Moby Dick

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to run at large.

"Now, gentlemen, sweeping a ship's deck at sea is a piece of household
work which in all times but raging gales is regularly attended to every
evening; it has been known to be done in the case of ships actually
foundering at the time. Such, gentlemen, is the inflexibility of
sea-usages and the instinctive love of neatness in seamen; some of whom
would not willingly drown without first washing their faces. But in all
vessels this broom business is the prescriptive province of the boys,
if boys there be aboard. Besides, it was the stronger men in the Town-Ho
that had been divided into gangs, taking turns at the pumps; and being
the most athletic seaman of them all, Steelkilt had been regularly
assigned captain of one of the gangs; consequently he should have
been freed from any trivial business not connected with truly nautical
duties, such being the case with his comrades. I mention all these
particulars so that you may understand exactly how this affair stood
between the two men.