Chapter Seventeen.The Clouds grow Thicker and Blacker.This glimpse of a stray vessel left a deep impression on the minds of the exiles for many days, and it so far influenced the women that they postponed their scheme of vengeance for some time.It must not be supposed, however, that all of those women, whom we have described as being so gentle in character, were suddenly transformed into demons. It was only two or three of the more energetic and passionate among them who stirred up the rest, and forced them to fall in with their views. These passionate ones were the widows of the men who had been slain. They not only felt their loss most bitterly, but became almost mad with the despair caused by their forlorn condition, and the apparent hopelessness of deliverance.The sight of the passing ship had diverted their thoughts for a time, perhaps had infused a little hope; but when the excitement died down they renewed their plots against the men and at last made a desperate attempt to carry them out.It was on a dark and stormy night. Thunder was rolling in the sky. Lightning flashed among the mountain-peaks. Rain, the first that had descended for many days, fell in fitful showers. It must have seemed to the women either that the elements sympathised with them, or that the extreme darkness was favourable to the execution of their plan, for about midnight one of them rose from her bed, and crept noiselessly to the corner of her hut, where she had seen Quintal deposit a loaded musket the previous day. Possessing herself of the weapon, she went straight to the widow of Fletcher Christian, and wakened her. She rose, somewhat reluctantly, and followed the woman, whose face was concealed in a kerchief of native cloth. The two then went cautiously to another hat, where two of the wives of the murdered Otaheitans awaited them, the one with a long knife, the other with an axe in her hand.They whispered together for a few seconds. As they did so there came a tremendous crash of thunder, followed by a flash which revealed the dark heads and glistening eyeballs drawn together in a group.“We had better not try to-night,” said one voice, timidly.“Faint heart, you may stay behind,” replied another voice, firmly. “Come, let us not delay. They were cruel; we will be cruel too.”They all crouched down, and seemed to melt into the dark earth. When the next lightning-flash rent the heavens they were gone.Lying in his bunk, opposite the door of his house, that night, John Adams lay half asleep and half-conscious of the storm outside. As he lay with closed eyes there came a glaring flash of light. It revealed in the open doorway several pallid faces and glistening eyeballs.“A strange dream,” thought Adams; “stranger still to dream of dreaming.”The thunder-clap that followed was mingled with a crash, a burst of smoke, and a shriek that caused Adams to leap from his couch as a bullet whistled past his ear. In the succeeding lightning-flash he beheld a woman near him with an uplifted axe, another with a gleaming knife, and Edward Young, who slept in his house that night, in the act of leaping upon her.Adams was prompt to act on all occasions. He caught the uplifted axe, and wrenching it from her grasp, thrust the woman out of the door.“There,” he said, quietly, “go thy way, lass. I don’t care to know which of ’ee’s done it. Let the other one go too, Mr Young. It’s not worth while making a work about it.”The midshipman obeyed, and going to a shelf in a corner, took down a torch made of small nuts strung on a palm-spine, struck a light, and kindled it.“Poor things,” he said, “I’m sorry for them. They’ve had hard times here.”“They won’t try it again,” remarked Adams, as he closed the door, and quietly turned again into his sleeping-bunk.But John Adams was wrong. Foiled though they were on this occasion, and glad though some of them must have been at their failure, there were one or two who could not rest, and who afterwards made another attempt on the lives of the men. This also failed. The first offence had been freely forgiven, but this time it was intimated that if another attempt were made, they should all be put to death. Fortunately, the courage of even the most violent of the women had been exhausted. To the relief of the others they gave up their murderous designs, and settled down into that state of submission which was natural to them.One might have thought that now, at last, the little colony of Pitcairn had passed its worst days, most of the disturbing elements having been removed; but there was yet one other cloud, the blackest of all, to burst over them. One of the world’s greatest curses was about to be introduced among them. It happened thus:—One night William McCoy went to his house up on the mountain-side, entered it, and shut and bolted the door. This was an unusual proceeding on his part, and had no connection with the recent attempts at murder made by the women, because he was quite fearless in regard to that, and scoffed at the possibility of being killed by women. He also carefully fastened the window-shutters. He appeared to be somewhat excited, and went about his operations with an air at once of slyness and of mystery.A small torch or nut-candle which he lighted and set on a bracket on the wall gave out a faint flickering light, which barely rendered darkness visible, and from its position threw parts of the chamber into deepest gloom. It looked not unlike what we suppose would be the laboratory of an alchemist of the olden time, and McCoy himself, with his eager yet frowning visage, a native-made hat slouched over his brows, and a piece of native cloth thrown over his shoulders like a plaid, was no bad representative of an old doctor toiling for the secrets that turn base metal into gold, and old age into youth—secrets, by the way, which have been lying open to man’s hand for centuries in the Word of God.Taking down from a shelf a large kettle which had formed part of the furniture of theBounty, and a twisted metal pipe derived from the same source, he fitted them up on a species of stove or oven made of clay. The darkness of the place rendered his movements not very obvious; but he appeared to put something into the kettle, and fill it with water. Then he put charcoal into the oven, kindled it, and blew it laboriously with his mouth until it became red-hot. This flameless fire did not tend much to enlighten surrounding objects; it merely added to them a lurid tinge of red. The operator’s face, being close in front of the fire as he blew, seemed almost as hot as the glowing coals.With patient watchfulness he sat there crouching over the fire for several hours, occasionally blowing it up or adding more fuel.As the experiment went on, McCoy’s eyes seemed to dilate with expectation, and his breathing quickened. After a time he rose and lifted a bottle out of a tub of water near the stove. The bottle was attached to one end of the twisted tube, which was connected with the kettle on the fire. Detaching it therefrom, he raised it quickly to the light. Then he put it to his nose and smelt it. As he did so his face lit up with an expression of delight. Taking down from a shelf a cocoa-nut cup, he poured into it some sparkling liquid from the bottle. It is a question which at that moment sparkled most, McCoy’s eyes or the liquid.He sipped a little, and his rough visage broke into a beaming smile. He drank it all, and then he smacked his lips and laughed—not quite a joyous laugh, but a wild, fierce, triumphant laugh, such as one might imagine would issue from the panting lips of some stout victor of the olden time as he clutched a much-coveted prize, after slaying some half-dozen enemies.“Ha ha! I’ve got it at last!” he cried aloud, smacking his lips again.And so he had. Long and earnestly had he laboured to make use of a fatal piece of knowledge which he possessed. Among the hills of Scotland McCoy had learned the art of making ardent spirits. After many failures, he had on this night made a successful attempt with the ti-root, which grew in abundance on Pitcairn. The spirit was at last produced. As the liquid ran burning down his throat, the memory of a passion which he had not felt for years came back upon him with overwhelming force. In his new-born ecstasy he uttered a wild cheer, and filling more spirit into the cup, quaffed it again.“Splendid!” he cried, “first-rate. Hurrah!”A tremendous knocking at the door checked him, and arrested his hand as he was about to fill another cup.“Who’s that?” he demanded, angrily.“Open the door an’ you’ll see.”The voice was that of Matthew Quintal. McCoy let him in at once.“See here,” he cried, eagerly, holding up the bottle with a leer, “I’ve got it at last!”“So any deaf man might have found out by the way you’ve bin shoutin’ it. Why didn’t you open sooner?”“Never heard you, Matt. Was too much engaged with my new friend, I suppose. Come, I’ll introdooce him to you.”“Look alive, then,” growled Quintal, impatiently, for he seemed to have smelt the spirit, as the warhorse is said to smell the battle from afar. “Give us hold o’ the cup and fill up; fill up, I say, to the brim. None o’ your half measures for me.”He took a mouthful, rolled it round and round with his tongue once or twice, and swallowed it.“Heh, that’sitonce more! Come, here’s your health, McCoy! We’ll be better friends than ever now; good luck to ’ee.”McCoy thought that there was room for improvement in their friendship, but said nothing, as he watched his comrade pour the fiery liquid slowly down his throat, as if he wished to prolong the sensation.“Another,” he said, holding out the cup.“No, no; drink fair, Matt Quintal; wotever you do, drink fair. It’s my turn now.”“Your turn?” retorted Quintal, fiercely; “why, you’ve bin swillin’ away for half-an-hour before I came.”“No, Matt, no; honour bright. I’d only just begun. But come, we won’t quarrel over it. Here’s the other half o’ the nut, so we’ll drink together. Now, hold steady.”“More need for me to give you that advice; you shake the bottle as if you’d got the ague. If you spill a drop, now, I’ll—I’ll flatten your big nose on your ugly face.”Not in the least hurt by such uncomplimentary threats, McCoy smiled as he filled the cup held by his comrade. The spirit was beginning to tell on him, and the smile was of that imbecile character which denotes perfect self-satisfaction and good-will. Having poured the remainder into his own cup, he refixed the bottle to the tube of the “still,” and while more of the liquid was being extracted, the cronies sat down on low stools before the stove, to spend a pleasant evening in poisoning themselves!It may be interesting and instructive, though somewhat sad, to trace the steps by which those two men, formed originally in God’s image, reduced themselves, of their own free will, to a level much lower than that of the brutes.“Doesn’t the taste of it bring back old times?” said McCoy, holding his cup to the light as he might have held up a transparent glass.“Ay,” assented Quintal, gradually becoming amiable, “the good old times before that fool Fletcher Christian indooced us to jine him. Here’s to ’ee, lad, once more.”“Why, when I think o’ the jolly times I’ve had at the Blue Boar of Plymouth,” said McCoy, “or at the Swan wi’ the two throttles, in—in—I forget where, I feel—I feel—like—like—here’s your health again, Matt Quintal. Give us your flipper, man. You’re not a bad feller, if you wasn’t given to grumpin’ so much.”Quintal’s amiability, even when roused to excess by drink, was easily dissipated. The free remarks of his comrade did not tend to increase it, but he said nothing, and refreshed himself with another sip.“I really do think,” continued McCoy, looking at his companion with an intensity of feeling which is not describable, “I really do think that—that—when I think o’ that Blue Boar, I could a’most become poetical.”“If you did,” growled Quintal, “you would not be the first that had become a big fool on a worse subjec’.”“I shay, Matt Quintal,” returned the other, who was beginning to talk rather thickly, so powerful was the effect of the liquor on his unaccustomed nerves; “I shay, ole feller, you used to sing well once. Come g–give us a stave now.”“Bah!” was Quintal’s reply, with a look of undisguised contempt.“Jus-so. ’Xactly my opinion about it. Well, as you won’t sing, I’ll give you a ditty myself.”Hereupon McCoy struck up a song, which, being deficient in taste, while its execution was defective as well as tuneless, did not seem to produce much effect on Quintal. He bore it with equanimity, until McCoy came to a note so far beyond his powers that he broke into a shriek.“Come, get some more drink,” growled his comrade, pointing to the still; “it must be ready by this time.”“Shum more drink!” exclaimed McCoy, with a look of indignant surprise. Then, sliding into a smile of imbecile good-humour, “You shl-’ave-it, my boy, you shl-’ave-it.”He unfixed the bottle with an unsteady hand, and winking with dreadful solemnity, filled up his companion’s cup. Then he filled his own, and sat down to resume his song. But Quintal could stand no more of it; he ordered his comrade to “stop his noise.”“Shtop my noise!” exclaimed McCoy, with a look of lofty disdain.“Yes, stop it, an’ let’s talk.”“Well, I’m w–willin’ t’ talk,” returned McCoy, after a grave and thoughtful pause.They chose politics as a light, agreeable subject of conversation.“Now, you see, ’s my ’pinion, Matt, that them coves up’t th’ Admiralty don’t know no more how to guv’n this country than they knows how to work a Turk’s head on a man-rope.”“P’r’aps not,” replied Quintal, with a look of wise solemnity.“Nor’-a-bit—on it,” continued McCoy, becoming earnest. “An’ wot on earth’s the use o’ the Lords an’ Commons an’ War Office? W’y don’t they slump ’em all together into one ’ouse, an’ get the Archbishop o’ Cantingbury to bless ’em all, right off, same as the Pope does. That’s w’ere it is. D’ye see? That’s w’ere the shoe pinches.”“Ah, an’ what would you make o’ the King?” demanded Quintal, with an argumentative frown.“The King, eh?” said McCoy, bringing his fuddled mind to bear on this royal difficulty; “the King, eh? Why, I’d—I’d make lop-scouse o’ the King.”“Come, that’s treason. You shan’t speak treason inmycompany, Bill McCoy. I’m a man-o’-war’s man. It won’t do to shove treason in the face of a mar-o’-wa-a-r. If Iama mutineer, w’at o’ that? I’ll let no other man haul down my colours. So don’t go shovin’ treason at me, Bill McCoy.”“I’ll shove treason w’erever I please,” said McCoy, fiercely.“No you shan’t.”“Yes I shall.”From this point the conversation became very contradictory in tone, then recriminative, and after that personally abusive. At last Quintal, losing temper, threw the remains of his last cup of spirits in his friend’s face. McCoy at once hit Quintal on the nose. He returned wildly on the eye, and jumping up, the two grappled in fierce anger.They were both powerful men, whose natural tendency to personal violence towards each other had, up to this time, been restrained by prudence; but now that the great destroyer of sense and sanity was once again coursing through their veins, there was nothing to check them. All the grudges and bitternesses of the past few years seemed to have been revived and concentrated on that night, and they struggled about the little room with the fury of madmen, striking out savagely, but with comparatively little effect, because of excessive passion, coupled with intoxication, clutching and tugging at each other’s whiskers and hair, and cursing with dreadful sincerity.There was little furniture in the room, but what there was they smashed in pieces. Quintal flung McCoy on the table, and jumping on the top of him, broke it down. The other managed to get on his legs again, clutched Quintal by the throat, and thrust him backward with such violence that he went crashing against the little window-shutters, split them up, and drove them out. In one of their wildest bursts they both fell into the fireplace, overturned the still, and scattered the fire. Fortunately, the embers were nearly out by this time. Tumbling over the stools and wreck, these men—who had begun the evening as friends, continued it as fools, and ended it as fiends—fell side by side into one of the sleeping-bunks, the bottom of which was driven down by the shock as they sank exhausted amid the wreck, foaming with passion, and covered with blood. This was the climax; they fell into a state of partial insensibility, which degenerated at last into a deep lethargic slumber.Hitherto the quarrels and fights that had so disturbed the peace of Pitcairn, and darkened her moral sky, had been at least intelligently founded on hatred or revenge, with a definite object and murderous end in view. Now, for the first time, a furious battle had been fought for nothing, with no object to be gained, and no end in view; with besotted idiots for the champions, and with strong drink for the cause.
This glimpse of a stray vessel left a deep impression on the minds of the exiles for many days, and it so far influenced the women that they postponed their scheme of vengeance for some time.
It must not be supposed, however, that all of those women, whom we have described as being so gentle in character, were suddenly transformed into demons. It was only two or three of the more energetic and passionate among them who stirred up the rest, and forced them to fall in with their views. These passionate ones were the widows of the men who had been slain. They not only felt their loss most bitterly, but became almost mad with the despair caused by their forlorn condition, and the apparent hopelessness of deliverance.
The sight of the passing ship had diverted their thoughts for a time, perhaps had infused a little hope; but when the excitement died down they renewed their plots against the men and at last made a desperate attempt to carry them out.
It was on a dark and stormy night. Thunder was rolling in the sky. Lightning flashed among the mountain-peaks. Rain, the first that had descended for many days, fell in fitful showers. It must have seemed to the women either that the elements sympathised with them, or that the extreme darkness was favourable to the execution of their plan, for about midnight one of them rose from her bed, and crept noiselessly to the corner of her hut, where she had seen Quintal deposit a loaded musket the previous day. Possessing herself of the weapon, she went straight to the widow of Fletcher Christian, and wakened her. She rose, somewhat reluctantly, and followed the woman, whose face was concealed in a kerchief of native cloth. The two then went cautiously to another hat, where two of the wives of the murdered Otaheitans awaited them, the one with a long knife, the other with an axe in her hand.
They whispered together for a few seconds. As they did so there came a tremendous crash of thunder, followed by a flash which revealed the dark heads and glistening eyeballs drawn together in a group.
“We had better not try to-night,” said one voice, timidly.
“Faint heart, you may stay behind,” replied another voice, firmly. “Come, let us not delay. They were cruel; we will be cruel too.”
They all crouched down, and seemed to melt into the dark earth. When the next lightning-flash rent the heavens they were gone.
Lying in his bunk, opposite the door of his house, that night, John Adams lay half asleep and half-conscious of the storm outside. As he lay with closed eyes there came a glaring flash of light. It revealed in the open doorway several pallid faces and glistening eyeballs.
“A strange dream,” thought Adams; “stranger still to dream of dreaming.”
The thunder-clap that followed was mingled with a crash, a burst of smoke, and a shriek that caused Adams to leap from his couch as a bullet whistled past his ear. In the succeeding lightning-flash he beheld a woman near him with an uplifted axe, another with a gleaming knife, and Edward Young, who slept in his house that night, in the act of leaping upon her.
Adams was prompt to act on all occasions. He caught the uplifted axe, and wrenching it from her grasp, thrust the woman out of the door.
“There,” he said, quietly, “go thy way, lass. I don’t care to know which of ’ee’s done it. Let the other one go too, Mr Young. It’s not worth while making a work about it.”
The midshipman obeyed, and going to a shelf in a corner, took down a torch made of small nuts strung on a palm-spine, struck a light, and kindled it.
“Poor things,” he said, “I’m sorry for them. They’ve had hard times here.”
“They won’t try it again,” remarked Adams, as he closed the door, and quietly turned again into his sleeping-bunk.
But John Adams was wrong. Foiled though they were on this occasion, and glad though some of them must have been at their failure, there were one or two who could not rest, and who afterwards made another attempt on the lives of the men. This also failed. The first offence had been freely forgiven, but this time it was intimated that if another attempt were made, they should all be put to death. Fortunately, the courage of even the most violent of the women had been exhausted. To the relief of the others they gave up their murderous designs, and settled down into that state of submission which was natural to them.
One might have thought that now, at last, the little colony of Pitcairn had passed its worst days, most of the disturbing elements having been removed; but there was yet one other cloud, the blackest of all, to burst over them. One of the world’s greatest curses was about to be introduced among them. It happened thus:—
One night William McCoy went to his house up on the mountain-side, entered it, and shut and bolted the door. This was an unusual proceeding on his part, and had no connection with the recent attempts at murder made by the women, because he was quite fearless in regard to that, and scoffed at the possibility of being killed by women. He also carefully fastened the window-shutters. He appeared to be somewhat excited, and went about his operations with an air at once of slyness and of mystery.
A small torch or nut-candle which he lighted and set on a bracket on the wall gave out a faint flickering light, which barely rendered darkness visible, and from its position threw parts of the chamber into deepest gloom. It looked not unlike what we suppose would be the laboratory of an alchemist of the olden time, and McCoy himself, with his eager yet frowning visage, a native-made hat slouched over his brows, and a piece of native cloth thrown over his shoulders like a plaid, was no bad representative of an old doctor toiling for the secrets that turn base metal into gold, and old age into youth—secrets, by the way, which have been lying open to man’s hand for centuries in the Word of God.
Taking down from a shelf a large kettle which had formed part of the furniture of theBounty, and a twisted metal pipe derived from the same source, he fitted them up on a species of stove or oven made of clay. The darkness of the place rendered his movements not very obvious; but he appeared to put something into the kettle, and fill it with water. Then he put charcoal into the oven, kindled it, and blew it laboriously with his mouth until it became red-hot. This flameless fire did not tend much to enlighten surrounding objects; it merely added to them a lurid tinge of red. The operator’s face, being close in front of the fire as he blew, seemed almost as hot as the glowing coals.
With patient watchfulness he sat there crouching over the fire for several hours, occasionally blowing it up or adding more fuel.
As the experiment went on, McCoy’s eyes seemed to dilate with expectation, and his breathing quickened. After a time he rose and lifted a bottle out of a tub of water near the stove. The bottle was attached to one end of the twisted tube, which was connected with the kettle on the fire. Detaching it therefrom, he raised it quickly to the light. Then he put it to his nose and smelt it. As he did so his face lit up with an expression of delight. Taking down from a shelf a cocoa-nut cup, he poured into it some sparkling liquid from the bottle. It is a question which at that moment sparkled most, McCoy’s eyes or the liquid.
He sipped a little, and his rough visage broke into a beaming smile. He drank it all, and then he smacked his lips and laughed—not quite a joyous laugh, but a wild, fierce, triumphant laugh, such as one might imagine would issue from the panting lips of some stout victor of the olden time as he clutched a much-coveted prize, after slaying some half-dozen enemies.
“Ha ha! I’ve got it at last!” he cried aloud, smacking his lips again.
And so he had. Long and earnestly had he laboured to make use of a fatal piece of knowledge which he possessed. Among the hills of Scotland McCoy had learned the art of making ardent spirits. After many failures, he had on this night made a successful attempt with the ti-root, which grew in abundance on Pitcairn. The spirit was at last produced. As the liquid ran burning down his throat, the memory of a passion which he had not felt for years came back upon him with overwhelming force. In his new-born ecstasy he uttered a wild cheer, and filling more spirit into the cup, quaffed it again.
“Splendid!” he cried, “first-rate. Hurrah!”
A tremendous knocking at the door checked him, and arrested his hand as he was about to fill another cup.
“Who’s that?” he demanded, angrily.
“Open the door an’ you’ll see.”
The voice was that of Matthew Quintal. McCoy let him in at once.
“See here,” he cried, eagerly, holding up the bottle with a leer, “I’ve got it at last!”
“So any deaf man might have found out by the way you’ve bin shoutin’ it. Why didn’t you open sooner?”
“Never heard you, Matt. Was too much engaged with my new friend, I suppose. Come, I’ll introdooce him to you.”
“Look alive, then,” growled Quintal, impatiently, for he seemed to have smelt the spirit, as the warhorse is said to smell the battle from afar. “Give us hold o’ the cup and fill up; fill up, I say, to the brim. None o’ your half measures for me.”
He took a mouthful, rolled it round and round with his tongue once or twice, and swallowed it.
“Heh, that’sitonce more! Come, here’s your health, McCoy! We’ll be better friends than ever now; good luck to ’ee.”
McCoy thought that there was room for improvement in their friendship, but said nothing, as he watched his comrade pour the fiery liquid slowly down his throat, as if he wished to prolong the sensation.
“Another,” he said, holding out the cup.
“No, no; drink fair, Matt Quintal; wotever you do, drink fair. It’s my turn now.”
“Your turn?” retorted Quintal, fiercely; “why, you’ve bin swillin’ away for half-an-hour before I came.”
“No, Matt, no; honour bright. I’d only just begun. But come, we won’t quarrel over it. Here’s the other half o’ the nut, so we’ll drink together. Now, hold steady.”
“More need for me to give you that advice; you shake the bottle as if you’d got the ague. If you spill a drop, now, I’ll—I’ll flatten your big nose on your ugly face.”
Not in the least hurt by such uncomplimentary threats, McCoy smiled as he filled the cup held by his comrade. The spirit was beginning to tell on him, and the smile was of that imbecile character which denotes perfect self-satisfaction and good-will. Having poured the remainder into his own cup, he refixed the bottle to the tube of the “still,” and while more of the liquid was being extracted, the cronies sat down on low stools before the stove, to spend a pleasant evening in poisoning themselves!
It may be interesting and instructive, though somewhat sad, to trace the steps by which those two men, formed originally in God’s image, reduced themselves, of their own free will, to a level much lower than that of the brutes.
“Doesn’t the taste of it bring back old times?” said McCoy, holding his cup to the light as he might have held up a transparent glass.
“Ay,” assented Quintal, gradually becoming amiable, “the good old times before that fool Fletcher Christian indooced us to jine him. Here’s to ’ee, lad, once more.”
“Why, when I think o’ the jolly times I’ve had at the Blue Boar of Plymouth,” said McCoy, “or at the Swan wi’ the two throttles, in—in—I forget where, I feel—I feel—like—like—here’s your health again, Matt Quintal. Give us your flipper, man. You’re not a bad feller, if you wasn’t given to grumpin’ so much.”
Quintal’s amiability, even when roused to excess by drink, was easily dissipated. The free remarks of his comrade did not tend to increase it, but he said nothing, and refreshed himself with another sip.
“I really do think,” continued McCoy, looking at his companion with an intensity of feeling which is not describable, “I really do think that—that—when I think o’ that Blue Boar, I could a’most become poetical.”
“If you did,” growled Quintal, “you would not be the first that had become a big fool on a worse subjec’.”
“I shay, Matt Quintal,” returned the other, who was beginning to talk rather thickly, so powerful was the effect of the liquor on his unaccustomed nerves; “I shay, ole feller, you used to sing well once. Come g–give us a stave now.”
“Bah!” was Quintal’s reply, with a look of undisguised contempt.
“Jus-so. ’Xactly my opinion about it. Well, as you won’t sing, I’ll give you a ditty myself.”
Hereupon McCoy struck up a song, which, being deficient in taste, while its execution was defective as well as tuneless, did not seem to produce much effect on Quintal. He bore it with equanimity, until McCoy came to a note so far beyond his powers that he broke into a shriek.
“Come, get some more drink,” growled his comrade, pointing to the still; “it must be ready by this time.”
“Shum more drink!” exclaimed McCoy, with a look of indignant surprise. Then, sliding into a smile of imbecile good-humour, “You shl-’ave-it, my boy, you shl-’ave-it.”
He unfixed the bottle with an unsteady hand, and winking with dreadful solemnity, filled up his companion’s cup. Then he filled his own, and sat down to resume his song. But Quintal could stand no more of it; he ordered his comrade to “stop his noise.”
“Shtop my noise!” exclaimed McCoy, with a look of lofty disdain.
“Yes, stop it, an’ let’s talk.”
“Well, I’m w–willin’ t’ talk,” returned McCoy, after a grave and thoughtful pause.
They chose politics as a light, agreeable subject of conversation.
“Now, you see, ’s my ’pinion, Matt, that them coves up’t th’ Admiralty don’t know no more how to guv’n this country than they knows how to work a Turk’s head on a man-rope.”
“P’r’aps not,” replied Quintal, with a look of wise solemnity.
“Nor’-a-bit—on it,” continued McCoy, becoming earnest. “An’ wot on earth’s the use o’ the Lords an’ Commons an’ War Office? W’y don’t they slump ’em all together into one ’ouse, an’ get the Archbishop o’ Cantingbury to bless ’em all, right off, same as the Pope does. That’s w’ere it is. D’ye see? That’s w’ere the shoe pinches.”
“Ah, an’ what would you make o’ the King?” demanded Quintal, with an argumentative frown.
“The King, eh?” said McCoy, bringing his fuddled mind to bear on this royal difficulty; “the King, eh? Why, I’d—I’d make lop-scouse o’ the King.”
“Come, that’s treason. You shan’t speak treason inmycompany, Bill McCoy. I’m a man-o’-war’s man. It won’t do to shove treason in the face of a mar-o’-wa-a-r. If Iama mutineer, w’at o’ that? I’ll let no other man haul down my colours. So don’t go shovin’ treason at me, Bill McCoy.”
“I’ll shove treason w’erever I please,” said McCoy, fiercely.
“No you shan’t.”
“Yes I shall.”
From this point the conversation became very contradictory in tone, then recriminative, and after that personally abusive. At last Quintal, losing temper, threw the remains of his last cup of spirits in his friend’s face. McCoy at once hit Quintal on the nose. He returned wildly on the eye, and jumping up, the two grappled in fierce anger.
They were both powerful men, whose natural tendency to personal violence towards each other had, up to this time, been restrained by prudence; but now that the great destroyer of sense and sanity was once again coursing through their veins, there was nothing to check them. All the grudges and bitternesses of the past few years seemed to have been revived and concentrated on that night, and they struggled about the little room with the fury of madmen, striking out savagely, but with comparatively little effect, because of excessive passion, coupled with intoxication, clutching and tugging at each other’s whiskers and hair, and cursing with dreadful sincerity.
There was little furniture in the room, but what there was they smashed in pieces. Quintal flung McCoy on the table, and jumping on the top of him, broke it down. The other managed to get on his legs again, clutched Quintal by the throat, and thrust him backward with such violence that he went crashing against the little window-shutters, split them up, and drove them out. In one of their wildest bursts they both fell into the fireplace, overturned the still, and scattered the fire. Fortunately, the embers were nearly out by this time. Tumbling over the stools and wreck, these men—who had begun the evening as friends, continued it as fools, and ended it as fiends—fell side by side into one of the sleeping-bunks, the bottom of which was driven down by the shock as they sank exhausted amid the wreck, foaming with passion, and covered with blood. This was the climax; they fell into a state of partial insensibility, which degenerated at last into a deep lethargic slumber.
Hitherto the quarrels and fights that had so disturbed the peace of Pitcairn, and darkened her moral sky, had been at least intelligently founded on hatred or revenge, with a definite object and murderous end in view. Now, for the first time, a furious battle had been fought for nothing, with no object to be gained, and no end in view; with besotted idiots for the champions, and with strong drink for the cause.
Chapter Eighteen.Aquatic Amusements.Now, it must not be supposed that the wives and widows of these mutineers gave themselves up to moping or sadness after the failure of their wild attempt to make their condition worse by slaying all the men. By no means. By degrees they recovered the natural tone of their mild yet hearty dispositions, and at last, we presume, came to wonder that they had ever been so mad or so bad.Neither must it be imagined that these women were condemned to be the laborious drudges who are fitly described as “hewers of wood and drawers of water.” They did indeed draw a good deal of water in the course of each day, but they spent much time also in making the tapa cloth with which they repaired the worn-out clothes of their husbands, or fabricated petticoats for themselves and such of the children as had grown old enough to require such garments. But besides these occupations, they spent a portion of their time in prattling gossip, which, whatever the subject might be, was always accompanied with a great deal of merriment and hearty laughter. They also spent no small portion of their time in the sea, for bathing was one of the favourite amusements of the Pitcairners, young and old.Coming up one day to Susannah, the wife of Edward Young, Thursday October Christian begged that she would go with him and bathe.Susannah was engaged in making the native cloth at the time, and laid down her mallet with a look of indecision. It may be remarked here that a mallet is used in the making of this cloth, which is not woven, but beaten out from a state of pulp; it is, in fact, rather a species of tough paper than cloth, and is produced from the bark of the paper mulberry.“I’s got to finish dis bit of cloth to-day, Toc,” said Susannah, in broken English, for she knew that Master Thursday October preferred that tongue to Otaheitan, though he could speak both, “an’ it’s gettin’ late.”“Oh,whata pity!” said TOC, with a look of mild disappointment.Now Susannah was by far the youngest and most girlish among the Otaheitan women, and could not resist an appeal to her feelings even when uttered only by the eyes. Besides, little Toc was a great favourite with her. She therefore burst into a merry laugh, gently pulled Thursday’s nose, and said, “Well, come along; but we’ll git some o’ the others for go too, an’ have some fun. You go klect de jumpers. Me git de womans.” Susannah referred to the older children by the term “Jumpers.”Highly pleased, the urchin started off at once. He found one of the jumpers, namely, Otaheitan Sally, nursing Polly Young, while she delivered an oracular discourse to Charlie Christian, who sat at her feet, meekly receiving and believing the most outrageous nonsense that ever was heard. It is but just to Sally, however, to say that she gave her information in all good faith, having been previously instructed by John Adams, whose desire for the good of the young people was at that period stronger than his love of truth. Wishing to keep their minds as long as possible ignorant of the outer world, he had told them that ships came out of a hole in the clouds on the horizon.“Yes, Charlie, it’s quite true; father Adams says so. They comes out of a hole on the horizon.”Charlie’s huge eyes gazed in perplexity from his instructor’s face to the horizon, as if he expected to behold a ship emerging from a hole then and there. Then, turning to Sally again with a simple look, he asked—“But why does sips come out of holes on de ’rizon?”Sally was silenced. She was not the first knowing one who had been silenced by a child.Little Daniel McCoy came up at the moment. Having passed the “staggering” period of life, he no longer walked the earth in a state of nudity, but was decorated with a pair of very short tapa trousers, cut in imitation of seafaring ducks, but reaching only to the knees. He also wore a little shirt.“Me kin tell why ships come out ob de hole in de horizon,” he said, with a twinkle in his eyes; “just for notin’ else dan to turn about an’ go back into de hole again.”“Nonsense, Dan’l!” cried Sally, with a laugh.“Nonsense!” repeated Dan, with an injured look. “Didn’t you saw’d it happen jus’ t’other day?”“Well, I did saw the ship go farer an’ farer away, an’ vanish,” admitted Sall; “but he didn’t go into a hole that time.”“Pooh!” ejaculated little Dan, “dat’s ’cause de hole was too far away to be seen.”Further discussion of the subject was prevented by the arrival of Thursday.“Well, Toc, you’s in a hurry to-day,” said little Dan, with a look of innocent insolence.“We’re all to go an’ bathe, child’n,” cried Thursday, with a look of delight; “Susannah’s goin’, an’ all the ’oomans, an’ she send me for you.”“Hurrah!” shouted Dan and Sally.“Goin’ to bave,” cried Charlie Christian to Lizzie Mills, who was attracted by the cheering, which also brought up Matt Quintal, who led his little sister Sarah by the hand. Sarah was yet a staggerer, and so was Dinah Adams, also Mary Christian; Polly Young and John Mills had not yet attained even to the staggering period—they were only what little Dan McCoy called sprawlers.Before many minutes had elapsed, the whole colony of women, jumpers, staggerers, and sprawlers, were assembled on the beach at Bounty Bay.It could scarcely be said that the women undressed—they merely threw off the light scarf or bodice that covered their shoulders, but kept on the short skirts, which were no impediment to their graceful movements in the water. The jumpers, of course, were only too glad of the excuse to get out of their very meagre allowance of clothing, and the rest were, so to speak, naturally ready for the plunge.It was a splendid forenoon. There was not a zephyr to ruffle the calm breast of the Pacific, nevertheless the gentle undulation of that mighty bosom sent wave after wave like green liquid walls into the bay in ceaseless regularity. These, toppling over, and breaking, and coming in with a succession of magnificent roars, finally hissed in harmless foam on the shingly beach.“Now, T’ursday,” said Mrs Adams, “you stop here an’ take care o’ de sprawlers.”Adams’s helpmate was the oldest of the women, and defective in vision. Her commands were law. Thursday October would as soon have thought of disobeying Adams himself as his wife. It was not in his nature, despite its goodness, to help feeling disappointed at being left in charge of the little ones. However, he made up his mind at once to the sacrifice.“Never mind, Toc,” said Young’s wife, with a bright smile, “I’ll stay an’ keep you company.”This was ample compensation to Thursday. He immediately flung himself into the shallow surf, and turning his face to the land, held out his arms and dared the little ones to come to him. Two of them instantly accepted the challenge, crept down to the water, and were beaten back by the next rush of foam. But they were caught up and held aloft with a shout of glee by Susannah.Meanwhile, the women advanced into the deep surf with the small children on their shoulders, while the others, being able to look after themselves, followed, panting with excitement for although able to swim like corks they found it extremely difficult to do battle with the rushing water.Deeper and deeper the foremost women went, until they neared the unbroken glassy billows.“I’ll go at de nixt,” muttered Mrs Adams to Mary Christian, who was on her back, clutching tight round her neck.The “nixt” was a liquid wall that came rolling grandly in with ever-increasing force and volume, until it hovered to its fall almost over the heads of the daring women. Mrs Adams, Mainmast, and Mills’s widow, who were the foremost of the group, bent their heads forward, and with a graceful but vigorous plunge, sprang straight into the wall of water and went right through it. The others, though a moment later, were quite in time. The children also, uttering wild screams in varied keys, faced the billow gallantly, and pierced it like needles. Another moment, and they were all safe in deep water on the seaward side, while the wave went thundering to the shore in a tumultuous wilderness of foam, and spent its weakened force among the babies.The moment the women were safe beyond the rolling influence of these great waves, in the calm sea beyond, they threw the staggerers from their shoulders and let them try their own unaided powers, while the jumpers swam and floated around to watch the result.These wonderful infants disported themselves variously in the sea. Mary Christian wobbled about easily, as if too fat to sink, and Bessy Mills supported herself bravely, being much encouraged by the presence and the cheering remarks of that humorous imp Dan McCoy. But Charlie Christian showed symptoms of alarm, and losing heart after a few moments, threw up his fat little arms and sank. Like the swooping eagle, his mother plunged forward, placed a hand under him, and lifted him on her shoulders, where he recovered equanimity in a few minutes, and soon wanted to be again sent afloat. When this had gone on for a little time, the women reshouldered their babies and swam boldly out to sea, followed at various distances by the youngsters. Of these latter, Sall of Otaheite was by far the best. She easily outstripped the other children, and could almost keep pace with the women.Meanwhile Thursday October Christian and Susannah Young performed amazing feats with the infants in the shallow water on the beach. Sarah Quintal and Johnny Mills gave them some trouble, having a strong disposition to explore places beyond their depth; but Dinah Adams and Polly Young were as good as gold, spluttering towards their guardians when called, and showing no tendency to do anything of their own immediate free will, except sit on the sand and let the foam rush round and over them like soap-suds.Now, it is well-known that every now and then there are waves of the sea which seem to have been born on a gigantic scale, and which, emerging somewhere from the great deep, come to shore with a grander roar and a higher rush than ordinary waves.One such roller came in while no one was on the look-out for it. Its deep-toned roar first apprised Susannah of its approach, but before she could run to the rescue its white crest was careering up the beach in magnificent style. It caught the infants, each sitting with a look of innocent surprise on the sand. It turned them head over heels, and swept them up the shingly shore. It tumbled Susannah herself over in its might, and swept Thursday October fairly off his legs. Having terminated its career thus playfully, the big wave retired, carrying four babies in its embrace. But Susannah and Thursday had regained their footing and their presence of mind. With a brave and, for him, a rapid spring, Thursday caught little Sarah and Dinah as they were rolling helpless down the strand, the one by an arm, the other by a leg, and held on. At the same instant Susannah sprang forward and grasped Jack Mills by the hair of the head, but poor Polly Young was beyond her reach. Little Polly was the smallest, the neatest, and the dearest of the sprawling band. She was rolling to her doom. The case was desperate. In this emergency Susannah suddenly hurled Jack Mills at Thursday. The poor boy had to drop the other two in order to catch the flying Jack, but the other two, sliding down his body, held each to a Thursday October leg like limpets. The result was that the four remained firm and safe, while Susannah leaped into the surf and rescued little Poll.It all happened so quickly that the actors had scarcely time to think. Having reached the dry land, they looked seaward, and there saw their more practised companions about to come in on the top of a wave. For a few seconds their heads were seen bobbing now on the top, now between the hollows of the waves. Then they were seen on a towering snowy crest which was just about to fall. On the summit of the roaring wave, as if on a snowy mountain, they came rushing on with railway speed. To an unpractised eye destruction among the rocks was their doom. But they had taken good aim, and came careering to the sandy patch where the little ones sprawled. In another moment they stood safe and sound upon the land.This was but an everyday feat of the Pitcairners, who went up to their village chatting merrily, and thinking nothing more about the adventure than that it was capital fun.
Now, it must not be supposed that the wives and widows of these mutineers gave themselves up to moping or sadness after the failure of their wild attempt to make their condition worse by slaying all the men. By no means. By degrees they recovered the natural tone of their mild yet hearty dispositions, and at last, we presume, came to wonder that they had ever been so mad or so bad.
Neither must it be imagined that these women were condemned to be the laborious drudges who are fitly described as “hewers of wood and drawers of water.” They did indeed draw a good deal of water in the course of each day, but they spent much time also in making the tapa cloth with which they repaired the worn-out clothes of their husbands, or fabricated petticoats for themselves and such of the children as had grown old enough to require such garments. But besides these occupations, they spent a portion of their time in prattling gossip, which, whatever the subject might be, was always accompanied with a great deal of merriment and hearty laughter. They also spent no small portion of their time in the sea, for bathing was one of the favourite amusements of the Pitcairners, young and old.
Coming up one day to Susannah, the wife of Edward Young, Thursday October Christian begged that she would go with him and bathe.
Susannah was engaged in making the native cloth at the time, and laid down her mallet with a look of indecision. It may be remarked here that a mallet is used in the making of this cloth, which is not woven, but beaten out from a state of pulp; it is, in fact, rather a species of tough paper than cloth, and is produced from the bark of the paper mulberry.
“I’s got to finish dis bit of cloth to-day, Toc,” said Susannah, in broken English, for she knew that Master Thursday October preferred that tongue to Otaheitan, though he could speak both, “an’ it’s gettin’ late.”
“Oh,whata pity!” said TOC, with a look of mild disappointment.
Now Susannah was by far the youngest and most girlish among the Otaheitan women, and could not resist an appeal to her feelings even when uttered only by the eyes. Besides, little Toc was a great favourite with her. She therefore burst into a merry laugh, gently pulled Thursday’s nose, and said, “Well, come along; but we’ll git some o’ the others for go too, an’ have some fun. You go klect de jumpers. Me git de womans.” Susannah referred to the older children by the term “Jumpers.”
Highly pleased, the urchin started off at once. He found one of the jumpers, namely, Otaheitan Sally, nursing Polly Young, while she delivered an oracular discourse to Charlie Christian, who sat at her feet, meekly receiving and believing the most outrageous nonsense that ever was heard. It is but just to Sally, however, to say that she gave her information in all good faith, having been previously instructed by John Adams, whose desire for the good of the young people was at that period stronger than his love of truth. Wishing to keep their minds as long as possible ignorant of the outer world, he had told them that ships came out of a hole in the clouds on the horizon.
“Yes, Charlie, it’s quite true; father Adams says so. They comes out of a hole on the horizon.”
Charlie’s huge eyes gazed in perplexity from his instructor’s face to the horizon, as if he expected to behold a ship emerging from a hole then and there. Then, turning to Sally again with a simple look, he asked—
“But why does sips come out of holes on de ’rizon?”
Sally was silenced. She was not the first knowing one who had been silenced by a child.
Little Daniel McCoy came up at the moment. Having passed the “staggering” period of life, he no longer walked the earth in a state of nudity, but was decorated with a pair of very short tapa trousers, cut in imitation of seafaring ducks, but reaching only to the knees. He also wore a little shirt.
“Me kin tell why ships come out ob de hole in de horizon,” he said, with a twinkle in his eyes; “just for notin’ else dan to turn about an’ go back into de hole again.”
“Nonsense, Dan’l!” cried Sally, with a laugh.
“Nonsense!” repeated Dan, with an injured look. “Didn’t you saw’d it happen jus’ t’other day?”
“Well, I did saw the ship go farer an’ farer away, an’ vanish,” admitted Sall; “but he didn’t go into a hole that time.”
“Pooh!” ejaculated little Dan, “dat’s ’cause de hole was too far away to be seen.”
Further discussion of the subject was prevented by the arrival of Thursday.
“Well, Toc, you’s in a hurry to-day,” said little Dan, with a look of innocent insolence.
“We’re all to go an’ bathe, child’n,” cried Thursday, with a look of delight; “Susannah’s goin’, an’ all the ’oomans, an’ she send me for you.”
“Hurrah!” shouted Dan and Sally.
“Goin’ to bave,” cried Charlie Christian to Lizzie Mills, who was attracted by the cheering, which also brought up Matt Quintal, who led his little sister Sarah by the hand. Sarah was yet a staggerer, and so was Dinah Adams, also Mary Christian; Polly Young and John Mills had not yet attained even to the staggering period—they were only what little Dan McCoy called sprawlers.
Before many minutes had elapsed, the whole colony of women, jumpers, staggerers, and sprawlers, were assembled on the beach at Bounty Bay.
It could scarcely be said that the women undressed—they merely threw off the light scarf or bodice that covered their shoulders, but kept on the short skirts, which were no impediment to their graceful movements in the water. The jumpers, of course, were only too glad of the excuse to get out of their very meagre allowance of clothing, and the rest were, so to speak, naturally ready for the plunge.
It was a splendid forenoon. There was not a zephyr to ruffle the calm breast of the Pacific, nevertheless the gentle undulation of that mighty bosom sent wave after wave like green liquid walls into the bay in ceaseless regularity. These, toppling over, and breaking, and coming in with a succession of magnificent roars, finally hissed in harmless foam on the shingly beach.
“Now, T’ursday,” said Mrs Adams, “you stop here an’ take care o’ de sprawlers.”
Adams’s helpmate was the oldest of the women, and defective in vision. Her commands were law. Thursday October would as soon have thought of disobeying Adams himself as his wife. It was not in his nature, despite its goodness, to help feeling disappointed at being left in charge of the little ones. However, he made up his mind at once to the sacrifice.
“Never mind, Toc,” said Young’s wife, with a bright smile, “I’ll stay an’ keep you company.”
This was ample compensation to Thursday. He immediately flung himself into the shallow surf, and turning his face to the land, held out his arms and dared the little ones to come to him. Two of them instantly accepted the challenge, crept down to the water, and were beaten back by the next rush of foam. But they were caught up and held aloft with a shout of glee by Susannah.
Meanwhile, the women advanced into the deep surf with the small children on their shoulders, while the others, being able to look after themselves, followed, panting with excitement for although able to swim like corks they found it extremely difficult to do battle with the rushing water.
Deeper and deeper the foremost women went, until they neared the unbroken glassy billows.
“I’ll go at de nixt,” muttered Mrs Adams to Mary Christian, who was on her back, clutching tight round her neck.
The “nixt” was a liquid wall that came rolling grandly in with ever-increasing force and volume, until it hovered to its fall almost over the heads of the daring women. Mrs Adams, Mainmast, and Mills’s widow, who were the foremost of the group, bent their heads forward, and with a graceful but vigorous plunge, sprang straight into the wall of water and went right through it. The others, though a moment later, were quite in time. The children also, uttering wild screams in varied keys, faced the billow gallantly, and pierced it like needles. Another moment, and they were all safe in deep water on the seaward side, while the wave went thundering to the shore in a tumultuous wilderness of foam, and spent its weakened force among the babies.
The moment the women were safe beyond the rolling influence of these great waves, in the calm sea beyond, they threw the staggerers from their shoulders and let them try their own unaided powers, while the jumpers swam and floated around to watch the result.
These wonderful infants disported themselves variously in the sea. Mary Christian wobbled about easily, as if too fat to sink, and Bessy Mills supported herself bravely, being much encouraged by the presence and the cheering remarks of that humorous imp Dan McCoy. But Charlie Christian showed symptoms of alarm, and losing heart after a few moments, threw up his fat little arms and sank. Like the swooping eagle, his mother plunged forward, placed a hand under him, and lifted him on her shoulders, where he recovered equanimity in a few minutes, and soon wanted to be again sent afloat. When this had gone on for a little time, the women reshouldered their babies and swam boldly out to sea, followed at various distances by the youngsters. Of these latter, Sall of Otaheite was by far the best. She easily outstripped the other children, and could almost keep pace with the women.
Meanwhile Thursday October Christian and Susannah Young performed amazing feats with the infants in the shallow water on the beach. Sarah Quintal and Johnny Mills gave them some trouble, having a strong disposition to explore places beyond their depth; but Dinah Adams and Polly Young were as good as gold, spluttering towards their guardians when called, and showing no tendency to do anything of their own immediate free will, except sit on the sand and let the foam rush round and over them like soap-suds.
Now, it is well-known that every now and then there are waves of the sea which seem to have been born on a gigantic scale, and which, emerging somewhere from the great deep, come to shore with a grander roar and a higher rush than ordinary waves.
One such roller came in while no one was on the look-out for it. Its deep-toned roar first apprised Susannah of its approach, but before she could run to the rescue its white crest was careering up the beach in magnificent style. It caught the infants, each sitting with a look of innocent surprise on the sand. It turned them head over heels, and swept them up the shingly shore. It tumbled Susannah herself over in its might, and swept Thursday October fairly off his legs. Having terminated its career thus playfully, the big wave retired, carrying four babies in its embrace. But Susannah and Thursday had regained their footing and their presence of mind. With a brave and, for him, a rapid spring, Thursday caught little Sarah and Dinah as they were rolling helpless down the strand, the one by an arm, the other by a leg, and held on. At the same instant Susannah sprang forward and grasped Jack Mills by the hair of the head, but poor Polly Young was beyond her reach. Little Polly was the smallest, the neatest, and the dearest of the sprawling band. She was rolling to her doom. The case was desperate. In this emergency Susannah suddenly hurled Jack Mills at Thursday. The poor boy had to drop the other two in order to catch the flying Jack, but the other two, sliding down his body, held each to a Thursday October leg like limpets. The result was that the four remained firm and safe, while Susannah leaped into the surf and rescued little Poll.
It all happened so quickly that the actors had scarcely time to think. Having reached the dry land, they looked seaward, and there saw their more practised companions about to come in on the top of a wave. For a few seconds their heads were seen bobbing now on the top, now between the hollows of the waves. Then they were seen on a towering snowy crest which was just about to fall. On the summit of the roaring wave, as if on a snowy mountain, they came rushing on with railway speed. To an unpractised eye destruction among the rocks was their doom. But they had taken good aim, and came careering to the sandy patch where the little ones sprawled. In another moment they stood safe and sound upon the land.
This was but an everyday feat of the Pitcairners, who went up to their village chatting merrily, and thinking nothing more about the adventure than that it was capital fun.
Chapter Nineteen.The Darkest Hour.A long time after the events narrated in the last chapter, John Adams and Edward Young sat together one evening in the cave at the top of the mountain, where poor Fletcher Christian had been wont to hold his lonely vigils.“I’ve bin thinkin’ of late,” said Young, “that it is very foolish of us to content ourselves with merely fishing from the rocks, when there are better fish to be had in deep water, and plenty of material at hand for making canoes.”“You’re right, sir; we ought to try our hands at a canoe. Pity we didn’t do so before the native men was all killed. They knew what sort o’ trees to use, and how to split ’em up into planks, an’ all that sort o’ thing.”“But McCoy used to study that subject, and talk much about it, when we were in Otaheite,” returned Young. “I’ve no doubt that with his aid we could build a good enough canoe, and the women would be as able as the men, no doubt, to direct us what to do if we were in a difficulty. McCoy is a handy fellow, you know, with tools, as he has proved more than once since the death of poor Williams.”Adams shook his head.“No doubt, Mr Young, he’s handy enough with the tools; but ever since he discovered how to make spirits, neither he nor Quintal, as you know, sir, are fit for anything.”“True,” said Young, with a perplexed look; “it never occurred to me before that strong drink was such a curse. I begin now to understand why some men that I have known have been so enthusiastic in their outcry against it. Perhaps it would be right for you and me to refuse to drink with Quintal and McCoy, seeing that they are evidently killing themselves with it.”“I don’t quite see that, sir,” objected Adams. “A glass of grog don’t do me no harm that I knows of, an’ it wouldn’t do them no good if we was to stop our allowance.”“It might; who can tell?” said Young. “I’ve not thought much about the matter, however, so we won’t discuss it. But what would you say if we were to hide the kettle that McCoy makes it in, and refuse to give it up till the canoe is finished?”Again Adams shook his head.“They’d both go mad with DT,” said he, by which letters he referred to the drunkard’s awful disease,delirium tremens.“Well, at all events, we will try to persuade him to go to work, and the sooner the better,” said Young, rising and leaving the cave.In pursuance of this plan, Young spoke to McCoy in one of his few sober moments, and got him persuaded to begin the work, and to drink less while engaged in it.Under the impulse of this novelty in his occupation, the unhappy man did make an attempt to curb himself, and succeeded so far that he worked pretty steadily for several days, and made considerable progress with the canoe.The wood was chosen, the tree felled, the trunk cut to the proper length and split up into very fair planks, which were further smoothed by means of a stone adze, brought by the natives from Otaheite, and it seemed as if the job would be quickly finished, when the terrible demon by whom McCoy had been enslaved suddenly asserted his tyrannical power. Quintal, who rendered no assistance in canoe-building, had employed himself in making a “new brew,” as he expressed it, and McCoy went up to his hut in the mountain one evening to taste.The result, of course, was that he was absolutely incapable of work next day; and then, giving way to the maddening desire, he and his comrade-in-debauchery went in, as they said, for a regular spree. It lasted for more than a week, and when it came to an end, the two men, with cracked lips, bloodshot eyes, and haggard faces, looked as if they had just escaped from a madhouse.Edward Young now positively refused to drink any more of the spirits, and Adams, although he would not go quite to that length, restricted himself to one glass in the day.This at first enraged both Quintal and McCoy. The former cursed his comrades in unmeasured terms, and drank more deeply just to spite them. The latter refused to work at the canoe, and both men became so uproarious, that Young and Adams were obliged to turn them out of the house where they were wont occasionally to meet for a social evening.Thus things went on for many a day from bad to worse. Bad as things had been in former years, it seemed as if the profoundest depth of sin and misery had not yet been fathomed by these unhappy mutineers.In all these doings, it would have gone hard with the poor women and children if Adams and Young had not increased in their kindness and consideration for them, as the other two men became more savage and tyrannical.At last matters came to such a crisis that it became once more a matter of discussion with Young and Adams whether they should not destroy the machinery by which the spirits were made, and it is probable that they might have done this, if events had not occurred which rendered the act unnecessary.One day William McCoy was proceeding with a very uncertain step along the winding footpath that led to his house up in the mountain. The man’s face worked convulsively, and it seemed as if terrible thoughts filled his brain. Muttering to himself as he staggered along, he suddenly met his own son, who had grown apace by that time, being nearly seven years of age. Both father and son stopped abruptly, and looked intently at each other.“What brings you here?” demanded the father, with a look of as much dignity as it was in his power to assume.The poor boy hesitated, and looked frightened. His natural spirit of fun and frolic seemed of late to have forsaken him.“What are ’ee afraid of?” roared McCoy, who had not quite recovered from his last fit ofdelirium tremens. “Why don’t ’ee speak?”“Mother’s not well,” said Daniel, softly; “she bid me come and tell you.”“What’s that to me?” cried McCoy, savagely. “Come here, Dan.” He lowered his tone, and held out his hand, but the poor boy was afraid to approach.Uttering a low growl, the father made a rush at him, stumbled over a tree-root, and fell heavily to the earth. Little Dan darted into the bush, and fled home.Rising slowly, McCoy looked half-stunned at first, but speedily recovering himself, staggered on till he reached the hut, when he wildly seized the bottle from its shelf, and put it to his lips, which were bleeding from the fall, and covered with dust.“Ha ha!” he shouted, while the light of delirium rekindled in his eyes, “this is the grand cure for everything. My own son’s afraid o’ me now, but who cares? What’s that to Bill McCoy! an’ his mother’s ill too—ha!—”He checked himself in the middle of a fierce laugh, and stared before him as if horror-stricken.“No, no!” he gasped. “I—I didn’t. Oh! God be merciful to me!”Again he stopped, raised both hands high above his head, uttered a wild laugh which terminated in a prolonged yell, as he dashed the bottle on the floor, and darted from the hut.All the strength and vigour which the wretched man had squandered seemed to come back to him in that hour. The swiftness of youth returned to his limbs. He ran down the path by which he had just come, and passed Quintal on the way.“Hallo, Bill! you’re pretty bad to-night,” said his comrade, looking after him. He then followed at a smart run, as if some new idea had suddenly occurred to him. Two of the women met McCoy further down, but as if to evade them, he darted away to the right along the track leading to the eastward cliffs. The women joined Quintal in pursuit, but before they came near him, they saw him rush to the highest part of the cliffs and leap up into the air, turning completely over as he vanished from their sight.At that spot the cliff appeared to overhang its base, and was several hundred feet high. Far down there was a projecting rock, where sea-gulls clustered in great numbers. McCoy, like the lightning-flash, came in contact with the rock, and was dashed violently out into space, while the affrighted sea-birds fled shrieking from the spot. Next moment the man’s mangled body cleft the dark water like an arrow, leaving only a little spot of foam behind to mark for a few seconds his watery grave.It might have been thought that this terrible event would have had a sobering effect upon Matthew Quintal, but instead of that it made him worse. The death of his wife, too, by a fall from the cliffs about the same time, seemed only to have the effect of rendering him more savage; insomuch that he became a terror to the whole community, and frequently threatened to take the lives of his remaining comrades. In short, the man seemed to have gone mad, and Young and Adams resolved, in self-defence, to put him to death.We spare the reader the sickening details. They accomplished the terrible deed with an axe, and thus the number of the male refugees on Pitcairn was reduced to two. The darkest hour of the lonely island had been reached—the hour before the dawn.
A long time after the events narrated in the last chapter, John Adams and Edward Young sat together one evening in the cave at the top of the mountain, where poor Fletcher Christian had been wont to hold his lonely vigils.
“I’ve bin thinkin’ of late,” said Young, “that it is very foolish of us to content ourselves with merely fishing from the rocks, when there are better fish to be had in deep water, and plenty of material at hand for making canoes.”
“You’re right, sir; we ought to try our hands at a canoe. Pity we didn’t do so before the native men was all killed. They knew what sort o’ trees to use, and how to split ’em up into planks, an’ all that sort o’ thing.”
“But McCoy used to study that subject, and talk much about it, when we were in Otaheite,” returned Young. “I’ve no doubt that with his aid we could build a good enough canoe, and the women would be as able as the men, no doubt, to direct us what to do if we were in a difficulty. McCoy is a handy fellow, you know, with tools, as he has proved more than once since the death of poor Williams.”
Adams shook his head.
“No doubt, Mr Young, he’s handy enough with the tools; but ever since he discovered how to make spirits, neither he nor Quintal, as you know, sir, are fit for anything.”
“True,” said Young, with a perplexed look; “it never occurred to me before that strong drink was such a curse. I begin now to understand why some men that I have known have been so enthusiastic in their outcry against it. Perhaps it would be right for you and me to refuse to drink with Quintal and McCoy, seeing that they are evidently killing themselves with it.”
“I don’t quite see that, sir,” objected Adams. “A glass of grog don’t do me no harm that I knows of, an’ it wouldn’t do them no good if we was to stop our allowance.”
“It might; who can tell?” said Young. “I’ve not thought much about the matter, however, so we won’t discuss it. But what would you say if we were to hide the kettle that McCoy makes it in, and refuse to give it up till the canoe is finished?”
Again Adams shook his head.
“They’d both go mad with DT,” said he, by which letters he referred to the drunkard’s awful disease,delirium tremens.
“Well, at all events, we will try to persuade him to go to work, and the sooner the better,” said Young, rising and leaving the cave.
In pursuance of this plan, Young spoke to McCoy in one of his few sober moments, and got him persuaded to begin the work, and to drink less while engaged in it.
Under the impulse of this novelty in his occupation, the unhappy man did make an attempt to curb himself, and succeeded so far that he worked pretty steadily for several days, and made considerable progress with the canoe.
The wood was chosen, the tree felled, the trunk cut to the proper length and split up into very fair planks, which were further smoothed by means of a stone adze, brought by the natives from Otaheite, and it seemed as if the job would be quickly finished, when the terrible demon by whom McCoy had been enslaved suddenly asserted his tyrannical power. Quintal, who rendered no assistance in canoe-building, had employed himself in making a “new brew,” as he expressed it, and McCoy went up to his hut in the mountain one evening to taste.
The result, of course, was that he was absolutely incapable of work next day; and then, giving way to the maddening desire, he and his comrade-in-debauchery went in, as they said, for a regular spree. It lasted for more than a week, and when it came to an end, the two men, with cracked lips, bloodshot eyes, and haggard faces, looked as if they had just escaped from a madhouse.
Edward Young now positively refused to drink any more of the spirits, and Adams, although he would not go quite to that length, restricted himself to one glass in the day.
This at first enraged both Quintal and McCoy. The former cursed his comrades in unmeasured terms, and drank more deeply just to spite them. The latter refused to work at the canoe, and both men became so uproarious, that Young and Adams were obliged to turn them out of the house where they were wont occasionally to meet for a social evening.
Thus things went on for many a day from bad to worse. Bad as things had been in former years, it seemed as if the profoundest depth of sin and misery had not yet been fathomed by these unhappy mutineers.
In all these doings, it would have gone hard with the poor women and children if Adams and Young had not increased in their kindness and consideration for them, as the other two men became more savage and tyrannical.
At last matters came to such a crisis that it became once more a matter of discussion with Young and Adams whether they should not destroy the machinery by which the spirits were made, and it is probable that they might have done this, if events had not occurred which rendered the act unnecessary.
One day William McCoy was proceeding with a very uncertain step along the winding footpath that led to his house up in the mountain. The man’s face worked convulsively, and it seemed as if terrible thoughts filled his brain. Muttering to himself as he staggered along, he suddenly met his own son, who had grown apace by that time, being nearly seven years of age. Both father and son stopped abruptly, and looked intently at each other.
“What brings you here?” demanded the father, with a look of as much dignity as it was in his power to assume.
The poor boy hesitated, and looked frightened. His natural spirit of fun and frolic seemed of late to have forsaken him.
“What are ’ee afraid of?” roared McCoy, who had not quite recovered from his last fit ofdelirium tremens. “Why don’t ’ee speak?”
“Mother’s not well,” said Daniel, softly; “she bid me come and tell you.”
“What’s that to me?” cried McCoy, savagely. “Come here, Dan.” He lowered his tone, and held out his hand, but the poor boy was afraid to approach.
Uttering a low growl, the father made a rush at him, stumbled over a tree-root, and fell heavily to the earth. Little Dan darted into the bush, and fled home.
Rising slowly, McCoy looked half-stunned at first, but speedily recovering himself, staggered on till he reached the hut, when he wildly seized the bottle from its shelf, and put it to his lips, which were bleeding from the fall, and covered with dust.
“Ha ha!” he shouted, while the light of delirium rekindled in his eyes, “this is the grand cure for everything. My own son’s afraid o’ me now, but who cares? What’s that to Bill McCoy! an’ his mother’s ill too—ha!—”
He checked himself in the middle of a fierce laugh, and stared before him as if horror-stricken.
“No, no!” he gasped. “I—I didn’t. Oh! God be merciful to me!”
Again he stopped, raised both hands high above his head, uttered a wild laugh which terminated in a prolonged yell, as he dashed the bottle on the floor, and darted from the hut.
All the strength and vigour which the wretched man had squandered seemed to come back to him in that hour. The swiftness of youth returned to his limbs. He ran down the path by which he had just come, and passed Quintal on the way.
“Hallo, Bill! you’re pretty bad to-night,” said his comrade, looking after him. He then followed at a smart run, as if some new idea had suddenly occurred to him. Two of the women met McCoy further down, but as if to evade them, he darted away to the right along the track leading to the eastward cliffs. The women joined Quintal in pursuit, but before they came near him, they saw him rush to the highest part of the cliffs and leap up into the air, turning completely over as he vanished from their sight.
At that spot the cliff appeared to overhang its base, and was several hundred feet high. Far down there was a projecting rock, where sea-gulls clustered in great numbers. McCoy, like the lightning-flash, came in contact with the rock, and was dashed violently out into space, while the affrighted sea-birds fled shrieking from the spot. Next moment the man’s mangled body cleft the dark water like an arrow, leaving only a little spot of foam behind to mark for a few seconds his watery grave.
It might have been thought that this terrible event would have had a sobering effect upon Matthew Quintal, but instead of that it made him worse. The death of his wife, too, by a fall from the cliffs about the same time, seemed only to have the effect of rendering him more savage; insomuch that he became a terror to the whole community, and frequently threatened to take the lives of his remaining comrades. In short, the man seemed to have gone mad, and Young and Adams resolved, in self-defence, to put him to death.
We spare the reader the sickening details. They accomplished the terrible deed with an axe, and thus the number of the male refugees on Pitcairn was reduced to two. The darkest hour of the lonely island had been reached—the hour before the dawn.
Chapter Twenty.The Dawn of a Better Day.The eighteenth century passed away, and as the nineteenth began its course, a great and marvellous change came over the dwellers on the lonely island in that almost unknown region of the Southern Seas. It was a change both spiritual and physical, the latter resulting from the former, and both having their roots, as all things good must have, in the blessed laws of God.The change did not come instantaneously. It rose upon Pitcairn with the sure but gradual influence of the morning dawn, and its progress, like its advent, was unique in the history of the Church of God.No preacher went forth to the ignorant people, armed with the powers of a more or less correct theology. No prejudices had to be overcome, or pre-existing forms of idolatry uprooted, and the people who had to be changed were what might have been deemed most unlikely soil—mutineers, murderers, and their descendants. The one hopeful characteristic among them was the natural amiability of the women, for Young and Adams did not display more than the average good-humour of men, yet these amiable women, as we have seen, twice plotted and attempted the destruction of the men, and two of them murdered in cold blood two of their own kinsmen.It may, perhaps, have already been seen that Young and Adams were of a grave and earnest turn of mind. The terrible scenes which they had passed through naturally deepened this characteristic, especially when they thought of the dreadful necessity which had been forced on them—the deliberate slaying of Matthew Quintal, an act which caused them tofeellike murderers, however justifiable it may have seemed to them.Like most men who are under deep and serious impressions, they kept their thoughts to themselves. Indeed, John Adams, with his grave matter-of-fact tendencies and undemonstrative disposition, would probably never have opened his lips on spiritual things to his companion if Young had not broken the ice; and even when the latter did venture to do so, Adams resisted at first with the dogged resolution of an unbelieving man.“We’ve been awful sinners, John Adams,” said Young one afternoon as they were sauntering home from their plantations to dinner.“Well, sir, no doubt there’s some truth in what you say,” replied Adams, slowly, “but then, d’ye see, we’ve bin placed in what you may call awful circumstances.”“That’s true, that’s true,” returned Young, with a perplexed look, “and I’ve said the same thing, or something like it, to myself many a time; but, man, the Bible doesn’t seem to harmonise with that idea somehow. It seems to make no difference between big and little sinners, so to speak, at least as far as the matter of salvation is concerned; and yet I can’t help feeling somehow that men who have sinned much ought to repent much.”“Just so, sir,” said John Adams, with a self-satisfied air, “you’re right, sir. We have been awful sinners, as you say, an’ now we’ve got to repent as hard as we can and lead better lives, though, of course, we can’t make much difference in our style o’ livin’, seein’ that our circumstances don’t allow o’ much change, an’ neither of us has bin much given to drink or swearin’.”“Strange!” rejoined Young. “You almost echo what I’ve been saying to myself over and over again, yet I can’t feel quite easy, for if we have only got to repent and try to lead better lives, what’s the use of our talking about ‘Our Saviour?’ and what does the Bible mean in such words as these: ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.’ ‘Only believe.’ ‘By grace are ye saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.’ ‘By the works of the law shall no flesh living be justified.’”“Do you mean to say, sir, that them words are all out of the Bible?” asked Adams.“Yes, I know they are, for I read them all this morning. I had a long hunt after the Bible before I found it, for poor Christian never told me where he kept it. I turned it up at last under a bit of tarpaulin in the cave, and I’ve been reading it a good deal since, and I confess that I’ve been much puzzled. Hold on a bit here,” he added, stopping and seating himself on a flowering bank beside the path; “that old complaint of mine has been troubling me a good deal of late. Let’s rest a bit.”Young referred here to an asthmatic affection to which he was subject, and which had begun to give him more annoyance since the catching of a severe cold while out shooting among the hills a year before.“From what you say, sir,” said Adams, thoughtfully, after they had sat down, “it seems to me that if we can donothingin the matter o’ workin’ out our salvation, and have nothin’ to do but sit still an’ receive it, we can’t be to blame if we don’t get it.”“But we may be to blame for refusing it when it’s offered,” returned Young. “Besides, the Bible says, ‘Ask and ye shall receive,’ so that knocks away the ground from under your notion of sitting still.”“P’r’aps you’re right, sir,” continued Adams, after a few minutes’ thought, during which he shook his head slowly as if not convinced; “but I can’t help thinkin’ that if a man only does his best to do his dooty, it’ll be all right with him. That’s all that’s required in His Majesty’s service, you know, of any man.”“True, but if a mandoesn’tdo his best, what then? Or if he is so careless about learning his duty that he scarce knows what it is, and in consequence falls into sundry gross mistakes, what then? Moreover, suppose that you and I, having both done our duty perfectly up to the time of the mutiny, were now to go back to England and say, like the bad boys, ‘We will never do it again,’ what would come of it, think you?”“We’d both be hanged for certain,” answered Adams, with emphasis.“Well, then, the matter isn’t as simple an you thought it, at least according toyourview.”“It is more puzzlin’ than I thought it,” returned Adams; “but then that’s no great wonder, for if it puzzles you it’s no wonder that it should puzzle me, who has had no edication whatever ’xcep what I’ve picked up in the streets. But it surprises me—you’ll excuse me, Mr Young—that you who’s bin at school shouldn’t have your mind more clear about religion. Don’t they teach it at school?”“They used to read a few verses of the Bible where I was at school,” said Young, “and the master, who didn’t seem to have any religion in himself, read over a formal prayer; but I fear that that didn’t do us much good, for we never listened to it. Anyhow, it could not be called religious teaching. But were you never at school, Adams?”“No, sir, not I,” answered the seaman, with a quiet laugh; “leastwise not at a reg’lar true-blue school. I was brought up chiefly in the streets of London, though that’s a pretty good school too of its kind. It teaches lads to be uncommon smart, I tell you, and up to a thing or two, but it don’t do much for us in the book-larnin’ way. I can scarcely read even now, an’ what I have of it was got through spellin’ out the playbills in the public-house windows. But what d’ye say, sir, now that we both seem inclined to turn over a new leaf, if you was to turn schoolmaster an’ teach me to read and write a bit better than I can do at present? I’d promise to be a willin’ scholar an’ a good boy.”“Not a bad idea,” said Young, with a laugh, as he rose and continued the descent of the track leading to the settlement.The village had by this time improved very much in appearance, good substantial cottages, made of the tafano or flower wood, and the aruni, having taken the place of the original huts run up at the period of landing. Some of the cottages were from forty to fifty feet long, by fifteen wide and thirteen high. It was evident that ships were, partly at least, the model on which they had been constructed; for the sleeping-places were a row of berths opposite the door, each with its separate little window or porthole. There were no fireplaces, the range of the thermometer on the island being from 55 degrees to 85 degrees, and all cooking operations were performed in detached outhouses and ovens.In the chief of these cottages might have been found, among the many miscellaneous objects of use and ornament, two articles which lay apart on a shelf, and were guarded by Young and Adams with almost reverential care. These were the chronometer and the azimuth compass of theBounty.The cottages, some of which had two stories, were arranged so as to enclose a large grassy square, which was guarded by a strong palisade from the encroachments of errant hogs, goats, and fowls. This spot, among other uses, served as a convenient day-nursery for the babies, and also a place of occasional frolic and recreation to the elder children.To the first of these was added, not long after the death of their respective fathers, Edward Quintal and Catherine McCoy. To John Adams, also, a daughter was born, whom he named Hannah, after a poor girl who had been in the habit of chucking him under the chin, and giving him sugar-plums when he was an arab in the streets of London—at least so he jestingly remarked to his spouse on the day she presented the new baby to his notice.On the day of which we write, Young and Adams found the square above-mentioned in possession of the infantry, under command of their self-elected captain, Otaheitan Sally, who was now, according to John Adams, “no longer a chicken.” Being in her eleventh year, and, like her country-women generally at that age, far advanced towards big girlhood, she presented a tall, slight, graceful, and beautifully moulded figure, with a sweet sprightly face, and a smile that was ever disclosing her fine white teeth. Her profusion of black hair was gathered into a knot which hung low on the back of her pretty round head. She was crowned with a wreath of wild-flowers, made and presented by her troops. It is needless to say that every one of these, big and little, was passionately attached to Sally.Chief among her admirers now, as of old, was Charlie Christian, who, being about eight years of age, well grown and stalwart like his father, was now almost as tall as his former nurse.Charlie had not with years lost one jot of that intensely innocent and guileless look of childhood, which inclined one to laugh while he merely cast earnest gaze into one’s face; but years had given to him a certain gravity and air of self-possession which commanded respect, even from that volatile imp, his contemporary, Dan McCoy.Thursday October Christian, who was less than a year younger than Sally, had also shot up into a long-legged boy, and bade fair to become a tall and sturdy man. He, like his brother, was naturally grave and earnest, but was easily roused to action, and if he did not himself originate fun, was ever ready to appreciate the antics and mild wickedness of Dan McCoy, or to burst into sudden and uproarious laughter at the tumbles or ludicrous doings of the sprawlers, who rolled their plump-made forms on the soft grass.Not one of the band, however, had yet attained to the age which renders young people ashamed of childish play. When Young and Adams appeared on the scene, Sally, her hair broken loose and the wreath confusedly mingled with it, was flying round the square with Dolly Young on her shoulder, and chased by Charlie Christian, who pretended, in the most obvious manner, that he could not catch her. Toc was sitting on the fence watching them, and perceiving his brother’s transparent hypocrisy, was chuckling to himself with great delight.Matt Quintal and Dan McCoy, at the head of two opposing groups, were engaged in playing French and English, each group endeavouring to pull the other over a rope laid on the grass between them.Several of the others, being too little, were not allowed to join in the game, and contented themselves with general scrimmaging and skylarking, while Edward Quintal, Catherine McCoy, and Hannah Adams, the most recent additions to the community, rolled about in meaningless felicity.“Hold on hard,” shouted Dan McCoy, whose flushed face and blue eyes beamed and flashed under a mass of curling yellow hair, and who was the foremost boy of the French band.“I’m holdin’ on,” cried Matt Quintal, who was intellectually rather obtuse.“Tight,” cried Dan.“Tight,” repeated Matt.“There, don’t let go—oh! hup!”The grasp of Dan suddenly relaxed when Matt and his Englishmen were straining their utmost. Of course they went back on the top of each other in a wild jumble, while Dan, having put a foot well back, was prepared, and stood comparatively firm.“You did that a-purpose,” cried Matt, springing up and glaring.“I know you did it a-purpose,” retorted Dan.“But—but I said that—thatyoudid it a-purpose,” stammered Matt.“Well, an’ didn’t I say that you said that I saidyoudid it a-purpose?”A yell of delight followed this reply, in which, however, Matt did not join.Like his father, Matt Quintal was short in the temper—at least, short for a Pitcairn boy. He suddenly gave Dan McCoy a dab on the nose with his fist. Now, as every one must know, a dab on the nose is painful; moreover, it sometimes produces blood. Dan McCoy, who also inherited a shortish temper from his father, feeling the pain, and seeing the blood, suddenly flushed to the temples, and administered to Matt a sounding slap on the side of the head, which sent him tumbling on the grass. But Matt was not conquered, though overturned. Jumping up, he made a rush at Dan, who stood on the defensive. The other children, being more gentle in their natures, stood by, and anticipated with feelings of awe the threatened encounter; but Thursday October Christian, who had listened with eager ears, ever since his intelligence dawned, to the conversations of the mutineers, here stepped between the combatants.“Come, come,” said he, authoritatively, in virtue of his greater age and superior size, “let’s have fair play. If you must fight, do it ship-shape, an’, accordin’ to the articles of war. We must form a ring first, you know, an’ get a bottle an’ a sponge and—”An appalling yell at this point nearly froze the marrow in everybody’s bones. It was caused by a huge pig, which, observing that the gate had been left open, had entered the square, and gone up to snuff at one of the nude babies, who, seated like a whitey-brown petrifaction, gazed with a look of horror in the pig’s placid face.If ever a pig in this sublunary sphere regretted a foolish act, that Pitcairn pig must have been steeped in repentance to the latest day of its life. With one howl in unison, the entire field,minusthe infants, ran at that pig like a human tornado. It was of no avail that the pig made straight for the gate by which it had entered. That gate had either removed or shut itself. In frantic haste, the unhappy creature coursed round the square, followed by its pursuers, who soon caught it by the tail, then by an ear, then by the nose and the other ear, and a fore leg and two hind ones, and finally hurled it over the fence, amid a torrent of shrieks which only a Pitcairn pig could utter or a Pitcairn mind conceive. It fell with a bursting squeak, and retired in grumpy silence to ruminate over the dire consequences of a too earnest gaze in the face of a child.“Well done, child’n!” cried John Adams. “Sarves him right. Come, now, to grub, all of you.”Even though the Pitcairn children had been disobedient by nature, they would have obeyed that order with alacrity. In a few brief minutes a profound silence proclaimed, more clearly than could a trumpet-tongue, that the inhabitants of the lonely island were at dinner.
The eighteenth century passed away, and as the nineteenth began its course, a great and marvellous change came over the dwellers on the lonely island in that almost unknown region of the Southern Seas. It was a change both spiritual and physical, the latter resulting from the former, and both having their roots, as all things good must have, in the blessed laws of God.
The change did not come instantaneously. It rose upon Pitcairn with the sure but gradual influence of the morning dawn, and its progress, like its advent, was unique in the history of the Church of God.
No preacher went forth to the ignorant people, armed with the powers of a more or less correct theology. No prejudices had to be overcome, or pre-existing forms of idolatry uprooted, and the people who had to be changed were what might have been deemed most unlikely soil—mutineers, murderers, and their descendants. The one hopeful characteristic among them was the natural amiability of the women, for Young and Adams did not display more than the average good-humour of men, yet these amiable women, as we have seen, twice plotted and attempted the destruction of the men, and two of them murdered in cold blood two of their own kinsmen.
It may, perhaps, have already been seen that Young and Adams were of a grave and earnest turn of mind. The terrible scenes which they had passed through naturally deepened this characteristic, especially when they thought of the dreadful necessity which had been forced on them—the deliberate slaying of Matthew Quintal, an act which caused them tofeellike murderers, however justifiable it may have seemed to them.
Like most men who are under deep and serious impressions, they kept their thoughts to themselves. Indeed, John Adams, with his grave matter-of-fact tendencies and undemonstrative disposition, would probably never have opened his lips on spiritual things to his companion if Young had not broken the ice; and even when the latter did venture to do so, Adams resisted at first with the dogged resolution of an unbelieving man.
“We’ve been awful sinners, John Adams,” said Young one afternoon as they were sauntering home from their plantations to dinner.
“Well, sir, no doubt there’s some truth in what you say,” replied Adams, slowly, “but then, d’ye see, we’ve bin placed in what you may call awful circumstances.”
“That’s true, that’s true,” returned Young, with a perplexed look, “and I’ve said the same thing, or something like it, to myself many a time; but, man, the Bible doesn’t seem to harmonise with that idea somehow. It seems to make no difference between big and little sinners, so to speak, at least as far as the matter of salvation is concerned; and yet I can’t help feeling somehow that men who have sinned much ought to repent much.”
“Just so, sir,” said John Adams, with a self-satisfied air, “you’re right, sir. We have been awful sinners, as you say, an’ now we’ve got to repent as hard as we can and lead better lives, though, of course, we can’t make much difference in our style o’ livin’, seein’ that our circumstances don’t allow o’ much change, an’ neither of us has bin much given to drink or swearin’.”
“Strange!” rejoined Young. “You almost echo what I’ve been saying to myself over and over again, yet I can’t feel quite easy, for if we have only got to repent and try to lead better lives, what’s the use of our talking about ‘Our Saviour?’ and what does the Bible mean in such words as these: ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.’ ‘Only believe.’ ‘By grace are ye saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.’ ‘By the works of the law shall no flesh living be justified.’”
“Do you mean to say, sir, that them words are all out of the Bible?” asked Adams.
“Yes, I know they are, for I read them all this morning. I had a long hunt after the Bible before I found it, for poor Christian never told me where he kept it. I turned it up at last under a bit of tarpaulin in the cave, and I’ve been reading it a good deal since, and I confess that I’ve been much puzzled. Hold on a bit here,” he added, stopping and seating himself on a flowering bank beside the path; “that old complaint of mine has been troubling me a good deal of late. Let’s rest a bit.”
Young referred here to an asthmatic affection to which he was subject, and which had begun to give him more annoyance since the catching of a severe cold while out shooting among the hills a year before.
“From what you say, sir,” said Adams, thoughtfully, after they had sat down, “it seems to me that if we can donothingin the matter o’ workin’ out our salvation, and have nothin’ to do but sit still an’ receive it, we can’t be to blame if we don’t get it.”
“But we may be to blame for refusing it when it’s offered,” returned Young. “Besides, the Bible says, ‘Ask and ye shall receive,’ so that knocks away the ground from under your notion of sitting still.”
“P’r’aps you’re right, sir,” continued Adams, after a few minutes’ thought, during which he shook his head slowly as if not convinced; “but I can’t help thinkin’ that if a man only does his best to do his dooty, it’ll be all right with him. That’s all that’s required in His Majesty’s service, you know, of any man.”
“True, but if a mandoesn’tdo his best, what then? Or if he is so careless about learning his duty that he scarce knows what it is, and in consequence falls into sundry gross mistakes, what then? Moreover, suppose that you and I, having both done our duty perfectly up to the time of the mutiny, were now to go back to England and say, like the bad boys, ‘We will never do it again,’ what would come of it, think you?”
“We’d both be hanged for certain,” answered Adams, with emphasis.
“Well, then, the matter isn’t as simple an you thought it, at least according toyourview.”
“It is more puzzlin’ than I thought it,” returned Adams; “but then that’s no great wonder, for if it puzzles you it’s no wonder that it should puzzle me, who has had no edication whatever ’xcep what I’ve picked up in the streets. But it surprises me—you’ll excuse me, Mr Young—that you who’s bin at school shouldn’t have your mind more clear about religion. Don’t they teach it at school?”
“They used to read a few verses of the Bible where I was at school,” said Young, “and the master, who didn’t seem to have any religion in himself, read over a formal prayer; but I fear that that didn’t do us much good, for we never listened to it. Anyhow, it could not be called religious teaching. But were you never at school, Adams?”
“No, sir, not I,” answered the seaman, with a quiet laugh; “leastwise not at a reg’lar true-blue school. I was brought up chiefly in the streets of London, though that’s a pretty good school too of its kind. It teaches lads to be uncommon smart, I tell you, and up to a thing or two, but it don’t do much for us in the book-larnin’ way. I can scarcely read even now, an’ what I have of it was got through spellin’ out the playbills in the public-house windows. But what d’ye say, sir, now that we both seem inclined to turn over a new leaf, if you was to turn schoolmaster an’ teach me to read and write a bit better than I can do at present? I’d promise to be a willin’ scholar an’ a good boy.”
“Not a bad idea,” said Young, with a laugh, as he rose and continued the descent of the track leading to the settlement.
The village had by this time improved very much in appearance, good substantial cottages, made of the tafano or flower wood, and the aruni, having taken the place of the original huts run up at the period of landing. Some of the cottages were from forty to fifty feet long, by fifteen wide and thirteen high. It was evident that ships were, partly at least, the model on which they had been constructed; for the sleeping-places were a row of berths opposite the door, each with its separate little window or porthole. There were no fireplaces, the range of the thermometer on the island being from 55 degrees to 85 degrees, and all cooking operations were performed in detached outhouses and ovens.
In the chief of these cottages might have been found, among the many miscellaneous objects of use and ornament, two articles which lay apart on a shelf, and were guarded by Young and Adams with almost reverential care. These were the chronometer and the azimuth compass of theBounty.
The cottages, some of which had two stories, were arranged so as to enclose a large grassy square, which was guarded by a strong palisade from the encroachments of errant hogs, goats, and fowls. This spot, among other uses, served as a convenient day-nursery for the babies, and also a place of occasional frolic and recreation to the elder children.
To the first of these was added, not long after the death of their respective fathers, Edward Quintal and Catherine McCoy. To John Adams, also, a daughter was born, whom he named Hannah, after a poor girl who had been in the habit of chucking him under the chin, and giving him sugar-plums when he was an arab in the streets of London—at least so he jestingly remarked to his spouse on the day she presented the new baby to his notice.
On the day of which we write, Young and Adams found the square above-mentioned in possession of the infantry, under command of their self-elected captain, Otaheitan Sally, who was now, according to John Adams, “no longer a chicken.” Being in her eleventh year, and, like her country-women generally at that age, far advanced towards big girlhood, she presented a tall, slight, graceful, and beautifully moulded figure, with a sweet sprightly face, and a smile that was ever disclosing her fine white teeth. Her profusion of black hair was gathered into a knot which hung low on the back of her pretty round head. She was crowned with a wreath of wild-flowers, made and presented by her troops. It is needless to say that every one of these, big and little, was passionately attached to Sally.
Chief among her admirers now, as of old, was Charlie Christian, who, being about eight years of age, well grown and stalwart like his father, was now almost as tall as his former nurse.
Charlie had not with years lost one jot of that intensely innocent and guileless look of childhood, which inclined one to laugh while he merely cast earnest gaze into one’s face; but years had given to him a certain gravity and air of self-possession which commanded respect, even from that volatile imp, his contemporary, Dan McCoy.
Thursday October Christian, who was less than a year younger than Sally, had also shot up into a long-legged boy, and bade fair to become a tall and sturdy man. He, like his brother, was naturally grave and earnest, but was easily roused to action, and if he did not himself originate fun, was ever ready to appreciate the antics and mild wickedness of Dan McCoy, or to burst into sudden and uproarious laughter at the tumbles or ludicrous doings of the sprawlers, who rolled their plump-made forms on the soft grass.
Not one of the band, however, had yet attained to the age which renders young people ashamed of childish play. When Young and Adams appeared on the scene, Sally, her hair broken loose and the wreath confusedly mingled with it, was flying round the square with Dolly Young on her shoulder, and chased by Charlie Christian, who pretended, in the most obvious manner, that he could not catch her. Toc was sitting on the fence watching them, and perceiving his brother’s transparent hypocrisy, was chuckling to himself with great delight.
Matt Quintal and Dan McCoy, at the head of two opposing groups, were engaged in playing French and English, each group endeavouring to pull the other over a rope laid on the grass between them.
Several of the others, being too little, were not allowed to join in the game, and contented themselves with general scrimmaging and skylarking, while Edward Quintal, Catherine McCoy, and Hannah Adams, the most recent additions to the community, rolled about in meaningless felicity.
“Hold on hard,” shouted Dan McCoy, whose flushed face and blue eyes beamed and flashed under a mass of curling yellow hair, and who was the foremost boy of the French band.
“I’m holdin’ on,” cried Matt Quintal, who was intellectually rather obtuse.
“Tight,” cried Dan.
“Tight,” repeated Matt.
“There, don’t let go—oh! hup!”
The grasp of Dan suddenly relaxed when Matt and his Englishmen were straining their utmost. Of course they went back on the top of each other in a wild jumble, while Dan, having put a foot well back, was prepared, and stood comparatively firm.
“You did that a-purpose,” cried Matt, springing up and glaring.
“I know you did it a-purpose,” retorted Dan.
“But—but I said that—thatyoudid it a-purpose,” stammered Matt.
“Well, an’ didn’t I say that you said that I saidyoudid it a-purpose?”
A yell of delight followed this reply, in which, however, Matt did not join.
Like his father, Matt Quintal was short in the temper—at least, short for a Pitcairn boy. He suddenly gave Dan McCoy a dab on the nose with his fist. Now, as every one must know, a dab on the nose is painful; moreover, it sometimes produces blood. Dan McCoy, who also inherited a shortish temper from his father, feeling the pain, and seeing the blood, suddenly flushed to the temples, and administered to Matt a sounding slap on the side of the head, which sent him tumbling on the grass. But Matt was not conquered, though overturned. Jumping up, he made a rush at Dan, who stood on the defensive. The other children, being more gentle in their natures, stood by, and anticipated with feelings of awe the threatened encounter; but Thursday October Christian, who had listened with eager ears, ever since his intelligence dawned, to the conversations of the mutineers, here stepped between the combatants.
“Come, come,” said he, authoritatively, in virtue of his greater age and superior size, “let’s have fair play. If you must fight, do it ship-shape, an’, accordin’ to the articles of war. We must form a ring first, you know, an’ get a bottle an’ a sponge and—”
An appalling yell at this point nearly froze the marrow in everybody’s bones. It was caused by a huge pig, which, observing that the gate had been left open, had entered the square, and gone up to snuff at one of the nude babies, who, seated like a whitey-brown petrifaction, gazed with a look of horror in the pig’s placid face.
If ever a pig in this sublunary sphere regretted a foolish act, that Pitcairn pig must have been steeped in repentance to the latest day of its life. With one howl in unison, the entire field,minusthe infants, ran at that pig like a human tornado. It was of no avail that the pig made straight for the gate by which it had entered. That gate had either removed or shut itself. In frantic haste, the unhappy creature coursed round the square, followed by its pursuers, who soon caught it by the tail, then by an ear, then by the nose and the other ear, and a fore leg and two hind ones, and finally hurled it over the fence, amid a torrent of shrieks which only a Pitcairn pig could utter or a Pitcairn mind conceive. It fell with a bursting squeak, and retired in grumpy silence to ruminate over the dire consequences of a too earnest gaze in the face of a child.
“Well done, child’n!” cried John Adams. “Sarves him right. Come, now, to grub, all of you.”
Even though the Pitcairn children had been disobedient by nature, they would have obeyed that order with alacrity. In a few brief minutes a profound silence proclaimed, more clearly than could a trumpet-tongue, that the inhabitants of the lonely island were at dinner.