and who, bent on love of gain, scarcely were aware that their fellow-man was starving by their side, too feeble and too much an outcast to work, yet too proud to beg; the middy's heart, however, was of that texture that it leant towards a brother-sailor, meet him where it might, and he naturally looked round at poor Jack on his beam-ends: he had but one penny in his pocket, and that the plaintive voice of a blind woman had drawn, as if by magic, from its deep recess. What was to be done?--for he should have liked to have taken this wreck of _a man of war into tow_. The reflection caused him to examine more closely the shivering seaman, when a small scar, occasioned by a splinter, on the _bridge of the nose_, brought to his remembrance Bob _Clewlines_, who had served in the same ship: the tar recognised him also; but, so far from making himself known to him, he hid his face in his hand: the reefer, however, was resolved to bring him to. "What, Bob Clewlines!" cried he, "do I not hail an old shipmate in you, a quarter-master on board the ----, the bravest heart of oak, the best reefer, and the merriest steersman of the whole ship's crew; and," said he audibly, that every one passing might hear and value fallen courage and fidelity, "and _as prime a seaman as ever trimmed a sail, or served a gun_; why, what has broke up your old hulk this way?" The man could not find utterance; remembrance of _unrequited services_ and other associations checked him. The middy stretched out his hand, which the _broken-hearted sailor_ ventured not to take. "Come, Bob," cried the other, "no subordination now: we are all equals on life's _quarter-deck_, and when my _fellow-man_ suffers, he _rises_ a peg in my estimation. Why?--because _unfeeling lubbers_ slight him. Come tip us your _fin_. Your hand may be dirty, but your soul is as kind as a new sail in a sunny day. I'll show it against any lord's in the land. Come, heave a head; follow me, old tarry breeches; I'll soon set your _timbers_ and _rigging_ to rights; you shall have an entire refit. Come, bear a hand; _set_ all your _canvass_; it's all in _ribbons_, I see, and _shivers_ in the wind; but I'll keep out wind and weather for you."