Chapter Twenty Six.Captain Dunning Astonishes the Stranger—Surprising News, and Desperate Resolves.Still keeping his hands in his pockets and the free-and-easy expression on his countenance, the sailor swaggered through the streets of the town with Captain Dunning at his side, until he arrived at a very dirty little street, near the harbour, the chief characteristics of which were noise, compound smells, and little shops with sea-stores hung out in front. At the farther end of this street the sailor paused before a small public-house.“Here we are,” said he; “this is the place w’ere I puts up w’en I’m ashore—w’ich ain’t often—that’s a fact. After you, sir.”The captain hesitated.“You ain’t afraid, air you?” asked the sailor, in an incredulous tone.“No, I’m not, my man; but I have an objection to enter a public-house, unless I cannot help it. Have you had a glass this morning?”The sailor looked puzzled, as if he did not see very clearly what the question had to do with the captain’s difficulty.“Well, for the matter o’ that, I’ve had three glasses this mornin’.”“Then I suppose you have no objection to try a glass of my favourite tipple, have you?”The man smiled, and wiping his mouth with the cuff of his jacket, as if he expected the captain was, then and there, about to hand him a glass of the tipple referred to, said—“No objection wotsomediver.”“Then follow me; I’ll take you to the place whereIput up sometimes when I’m ashore. It’s not far off.”Five minutes sufficed to transport them from the dirty little street near the harbour to the back-parlour of the identical coffee-house in which the captain was first introduced to the reader. Here, having whispered something to the waiter, he proceeded to question his companion on the mysterious business for which he had brought him there.“Couldn’t we have the tipple first?” suggested the sailor.“It will be here directly. Have you breakfasted?”“’Xceptin’ the three glasses I told ye of—no.”Well, now, what have you to tell me about theTermagant? You have already said that you are one of her crew, and that you were in the boat that day when we had a row about the whale. What more can you tell me?The sailor sat down on a chair, stretched out his legs quite straight, and very wide apart, and thrust his hands, if possible, deeper into his pockets than they even were thrust before—so deep, in fact, as to suggest the idea that there were no pockets there at all—merely holes. Then he looked at Captain Dunning with a peculiarly sly expression of countenance and winked.“Well, that’s not much. Anything more?” inquired the captain.“Ho, yes; lots more. TheTermagant’sin this yere port—at—this—yere—moment.”The latter part of this was said in a hoarse emphatic whisper, and the man raising up both legs to a horizontal position, let them fall so that his heels came with a crash upon the wooden floor.“Is she?” cried the captain, with lively interest; “and her captain?”“He’s—yere—too!”Captain Dunning took one or two hasty strides across the floor, as if he were pacing his own quarterdeck—then stopped suddenly and said—“Can you get hold of any more of that boat’s crew?”“I can do nothin’ more wotiver, nor say nothin’ more wotsomediver, till I’ve tasted that ’ere tipple of yourn.”The captain rang the bell, and the waiter entered with ham and eggs, buttered toast, and hot coffee for two.The sailor opened his eyes to their utmost possible width, and made an effort to thrust his hands still deeper into his unfathomable trousers pockets; then he sat bolt upright, and gathering his legs as close under his chair as possible, clasped his knees with his hands, hugged himself, and grinned from ear to ear. After sitting a second or two in that position, he jumped up, and going forward to the table, took up the plate of ham and eggs, as if to make sure that it was a reality, and smelt it.“Isthisyour favourite tipple?” he said, on being quite satisfied of the reality of what he saw.“Coffee is my favourite drink,” replied the captain, laughing. “I never take anything stronger.”“Ho! you’re a to-teetler?”“I am. Now, my man, as you have not yet had breakfast, and as you interrupted me in the middle of mine, suppose we sit down and discuss the matter of the whale over this.”“Well, this is the rummiest way of offerin’ to give a fellow a glass as I ever did come across since I was a tadpole, as sure as my name’s Dick Jones,” remarked the sailor, sitting down opposite the captain, and turning up the cuffs of his coat.Having filled his mouth to its utmost possible extent, the astonished seaman proceeded, at one and the same time, to masticate and to relate all that he knew in regard to theTermagant.He said that not only was that vessel in port at that time, but that the same men were still aboard; that the captain—Dixon by name—was still in command, and that the whale which had been seized from the crew of theRed Erichad been sold along with the rest of the cargo. He related; moreover, how that he and his comrades had been very ill-treated by Captain Dixon during the voyage, and that he (Captain D) was, in the opinion of himself and his shipmates, the greatest blackguard afloat, and had made them so miserable by his brutality and tyranny, that they all hoped they might never meet with his like again—not to mention the hopes and wishes of a very unfeeling nature which they one and all expressed in regard to that captain’s future career. Besides all this, he stated that he (Dick Jones) had recognised Captain Dunning when he landed that morning, and had followed him to the cottage with the yellow face and the green door; after which he had taken a turn of half-an-hour or so up and down the street to think what he ought to do, and had at last resolved to tell all that he knew, and offer to stand witness against his captain, which he was then and there prepared to do, at that time or at any future period, wherever he (Captain Dunning) liked, and whenever he pleased, and that there was an end of the whole matter, and that was a fact.Having unburdened his mind, and eaten all the ham, and eggs, and toast, and drunk all the coffee, and asked for more and got it, Dick Jones proceeded to make himself supremely happy by filling his pipe and lighting it.“I’ll take him to law,” said Captain Dunning firmly, smiting the table with his fist.“I know’d a feller,” said Jones, “wot always said, w’en he heard a feller say that, ‘You’ll come for to wish that ye hadn’t;’ but I think ye’re right, cap’en; for it’s a clear case, clear as daylight; an’ we’ll all swear to a’most anything as’ll go fur to prove it.”“But are you sure your messmates are as willing as you are to witness against the captain?”“Sure? In coorse I is—sartin sure. Didn’t he lamp two on ’em with a rope’s-end once till they wos fit to bust, and all for nothin’ but skylarkin’? They’ll all go in the same boat with me, ’cept perhaps the cook, who is named Baldwin. He’s a cross-grained critter, an’ll stan’ by the cap’en through thick an thin, an’ so will the carpenter—Box they call him—he’s dead agin us; but that’s all.”“Then I’ll do it at once,” cried Captain Dunning, rising and putting on his hat firmly, as a man does when he has made a great resolve, which he more than half suspects will get him into a world of difficulties and trouble.“I s’pose I may set here till ye come back?” inquired Dick Jones, who now wore a dim mysterious aspect, in consequence of the cloud of smoke in which he had enveloped himself.“You may sit there till they turn you out; but come and take breakfast with me at the same hour to-morrow, will ye?”“Won’t I?”“Then good-day.”So saying, the captain left the coffee-house, and hurried to his sisters’ cottage, where he rightly conjectured he should find Glynn Proctor. Without telling his sisters the result of the interview with the “rude seaman,” he took Glynn’s arm and sallied forth in search of Tim Rokens and Mr Millons, both of whom they discovered enjoying their pipes, after a hearty breakfast, in a small, unpretending, but excellent and comfortable “sailors’ home,” in the dirty little street before referred to.The greater part of the crew of the lateRed Eric(now “sticks and stivers”) were found in the same place, engaged in much the same occupation, and to these, in solemn conclave assembled, Captain Dunning announced his intention of opening a law-suit against the captain of theTermagantfor the unlawful appropriation of the whale harpooned by Glynn. The men highly approved of what they called a “shore-going scrimmage,” and advised the captain to go and have the captain and crew of theTermagant“put in limbo right off.”Thus advised and encouraged, Captain Dunning went to a lawyer, who, after hearing the case, stated it as his opinion that it was a good one, and forthwith set about taking the needful preliminary steps to commencing the action.Thereafter Captain Dunning walked rapidly home, wiping his hot brow as he went, and entering the parlour of the cottage—the yellow-faced cottage—flung himself on the sofa with a reckless air, and said, “I’ve done it!”“Horror!” cried Aunt Martha.“Misery!” gasped Aunt Jane, who happened to be fondling Ailie at the time of her brother’s entrance.“Is he dead?”“Quitedead?” added Martha.“Iswhodead?” inquired the captain, in surprise.“The man—the rude sailor!”“Dead! No.”“You said just now that you had done it.”“So I have. I’ve done the deed. I’ve gone to law.”Had the captain said that he had gone to “sticks and stivers,” his sisters could not have been more startled and horrified. They dreaded the law, and hated it with a great and intense hatred, and not without reason; for their father had been ruined in a law-suit, and his father had broken the law, in some political manner they could never clearly understand, and had been condemned by the law to perpetual banishment.“Will it do you much harm, dear, papa?” inquired Ailie, in great concern.“Harm? Of course not. I hope it’ll do me, and you too, a great deal of good.”“I’msoglad to hear that; for I’ve heard people say that when you once go into it you never get out of it again.”“So have I,” said Aunt Martha, with a deep sigh.“And so have I,” added Aunt Jane, with a deeper sigh, “and I believe it’s true.”“It’s false!” cried the captain, laughing, “and you are all silly geese; the law is—”“A bright and glorious institution! A desirable investment for the talents of able men! A machine for justice usually—injustice occasionally—and, like all other good things, often misused, abused, and spoken against!” said Glynn Proctor, at that moment entering the room, and throwing his hat on one chair, and himself on another. “I’ve had enough of the sea, captain, and have come to resign my situation, and beg for dinner.”“You shall have it immediately, dear Glynn,” said Martha, whose heart warmed at the sight of one who had been so kind to her little niece.“Nay, I’m in no hurry,” said Glynn, quickly; “I did but jest, dear madam, as Shakespeare has it. Perhaps it was Milton who said it; one can’t be sure; but whenever a truly grand remark escapes you, you’re safe to clap it down to Shakespeare.”At this point the servant-girl announced dinner. At the same instant a heavy foot was heard in the passage, and Tim Rokens announced himself, saying that he had just seen the captain’s lawyer, and had been sent to say that he wished to see Captain Dunning in the course of the evening.“Then let him go on wishing till I’m ready to go to him. Meanwhile do you come and dine with us, Rokens, my lad.”Rokens looked awkward, and shuffled a little with his feet, and shook his head.“Why, what’s the matter, man?”Rokens looked as if he wished to speak, but hesitated.“If ye please, cap’en, I’d raither not, axin’ the ladies’ parding. I’d like a word with you in the passage.”“By all means,” replied the captain, going out of the room with the sailor. “Now, what’s wrong?”“My flippers, cap’en,” said Rokens, thrusting out his hard, thick, enormous hands, which were stained all over with sundry streaks of tar, and were very red as well as extremely clumsy to look at— “I’ve bin an’ washed ’em with hot water and rubbed ’em with grease till I a’most took the skin off, but they won’t come clean, and I’m not fit to sit down with ladies.”To this speech the captain replied by seizing Tim Rokens by the collar and dragging him fairly into the parlour.“Here’s a man,” cried the captain enthusiastically, presenting him to Martha, “who’s sailed with me for nigh thirty years, and is the best harpooner I ever had, and has stuck to me through thick and thin, in fair weather and foul, in heat and cold, and was kinder to Ailie during the last voyage than all the other men put together, exceptin’ Glynn, and who tells me his hands are covered with tar, and that he can’t wash ’em clean nohow, and isn’t fit to dine with ladies; so you will oblige me, Martha, by ordering him to leave the house.”“I will, brother, with pleasure. I order you, Mr Rokens, to leave this houseat your peril! And I invite you to partake of our dinner, which is now on the table in the next room.”Saying this, Aunt Martha grasped one of the great tar-stained “flippers” in both of her own delicate hands, and shook it with a degree of vigour that Tim Rokens afterwards said he could not have believed possible had he not felt it.Seeing this, Aunt Jane turned aside and blew her nose violently. Tim Rokens attempted to make a bow, failed, and grinned. The captain cried— “Now, then, heave ahead!” Glynn, in the exuberance of his spirits, uttered a miniature cheer. Ailie gave vent to a laugh, that sounded as sweet as a good song; and the whole party adjourned to the dining-room, where the servant-girl was found in the sulks because dinner was getting rapidly cold, and the cat was found:—“Prowling round the festal boardOn thievish deeds intent.”(See Milton’sParadise Regained, latest edition.)
Still keeping his hands in his pockets and the free-and-easy expression on his countenance, the sailor swaggered through the streets of the town with Captain Dunning at his side, until he arrived at a very dirty little street, near the harbour, the chief characteristics of which were noise, compound smells, and little shops with sea-stores hung out in front. At the farther end of this street the sailor paused before a small public-house.
“Here we are,” said he; “this is the place w’ere I puts up w’en I’m ashore—w’ich ain’t often—that’s a fact. After you, sir.”
The captain hesitated.
“You ain’t afraid, air you?” asked the sailor, in an incredulous tone.
“No, I’m not, my man; but I have an objection to enter a public-house, unless I cannot help it. Have you had a glass this morning?”
The sailor looked puzzled, as if he did not see very clearly what the question had to do with the captain’s difficulty.
“Well, for the matter o’ that, I’ve had three glasses this mornin’.”
“Then I suppose you have no objection to try a glass of my favourite tipple, have you?”
The man smiled, and wiping his mouth with the cuff of his jacket, as if he expected the captain was, then and there, about to hand him a glass of the tipple referred to, said—
“No objection wotsomediver.”
“Then follow me; I’ll take you to the place whereIput up sometimes when I’m ashore. It’s not far off.”
Five minutes sufficed to transport them from the dirty little street near the harbour to the back-parlour of the identical coffee-house in which the captain was first introduced to the reader. Here, having whispered something to the waiter, he proceeded to question his companion on the mysterious business for which he had brought him there.
“Couldn’t we have the tipple first?” suggested the sailor.
“It will be here directly. Have you breakfasted?”
“’Xceptin’ the three glasses I told ye of—no.”
Well, now, what have you to tell me about theTermagant? You have already said that you are one of her crew, and that you were in the boat that day when we had a row about the whale. What more can you tell me?
The sailor sat down on a chair, stretched out his legs quite straight, and very wide apart, and thrust his hands, if possible, deeper into his pockets than they even were thrust before—so deep, in fact, as to suggest the idea that there were no pockets there at all—merely holes. Then he looked at Captain Dunning with a peculiarly sly expression of countenance and winked.
“Well, that’s not much. Anything more?” inquired the captain.
“Ho, yes; lots more. TheTermagant’sin this yere port—at—this—yere—moment.”
The latter part of this was said in a hoarse emphatic whisper, and the man raising up both legs to a horizontal position, let them fall so that his heels came with a crash upon the wooden floor.
“Is she?” cried the captain, with lively interest; “and her captain?”
“He’s—yere—too!”
Captain Dunning took one or two hasty strides across the floor, as if he were pacing his own quarterdeck—then stopped suddenly and said—
“Can you get hold of any more of that boat’s crew?”
“I can do nothin’ more wotiver, nor say nothin’ more wotsomediver, till I’ve tasted that ’ere tipple of yourn.”
The captain rang the bell, and the waiter entered with ham and eggs, buttered toast, and hot coffee for two.
The sailor opened his eyes to their utmost possible width, and made an effort to thrust his hands still deeper into his unfathomable trousers pockets; then he sat bolt upright, and gathering his legs as close under his chair as possible, clasped his knees with his hands, hugged himself, and grinned from ear to ear. After sitting a second or two in that position, he jumped up, and going forward to the table, took up the plate of ham and eggs, as if to make sure that it was a reality, and smelt it.
“Isthisyour favourite tipple?” he said, on being quite satisfied of the reality of what he saw.
“Coffee is my favourite drink,” replied the captain, laughing. “I never take anything stronger.”
“Ho! you’re a to-teetler?”
“I am. Now, my man, as you have not yet had breakfast, and as you interrupted me in the middle of mine, suppose we sit down and discuss the matter of the whale over this.”
“Well, this is the rummiest way of offerin’ to give a fellow a glass as I ever did come across since I was a tadpole, as sure as my name’s Dick Jones,” remarked the sailor, sitting down opposite the captain, and turning up the cuffs of his coat.
Having filled his mouth to its utmost possible extent, the astonished seaman proceeded, at one and the same time, to masticate and to relate all that he knew in regard to theTermagant.
He said that not only was that vessel in port at that time, but that the same men were still aboard; that the captain—Dixon by name—was still in command, and that the whale which had been seized from the crew of theRed Erichad been sold along with the rest of the cargo. He related; moreover, how that he and his comrades had been very ill-treated by Captain Dixon during the voyage, and that he (Captain D) was, in the opinion of himself and his shipmates, the greatest blackguard afloat, and had made them so miserable by his brutality and tyranny, that they all hoped they might never meet with his like again—not to mention the hopes and wishes of a very unfeeling nature which they one and all expressed in regard to that captain’s future career. Besides all this, he stated that he (Dick Jones) had recognised Captain Dunning when he landed that morning, and had followed him to the cottage with the yellow face and the green door; after which he had taken a turn of half-an-hour or so up and down the street to think what he ought to do, and had at last resolved to tell all that he knew, and offer to stand witness against his captain, which he was then and there prepared to do, at that time or at any future period, wherever he (Captain Dunning) liked, and whenever he pleased, and that there was an end of the whole matter, and that was a fact.
Having unburdened his mind, and eaten all the ham, and eggs, and toast, and drunk all the coffee, and asked for more and got it, Dick Jones proceeded to make himself supremely happy by filling his pipe and lighting it.
“I’ll take him to law,” said Captain Dunning firmly, smiting the table with his fist.
“I know’d a feller,” said Jones, “wot always said, w’en he heard a feller say that, ‘You’ll come for to wish that ye hadn’t;’ but I think ye’re right, cap’en; for it’s a clear case, clear as daylight; an’ we’ll all swear to a’most anything as’ll go fur to prove it.”
“But are you sure your messmates are as willing as you are to witness against the captain?”
“Sure? In coorse I is—sartin sure. Didn’t he lamp two on ’em with a rope’s-end once till they wos fit to bust, and all for nothin’ but skylarkin’? They’ll all go in the same boat with me, ’cept perhaps the cook, who is named Baldwin. He’s a cross-grained critter, an’ll stan’ by the cap’en through thick an thin, an’ so will the carpenter—Box they call him—he’s dead agin us; but that’s all.”
“Then I’ll do it at once,” cried Captain Dunning, rising and putting on his hat firmly, as a man does when he has made a great resolve, which he more than half suspects will get him into a world of difficulties and trouble.
“I s’pose I may set here till ye come back?” inquired Dick Jones, who now wore a dim mysterious aspect, in consequence of the cloud of smoke in which he had enveloped himself.
“You may sit there till they turn you out; but come and take breakfast with me at the same hour to-morrow, will ye?”
“Won’t I?”
“Then good-day.”
So saying, the captain left the coffee-house, and hurried to his sisters’ cottage, where he rightly conjectured he should find Glynn Proctor. Without telling his sisters the result of the interview with the “rude seaman,” he took Glynn’s arm and sallied forth in search of Tim Rokens and Mr Millons, both of whom they discovered enjoying their pipes, after a hearty breakfast, in a small, unpretending, but excellent and comfortable “sailors’ home,” in the dirty little street before referred to.
The greater part of the crew of the lateRed Eric(now “sticks and stivers”) were found in the same place, engaged in much the same occupation, and to these, in solemn conclave assembled, Captain Dunning announced his intention of opening a law-suit against the captain of theTermagantfor the unlawful appropriation of the whale harpooned by Glynn. The men highly approved of what they called a “shore-going scrimmage,” and advised the captain to go and have the captain and crew of theTermagant“put in limbo right off.”
Thus advised and encouraged, Captain Dunning went to a lawyer, who, after hearing the case, stated it as his opinion that it was a good one, and forthwith set about taking the needful preliminary steps to commencing the action.
Thereafter Captain Dunning walked rapidly home, wiping his hot brow as he went, and entering the parlour of the cottage—the yellow-faced cottage—flung himself on the sofa with a reckless air, and said, “I’ve done it!”
“Horror!” cried Aunt Martha.
“Misery!” gasped Aunt Jane, who happened to be fondling Ailie at the time of her brother’s entrance.
“Is he dead?”
“Quitedead?” added Martha.
“Iswhodead?” inquired the captain, in surprise.
“The man—the rude sailor!”
“Dead! No.”
“You said just now that you had done it.”
“So I have. I’ve done the deed. I’ve gone to law.”
Had the captain said that he had gone to “sticks and stivers,” his sisters could not have been more startled and horrified. They dreaded the law, and hated it with a great and intense hatred, and not without reason; for their father had been ruined in a law-suit, and his father had broken the law, in some political manner they could never clearly understand, and had been condemned by the law to perpetual banishment.
“Will it do you much harm, dear, papa?” inquired Ailie, in great concern.
“Harm? Of course not. I hope it’ll do me, and you too, a great deal of good.”
“I’msoglad to hear that; for I’ve heard people say that when you once go into it you never get out of it again.”
“So have I,” said Aunt Martha, with a deep sigh.
“And so have I,” added Aunt Jane, with a deeper sigh, “and I believe it’s true.”
“It’s false!” cried the captain, laughing, “and you are all silly geese; the law is—”
“A bright and glorious institution! A desirable investment for the talents of able men! A machine for justice usually—injustice occasionally—and, like all other good things, often misused, abused, and spoken against!” said Glynn Proctor, at that moment entering the room, and throwing his hat on one chair, and himself on another. “I’ve had enough of the sea, captain, and have come to resign my situation, and beg for dinner.”
“You shall have it immediately, dear Glynn,” said Martha, whose heart warmed at the sight of one who had been so kind to her little niece.
“Nay, I’m in no hurry,” said Glynn, quickly; “I did but jest, dear madam, as Shakespeare has it. Perhaps it was Milton who said it; one can’t be sure; but whenever a truly grand remark escapes you, you’re safe to clap it down to Shakespeare.”
At this point the servant-girl announced dinner. At the same instant a heavy foot was heard in the passage, and Tim Rokens announced himself, saying that he had just seen the captain’s lawyer, and had been sent to say that he wished to see Captain Dunning in the course of the evening.
“Then let him go on wishing till I’m ready to go to him. Meanwhile do you come and dine with us, Rokens, my lad.”
Rokens looked awkward, and shuffled a little with his feet, and shook his head.
“Why, what’s the matter, man?”
Rokens looked as if he wished to speak, but hesitated.
“If ye please, cap’en, I’d raither not, axin’ the ladies’ parding. I’d like a word with you in the passage.”
“By all means,” replied the captain, going out of the room with the sailor. “Now, what’s wrong?”
“My flippers, cap’en,” said Rokens, thrusting out his hard, thick, enormous hands, which were stained all over with sundry streaks of tar, and were very red as well as extremely clumsy to look at— “I’ve bin an’ washed ’em with hot water and rubbed ’em with grease till I a’most took the skin off, but they won’t come clean, and I’m not fit to sit down with ladies.”
To this speech the captain replied by seizing Tim Rokens by the collar and dragging him fairly into the parlour.
“Here’s a man,” cried the captain enthusiastically, presenting him to Martha, “who’s sailed with me for nigh thirty years, and is the best harpooner I ever had, and has stuck to me through thick and thin, in fair weather and foul, in heat and cold, and was kinder to Ailie during the last voyage than all the other men put together, exceptin’ Glynn, and who tells me his hands are covered with tar, and that he can’t wash ’em clean nohow, and isn’t fit to dine with ladies; so you will oblige me, Martha, by ordering him to leave the house.”
“I will, brother, with pleasure. I order you, Mr Rokens, to leave this houseat your peril! And I invite you to partake of our dinner, which is now on the table in the next room.”
Saying this, Aunt Martha grasped one of the great tar-stained “flippers” in both of her own delicate hands, and shook it with a degree of vigour that Tim Rokens afterwards said he could not have believed possible had he not felt it.
Seeing this, Aunt Jane turned aside and blew her nose violently. Tim Rokens attempted to make a bow, failed, and grinned. The captain cried— “Now, then, heave ahead!” Glynn, in the exuberance of his spirits, uttered a miniature cheer. Ailie gave vent to a laugh, that sounded as sweet as a good song; and the whole party adjourned to the dining-room, where the servant-girl was found in the sulks because dinner was getting rapidly cold, and the cat was found:—
“Prowling round the festal boardOn thievish deeds intent.”
“Prowling round the festal boardOn thievish deeds intent.”
(See Milton’sParadise Regained, latest edition.)
Chapter Twenty Seven.The Law-Suit—The Battle, and the Victory.The great case of DunningversusDixon came on at last.On that day Captain Dunning was in a fever; Glynn Proctor was in a fever; Tim Rokens was in a fever; the Misses Dunning were in two separate fevers—everybody, in fact, on the Dunning side of the case was in a fever of nervous anxiety and mental confusion. As witnesses in the case, they had been precognosced to such an extent by the lawyers that their intellects were almost overturned. On being told that he was to be precognosced. Tim Rokens said stoutly, “He’d like to see the man as ’ud do it”; under the impression that that was the legal term for being kicked, or otherwise maltreated; and on being informed that the word signified merely an examination as to the extent of his knowledge of the facts of the case, he said quietly, “Fire away!” Before they had done firing away, the gallant harpooner was so confused that he began to regard the whole case as already hopeless.The other men were much in the same condition; but in a private meeting held among themselves the day before the trial, Rokens made the following speech, which comforted them not a little.“Messmates and shipmates,” said Tim, “I’ll tell ye wot it is. I’m no lawyer—that’s a fact—but I’m a man; an’ wot’s a man?—it ain’t a bundle o’ flesh an’ bones on two legs, with a turnip a-top o’t, is it?”“Be no manes,” murmured Briant, with an approving nod.“Cer’nly not,” remarked Dick Barnes. “I second that motion.”“Good,” continued Rokens. “Then, bein’ a man, I’ve got brains enough to see that, if we don’t want to contredick one another, we must stick to the truth.”“You don’t suppose I’d go fur to tell lies, do you?” said Tarquin quickly.“In coorse not. But what I mean to say is, that we must stick to what weknowsto be the truth, and not be goin’ for to guess at it, orthinkthat we knows it, and then swear to it as if we wos certain sure.”“Hear! hear!” from the assembled company.“In fact,” observed Glynn, “let what we say be absolutely true, and say just as little as we can. That’s how to manage a good case.”“An’, be all manes,” added Briant, “don’t let any of ye try for to improve matters be volunteerin’ yer opinion. Volunteerin’ opinions is stuff. Volunteerin’ is altogether a bad look-out. I know’d a feller, I did—a strappin’ young feller he was, too, more betoken—as volunteered himself to death, he did. To be sure, his wos a case o’ volunteerin’ into the Louth Militia, and he wos shot, he wos, in a pop’lar riot, as the noosepapers said—a scrimmage, I calls it—so don’t let any o’ us be goin’ for to volunteer opinions w’en nobody axes ’em—no, nor wants ’em.”Briant looked so pointedly at Gurney while delivering this advice that that obese individual felt constrained to look indignant, and inquire whether “them ’ere imperent remarks wos meant for him.” To which Briant replied that “they wos meant for him, as well as for ivery man then present.” Whereupon Gurney started up and shook his fist across the table at Briant, and Briant made a face at Gurney, at which the assembled company of mariners laughed, and immediately thereafter the meeting was broken up.Next day the trial came on, and as the case was expected to be more than usually interesting, the house was filled to overflowing long before the hour.The trial lasted all that day, and all the next, and a great part of the third, but we do not purpose going into it in detail. The way in which Mr Rasp (Captain Dunning’s counsel) and Mr Tooth (Captain Dixon’s counsel) badgered, browbeat, and utterly bamboozled the witnesses on both sides, and totally puzzled the jury, can only be understood by those who have frequented courts of law, but could not be fully or adequately described in less than six hundred pages.In the course of the trial the resolutions come to by the crew of theRed Eric, that they would tellnothingbut the truth, and carefully refrain from touching on what they were not quite sure of, proved to be of the greatest advantage to the pursuer’s case. We feel constrained here to turn aside for one moment to advise the general adoption of that course of conduct in all the serious affairs of life.The evidence of Tim Rokens was clear and to the point. The whale had been first struck by Glynn with a harpoon, to which a drogue was attached; it had been followed up by the crew of theRed Ericand also by the crew of theTermagant. The boats of the latter over-took the fish first, fixed a harpoon in it, and lanced it mortally. The drogue and harpoon of theRed Ericwere still attached to the whale when this was done, so that, according to the laws of the fishery, the crew of theTermaganthad no right to touch the whale—it was a “fast” fish. If the drogue had become detached the fish would have been free, and both crews would have been entitled to chase and capture it if they were able. Angry words and threats had passed between the crews of the opposing boats, but the whale put a stop to that by smashing the boat of theRed Ericwith its tail, whereupon the boat of theTermagantmade off with the fish (which died almost immediately after), and left the crew of the boat belonging to theRed Ericstruggling in the water.Such was the substance of the evidence of the harpooner, and neither cross-examination nor re-cross-examination by Mr Tooth, the counsel for the defendant, could induce Tim Rokens to modify, alter, omit, or contradict one iota of what he had said.It must not be supposed, however, that all of the men gave their evidence so clearly or so well. The captain did, though he was somewhat nervous, and the doctor did, and Glynn did. But that of Nikel Sling was unsatisfactory, in consequence of his being unable to repress his natural tendency to exaggeration. Tarquin also did harm; for, in his spite against the crew of theTermagant, he made statements which were not true, and his credit as a witness was therefore totally destroyed.Last of all came Jim Scroggles, who, after being solemnly sworn, deposed that he was between thirty-five and thirty-six years of age, on hearing which Gurney said “Oh!” with peculiar emphasis, and the people laughed, and the judge cried “Silence,” and the examination went on. After some time Mr Tooth rose to cross-question Jim Scroggles, who happened to be a nervous man in public, and was gradually getting confused and angry.“Now, my man, please to be particular in your replies,” said Mr Tooth, pushing up his spectacles on his forehead, thrusting his hands into his trousers pockets, and staring very hard at Jim. “You said that you pulled the second oar from the bow on the day in which the whale was killed.”“Yes.”“Are you quite sure of that? Was it not thethirdoar, now?”“Yes or no,” interrupted Mr Tooth.“It’s so long since—”“Yes or no,” repeated Mr Tooth.“Yes,” roared Scroggles, forgetting at the moment, in his confusion and indignation at not being allowed to speak, in what manner the question had been put.“Yes,” echoed Mr Tooth, addressing the judge, but looking at the jury. “You will observe, gentlemen. Would your lordship be so good as to note that? This witness, on that very particular occasion, when every point in the circumstances must naturally have been impressed deeply on the memories of all present, appears to have been so confused as not to know which oar of the boat he pulled. So, my man” (turning to the witness), “it appears evident that either you are now mis-stating the facts of the case or were then incapable of judging of them.”Jim Scroggles felt inclined to leap out of the witness-box, and knocked the teeth of Mr Tooth down his throat! But he repressed the inclination, and that gentleman went on to say—“When the boat of theRed Ericcame up to the whale was the drogue still attached to it?”“In coorse it was. Didn’t ye hear me say that three or—”“Be so good as to answer my questions simply, and do not make unnecessary remarks, sir. Was the drogue attached when the boat came up? Yes or no?”“Yes.”“How do you know?”“’Cause I seed it.”“You are quite sure that you saw it?”“In coorse!—leastwise, Tim Rokens seed it, and all the men in the boat seed it, and said so to me afterwards—w’ich is the same thing, though I can’t ’xactly say I seed it myself, ’cause I was looking hard at the men in the enemy’s boat, and considerin’ which on ’em I should give a dab in the nose to first w’en we come along side of ’em.”“Oh, then you didnotsee the drogue attached to the whale?” said Mr Tooth, with a glance at the jury; “and you were so taken up with the anticipated fight, I suppose, that you scarcely gave your attention to the whale at all! Were the other men in your boat in a similarly unobservant condition?”“Eh?” exclaimed Scroggles.“Were the other men as eager for the fight as you were?”“I s’pose they wos; you’d better ax ’em.Idun know.”“No, I don’t suppose you do, considering the state of mind you appear to have been in at the time. Do you know which part of the whale struck your boat? Was it the head?”“No; it was the tail.”“Are you quite sure of that?”“Ho, yes, quite sartin, for I’ve got a knot on my head this day where the tip of its flukes came down on me.”“You’re quite sure of that? Might it not have been the part of the fish near the tail, now, that struck you, or the fin just under the tail?”“No; I’m quite sartin sure it warn’tthat.”“How are you so sure it wasn’t that?”“Because whales hain’t got no fins just under their tails!” replied Scroggles, with a broad grin.There was another loud laugh at this, and Mr Tooth looked a little put out, and the judge cried “Silence” again, and threatened to clear the court.After a few more questions Jim Scroggles was permitted to retire, which he did oppressed with a feeling that his evidence had done the case little good, if not some harm, yet rather elated than otherwise at the success of his last hit.That evening Captain Dunning supped with Ailie and his sisters in low spirits. Glynn and the doctor and Tim Rokens and the two mates, Millons and Markham, supped with him, also in low spirits; and King Bumble acted the part of waiter, for that sable monarch had expressed an earnest desire to become Captain Dunning’s servant, and the captain had agreed to “take him on,” at least for a time. King Bumble was also in low spirits; and, as a natural consequence, so were Aunts Martha and Jane and little Ailie. It seemed utterly incomprehensible to the males of the party, how so good a case as this should come to wear such an unpromising aspect.“The fact is,” said the captain, at the conclusion of a prolonged discussion, “I don’t believe we’ll gain it.”“Neither do I,” said the doctor, helping himself to a large quantity of salad, as if that were the only comfort now left to him, and he meant to make the most of it before giving way to total despair.“I knew it,” observed Aunt Martha firmly. “I always said the law was a wicked institution.”“It’s a great shame!” said Aunt Jane indignantly; “but what could we expect? It treats every one ill.”“Won’t it treat Captain Dixon well, if he wins, aunt?” inquired Ailie.“Dear child, what can you possibly know about law?” said Aunt Martha.“Would you like a little more tart?” asked Aunt Jane.“Bravo! Ailie,” cried Glynn, “that’s a fair question. I back it up.”“How much do you claim for damages, George?” inquired Aunt Martha, changing the subject.(“Question!” whispered Glynn.)“Two thousand pounds,” answered the captain.“What!” exclaimed the aunts, in a simultaneous burst of amazement. “All foronefish?”“Ay, it was a big one, you see, and Dick Jones, one of the men of theTermagant, told me it was sold for that. It’s a profitable fishing, when one doesn’t lose one’s ship. What do you say to go with me and Ailie on our next trip, sisters? You might use up all your silk and worsted thread and crooked pins.”“What nonsense you talk, George; but I suppose you really do use pretty large hooks and lines when you fish for whales?”Aunt Martha addressed the latter part of her remark to Tim Rokens, who seemed immensely tickled by the captain’s pleasantry.“Hooks and lines, ma’am!” cried Rokens, regarding his hostess with a look of puzzled surprise.“To be sure we do,” interrupted Glynn; “we use anchors baited with live crocodiles—sometimes elephants, when we can’t get crocodiles. But hippopotamuses do best.”“Oh! Glynn!” cried Ailie, laughing, “how can you?”“It all depends on the drogue,” remarked the doctor. “I’m surprised to find how few of the men can state with absolute certainty that they saw the drogue attached to the whale when the boat came up to it. It all hinges upon that.”“Yes,” observed Mr Millons, “the ’ole case ’inges on that, because that proves it was a fast fish.”“Dear me, Mr Millons,” said Aunt Martha, smiling, “I have heard of fast young men, but I never heard of a fast fish before.”“Didn’t you, ma’am?” exclaimed the first mate, looking up in surprise, for that matter-of-fact seamen seldom recognised a joke at first sight.Aunt Martha, who very rarely ventured on the perpetration of a joke, blushed, and turning somewhat hastily to Mr Markham, asked if he would “take another cup of tea.” Seeing that there was no tea on the table, she substituted “another slice of ham,” and laughed. Thereupon the whole company laughed, and from that moment their spirits began to rise. They began to discuss the more favourable points of the evidence led that day, and when they retired at a late hour to rest, their hopes had again become sanguine.Next morning the examination of the witnesses for the defendant came on. There were more of them than Dick Jones had expected; for the crew of theTermaganthappened to be partly made up of very bad men, who were easily bribed by their captain to give evidence in his favour. But it soon became evident that they had not previously determined, as Captain Dunning’s men had done, to stick to the simple truth. They not only contradicted each other but each contradicted himself more than once; and it amazed them all, more than they could tell, to find how easily Mr Rasp turned their thoughts outside in, and caused them to prove conclusively that they were telling falsehoods.After the case had been summed up by the judge, the jury retired to consult, but they only remained five minutes away, and then came back with a verdict in favour of the pursuers.“Who’s the ‘pursooers?’” inquired Gurney, when this was announced to him by Nikel Sling. “Ain’t we all pursooers? Wasn’t we all pursooing the whale together?”“Oh, you grampus!” cried Nikel, laughing. “Don’t ye know thatweis the purshooers, ’cause why? We’re purshooin’ the cap’en and crew of theTermagantat law, and means to purshoo ’em too, I guess, till they stumps up for that air whale. And they is the defendants, ’cause they’re s’posed to defend themselves to the last gasp; but it ain’t o’ no manner o’ use.”Nikel Sling was right. Captain Dixonwaspursued until he paid back the value of his ill-gotten whale, and was forcibly reminded by this episode in his career, that “honesty is the best policy” after all. Thus Captain Dunning found himself suddenly put in possession of a sum of two thousand pounds.
The great case of DunningversusDixon came on at last.
On that day Captain Dunning was in a fever; Glynn Proctor was in a fever; Tim Rokens was in a fever; the Misses Dunning were in two separate fevers—everybody, in fact, on the Dunning side of the case was in a fever of nervous anxiety and mental confusion. As witnesses in the case, they had been precognosced to such an extent by the lawyers that their intellects were almost overturned. On being told that he was to be precognosced. Tim Rokens said stoutly, “He’d like to see the man as ’ud do it”; under the impression that that was the legal term for being kicked, or otherwise maltreated; and on being informed that the word signified merely an examination as to the extent of his knowledge of the facts of the case, he said quietly, “Fire away!” Before they had done firing away, the gallant harpooner was so confused that he began to regard the whole case as already hopeless.
The other men were much in the same condition; but in a private meeting held among themselves the day before the trial, Rokens made the following speech, which comforted them not a little.
“Messmates and shipmates,” said Tim, “I’ll tell ye wot it is. I’m no lawyer—that’s a fact—but I’m a man; an’ wot’s a man?—it ain’t a bundle o’ flesh an’ bones on two legs, with a turnip a-top o’t, is it?”
“Be no manes,” murmured Briant, with an approving nod.
“Cer’nly not,” remarked Dick Barnes. “I second that motion.”
“Good,” continued Rokens. “Then, bein’ a man, I’ve got brains enough to see that, if we don’t want to contredick one another, we must stick to the truth.”
“You don’t suppose I’d go fur to tell lies, do you?” said Tarquin quickly.
“In coorse not. But what I mean to say is, that we must stick to what weknowsto be the truth, and not be goin’ for to guess at it, orthinkthat we knows it, and then swear to it as if we wos certain sure.”
“Hear! hear!” from the assembled company.
“In fact,” observed Glynn, “let what we say be absolutely true, and say just as little as we can. That’s how to manage a good case.”
“An’, be all manes,” added Briant, “don’t let any of ye try for to improve matters be volunteerin’ yer opinion. Volunteerin’ opinions is stuff. Volunteerin’ is altogether a bad look-out. I know’d a feller, I did—a strappin’ young feller he was, too, more betoken—as volunteered himself to death, he did. To be sure, his wos a case o’ volunteerin’ into the Louth Militia, and he wos shot, he wos, in a pop’lar riot, as the noosepapers said—a scrimmage, I calls it—so don’t let any o’ us be goin’ for to volunteer opinions w’en nobody axes ’em—no, nor wants ’em.”
Briant looked so pointedly at Gurney while delivering this advice that that obese individual felt constrained to look indignant, and inquire whether “them ’ere imperent remarks wos meant for him.” To which Briant replied that “they wos meant for him, as well as for ivery man then present.” Whereupon Gurney started up and shook his fist across the table at Briant, and Briant made a face at Gurney, at which the assembled company of mariners laughed, and immediately thereafter the meeting was broken up.
Next day the trial came on, and as the case was expected to be more than usually interesting, the house was filled to overflowing long before the hour.
The trial lasted all that day, and all the next, and a great part of the third, but we do not purpose going into it in detail. The way in which Mr Rasp (Captain Dunning’s counsel) and Mr Tooth (Captain Dixon’s counsel) badgered, browbeat, and utterly bamboozled the witnesses on both sides, and totally puzzled the jury, can only be understood by those who have frequented courts of law, but could not be fully or adequately described in less than six hundred pages.
In the course of the trial the resolutions come to by the crew of theRed Eric, that they would tellnothingbut the truth, and carefully refrain from touching on what they were not quite sure of, proved to be of the greatest advantage to the pursuer’s case. We feel constrained here to turn aside for one moment to advise the general adoption of that course of conduct in all the serious affairs of life.
The evidence of Tim Rokens was clear and to the point. The whale had been first struck by Glynn with a harpoon, to which a drogue was attached; it had been followed up by the crew of theRed Ericand also by the crew of theTermagant. The boats of the latter over-took the fish first, fixed a harpoon in it, and lanced it mortally. The drogue and harpoon of theRed Ericwere still attached to the whale when this was done, so that, according to the laws of the fishery, the crew of theTermaganthad no right to touch the whale—it was a “fast” fish. If the drogue had become detached the fish would have been free, and both crews would have been entitled to chase and capture it if they were able. Angry words and threats had passed between the crews of the opposing boats, but the whale put a stop to that by smashing the boat of theRed Ericwith its tail, whereupon the boat of theTermagantmade off with the fish (which died almost immediately after), and left the crew of the boat belonging to theRed Ericstruggling in the water.
Such was the substance of the evidence of the harpooner, and neither cross-examination nor re-cross-examination by Mr Tooth, the counsel for the defendant, could induce Tim Rokens to modify, alter, omit, or contradict one iota of what he had said.
It must not be supposed, however, that all of the men gave their evidence so clearly or so well. The captain did, though he was somewhat nervous, and the doctor did, and Glynn did. But that of Nikel Sling was unsatisfactory, in consequence of his being unable to repress his natural tendency to exaggeration. Tarquin also did harm; for, in his spite against the crew of theTermagant, he made statements which were not true, and his credit as a witness was therefore totally destroyed.
Last of all came Jim Scroggles, who, after being solemnly sworn, deposed that he was between thirty-five and thirty-six years of age, on hearing which Gurney said “Oh!” with peculiar emphasis, and the people laughed, and the judge cried “Silence,” and the examination went on. After some time Mr Tooth rose to cross-question Jim Scroggles, who happened to be a nervous man in public, and was gradually getting confused and angry.
“Now, my man, please to be particular in your replies,” said Mr Tooth, pushing up his spectacles on his forehead, thrusting his hands into his trousers pockets, and staring very hard at Jim. “You said that you pulled the second oar from the bow on the day in which the whale was killed.”
“Yes.”
“Are you quite sure of that? Was it not thethirdoar, now?”
“Yes or no,” interrupted Mr Tooth.
“It’s so long since—”
“Yes or no,” repeated Mr Tooth.
“Yes,” roared Scroggles, forgetting at the moment, in his confusion and indignation at not being allowed to speak, in what manner the question had been put.
“Yes,” echoed Mr Tooth, addressing the judge, but looking at the jury. “You will observe, gentlemen. Would your lordship be so good as to note that? This witness, on that very particular occasion, when every point in the circumstances must naturally have been impressed deeply on the memories of all present, appears to have been so confused as not to know which oar of the boat he pulled. So, my man” (turning to the witness), “it appears evident that either you are now mis-stating the facts of the case or were then incapable of judging of them.”
Jim Scroggles felt inclined to leap out of the witness-box, and knocked the teeth of Mr Tooth down his throat! But he repressed the inclination, and that gentleman went on to say—
“When the boat of theRed Ericcame up to the whale was the drogue still attached to it?”
“In coorse it was. Didn’t ye hear me say that three or—”
“Be so good as to answer my questions simply, and do not make unnecessary remarks, sir. Was the drogue attached when the boat came up? Yes or no?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“’Cause I seed it.”
“You are quite sure that you saw it?”
“In coorse!—leastwise, Tim Rokens seed it, and all the men in the boat seed it, and said so to me afterwards—w’ich is the same thing, though I can’t ’xactly say I seed it myself, ’cause I was looking hard at the men in the enemy’s boat, and considerin’ which on ’em I should give a dab in the nose to first w’en we come along side of ’em.”
“Oh, then you didnotsee the drogue attached to the whale?” said Mr Tooth, with a glance at the jury; “and you were so taken up with the anticipated fight, I suppose, that you scarcely gave your attention to the whale at all! Were the other men in your boat in a similarly unobservant condition?”
“Eh?” exclaimed Scroggles.
“Were the other men as eager for the fight as you were?”
“I s’pose they wos; you’d better ax ’em.Idun know.”
“No, I don’t suppose you do, considering the state of mind you appear to have been in at the time. Do you know which part of the whale struck your boat? Was it the head?”
“No; it was the tail.”
“Are you quite sure of that?”
“Ho, yes, quite sartin, for I’ve got a knot on my head this day where the tip of its flukes came down on me.”
“You’re quite sure of that? Might it not have been the part of the fish near the tail, now, that struck you, or the fin just under the tail?”
“No; I’m quite sartin sure it warn’tthat.”
“How are you so sure it wasn’t that?”
“Because whales hain’t got no fins just under their tails!” replied Scroggles, with a broad grin.
There was another loud laugh at this, and Mr Tooth looked a little put out, and the judge cried “Silence” again, and threatened to clear the court.
After a few more questions Jim Scroggles was permitted to retire, which he did oppressed with a feeling that his evidence had done the case little good, if not some harm, yet rather elated than otherwise at the success of his last hit.
That evening Captain Dunning supped with Ailie and his sisters in low spirits. Glynn and the doctor and Tim Rokens and the two mates, Millons and Markham, supped with him, also in low spirits; and King Bumble acted the part of waiter, for that sable monarch had expressed an earnest desire to become Captain Dunning’s servant, and the captain had agreed to “take him on,” at least for a time. King Bumble was also in low spirits; and, as a natural consequence, so were Aunts Martha and Jane and little Ailie. It seemed utterly incomprehensible to the males of the party, how so good a case as this should come to wear such an unpromising aspect.
“The fact is,” said the captain, at the conclusion of a prolonged discussion, “I don’t believe we’ll gain it.”
“Neither do I,” said the doctor, helping himself to a large quantity of salad, as if that were the only comfort now left to him, and he meant to make the most of it before giving way to total despair.
“I knew it,” observed Aunt Martha firmly. “I always said the law was a wicked institution.”
“It’s a great shame!” said Aunt Jane indignantly; “but what could we expect? It treats every one ill.”
“Won’t it treat Captain Dixon well, if he wins, aunt?” inquired Ailie.
“Dear child, what can you possibly know about law?” said Aunt Martha.
“Would you like a little more tart?” asked Aunt Jane.
“Bravo! Ailie,” cried Glynn, “that’s a fair question. I back it up.”
“How much do you claim for damages, George?” inquired Aunt Martha, changing the subject.
(“Question!” whispered Glynn.)
“Two thousand pounds,” answered the captain.
“What!” exclaimed the aunts, in a simultaneous burst of amazement. “All foronefish?”
“Ay, it was a big one, you see, and Dick Jones, one of the men of theTermagant, told me it was sold for that. It’s a profitable fishing, when one doesn’t lose one’s ship. What do you say to go with me and Ailie on our next trip, sisters? You might use up all your silk and worsted thread and crooked pins.”
“What nonsense you talk, George; but I suppose you really do use pretty large hooks and lines when you fish for whales?”
Aunt Martha addressed the latter part of her remark to Tim Rokens, who seemed immensely tickled by the captain’s pleasantry.
“Hooks and lines, ma’am!” cried Rokens, regarding his hostess with a look of puzzled surprise.
“To be sure we do,” interrupted Glynn; “we use anchors baited with live crocodiles—sometimes elephants, when we can’t get crocodiles. But hippopotamuses do best.”
“Oh! Glynn!” cried Ailie, laughing, “how can you?”
“It all depends on the drogue,” remarked the doctor. “I’m surprised to find how few of the men can state with absolute certainty that they saw the drogue attached to the whale when the boat came up to it. It all hinges upon that.”
“Yes,” observed Mr Millons, “the ’ole case ’inges on that, because that proves it was a fast fish.”
“Dear me, Mr Millons,” said Aunt Martha, smiling, “I have heard of fast young men, but I never heard of a fast fish before.”
“Didn’t you, ma’am?” exclaimed the first mate, looking up in surprise, for that matter-of-fact seamen seldom recognised a joke at first sight.
Aunt Martha, who very rarely ventured on the perpetration of a joke, blushed, and turning somewhat hastily to Mr Markham, asked if he would “take another cup of tea.” Seeing that there was no tea on the table, she substituted “another slice of ham,” and laughed. Thereupon the whole company laughed, and from that moment their spirits began to rise. They began to discuss the more favourable points of the evidence led that day, and when they retired at a late hour to rest, their hopes had again become sanguine.
Next morning the examination of the witnesses for the defendant came on. There were more of them than Dick Jones had expected; for the crew of theTermaganthappened to be partly made up of very bad men, who were easily bribed by their captain to give evidence in his favour. But it soon became evident that they had not previously determined, as Captain Dunning’s men had done, to stick to the simple truth. They not only contradicted each other but each contradicted himself more than once; and it amazed them all, more than they could tell, to find how easily Mr Rasp turned their thoughts outside in, and caused them to prove conclusively that they were telling falsehoods.
After the case had been summed up by the judge, the jury retired to consult, but they only remained five minutes away, and then came back with a verdict in favour of the pursuers.
“Who’s the ‘pursooers?’” inquired Gurney, when this was announced to him by Nikel Sling. “Ain’t we all pursooers? Wasn’t we all pursooing the whale together?”
“Oh, you grampus!” cried Nikel, laughing. “Don’t ye know thatweis the purshooers, ’cause why? We’re purshooin’ the cap’en and crew of theTermagantat law, and means to purshoo ’em too, I guess, till they stumps up for that air whale. And they is the defendants, ’cause they’re s’posed to defend themselves to the last gasp; but it ain’t o’ no manner o’ use.”
Nikel Sling was right. Captain Dixonwaspursued until he paid back the value of his ill-gotten whale, and was forcibly reminded by this episode in his career, that “honesty is the best policy” after all. Thus Captain Dunning found himself suddenly put in possession of a sum of two thousand pounds.
Chapter Twenty Eight.The Conclusion.The trouble, and worry, and annoyance that the sum of 2000 pounds gave to Captain Dunning is past all belief. That worthy man, knowing that Glynn Proctor had scarcely a penny in the world, not even his “kit” (as sailors name their sea-chests), which had been lost in the wreck of theRed Eric, and that the boy was about to be cast upon the world again an almost friendless wanderer—knowing all this, we say, Captain Dunning insisted that as Glynn had been the first to strike the whale, and as no one else had had anything to do with its capture, he (Glynn) was justly entitled to the money.Glynn firmly declined to admit the justice of this view of the case; he had been paid his wages; that was all he had any right to claim; so he positively refused to take the money. But the captain was more than his match. He insisted so powerfully, and argued so logically, that Glynn at last consented, on condition that 500 pounds of it should be distributed among his shipmates. This compromise was agreed to, and thus Glynn came into possession of what appeared in his eyes a fortune of 1500 pounds.“Now, what am I to do with it? that is the question.”Glynn propounded this knotty question one evening, about three weeks after the trial, to his friends of the yellow cottage with the green-painted door.“Put it in the bank,” suggested Aunt Martha.“Yes, and live on the interest,” added Aunt Jane.“Or invest in the whale-fishery,” said Captain Dunning, emitting a voluminous cloud of tobacco-smoke, as if to suggest the idea that the investment would probably end in something similar to that. (The captain was a peculiarly favoured individual; he was privileged to smoke in the Misses Dunning’s parlour.)“Oh! I’ll tell you what to do, Glynn,” cried Ailie, clapping her hands; “it would besonice. Buy a cottage with it—a nice, pretty, white-painted cottage, beside a wood, with a little river in front of it, and a small lake with a boat on it not far off, and a far, far view from the windows of fields, and villages, and churches, and cattle, and sheep, and—”“Hurrah! Ailie, go it, my lass!” interrupted Glynn; “and horses, and ponies, and carts, and cats, and blackbirds, and cocks and hens, and ploughmen, and milkmaids, and beggars, all in the foreground; and coaches, and railroads, and steamboats, and palaces, and canals, in the middle distance; with a glorious background of the mighty sea glittering for ever under the blazing beams of a perpetually setting sun, mingled with the pale rays of an eternally rising moon, and laden with small craft, and whale-ships, and seaweed, and fish, and bumboats, and men-of-war!”“Oh, how nice!” cried Ailie, screaming with delight.“Go ahead, lad, never give in!” said the captain; whose pipe during this glowing description had been keeping up what seemed like a miniature sea-fight. “You’ve forgot the main point.”“What’s that?” inquired Glynn.“Why, a palace for Jacko close beside it, with a portrait of Jacko over the drawing-room fireplace, and a marble bust of Jacko in the four corners of every room.”“So I did; I forgot that,” replied Glynn.“Dear Jacko!” said Ailie, laughing heartily, and holding out her hand.The monkey, which had become domesticated in the house, leaped nimbly upon her knee, and looked up in her face.“Oh! Ailie dear, do put it down!” cried Aunt Jane, shuddering.“How can you?” said Aunt Martha; “dirty beast!” Of course Aunt Martha applied the latter part of her remark to the monkey, not to the child.“I’ll never be able to bear it,” remarked Aunt Jane.“And it will never come to agree with the cat,” observed Aunt Martha.Ailie patted her favourite on the cheek and told it to go away, adding, that it was a dear pet—whereupon that small monkey retired modestly to a corner near the sideboard. It chanced to be the corner nearest to the sugar-basin, which had been left out by accident; but Jacko didn’t know that, of course—at least, if he did, he did not say so. It is probable, however, that he found it out in course of time; for an hour or two afterwards the distinct marks of ten very minute fingers were visible therein, a discovery which Aunt Martha made with a scream, and Aunt Jane announced with a shriek—which caused Jacko to retire precipitately.“But really,” said Glynn, “jesting apart, I must take to something on shore, for although I like the sea very well, I find that I like the land better.”“Well, since you wish to be in earnest about it,” said Captain Dunning, “I’ll tell you what has been passing in my mind of late. I’m getting to be an oldish young man now, you see, and am rather tired of the sea myself, so I also think of giving it up. I have now laid by about five thousand pounds, and with this I think of purchasing a farm. I learnt something of farming before I took to the sea, so that I am not quite so green on such matters as you might suppose, though I confess I’m rather rusty and behind the age; but that won’t much matter in a fine country like this, and I can get a good steward to take command and steer the ship until I have brushed up a bit in shore-goin’ navigation. There is a farm which is just the very thing for me not more than twenty miles from this town, with a cottage on it and a viewsomewhatlike the one you and Ailie described a few minutes ago, though notquiteso grand. But there’s one great and insuperable objection to my taking it.”“What is that?” inquired Aunt Martha, who, with her sister, expressed in their looks unbounded surprise at the words of their brother, whom they regarded as so thoroughly and indissolubly connected with the sea that they would probably have been less surprised had he announced it to be his intention to become a fish and thenceforward dwell in a coral cave.“I have not enough of money wherewith to buy and stock it.”“Whata pity!” said Ailie, whose hopes had been rising with extraordinary rapidity, and were thus quenched at once.Glynn leaped up and smote his thigh with his right hand, and exclaimed in a triumphant manner— “That’s the very ticket!”“What’s the very ticket?” inquired the captain.“I’ll lend youmymoney,” said Glynn.“Ay, boy, that’s just the point I was comin’ to. A thousand pounds will do. Now, if you lend me that sum, I’m willin’ to take you into partnership, and we’ll buy the place and farm it together. I think we’ll pull well in the same boat, for I think you like me well enough, and I’m sure I like you, and I know Ailie don’t object to either of us; and after I’m gone, Glynn, you can work the farm for Ailie and give her her share. What say you?”“Done,” exclaimed Glynn, springing up and seizing the captain’s hand. “I’ll be your son and you’ll be my father, and Ailie will be my sister—andwon’twe be jolly, just!”Ailie laughed, and so did the two aunts, but the captain made no reply. He merely smoked with a violence that was quite appalling, and nodding his head, winked at Glynn, as if to say— “That’s it, exactly!”The compact thus half-jestingly entered into was afterwards thoroughly ratified and carried into effect. The cottage was named the Red Eric, and the property was named the Whale Brae, after an ancestral estate which, it was supposed, had, at some remote period, belonged to the Dunning family in Scotland. The title was not inappropriate, for it occupied the side of a rising ground, which, as a feature in the landscape, looked very like a whale, “only,” as Glynn said, “not quite so big,” which was an outrageous falsehood, for it was a great deal bigger! A small wooden palace was built for Jacko, and many a portrait was taken of him by Glynn, in charcoal, on many an outhouse wall, to the immense delight of Ailie. As to having busts of him placed in the corners of every room, Glynn remarked that that was quite unnecessary, for Jackoalmost“bu’st” himself in every possible way, at every conceivable time, in every imaginable place, whenever he could conveniently collect enough of food to do so—which was not often, for Jacko, though small, was of an elastic as well as an amiable disposition.Tim Rokens stuck to his old commander to the last. He said he had sailed with him the better part of his life, in the same ships, had weathered the same storms, and chased the same fish, and now that the captain had made up his mind to lay up in port, he meant to cast anchor beside him. So the bold harpooner became a species of overseer and jack-of-all-trades on the property. Phil Briant set up as a carpenter in the village close by, took to himself a wife (his first wife having died), and became Tim Rokens’ boon companion and bosom friend. As for the rest of the crew of theRed Eric, they went their several ways, got into separate ships, and were never again re-assembled together; but nearly all of them came at separate times, in the course of years, to visit their old captain and shipmates in the Red Eric at Whale Brae.In course of time Ailie grew up into such a sweet, pretty, modest, loveable woman, that the very sight of her did one’s heart good. Love was the ruling power in Ailie’s heart—love to her God and Saviour and to all His creatures. She was not perfect. Who is? She had faults, plenty of them. Who has not? But her loving nature covered up everything with a golden veil so beautiful, that no one saw her faults, or, if they did, would not believe them to be faults at all.Glynn, also, grew up and became aman. Observe, reader, we don’t mean to say that he became a thing with long legs, and broad shoulders, and whiskers. Glynn became a real man; an out-and-out man; a being who realised the fact that he had been made and born into the world for the purpose of doing that world good, and leaving it better than he found it. He did not think that to strut, and smoke cigars, and talk loud or big, and commence most of his sentences with “Aw! ’pon my soul!” was the summit of true greatness. Neither did he, flying in disgust to the opposite extreme, speak like a misanthrope, and look like a bear, or dress like a savage. He came to know the truth of the proverb, that “there is a time for all things,” and following up the idea suggested by those words, he came to perceive that there is a place for all things—that place being the human heart, when in a true and healthy condition in all its parts, out of which, in their proper time, some of those “all things” ought to be ever ready to flow. Hence Glynn could weep with the sorrowful and laugh with the gay. He could wear a red or a blue flannel shirt, and pull an oar (ay, the best oar) at a rowing match, or he could read the Bible and pray with a bedridden old woman. Had Glynn Proctor been a naval commander, he might have sunk, destroyed, or captured fleets. Had he been a soldier, he might have stormed and taken cities; being neither, he was a greater man than either, for he could “rule his own spirit.” If you are tempted, dear reader, to think that an easy matter, just try it. Make the effort. The first time you chance to be in a towering rage (which I trust, however, may never be), try to keep your tongue silent, and, most difficult of all, try at that moment to pray, and see whether your opinion as to your power over your own spirit be not changed.Such were Glynn and Ailie. “So they married, of course,” you remark. Well, reader, and why not? Nothing could be more natural. Glynn felt, and said, too, that nothing was nearer his heart. And Ailie admitted—after being told by Glynn that she must be his wife, for he wanted to have her, and was determined to have her whether she would or not—that her heart was in similar proximity to the idea of marriage. Captain Dunning did not object—it would have been odd if he had objected to the fulfilment of his chief earthly desire. Tim Rokens did not groan when he heard of the proposal—by no means; on the contrary, he roared, and laughed, and shouted with delight, and went straight off to tell Phil Briant, who roared a duet with him, and they both agreed that it “wos the most gloriously nat’ral thing they ever did know since they wos launched upon the sea of time!”So Glynn Proctor and Ailie Dunning were married, and lived long, and happily, and usefully at Whale Brae. Captain Dunning lived with them until he was so old that Ailie’s eldest daughter (also named Ailie) had to lead him from his bedroom each morning to breakfast, and light his pipe for him when he had finished. And Ailie the second performed her duties well, and made the old man happy—happier than he could find words to express—for Ailie the second was like her mother in all things, and greater praise than that could not possibly be awarded to her.The affairs of the cottage with the yellow face and the green door were kept in good order for many years by one of Ailie the second’s little sisters—Martha by name; and there was much traffic and intercourse between that ancient building and the Red Eric, as long as the two aunts lived, which was a very long time indeed. Its green door was, during that time, almost battered off its hinges by successive juvenile members of the Proctor family. And truly deep and heartfelt was the mourning at Whale Brae when the amiable sisters were taken away at last.As for Tim Rokens, that ancient mariner became the idol of the young Proctors, as they successively came to be old enough to know his worth. The number of ships and boats he made for the boys among them was absolutely fabulous. Equal, perhaps, to about a twentieth part of the number of pipes of tobacco he smoked during his residence there, and about double the number of stories told them by Phil Briant during the same period.King Bumble lived with the family until his woolly head became as white as his face was black; and Jacko—poor little Jacko—lived so long, that he became big, but he did not become less amiable, or less addicted to thieving. He turned grey at last and became as blind as a bat, and finally crawled about the house, enfeebled by old age, and wrapped in a flannel dressing-gown.Sorrows and joys are the lot of all; they chase each other across the sky of human life like cloud and sunshine on an April day. Captain Dunning and his descendants were not exempt from the pains, and toils, and griefs of life, but they met them in the right spirit, and diffused so sweet an influence around their dwelling that the neighbours used to say—and say truly—of the family at the Red Eric, that they were always good-humoured and happy—as happy as the day was long.The End.
The trouble, and worry, and annoyance that the sum of 2000 pounds gave to Captain Dunning is past all belief. That worthy man, knowing that Glynn Proctor had scarcely a penny in the world, not even his “kit” (as sailors name their sea-chests), which had been lost in the wreck of theRed Eric, and that the boy was about to be cast upon the world again an almost friendless wanderer—knowing all this, we say, Captain Dunning insisted that as Glynn had been the first to strike the whale, and as no one else had had anything to do with its capture, he (Glynn) was justly entitled to the money.
Glynn firmly declined to admit the justice of this view of the case; he had been paid his wages; that was all he had any right to claim; so he positively refused to take the money. But the captain was more than his match. He insisted so powerfully, and argued so logically, that Glynn at last consented, on condition that 500 pounds of it should be distributed among his shipmates. This compromise was agreed to, and thus Glynn came into possession of what appeared in his eyes a fortune of 1500 pounds.
“Now, what am I to do with it? that is the question.”
Glynn propounded this knotty question one evening, about three weeks after the trial, to his friends of the yellow cottage with the green-painted door.
“Put it in the bank,” suggested Aunt Martha.
“Yes, and live on the interest,” added Aunt Jane.
“Or invest in the whale-fishery,” said Captain Dunning, emitting a voluminous cloud of tobacco-smoke, as if to suggest the idea that the investment would probably end in something similar to that. (The captain was a peculiarly favoured individual; he was privileged to smoke in the Misses Dunning’s parlour.)
“Oh! I’ll tell you what to do, Glynn,” cried Ailie, clapping her hands; “it would besonice. Buy a cottage with it—a nice, pretty, white-painted cottage, beside a wood, with a little river in front of it, and a small lake with a boat on it not far off, and a far, far view from the windows of fields, and villages, and churches, and cattle, and sheep, and—”
“Hurrah! Ailie, go it, my lass!” interrupted Glynn; “and horses, and ponies, and carts, and cats, and blackbirds, and cocks and hens, and ploughmen, and milkmaids, and beggars, all in the foreground; and coaches, and railroads, and steamboats, and palaces, and canals, in the middle distance; with a glorious background of the mighty sea glittering for ever under the blazing beams of a perpetually setting sun, mingled with the pale rays of an eternally rising moon, and laden with small craft, and whale-ships, and seaweed, and fish, and bumboats, and men-of-war!”
“Oh, how nice!” cried Ailie, screaming with delight.
“Go ahead, lad, never give in!” said the captain; whose pipe during this glowing description had been keeping up what seemed like a miniature sea-fight. “You’ve forgot the main point.”
“What’s that?” inquired Glynn.
“Why, a palace for Jacko close beside it, with a portrait of Jacko over the drawing-room fireplace, and a marble bust of Jacko in the four corners of every room.”
“So I did; I forgot that,” replied Glynn.
“Dear Jacko!” said Ailie, laughing heartily, and holding out her hand.
The monkey, which had become domesticated in the house, leaped nimbly upon her knee, and looked up in her face.
“Oh! Ailie dear, do put it down!” cried Aunt Jane, shuddering.
“How can you?” said Aunt Martha; “dirty beast!” Of course Aunt Martha applied the latter part of her remark to the monkey, not to the child.
“I’ll never be able to bear it,” remarked Aunt Jane.
“And it will never come to agree with the cat,” observed Aunt Martha.
Ailie patted her favourite on the cheek and told it to go away, adding, that it was a dear pet—whereupon that small monkey retired modestly to a corner near the sideboard. It chanced to be the corner nearest to the sugar-basin, which had been left out by accident; but Jacko didn’t know that, of course—at least, if he did, he did not say so. It is probable, however, that he found it out in course of time; for an hour or two afterwards the distinct marks of ten very minute fingers were visible therein, a discovery which Aunt Martha made with a scream, and Aunt Jane announced with a shriek—which caused Jacko to retire precipitately.
“But really,” said Glynn, “jesting apart, I must take to something on shore, for although I like the sea very well, I find that I like the land better.”
“Well, since you wish to be in earnest about it,” said Captain Dunning, “I’ll tell you what has been passing in my mind of late. I’m getting to be an oldish young man now, you see, and am rather tired of the sea myself, so I also think of giving it up. I have now laid by about five thousand pounds, and with this I think of purchasing a farm. I learnt something of farming before I took to the sea, so that I am not quite so green on such matters as you might suppose, though I confess I’m rather rusty and behind the age; but that won’t much matter in a fine country like this, and I can get a good steward to take command and steer the ship until I have brushed up a bit in shore-goin’ navigation. There is a farm which is just the very thing for me not more than twenty miles from this town, with a cottage on it and a viewsomewhatlike the one you and Ailie described a few minutes ago, though notquiteso grand. But there’s one great and insuperable objection to my taking it.”
“What is that?” inquired Aunt Martha, who, with her sister, expressed in their looks unbounded surprise at the words of their brother, whom they regarded as so thoroughly and indissolubly connected with the sea that they would probably have been less surprised had he announced it to be his intention to become a fish and thenceforward dwell in a coral cave.
“I have not enough of money wherewith to buy and stock it.”
“Whata pity!” said Ailie, whose hopes had been rising with extraordinary rapidity, and were thus quenched at once.
Glynn leaped up and smote his thigh with his right hand, and exclaimed in a triumphant manner— “That’s the very ticket!”
“What’s the very ticket?” inquired the captain.
“I’ll lend youmymoney,” said Glynn.
“Ay, boy, that’s just the point I was comin’ to. A thousand pounds will do. Now, if you lend me that sum, I’m willin’ to take you into partnership, and we’ll buy the place and farm it together. I think we’ll pull well in the same boat, for I think you like me well enough, and I’m sure I like you, and I know Ailie don’t object to either of us; and after I’m gone, Glynn, you can work the farm for Ailie and give her her share. What say you?”
“Done,” exclaimed Glynn, springing up and seizing the captain’s hand. “I’ll be your son and you’ll be my father, and Ailie will be my sister—andwon’twe be jolly, just!”
Ailie laughed, and so did the two aunts, but the captain made no reply. He merely smoked with a violence that was quite appalling, and nodding his head, winked at Glynn, as if to say— “That’s it, exactly!”
The compact thus half-jestingly entered into was afterwards thoroughly ratified and carried into effect. The cottage was named the Red Eric, and the property was named the Whale Brae, after an ancestral estate which, it was supposed, had, at some remote period, belonged to the Dunning family in Scotland. The title was not inappropriate, for it occupied the side of a rising ground, which, as a feature in the landscape, looked very like a whale, “only,” as Glynn said, “not quite so big,” which was an outrageous falsehood, for it was a great deal bigger! A small wooden palace was built for Jacko, and many a portrait was taken of him by Glynn, in charcoal, on many an outhouse wall, to the immense delight of Ailie. As to having busts of him placed in the corners of every room, Glynn remarked that that was quite unnecessary, for Jackoalmost“bu’st” himself in every possible way, at every conceivable time, in every imaginable place, whenever he could conveniently collect enough of food to do so—which was not often, for Jacko, though small, was of an elastic as well as an amiable disposition.
Tim Rokens stuck to his old commander to the last. He said he had sailed with him the better part of his life, in the same ships, had weathered the same storms, and chased the same fish, and now that the captain had made up his mind to lay up in port, he meant to cast anchor beside him. So the bold harpooner became a species of overseer and jack-of-all-trades on the property. Phil Briant set up as a carpenter in the village close by, took to himself a wife (his first wife having died), and became Tim Rokens’ boon companion and bosom friend. As for the rest of the crew of theRed Eric, they went their several ways, got into separate ships, and were never again re-assembled together; but nearly all of them came at separate times, in the course of years, to visit their old captain and shipmates in the Red Eric at Whale Brae.
In course of time Ailie grew up into such a sweet, pretty, modest, loveable woman, that the very sight of her did one’s heart good. Love was the ruling power in Ailie’s heart—love to her God and Saviour and to all His creatures. She was not perfect. Who is? She had faults, plenty of them. Who has not? But her loving nature covered up everything with a golden veil so beautiful, that no one saw her faults, or, if they did, would not believe them to be faults at all.
Glynn, also, grew up and became aman. Observe, reader, we don’t mean to say that he became a thing with long legs, and broad shoulders, and whiskers. Glynn became a real man; an out-and-out man; a being who realised the fact that he had been made and born into the world for the purpose of doing that world good, and leaving it better than he found it. He did not think that to strut, and smoke cigars, and talk loud or big, and commence most of his sentences with “Aw! ’pon my soul!” was the summit of true greatness. Neither did he, flying in disgust to the opposite extreme, speak like a misanthrope, and look like a bear, or dress like a savage. He came to know the truth of the proverb, that “there is a time for all things,” and following up the idea suggested by those words, he came to perceive that there is a place for all things—that place being the human heart, when in a true and healthy condition in all its parts, out of which, in their proper time, some of those “all things” ought to be ever ready to flow. Hence Glynn could weep with the sorrowful and laugh with the gay. He could wear a red or a blue flannel shirt, and pull an oar (ay, the best oar) at a rowing match, or he could read the Bible and pray with a bedridden old woman. Had Glynn Proctor been a naval commander, he might have sunk, destroyed, or captured fleets. Had he been a soldier, he might have stormed and taken cities; being neither, he was a greater man than either, for he could “rule his own spirit.” If you are tempted, dear reader, to think that an easy matter, just try it. Make the effort. The first time you chance to be in a towering rage (which I trust, however, may never be), try to keep your tongue silent, and, most difficult of all, try at that moment to pray, and see whether your opinion as to your power over your own spirit be not changed.
Such were Glynn and Ailie. “So they married, of course,” you remark. Well, reader, and why not? Nothing could be more natural. Glynn felt, and said, too, that nothing was nearer his heart. And Ailie admitted—after being told by Glynn that she must be his wife, for he wanted to have her, and was determined to have her whether she would or not—that her heart was in similar proximity to the idea of marriage. Captain Dunning did not object—it would have been odd if he had objected to the fulfilment of his chief earthly desire. Tim Rokens did not groan when he heard of the proposal—by no means; on the contrary, he roared, and laughed, and shouted with delight, and went straight off to tell Phil Briant, who roared a duet with him, and they both agreed that it “wos the most gloriously nat’ral thing they ever did know since they wos launched upon the sea of time!”
So Glynn Proctor and Ailie Dunning were married, and lived long, and happily, and usefully at Whale Brae. Captain Dunning lived with them until he was so old that Ailie’s eldest daughter (also named Ailie) had to lead him from his bedroom each morning to breakfast, and light his pipe for him when he had finished. And Ailie the second performed her duties well, and made the old man happy—happier than he could find words to express—for Ailie the second was like her mother in all things, and greater praise than that could not possibly be awarded to her.
The affairs of the cottage with the yellow face and the green door were kept in good order for many years by one of Ailie the second’s little sisters—Martha by name; and there was much traffic and intercourse between that ancient building and the Red Eric, as long as the two aunts lived, which was a very long time indeed. Its green door was, during that time, almost battered off its hinges by successive juvenile members of the Proctor family. And truly deep and heartfelt was the mourning at Whale Brae when the amiable sisters were taken away at last.
As for Tim Rokens, that ancient mariner became the idol of the young Proctors, as they successively came to be old enough to know his worth. The number of ships and boats he made for the boys among them was absolutely fabulous. Equal, perhaps, to about a twentieth part of the number of pipes of tobacco he smoked during his residence there, and about double the number of stories told them by Phil Briant during the same period.
King Bumble lived with the family until his woolly head became as white as his face was black; and Jacko—poor little Jacko—lived so long, that he became big, but he did not become less amiable, or less addicted to thieving. He turned grey at last and became as blind as a bat, and finally crawled about the house, enfeebled by old age, and wrapped in a flannel dressing-gown.
Sorrows and joys are the lot of all; they chase each other across the sky of human life like cloud and sunshine on an April day. Captain Dunning and his descendants were not exempt from the pains, and toils, and griefs of life, but they met them in the right spirit, and diffused so sweet an influence around their dwelling that the neighbours used to say—and say truly—of the family at the Red Eric, that they were always good-humoured and happy—as happy as the day was long.
|Chapter 1| |Chapter 2| |Chapter 3| |Chapter 4| |Chapter 5| |Chapter 6| |Chapter 7| |Chapter 8| |Chapter 9| |Chapter 10| |Chapter 11| |Chapter 12| |Chapter 13| |Chapter 14| |Chapter 15| |Chapter 16| |Chapter 17| |Chapter 18| |Chapter 19| |Chapter 20| |Chapter 21| |Chapter 22| |Chapter 23| |Chapter 24| |Chapter 25| |Chapter 26| |Chapter 27| |Chapter 28|