Spike muttered something between his teeth, and jumped down on deck, seemingly dismissing the subject of the revenue entirely from his mind. His old, coarse, authoritative manner returned, and he again spoke to his mate about Rose Budd, her aunt, the “ladies’ cabin,” the “young flood,” and “casting off,” as soon as the last made. Mulford listened respectfully, though with a manifest distaste for the instructions he was receiving. He knew his man, and a feeling of dark distrust came over him, as he listened to his orders concerning 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 honor 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-favored 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.