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Presently the Captain appeared at the basement doorway, just behind where his friend was sitting. The door was seldom opened, but the owner of the property professed himself forgetful about letting in as much fresh air there as he did above, and announced that he should leave it open for half an hour. The two men moved a little way along the oak stick to be out of the cool draught which blew from the cellar-like place, empty save for the storage of some old fragments of vessels or warehouse gear. There was a musty odor of the innumerable drops of molasses which must have leaked into the hard earth there for half a century; there was still a fragrance of damp Liverpool salt, a reminder of even the dyestuffs and pepper and rich spices that had been stowed away. The two elderly men were carried back to the past by these familiar, ancient odors; they turned and sniffed once or twice with satisfaction, but neither spoke. Before them the great, empty harbor spread its lovely, shining levels in the low afternoon light. There were a few ephemeral pleasure-boats, but no merchantmen riding at anchor, no lines of masts along the wharves, with great wrappings of furled sails on the yards; there were no sounds of mallets on the ships’ sides, or of the voices of men, busy with unlading, or moving the landed cargoes. The old warehouses were all shuttered and padlocked, as far as the two men could see.

“Looks lonesomer than ever, don’t it?” said Captain Crowe, pensively. “I vow it’s a shame to see such a harbor as this, an’ think o’ all the back country, an’ how things were goin’ on here in our young days.”

“‘Tis sad, sir, sad,” growled brave little Captain Witherspoon. “They’ve taken the wrong course for the country’s good–some o’ those folks in Washington. When the worst of ’em have stuffed their own pockets as full as they can get, p’r’aps they’ll see what else can be done, and all catch hold together and shore up the shipping int’rists. I see every night, when I go after my paper the whole sidewalk full o’ louts that ought to be pushed off to sea with a good smart master; they’re going to the devil ashore, sir. Every way you can look at it, shippin’ ‘s a loss to us.”

At this moment the shrill whistle of a locomotive sounded back of the town, but the captains took no notice of it. Two idle boys suddenly came scrambling up the broken landing-steps from the water, one of them clutching a distressed puppy. Then another, who had stopped to fasten the invisible boat underneath, joined them in haste, and all three fled round the corner. The elderly seamen had watched them severely.

“It used to cost but a ninepence to get a bar’l from Boston by sea,” said Captain Crowe, in a melancholy tone; “and now it costs twenty-five cents by the railroad, sir.”

In reply Captain Witherspoon shook his head gloomily.

“You an’ I never expected to see Longport harbor look like this,” resumed Captain Crowe, giving the barren waters a long gaze, and then leaning forward and pushing the pebbles about with his cane. “I don’t know’s I ever saw things look so poor along these wharves as they do to-day. I’ve seen six or seven large vessels at a time waitin’ out in the stream there until they could get up to the wharves. You could stand ashore an’ hear their masters rippin’ an’ swearin’ aboard, an’ fur’s you could see from here, either way, the masts and riggin’ looked like the woods in winter-time. There used to be somethin’ doin’ in this place when we was young men, Cap’n Witherspoon.”

“I feel it as much as anybody,” acknowledged the captain. “Looks to me very much as if there was a vessel comin’ up, down there over Dimmett’s P’int; she may only be runnin’ in closer ‘n usual on this light sou’easterly breeze; yes, I s’pose that ‘s all. What do you make her out to be, sir?”