The Red Eric

“Oh, then you did not see 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. I dun 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’t that.”

“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 for one fish?”

“Ay, it was a big one, you see, and Dick Jones, one of the men of the Termagant, 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 the Termagant happened 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 that we is the purshooers, ’cause why? We’re purshooin’ the cap’en and crew of the Termagant at 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 Dixon was pursued 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 the Red 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 be so nice. 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 view somewhat like the one you and Ailie described a few minutes ago, though not quite so 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.”

“What a 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 you my money,” 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—and won’t we 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 Jacko almost “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 the Red 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 a man. 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