Jack Tier | Page 5

the famous
accommodations he intended to give to Rose Budd and that "capital old
lady, her aunt;" his opinion of "the immense deal of good sea-air and a
v'y'ge would do Rose," and how "comfortable they both would be on
board the Molly Swash."
"I honour and respect, Mrs. Budd, as my captain's lady, you see, Mr.
Mulford, and intend to treat her accordin'ly. She knows it--and Rose
knows it--and they both declare they'd rather sail with me, since sail

they must, than with any other ship-master out of America."
"You sailed once with Capt. Budd yourself, I think I have heard you
say, sir?"
"The old fellow brought me up. I was with him from my tenth to my
twentieth year, and then broke adrift to see fashions. We all do that,
you know, Mr. Mulford, when we are young and ambitious, and my
turn came as well as another's."
"Capt. Budd must have been a good deal older than his wife, sir, if you
sailed with him when a boy," Mulford observed a little drily.
"Yes; I own to forty-eight, though no one would think me more than
five or six-and-thirty, to look at me. There was a great difference
between old Dick Budd and his wife, as you say, he being about fifty,
when he married, and she less than twenty. Fifty is a good age for
matrimony, in a man, Mulford; as is twenty in a young woman."
"Rose Budd is not yet nineteen, I have heard her say," returned the
mate, with emphasis.
"Youngish, I will own, but that's a fault a liberal-minded man can
overlook. Every day, too, will lessen it. Well, look to the cabins, and
see all clear for a start. Josh will be down presently with a cart-load of
stores, and you'll take 'em aboard without delay."
As Spike uttered this order, his foot was on the plank-sheer of the
bulwarks, in the act of passing to the wharf again. On reaching the
shore, he turned and looked intently at the revenue steamer, and his lips
moved, as if he were secretly uttering maledictions on her. We say
maledictions, as the expression of his fierce ill-favoured countenance
too plainly showed that they could not be blessings. As for Mulford,
there was still something on his mind, and he followed to the gangway
ladder and ascended it, waiting for a moment when the mind of his
commander might be less occupied to speak. The opportunity soon
occurred, Spike having satisfied himself with the second look at the
steamer.
"I hope you don't mean to sail again without a second mate, Capt.
Spike?" he said.
"I do though, I can tell you. I hate Dickies--they are always in the way,
and the captain has to keep just as much of a watch with one as without
one."
"That will depend on his quality. You and I have both been Dickies in

our time, sir; and my time was not long ago."
"Ay--ay--I know all about it--but you didn't stick to it long enough to
get spoiled. I would have no man aboard the Swash who made more
than two v'y'ges as second officer. As I want no spies aboard my craft,
I'll try it once more without a Dicky."
Saying this in a sufficiently positive manner, Capt. Stephen Spike
rolled up the wharf, much as a ship goes off before the wind, now
inclining to the right, and then again to the left. The gait of the man
would have proclaimed him a sea-dog, to any one acquainted with that
animal, as far as he could be seen. The short squab figure, the arms bent
nearly at right angles at the elbow, and working like two fins with each
roll of the body, the stumpy, solid legs, with the feet looking in the line
of his course and kept wide apart, would all have contributed to the
making up of such an opinion. Accustomed as he was to this beautiful
sight, Harry Mulford kept his eyes riveted on the retiring person of his
commander, until it disappeared behind a pile of lumber, waddling
always in the direction of the more thickly peopled parts of the town.
Then he turned and gazed at the steamer, which, by this time, had fairly
passed the brig, and seemed to be actually bound through the Gate.
That steamer was certainly a noble-looking craft, but our young man
fancied she struggled along through the water heavily. She might be
quick at need, but she did not promise as much by her present rate of
moving. Still, she was a noble-looking craft, and, as Mulford descended
to the deck again, he almost regretted he did not belong to her; or, at
least, to anything but the Molly Swash.
Two hours produced