midnight
When a man is to `` lay out , '' he throws his breast across the yard with his feet on the horse . The man at the `` weather earing , '' or eye for the reef pendent , has to sit astride the yard , and pull the sail towards him . The foot-rope sometimes slips through the eyes in the stirrups when only one hand goes out upon it , which does , or may , place him in a dangerous position . During the preceding day , when the barometer indicated a change of weather , Mr. Lowington had sent the old boatswain aloft to `` mouse the horses , '' in anticipation of the manoeuvre which the boys were now compelled to perform at midnight , in a gale of wind . Mousing the horses was merely fastening the foot-ropes to the eyes of the stirrups , so that they could not slip through , and thus throw the entire slack of the horse under one boy , by which he sank down so low that his neck was even with the spar . At the foot of each mast there is a contrivance for securing ropes , called the fife-rail . It is full of belaying pins , to which are secured the sheets , halyards , buntlines , clewlines , lifts , braces , reef tackle , and other ropes leading down from aloft .