Moby Dick

[Old Thunder]

The liquor soon mounted into their heads, as it generally does even with the arrantest topers newly landed from sea, and they began capering about most obstreperously.

 

[Old Thunder]

I observed, however, that one of them held somewhat aloof, and though he seemed desirous not to spoil the hilarity of his shipmates by his own sober face, yet upon the whole he refrained from making as much noise as the rest.

 

[Old Thunder]

This man interested me at once; and since the sea-gods had ordained that he should soon become my shipmate (though but a sleeping-partner one, so far as this narrative is concerned), I will here venture upon a little description of him.

 

[Old Thunder]

He stood full six feet in height, with noble shoulders, and a chest like a coffer-dam.

 

[Old Thunder]

I have seldom seen such brawn in a man.

 

[Old Thunder]

His face was deeply brown and brunet, making his white teeth dazzling by the contrast; while in the deep shadows of his eyes floated some reminiscences that did not seem to give him much joy.

 

[Old Thunder]

His voice at once announced that he was a Southerner, and from his fine stature, I thought he must be one of those tall mountaineers from the Alleghanian Ridge in Virginia.

 

[Old Thunder]

When the revelry of his companions had mounted to its height, this man slipped away unobserved, and I saw no more of him till he became my comrade on the sea.

 

[Old Thunder]

In a few minutes, however, he was missed by his shipmates, and being, it seems, a huge favourite among them, they raised a cry of "Bulkington!* Bulkington! where's Bulkington?" and darted out of the house in pursuit of him.

*See Chap. XXIII, "The Lee Shore," where Bulkington is made the symbol of unending physical and intellectual adventure.

 

[Old Thunder]

It was now about nine o'clock, and the room seeming almost supernaturally quiet after these orgies, I began to congratulate myself upon a little plan that had occurred to me just previous to the entrance of the seamen.