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 a sensible change in and around that brigantine.
Her people had all come back to duty, and what was very remarkable
among seafaring folk, sober to a man. But, as has been said, Spike
was a temperance man, as respects all under his orders at least, if
not strictly so in practice himself. The crew of the Swash was large
for a half-rigged brig of only two hundred tons, but, as her spars
were very square, and all her gear as well as her mould seemed