The Red Eric Part 41

"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 house _at 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 board On thievish deeds intent."

[See Milton's _Paradise Regained_, latest edition.]

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.

THE LAW-SUIT--THE BATTLE, AND THE VICTORY.

The great case of Dunning _versus_ Dixon 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 d.i.c.k 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 contred.i.c.k 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 we _knows_ to be the truth, and not be goin' for to guess at it, or _think_ that we knows it, and then swear to it as if we wos certain sure."

"Hear! hear!" from the a.s.sembled 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 n.o.body 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 a.s.sembled 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 the _Red Eric_, that they would tell _nothing_ but 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 the _Red Eric_ and also by the crew of the _Termagant_. The boats of the latter over-took the fish first, fixed a harpoon in it, and lanced it mortally. The drogue and harpoon of the _Red Eric_ were still attached to the whale when this was done, so that, according to the laws of the fishery, the crew of the _Termagant_ had 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 ent.i.tled to chase and capture it if they were able. Angry words and threats had pa.s.sed between the crews of the opposing boats, but the whale put a stop to that by smashing the boat of the _Red Eric_ with its tail, whereupon the boat of the _Termagant_ made off with the fish (which died almost immediately after), and left the crew of the boat belonging to the _Red Eric_ struggling 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 the _Termagant_, 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 the _third_ oar, 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 circ.u.mstances 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 the _Red Eric_ came 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."