The Red Eric

R.M. Ballantyne (continued 7)

Reading edition

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.