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Updated: May 26, 2025
It stood in the full blaze of the centre fire, and commanded a view of all that was going on in every part of the little camp; and when Ailie lay down on it after a good supper, and was covered up with a blanket, and further covered over with a sort of gauze netting to protect her from the mosquitoes, which were very numerous when all this was done, we say, and when, in addition to this, she lay and witnessed the jovial laughter and enjoyment of His Majesty King Bumble, as he sat at the big fire smoking his pipe, and the supreme happiness of Phil Briant, and the placid joy of Tim Rokens, and the exuberant delight of Glynn, and the semi-scientific enjoyment of Dr Hopley as he examined a collection of rare plants; and the quiet comfort of the trader, and the awkward, shambling, loose-jointed pleasure of long Jim Scroggles; and the beaming felicity of her own dear father; who sat not far from her, and turned occasionally in the midst of the conversation to give her a nod she felt in her heart that then and there she had fairly reached the very happiest moment in all her life.
"Ain't it beautiful?" said a short, fat little seaman named Gurney, who sat swinging his legs on the end of the windlass, and pointed, as he spoke, with the head of his pipe to a more than usually brilliant burst of sparks and flame that issued that moment from the works. "Beautiful!" exclaimed a long-limbed, shambling fellow named Jim Scroggles, "why, that ain't the word at all.
Captain Dunning, resolving, with the true spirit of a brave commander; to reserve that honour to himself, had seen the last man, he thought, out of the ship, and was two-thirds of the distance along the rope on his way to land, when Jim Scroggles, who was always either in or out of the way at the most inopportune moments, came rushing up from below, whither he had gone to secure a favourite brass finger-ring, and scrambled over the side.
He could apostrophise his eye, on certain occasions, and tell it as though its own power of vision were an insufficient medium of information that "that wos a stunnin' iceberg;" or that "that wos a gale and a half, fit to tear the masts out o' the ship a'most." But for any less majestic object in nature, Jim Scroggles had nothing to say either to his eye, or his nose, or his shipmates.
There was another loud laugh at this, and Mr Tooth looked a little put out, and the judge cried "Silence" again, and threatened to clear the court. After a few more questions Jim Scroggles was permitted to retire, which he did oppressed with a feeling that his evidence had done the case little good, if not some harm, yet rather elated than otherwise at the success of his last hit.
Jim Scroggles, for instance, had no eye for the minute beauties or wonders of creation. Jim, according to his own assertion, could see about as far through a millstone as most men.
"Wot an 'orrible crittur!" exclaimed Jim Scroggles, in amazement at the sight. "The howdacious willain!" remarked Rokens. "Is that another on ahead?" said Glynn, pointing to an object floating on the water about a hundred yards up the river: for they had passed the lake, and were now ascending another stream. "D'ye see it, Ailie? Look!"
This witness, on that very particular occasion, when every point in the circumstances must naturally have been impressed deeply on the memories of all present, appears to have been so confused as not to know which oar of the boat he pulled. Jim Scroggles felt inclined to leap out of the witness-box, and knocked the teeth of Mr Tooth down his throat!
"Yes," roared Scroggles, forgetting at the moment, in his confusion and indignation at not being allowed to speak, in what manner the question had been put. "Yes," echoed Mr Tooth, addressing the judge, but looking at the jury. "You will observe, gentlemen. Would your lordship be so good as to note that?
As was Jim Scroggles, so were most of the other men. Hence they grumbled a good deal at their luckless condition. But upon the whole they were pretty cheerful especially at meal-times and, considering their circumstances, they behaved very well. Glynn Proctor was a notable exception to the prevailing rule of indifference to small things.
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