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.