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 G............