Moby Dick

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Now, as it shortly turned out, what made this incident of the Rachel's
the more melancholy, was the circumstance, that not only was one of the
Captain's sons among the number of the missing boat's crew; but among
the number of the other boat's crews, at the same time, but on the other
hand, separated from the ship during the dark vicissitudes of the chase,
there had been still another son; as that for a time, the wretched
father was plunged to the bottom of the cruellest perplexity; which
was only solved for him by his chief mate's instinctively adopting the
ordinary procedure of a whale-ship in such emergencies, that is, when
placed between jeopardized but divided boats, always to pick up the
majority first. But the captain, for some unknown constitutional reason,
had refrained from mentioning all this, and not till forced to it by
Ahab's iciness did he allude to his one yet missing boy; a little lad,
but twelve years old, whose father with the earnest but unmisgiving
hardihood of a Nantucketer's paternal love, had thus early sought to
initiate him in the perils and wonders of a vocation almost immemorially
the destiny of all his race. Nor does it unfrequently occur, that