e
sailor. "Now, what's wrong?"

"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