The small shopkeepers along the wharves anticipate a thriving trade; the proprietors of the two rival boarding-houses--the "Wee Drop" and the "Mariner's Home"-- hasten down to the landing to secure lodgers; and the female population of Anchor Lane turn out to a woman, for a ship fresh from sea is always full of possible husbands and long-lost prodigal sons.
But aside from this there is scant welcome given to a ship's crew in Rivermouth.

The toil-worn mariner is a sad fellow ashore, judging him by a severe moral standard.
Once, I remember, a United States frigate came into port for repairs after a storm.

She lay in the river a fortnight or more, and every day sent us a gang of sixty or seventy of our country's gallant defenders, who spread themselves over the town, doing all sorts of mad things.

They were good-natured enough, but full of old Sancho.

The "Wee Drop" proved a drop too much for many of them.