V
On calm April days,—when the buff fields, restored to sunlight, began to be furred with a faint green; when the last forgotten snow-drifts were sparsely inlaid in the dark north banks of nook-shotten isles, mountains, or headlands, and over the black bay cakes of river-ice floated seaward; when the lee of every gray house sheltered a patch of reviving turf spangled with the broad goldpieces of dandelions, and every flaw of wind brought smells of wet earth and brushwood smoke,—a visitor might have thought that the past also had been reborn. For alongside the wharf, in the Rapscallion's bed, lay a vessel, from the deck of which, on warm noons, rose the hum of voices. The men were as before, and above them, as before, reared the massive head and shoulders of Captain Christy. But time had not been cheated: things were not the same. Slanting yards crossed the vessel's foremast; her lines were bolder, more dashing, than those of the beloved schooner; and on board, instead of holiday chat in the sunshine, there
