“As for the mercantile business, it must go on.  It has prospered and still prospers.  Many mouths are dependent on it for daily bread.  I will continue to manage it, but every penny of profit shall go in charity as long as I live.  After that, Henry may do with it as he pleases.  He has contributed largely to make it what it is, and deserves to reap where he has sown so diligently.  Do you think I am right in all this, Mary?”

We need scarcely remark that Mary did think it all right; for she and Gascoyne had no differences of opinion now.

Soon after this, Corrie went off on a long voyage in the Avenger.  The vessel touched at San Francisco, and while there, some remarkable scenes took place between Jo Bumpus and a good-looking woman whom he called Susan.  This female ultimately went on board the Avenger, and sailed in her for Green Isle.

On the way thither they touched at one of the first of the South Sea Islands that they came in sight of, where scenes of the most unprecedented description took place between Corrie and a bluff old gentleman named Ole Thorwald, and a sweet, blue-eyed, fair-haired maiden named Alice Mason!

Strange to say, this fair girl agreed to become a passenger in the Avenger; and, still more strange to say, her father and Ole Thorwald agreed to accompany her; also an ancient piece of animated door-matting called Toozle, and a black woman named Poopy, whose single observation in regard to every event in sublunary history was, “Hee! hee!”

On reaching Green Isle, Corrie and Alice were married, and on the same day Bumpus and Susan were also united.  There was great rejoicing on the occasion.  Ole Thorwald and Dick Price distinguished themselves by dancing an impromptu and maniacal pas de deux at the double wedding!

Of Captain Montague’s future career we know nothing.  He may have been killed in the wars of his country, or he may have become an admiral in the British navy, for all we know to the contrary.  One thing only we are certain of, and that is, that he sailed for England, in the pirate schooner, and seemed by no means to regret the escape of the pirate captain!

Years rolled away.  The head of Gascoyne became silvery white; but Time seemed impotent to subdue the vigor of his stalwart frame, or destroy the music of his deep bass voice.  He was the idol of numerous grandchildren as well as of a large circle of juveniles, who, without regard to whether they had or had not a right to do so, styled him “Grandfather.”

Little did these youngsters think, as they clambered over his huge frame, and listened with breathless attention to his wild stories of the sea, that “grandfather” had once been the celebrated and much-dreaded Durward, the pirate!

Nothing could induce Gascoyne to take a prominent part in the public affairs of his chosen home; but he did attempt to teach a class of the very smallest boys and girls in the missionary’s Sunday-school, and he came in time to take special delight in this work.