she let go
her anchors and swung round with the tide. Then the gleeful chant of
the sailors at the capstan came to us pleasantly across the water. The
vessel lay within three quarters of a mile of us, and we could plainly
see the men at the davits lowering the starboard long-boat. It no sooner
touched the stream than a dozen of the crew scrambled like mice over the
side of the merchantman.

In a neglected seaport like Rivermouth the arrival of a large ship is an
event of moment. The prospect of having twenty or thirty jolly tars
let loose on the peaceful town excites divers emotions among the
inhabitants. The small shopkeepers along the wharves anticipate a
thriving trade; the proprietors of the two rival boarding-houses--the
"Wee Drop" and the "Mariner's Home"--hasten down to the landing to secure
lodgers; and the female population of Anchor Lane turn out to a woman,
for a ship fresh from sea is always full of possible husbands and
long-lost prodigal sons.

But aside from this there is scant welcome given to a ship's crew in
Rivermouth. The toil-worn mariner is a sad fellow ashore, judging him by
a severe moral standard.

Once, I remember, a United States frigate came into port for repairs
after a storm. She lay in the river a fortnight or more, and every day
sent us a gang of sixty or seventy of our country's gallant defenders,
who spread themselves over the town, doing all sorts of mad things. They
were good-natured enough, but full of old Sancho. The "Wee Drop" proved
a drop too much for many of them. They went singing through the streets
at midnight, wringing off door-knockers, shinning up water-spouts, and
frightening the Oldest Inhabitant nearly to death by popping their
heads into his second-story window, and shouting "Fire!" One morning a
blue-jacket was discovered in a perilous plight, half-way up the steeple
of the South Church, clinging to the lightning-rod. How he got there
nobody could tell, not even blue-jacket himself. All he knew was, that
the leg of his trousers had caught on a nail, and there he stuck, unable
to move either way. It cost the town twenty dollars to get him down
again. He directed the workmen how to splice the ladders brought to his
assistance, and called his rescuers "butter-fingered land-lubbers" with
delicious coolness.

But those were man-of-war's men: The sedate-looking craft now lying off
Fishcrate Island wasn't likely to carry any such cargo. Nevertheless, we
watched the comi