The Red Eric | Page 4

were well--as well, at least, as could be
expected, considering the cataract of "trials" that perpetually descended
upon their devoted heads--they sat down as primly as if their visitor
were a perfect stranger, and entered into a somewhat lengthened
conversation as to the intended voyage, commencing, of course, with
the weather.
"And now," said the captain, rubbing the crown of his straw hat in a
circular manner, as if it were a beaver, "I'm coming to the point."
Both ladies exclaimed, "What point, George?" simultaneously, and
regarded the captain with a look of anxious surprise.
"The point," replied the captain, "about which I've come here to-day. It
ain't a point o' the compass; nevertheless, I've been steerin' it in my
mind's eye for a considerable time past. The fact is" (here the captain
hesitated), "I--I've made up my mind to take my little Alice along with
me this voyage."
The Misses Dunning wore unusually tall caps, and their countenances
were by nature uncommonly long, but the length to which they grew on
hearing this announcement was something preternaturally awful.

"Take Ailie to sea!" exclaimed Miss Martha Dunning, in horror.
"To fish for whales!" added Miss Jane Dunning, in consternation.
"Brother, you're mad!" they exclaimed together, after a breathless pause;
"and you'll do nothing of the kind," they added firmly.
Now, the manner in which the Misses Dunning received this
intelligence greatly relieved their eccentric brother. He had fully
anticipated, and very much dreaded, that they would at once burst into
tears, and being a tender-hearted man he knew that he could not resist
that without a hard struggle. A flood of woman's tears, he was wont to
say, was the only sort of salt water storm he hadn't the heart to face.
But abrupt opposition was a species of challenge which the captain
always accepted at once--off-hand. No human power could force him to
any course of action.
In this latter quality Captain Dunning was neither eccentric nor
singular.
"I'm sorry you don't like my proposal, my dear sisters," said he; "but
I'm resolved."
"You won't!" said Martha.
"You shan't!" cried Jane.
"I will!" replied the captain.
There was a pause here of considerable length, during which the
captain observed that Martha's nostrils began to twitch nervously. Jane,
observing the fact, became similarly affected. To the captain's practised
eye these symptoms were as good as a barometer. He knew that the
storm was coming, and took in all sail at once (mentally) to be ready
for it.
It came! Martha and Jane Dunning were for once driven from the
shelter of their wonted propriety--they burst simultaneously into tears,

and buried their respective faces in their respective
pocket-handkerchiefs, which were immaculately clean and had to be
hastily unfolded for the purpose.
"Now, now, my dear girls," cried the captain, starting up and patting
their shoulders, while poor little Ailie clasped her hands, sat down on a
footstool, looked up in their faces--or, rather, at the backs of the hands
which covered their faces--and wept quietly.
"It's very cruel, George--indeed it is," sobbed Martha; "you know how
we love her."
"Very true," remarked the obdurate captain; "but you don't know how I
love her, and how sad it makes me to see so little of her, and to think
that she may be learning to forget me--or, at least," added the captain,
correcting himself as Ailie looked at him reproachfully through her
tears--"at least to do without me. I can't bear the thought. She's all I
have left to me, and--"
"Brother," interrupted Martha, looking hastily up, "did you ever before
hear of such a thing as taking a little girl on a voyage to the
whale-fishing?"
"No, never," replied the captain; "what has that got to do with it?"
Both ladies held up their hands and looked aghast. The idea of any man
venturing to do what no one ever thought of doing before was so utterly
subversive of all their ideas of propriety--such a desperate piece of
profane originality--that they remained speechless.
"George," said Martha, drying her eyes, and speaking in tones of deep
solemnity, "did you ever read Robinson Crusoe?"
"Yes, I did, when I was a boy; an' that wasn't yesterday."
"And did you," continued the lady in the same sepulchral tone, "did you
note how that man--that beacon, if I may use the expression, set up as a
warning to deter all wilful boys and men from reckless, and wicked,

and wandering, and obstreperous courses--did you note, I say, how that
man, that beacon, was shipwrecked, and spent a dreary existence on an
uninhabited and dreadful island, in company with a low, dissolute,
black, unclothed companion called Friday?"
"Yes," answered the captain, seeing that she paused for a reply.
"And all," continued Martha, "in consequence of his resolutely and
obstinately,