"Time I was ashore," Captain Christy mumbled. He searched the cabin with one long look, as though to add this last to the scenes that thronged in his old memory; then preceded his brother mariner up into the fog.
At the rail the two shook hands. Captain Christy looked down, with lips compressed, as if something hurt.
"She's a clever bo't, Cap'n Follansbee," he said. "Treat her kind, now, won't ye?" And he swung himself over to the pier.
"Like—like a kitten!" shouted the younger man, already busied with ropes. "Here, Joe, ye stootchit, bear a hand with the spring!" The gap widened between her side and the pier-spilings. "Like a kitten!"
For the first time in years the schooner moved slowly outward along the wharf. A tow-rope over her bow rose taut, fell slack,—jerking from out the heart of the fog the smoky outline of a boat with waving oars,—rose dripping, and ran taut again into blank whiteness. Captain Christy, Zwinglius, and a knot of loungers walked alongside the ship
