The Red Eric

by R. M. Ballantyne

“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 assembled 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 nobody 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 assembled 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 entitled to chase and capture it if they were able. Angry words and threats had passed 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.