Chapter Twenty One.The Last Man.One morning John Adams, instead of going to work in his garden, as was his wont, took down his musket from its accustomed pegs above the door, and sallied forth into the woods behind the village. He had not gone far when he heard a rustling of the leaves, and looking back, beheld the graceful form of Sally bounding towards him.“Are you going to shoot, father?” she said, on coming up.The young people of the village had by this time got into the habit of calling Adams “father,” and regarded him as the head of the community; not because of his age, for at this time he was only between thirty and forty years, but because of his sedate, quiet character, and a certain air of elderly wisdom which distinguished him. Even Edward Young, who was about the same age, but more juvenile both in feeling and appearance, felt the influence of his solid, unpretending temperament, and laughingly acknowledged him King of Pitcairn.“No, dear, I’m not goin’ to shoot,” said Adams, in reply, “I’m only going up to Christian’s outlook to try if I can find somethin’ there, an’ I always like to have the old blunderbuss with me. It feels sort of company, you know, an’ minds me of old times; but you’ll not understand what I mean, Sall.”“No, because I’ve no old times to mind about,” said Sally, with a peculiar smile. “May I go with you, father?”“Of course you may. Come along, lass.”Adams held out his strong hand. Sally put her peculiarly small one into it, and the two went slowly up the mountain-track together.On reaching the top of a little knoll or plateau, they stopped, and turned to look back. They could see over the tops of the palm-groves from that place. The track by which they had ascended was visible here and there, winding among the flowering shrubs and trees. The village lay far below, like a gem in a setting of bright green, which contrasted pleasantly with the warm clouds and the blue sea beyond. The sun was bright and the air was calm—so calm that the voices of the children at play came up to them distinctly in silvery ripples.“How comes it, Sall, that you’ve deserted your post to-day?”“Because the guard has been relieved; same as you say they do on board a man-of-war. I left the sprawlers in charge of Bessy Mills, and the staggerers are shut into the green. You see, I’m feeling a little tired to-day, and thought I would like to have a quiet walk in the woods.”She finished this explanation with a little sigh.“Dear, dear me!” exclaimed Adams, with a look of amused surprise, “you’re not becomin’ sentimental are you, Sally?”“What is sentimental, father!”“Why, it’s a—it’s a sort of a feelin’—a sensation, you know, a kind of all-overishness, that—d’ye see—”He stopped short and stared with a perplexed air at the girl, who burst into a merry laugh.“That’s one of your puzzlers, I think,” she said, looking up slyly from the corners of her eyes.“Well, Sall, thatisa puzzler,” returned Adams, with a self-condemning shake of the head. “I never before felt so powerfully the want o’ dictionary knowledge. I’ll be shot if I can tell you what sentimental is, though Iknowwhat it is as well as I know what six-water grog or plum-duff is. We must ask Mr Young to explain it. He’s bin to school, you know, an’ that’s more than I have—more’s the pity.”“Well,” said Sally, as they proceeded on their way, “whatever senti—senti—”“Mental,” said Adams.“Whatever sentimental is, I’m not that, because I’m just the same as ever I was, for I often want to be quiet and alone, and I often am quiet and alone in the bush.”“And what do you think about, Sall, when you’re alone in the bush?” said the seaman, looking down with more interest than usual at the innocent face beside him.“Oh, about heaps and heaps of things. I couldn’t tell you in a month all I think about; but one thing I think most about is a man-of-war.”“A man-of-war, Sall?”“Yes; I would give anything to see a man-of-war, what you’ve so often told us about, with all its masts and sails, and bunks and guns and anchors, and officers and men. I often wondersomuch what new faces would be like. You see I’m so used to the faces of yourself and Mr Young, and Mainmast and Susannah, and Toc and Matt and Dan and—”“Just say the rest o’ the youngsters, dear,” interrupted Adams. “There’s no use in goin’ over ’em all by name.”“Well, I’m so used to them that I can’t fancy how any other faces can be different, and yet I heard Mr Young say the other day that there’s no two faces in the world exactly alike, and you know there must be hundreds and hundreds of faces in the world.”“Ay, there’s thousands and thousands—for the matter o’ that, there’s millions and millions of ’em—an it’s quite true that you can’t ever pick out two that would fit into the same mould. Of course,” continued Adams, in an argumentative tone, “I’m not goin’ for to say but that you could find a dozen men any day with hook noses an’ black eyes an’ lanky hair, just as you can find another dozen with turn-up noses an’ grey eyes an’ carroty hair; but what I mean to say is, that you won’t find no two of ’em that han’t got a difference of some sort somewheres. It’s very odd, but it’s a fact.”“Another puzzler,” said Sally, with a laugh.“Justso. But what else do you think about, Sall?”“Sometimes I think about those fine ladies you’ve told us of, who drive about in grand carriages with horses. Oh, these horses; what I would give to see horses! Have they got tails, father?”“Tails!” cried Adams, with a laugh, “of course they have; long hairy ones, and manes too; that’s hair down the back o’ their necks, dear. See here, fetch me that bit of red stone and I’ll draw you a horse.”Sally brought the piece of red stone, and her companion, sitting down beside a smooth rock, from which he wiped the dust with the sleeve of his shirt, began, slowly and with compressed lips, frowning eyebrows, and many a hard-drawn sigh, to draw the portrait of a horse.Adams was not an artist. The drawing might have served almost equally well for an ass, or even for a cow, but Sally watched it with intense interest.“You see, dear,” said the artist, commenting as the work proceeded, “this is his head, with a turn-up—there—like that, for his nose. A little too bluff, no doubt, but no matter. Then comes the ears, two of ’em, somewhat longish—so, not exactly fore an’ aft, as I’ve made ’em, but ath’ort ships, so to speak, only I never could understand how painters manage to make one thing look as if it was behind another. I can’t get behind the one ear to put on the other one nohow.”“A puzzler!” ejaculated Sally.“Just so. Well, you have them both, anyhow, only fore an’ aft, as I said before. Well, then comes his back with a hollow—so, for people to sit in when they go cruisin’ about on shore; then here’s his legs—somethin’ like that, the fore ones straight an’ the aft ones crooked.”“Has he only two legs,” asked Sally, in surprise, “one before an’ one behind?”“No, dear, he’s got four, but I’ve the same difficulty wi’ them that I had wi’ the ears—one behind the other, you know. However, there you have ’em—so, in the fore-an’-aft style. Then he’s got hoofs at the end o’ the legs, like the goats, you know, only not split up the middle, though why they’re not split is more than I can tell; an’ there’s a sort o’ curl behind, a little above it—the fetlock I think they call it, but that’s far beyond my powers o’ drawin’.”“But you’ve forgot the tail,” said Sally.“So I have; think o’ that now, to forget his tail! He’d never do that himself if he was alive. It sticks out from hereabouts. There you have it, flowin’ quite graceful down a’most to his heels. Now, Sally, that’s a horse, an’ not much to boast of after all in the way of a likeness, though I say it that shouldn’t.”“How Ishouldlike to see a real one!” said the girl, gazing intently at the wild caricature, while her instructor looked on with a benignant smile.“Then I often think of the poor people Mr Young is so fond of telling us stories about,” continued Sally, as they resumed their upward path, “though I’m much puzzled about them. Why are they poor? Why are they not rich like other people?”“There’s a many reasons why, dear,” continued Adams, whose knowledge of political economy was limited; “some of ’em don’t work, an’ some of ’em won’t work, and some of ’em can’t work, an’ what between one thing an’ another, there’s a powerful lot of ’em everywhere.”Sally, whose thirst for knowledge was great, continued to ply poor John Adams with questions regarding the poor, until he became so involved in “puzzlers” that he was fain to change the subject, and for a time they talked pleasantly on many themes. Then they came to the steep parts of the mountains, and relapsed into silence. On reaching another plateau or flat knoll, where they turned to survey the magnificent panorama spread out before them, Sally said, slowly—“Sometimes when I’m alone in the bush I think of God. Mr Young has been talking to me about Him lately, and I am wondering and wanting to know more about Him. Do you know anything about Him, father?”John Adams had looked at his simple interrogator with surprise and not a little perplexity.“Well, to tell you the honest truth,” said he, “I can’t say that I do know much about Him, more shame to me; an’ some talks I’ve had lately with Mr Young have made me see that I know even less than I thought I did. But we’ll ask Mr Young to explain these matters to us when we return home. As it happens. I’ve come up here to search for the very book that tells us about God—His own book, the Bible. Mr Christian used to read it, an’ kept it in his cave.”Soon afterwards the man and child reached the cave referred to. On entering, they were surprised to find Young himself there before them. He was reading the Bible, and Adams could not help recalling his previous visit, when he had found poor Fletcher Christian similarly occupied.“I didn’t know you was here, Mr Young, else I wouldn’t have disturbed you,” said Adams. “I just came up to see if I could find the book, for it seems to me that if you agree to carry out your notion of turnin’ schoolmaster, it would be as well to have the school-book down beside us.”“Mynotion of turning schoolmaster,” said Young, with a faint smile; “it wasyournotion, Adams. However, I’ve no objection to fall in with it, and I quite agree about carrying the Bible home with us, for, to say truth, I don’t feel the climbing of the mountain as easy as I used to.”Again the faint smile played on the midshipman’s lips for a moment or two.“I’m sorry to hear you say that, sir,” said Adams, with a look of concern.“And it can’t be age, you know,” continued Young, in a tone of pleasantry, “for I’m not much above thirty. I suspect it’s that asthmatic affection that has troubled me of late. However,” he added, in a heartier tone, “it won’t do to get downhearted about that. Come, what say you to begin school at once? We’ll put you at the bottom of the class, being so stupid, and we’ll put Sally at the top. Will you join, Sall?”We need scarcely say that Sally, who was always ready for anything, whether agreeable to her or otherwise, assented heartily to the proposition, and then and there began to learn to read out of the Bible, with John Adams for a class-fellow.Of course it was uphill work at first. It was found that Adams could blunder on pretty well with the small words, but made sad havoc among the long ones. Still his condition was pronounced hopeful. As to Sally, she seemed to take up the letters at the first sitting, and even began to form some correct notion of the power of syllables. After a short trial, Young said that that was quite enough for the first day, and then went on to read a passage or two from the Bible himself.And now, for the first time, Otaheitan Sally heard the old, old story of the love of God to man in the gift of Jesus Christ. The name of Jesus was, indeed, not quite unfamiliar to her; but it was chiefly as an oath that her associations presented it to her. Now she learned that it was the name of Immanuel, God with us, the Just One, who died that sinful man might be justified and saved from the power of sin.She did not, indeed, learn all this at that time; but she had her receptive mind opened to the first lessons of the glorious truth on than summer evening on the mountain-top.From this date forward, Edward Young became a real schoolmaster; for he not only taught Adams to read better than he had ever yet read, but he daily assembled all the children, except the very little ones, and gave them instruction in reading out of the Word of God. In all this John Adams gave him hearty assistance, and, when not acting as a pupil, did good service in teaching the smaller children their letters.But Young went a step further.“John Adams,” said he, one morning, “it has been much on my mind of late that God has spared you and me in order that we may teach these women and children the way of salvation through Jesus Christ.”“It may be as you say, sir,” returned Adams, “but I can’t exactly feel that I’m fit to say much to ’em about that. I can only give the little uns their A B C, an’ p’r’aps a little figurin’. But I’ll go in with you, Mr Young, an’ do my best.”“Thank you, Adams, thank you. I feel sure that you will do well, and that God will bless our efforts. Do you know, John, I think my difficulties about thewayare somewhat cleared up. It’s simpler than I thought. The whole work of our salvation is already accomplished by our blessed Lord Jesus. All we have got todois,not to refuse it. You see, whatever I know about it is got from the Bible, an’ you can judge of that as well as I. Besides the passages that I have already shown you about believing, I find this, ‘Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest;’ and this, ‘Whosoever will, let him come;’ and this, ‘Turn ye, turn ye, for why will ye die.’ So you see there’s no doubt theofferis made to every one who will; and then it is written that the Holy Spirit is able to make us willing. If God entreats us to ‘come,’ and provides the ‘way,’ what is it that hinders but unwillingness? Indeed, the Word says as much, for I find it written, ‘Yewillnot come to me, that ye might have life.’”“What you say seems very true, sir,” replied Adams, knitting his brows and shaking his head dubiously; “but then, sir, do you mean to say a man’s good behaviour has nothin’ to do with his salvation at all?”“Nothing whatever, John, as far as I can make out from the Bible—at least, not in the matter ofprocuringhis salvation. As a consequence of salvation, yes. Why, is it not said by the Lord, ‘If ye love me, keep my commandments?’ What could be plainer or stronger than that? If I won’t behave myself because of love to my Lord, I’ll not do it on any lower ground.”Still John Adams shook his head. He admitted that the arguments of his friend did seem unanswerable, but,—in short, he became an illustration of the truth of the proverb, ‘A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.’ He had promised, however, to render all the aid in his power, and he was not the man to draw back from his word. When, therefore, Edward Young proposed to read daily prayers out of the Church of England Prayer-book, which had been taken from theBountywith the Bible and Carteret’sVoyages, he made no objection; and he was similarly ‘agreeable,’ as he expressed it, when Young further proposed to have service forenoon and afternoon on Sundays.For some months these various occupations and duties were carried on with great vigour, much to the interest of all concerned, the native women being quite as tractable scholars as the children.We cannot tell now whether it was the extra labour thus undertaken by Young, or some other cause, that threw him into bad health; but certain it is, that a very few months later, he began to feel his strength give way, and a severe attack of his old complaint, asthma, at last obliged him to give up the work for a time. It is equally certain that at this important period in the history of the lonely island, the ‘good seed’ was sown in ‘good ground,’ for Young had laboured in the name of the Lord Jesus, and the promise regarding such work is sure: “Your labour is not in vain in the Lord.”“I must knock under for a time, John,” he said, with a wearied look, on the occasion of his ceasing to work. He had of late taken to calling Adams by his Christian name, and the latter had been made unaccountably uneasy thereby.“Never mind, sir,” said the bluff seaman, in an encouraging tone. “You just rest yourself for a bit, an’ I’ll carry on the school business, Sunday services an’ all. I ain’t much of a parson, no doubt, but I’ll do my best, and a man can’t do no more.”“All right, John, I hand it over to you. A short time of loafing about and taking it easy will set me all to rights again, and I’ll resume office as fresh as ever.”Alas! poor Edward Young’s day of labour was ended. He never more resumed office on earth.Shortly after the above conversation he had another and extremely violent attack of asthma. It prostrated him completely, so that for several days he could not speak. Afterwards he became a little better, but it was evident to every one that he was dying, and it was touching to see the earnest way in which the tearful women, who were so fond of him, vied with each other in seeking to relieve his sufferings.John Adams sat by his bedside almost continually at last. He seemed to require neither food nor rest, but kept watching on hour after hour, sometimes moistening the patient’s lips with water, sometimes reading a few verses out of the Bible to him.“John,” said the poor invalid one afternoon, faintly, “your hand. I’m going—John—to be—for ever with the Lord—the dear Lord!”There was a long pause, then—“You’ll—carry on—the work, John; not in your own strength, John—in His?”Adams promised earnestly in a choking voice, and the sick man seemed to sink to rest with a smile on his lips. He never spoke again. Next day he was buried under the palm-trees, far from the home of his childhood, from the land which had condemned him as a heartless mutineer.
One morning John Adams, instead of going to work in his garden, as was his wont, took down his musket from its accustomed pegs above the door, and sallied forth into the woods behind the village. He had not gone far when he heard a rustling of the leaves, and looking back, beheld the graceful form of Sally bounding towards him.
“Are you going to shoot, father?” she said, on coming up.
The young people of the village had by this time got into the habit of calling Adams “father,” and regarded him as the head of the community; not because of his age, for at this time he was only between thirty and forty years, but because of his sedate, quiet character, and a certain air of elderly wisdom which distinguished him. Even Edward Young, who was about the same age, but more juvenile both in feeling and appearance, felt the influence of his solid, unpretending temperament, and laughingly acknowledged him King of Pitcairn.
“No, dear, I’m not goin’ to shoot,” said Adams, in reply, “I’m only going up to Christian’s outlook to try if I can find somethin’ there, an’ I always like to have the old blunderbuss with me. It feels sort of company, you know, an’ minds me of old times; but you’ll not understand what I mean, Sall.”
“No, because I’ve no old times to mind about,” said Sally, with a peculiar smile. “May I go with you, father?”
“Of course you may. Come along, lass.”
Adams held out his strong hand. Sally put her peculiarly small one into it, and the two went slowly up the mountain-track together.
On reaching the top of a little knoll or plateau, they stopped, and turned to look back. They could see over the tops of the palm-groves from that place. The track by which they had ascended was visible here and there, winding among the flowering shrubs and trees. The village lay far below, like a gem in a setting of bright green, which contrasted pleasantly with the warm clouds and the blue sea beyond. The sun was bright and the air was calm—so calm that the voices of the children at play came up to them distinctly in silvery ripples.
“How comes it, Sall, that you’ve deserted your post to-day?”
“Because the guard has been relieved; same as you say they do on board a man-of-war. I left the sprawlers in charge of Bessy Mills, and the staggerers are shut into the green. You see, I’m feeling a little tired to-day, and thought I would like to have a quiet walk in the woods.”
She finished this explanation with a little sigh.
“Dear, dear me!” exclaimed Adams, with a look of amused surprise, “you’re not becomin’ sentimental are you, Sally?”
“What is sentimental, father!”
“Why, it’s a—it’s a sort of a feelin’—a sensation, you know, a kind of all-overishness, that—d’ye see—”
He stopped short and stared with a perplexed air at the girl, who burst into a merry laugh.
“That’s one of your puzzlers, I think,” she said, looking up slyly from the corners of her eyes.
“Well, Sall, thatisa puzzler,” returned Adams, with a self-condemning shake of the head. “I never before felt so powerfully the want o’ dictionary knowledge. I’ll be shot if I can tell you what sentimental is, though Iknowwhat it is as well as I know what six-water grog or plum-duff is. We must ask Mr Young to explain it. He’s bin to school, you know, an’ that’s more than I have—more’s the pity.”
“Well,” said Sally, as they proceeded on their way, “whatever senti—senti—”
“Mental,” said Adams.
“Whatever sentimental is, I’m not that, because I’m just the same as ever I was, for I often want to be quiet and alone, and I often am quiet and alone in the bush.”
“And what do you think about, Sall, when you’re alone in the bush?” said the seaman, looking down with more interest than usual at the innocent face beside him.
“Oh, about heaps and heaps of things. I couldn’t tell you in a month all I think about; but one thing I think most about is a man-of-war.”
“A man-of-war, Sall?”
“Yes; I would give anything to see a man-of-war, what you’ve so often told us about, with all its masts and sails, and bunks and guns and anchors, and officers and men. I often wondersomuch what new faces would be like. You see I’m so used to the faces of yourself and Mr Young, and Mainmast and Susannah, and Toc and Matt and Dan and—”
“Just say the rest o’ the youngsters, dear,” interrupted Adams. “There’s no use in goin’ over ’em all by name.”
“Well, I’m so used to them that I can’t fancy how any other faces can be different, and yet I heard Mr Young say the other day that there’s no two faces in the world exactly alike, and you know there must be hundreds and hundreds of faces in the world.”
“Ay, there’s thousands and thousands—for the matter o’ that, there’s millions and millions of ’em—an it’s quite true that you can’t ever pick out two that would fit into the same mould. Of course,” continued Adams, in an argumentative tone, “I’m not goin’ for to say but that you could find a dozen men any day with hook noses an’ black eyes an’ lanky hair, just as you can find another dozen with turn-up noses an’ grey eyes an’ carroty hair; but what I mean to say is, that you won’t find no two of ’em that han’t got a difference of some sort somewheres. It’s very odd, but it’s a fact.”
“Another puzzler,” said Sally, with a laugh.
“Justso. But what else do you think about, Sall?”
“Sometimes I think about those fine ladies you’ve told us of, who drive about in grand carriages with horses. Oh, these horses; what I would give to see horses! Have they got tails, father?”
“Tails!” cried Adams, with a laugh, “of course they have; long hairy ones, and manes too; that’s hair down the back o’ their necks, dear. See here, fetch me that bit of red stone and I’ll draw you a horse.”
Sally brought the piece of red stone, and her companion, sitting down beside a smooth rock, from which he wiped the dust with the sleeve of his shirt, began, slowly and with compressed lips, frowning eyebrows, and many a hard-drawn sigh, to draw the portrait of a horse.
Adams was not an artist. The drawing might have served almost equally well for an ass, or even for a cow, but Sally watched it with intense interest.
“You see, dear,” said the artist, commenting as the work proceeded, “this is his head, with a turn-up—there—like that, for his nose. A little too bluff, no doubt, but no matter. Then comes the ears, two of ’em, somewhat longish—so, not exactly fore an’ aft, as I’ve made ’em, but ath’ort ships, so to speak, only I never could understand how painters manage to make one thing look as if it was behind another. I can’t get behind the one ear to put on the other one nohow.”
“A puzzler!” ejaculated Sally.
“Just so. Well, you have them both, anyhow, only fore an’ aft, as I said before. Well, then comes his back with a hollow—so, for people to sit in when they go cruisin’ about on shore; then here’s his legs—somethin’ like that, the fore ones straight an’ the aft ones crooked.”
“Has he only two legs,” asked Sally, in surprise, “one before an’ one behind?”
“No, dear, he’s got four, but I’ve the same difficulty wi’ them that I had wi’ the ears—one behind the other, you know. However, there you have ’em—so, in the fore-an’-aft style. Then he’s got hoofs at the end o’ the legs, like the goats, you know, only not split up the middle, though why they’re not split is more than I can tell; an’ there’s a sort o’ curl behind, a little above it—the fetlock I think they call it, but that’s far beyond my powers o’ drawin’.”
“But you’ve forgot the tail,” said Sally.
“So I have; think o’ that now, to forget his tail! He’d never do that himself if he was alive. It sticks out from hereabouts. There you have it, flowin’ quite graceful down a’most to his heels. Now, Sally, that’s a horse, an’ not much to boast of after all in the way of a likeness, though I say it that shouldn’t.”
“How Ishouldlike to see a real one!” said the girl, gazing intently at the wild caricature, while her instructor looked on with a benignant smile.
“Then I often think of the poor people Mr Young is so fond of telling us stories about,” continued Sally, as they resumed their upward path, “though I’m much puzzled about them. Why are they poor? Why are they not rich like other people?”
“There’s a many reasons why, dear,” continued Adams, whose knowledge of political economy was limited; “some of ’em don’t work, an’ some of ’em won’t work, and some of ’em can’t work, an’ what between one thing an’ another, there’s a powerful lot of ’em everywhere.”
Sally, whose thirst for knowledge was great, continued to ply poor John Adams with questions regarding the poor, until he became so involved in “puzzlers” that he was fain to change the subject, and for a time they talked pleasantly on many themes. Then they came to the steep parts of the mountains, and relapsed into silence. On reaching another plateau or flat knoll, where they turned to survey the magnificent panorama spread out before them, Sally said, slowly—
“Sometimes when I’m alone in the bush I think of God. Mr Young has been talking to me about Him lately, and I am wondering and wanting to know more about Him. Do you know anything about Him, father?”
John Adams had looked at his simple interrogator with surprise and not a little perplexity.
“Well, to tell you the honest truth,” said he, “I can’t say that I do know much about Him, more shame to me; an’ some talks I’ve had lately with Mr Young have made me see that I know even less than I thought I did. But we’ll ask Mr Young to explain these matters to us when we return home. As it happens. I’ve come up here to search for the very book that tells us about God—His own book, the Bible. Mr Christian used to read it, an’ kept it in his cave.”
Soon afterwards the man and child reached the cave referred to. On entering, they were surprised to find Young himself there before them. He was reading the Bible, and Adams could not help recalling his previous visit, when he had found poor Fletcher Christian similarly occupied.
“I didn’t know you was here, Mr Young, else I wouldn’t have disturbed you,” said Adams. “I just came up to see if I could find the book, for it seems to me that if you agree to carry out your notion of turnin’ schoolmaster, it would be as well to have the school-book down beside us.”
“Mynotion of turning schoolmaster,” said Young, with a faint smile; “it wasyournotion, Adams. However, I’ve no objection to fall in with it, and I quite agree about carrying the Bible home with us, for, to say truth, I don’t feel the climbing of the mountain as easy as I used to.”
Again the faint smile played on the midshipman’s lips for a moment or two.
“I’m sorry to hear you say that, sir,” said Adams, with a look of concern.
“And it can’t be age, you know,” continued Young, in a tone of pleasantry, “for I’m not much above thirty. I suspect it’s that asthmatic affection that has troubled me of late. However,” he added, in a heartier tone, “it won’t do to get downhearted about that. Come, what say you to begin school at once? We’ll put you at the bottom of the class, being so stupid, and we’ll put Sally at the top. Will you join, Sall?”
We need scarcely say that Sally, who was always ready for anything, whether agreeable to her or otherwise, assented heartily to the proposition, and then and there began to learn to read out of the Bible, with John Adams for a class-fellow.
Of course it was uphill work at first. It was found that Adams could blunder on pretty well with the small words, but made sad havoc among the long ones. Still his condition was pronounced hopeful. As to Sally, she seemed to take up the letters at the first sitting, and even began to form some correct notion of the power of syllables. After a short trial, Young said that that was quite enough for the first day, and then went on to read a passage or two from the Bible himself.
And now, for the first time, Otaheitan Sally heard the old, old story of the love of God to man in the gift of Jesus Christ. The name of Jesus was, indeed, not quite unfamiliar to her; but it was chiefly as an oath that her associations presented it to her. Now she learned that it was the name of Immanuel, God with us, the Just One, who died that sinful man might be justified and saved from the power of sin.
She did not, indeed, learn all this at that time; but she had her receptive mind opened to the first lessons of the glorious truth on than summer evening on the mountain-top.
From this date forward, Edward Young became a real schoolmaster; for he not only taught Adams to read better than he had ever yet read, but he daily assembled all the children, except the very little ones, and gave them instruction in reading out of the Word of God. In all this John Adams gave him hearty assistance, and, when not acting as a pupil, did good service in teaching the smaller children their letters.
But Young went a step further.
“John Adams,” said he, one morning, “it has been much on my mind of late that God has spared you and me in order that we may teach these women and children the way of salvation through Jesus Christ.”
“It may be as you say, sir,” returned Adams, “but I can’t exactly feel that I’m fit to say much to ’em about that. I can only give the little uns their A B C, an’ p’r’aps a little figurin’. But I’ll go in with you, Mr Young, an’ do my best.”
“Thank you, Adams, thank you. I feel sure that you will do well, and that God will bless our efforts. Do you know, John, I think my difficulties about thewayare somewhat cleared up. It’s simpler than I thought. The whole work of our salvation is already accomplished by our blessed Lord Jesus. All we have got todois,not to refuse it. You see, whatever I know about it is got from the Bible, an’ you can judge of that as well as I. Besides the passages that I have already shown you about believing, I find this, ‘Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest;’ and this, ‘Whosoever will, let him come;’ and this, ‘Turn ye, turn ye, for why will ye die.’ So you see there’s no doubt theofferis made to every one who will; and then it is written that the Holy Spirit is able to make us willing. If God entreats us to ‘come,’ and provides the ‘way,’ what is it that hinders but unwillingness? Indeed, the Word says as much, for I find it written, ‘Yewillnot come to me, that ye might have life.’”
“What you say seems very true, sir,” replied Adams, knitting his brows and shaking his head dubiously; “but then, sir, do you mean to say a man’s good behaviour has nothin’ to do with his salvation at all?”
“Nothing whatever, John, as far as I can make out from the Bible—at least, not in the matter ofprocuringhis salvation. As a consequence of salvation, yes. Why, is it not said by the Lord, ‘If ye love me, keep my commandments?’ What could be plainer or stronger than that? If I won’t behave myself because of love to my Lord, I’ll not do it on any lower ground.”
Still John Adams shook his head. He admitted that the arguments of his friend did seem unanswerable, but,—in short, he became an illustration of the truth of the proverb, ‘A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.’ He had promised, however, to render all the aid in his power, and he was not the man to draw back from his word. When, therefore, Edward Young proposed to read daily prayers out of the Church of England Prayer-book, which had been taken from theBountywith the Bible and Carteret’sVoyages, he made no objection; and he was similarly ‘agreeable,’ as he expressed it, when Young further proposed to have service forenoon and afternoon on Sundays.
For some months these various occupations and duties were carried on with great vigour, much to the interest of all concerned, the native women being quite as tractable scholars as the children.
We cannot tell now whether it was the extra labour thus undertaken by Young, or some other cause, that threw him into bad health; but certain it is, that a very few months later, he began to feel his strength give way, and a severe attack of his old complaint, asthma, at last obliged him to give up the work for a time. It is equally certain that at this important period in the history of the lonely island, the ‘good seed’ was sown in ‘good ground,’ for Young had laboured in the name of the Lord Jesus, and the promise regarding such work is sure: “Your labour is not in vain in the Lord.”
“I must knock under for a time, John,” he said, with a wearied look, on the occasion of his ceasing to work. He had of late taken to calling Adams by his Christian name, and the latter had been made unaccountably uneasy thereby.
“Never mind, sir,” said the bluff seaman, in an encouraging tone. “You just rest yourself for a bit, an’ I’ll carry on the school business, Sunday services an’ all. I ain’t much of a parson, no doubt, but I’ll do my best, and a man can’t do no more.”
“All right, John, I hand it over to you. A short time of loafing about and taking it easy will set me all to rights again, and I’ll resume office as fresh as ever.”
Alas! poor Edward Young’s day of labour was ended. He never more resumed office on earth.
Shortly after the above conversation he had another and extremely violent attack of asthma. It prostrated him completely, so that for several days he could not speak. Afterwards he became a little better, but it was evident to every one that he was dying, and it was touching to see the earnest way in which the tearful women, who were so fond of him, vied with each other in seeking to relieve his sufferings.
John Adams sat by his bedside almost continually at last. He seemed to require neither food nor rest, but kept watching on hour after hour, sometimes moistening the patient’s lips with water, sometimes reading a few verses out of the Bible to him.
“John,” said the poor invalid one afternoon, faintly, “your hand. I’m going—John—to be—for ever with the Lord—the dear Lord!”
There was a long pause, then—
“You’ll—carry on—the work, John; not in your own strength, John—in His?”
Adams promised earnestly in a choking voice, and the sick man seemed to sink to rest with a smile on his lips. He never spoke again. Next day he was buried under the palm-trees, far from the home of his childhood, from the land which had condemned him as a heartless mutineer.
Chapter Twenty Two.John Adams longs for a Chum and becomes a Story-Teller.Faithful to his promise, John Adams, after the death of Young, did his best to carry on the good work that had been begun.But at first his spirit was very heavy. It had not before occurred to him that there was a solitude far more profound and overwhelming than anything he had hitherto experienced. The difference between ten companions and one companion is not very great, but the difference between one and none is immeasurable. Of course we refer to that companionship which is capable of intelligent sympathy. The solitary seaman still had his Otaheitan wife and the bright children of the mutineers around him, and the death of Young had drawn out his heart more powerfully than ever towards these, but they could not in any degree fill the place of one who could talk intelligently of home, of Old England, of British battles fought and won, of ships and men, and things that might have belonged, as far as the women and children were concerned, to another world. They could only in a slight degree appreciate the nautical phraseology in which he had been wont to convey some of his strongest sentiments, and they could not in any degree enter into his feelings when, forgetting for a moment his circumstances, he came out with a pithy forecastle allusion to the politics or the Government of his native land.“Oh, you meek-faced brute, if you could only speak!” he exclaimed one day, dropping his eyes from the sea, on which he had been gazing, to the eyes of a pet goat that had been looking up in his face. “What’s the use of having a tongue in your head if you can’t use it!”As may be imagined, the goat made no reply to this remark, but continued its gaze with somewhat of the solemnity of the man himself.For want of a companion, poor Adams at this time took to talking frequently in a quiet undertone to himself. He also fell a good deal into Fletcher Christian’s habit of retiring to the cave on the mountain-top, but he did not read the Bible while there. He merely communed with his own spirit, meditated sadly on the past, and wondered a good deal as to the probable future.“It’s not that I ain’t happy enough here,” he muttered softly to himself one evening, while he gazed wistfully at the horizon as Christian had been wont to gaze. “I’m happy enough—more so than what I deserve to be, God knows—with them good—natured women an’ jolly bit things of child’n, but—but I’m awful hard up for a chum! I do believe that if Bill McCoy, or even Matt Quintal, was here, I’d get along pretty well with either of ’em. Ah, poor Quintal! I feel as if I’d never git over that. If it wasn’t murder, it feels awful like it; an’ yet I can’t see that they could call it murder. If we hadn’t done it he would certainly have killed both me an’ Mr Young, for Matt never threatened without performin’, and then he’d have gone mad an’ done for the women an’ child’n as well. No, it wasn’t murder. It was necessity.”He remained silent for some time, and then his thoughts appeared to revert to the former channel.“If only a ship would come an’ be wrecked here, now, we could start fresh once more with a new lot maybe, but I’m not so sure about that either. P’r’aps we’d quarrel an’ fight an’ go through the bloody business all over again. No, it’s better as it is. But a ship might touch in passin’, an’ we could prevail on two or three of the crew, or even one, to stop with us. What would I not give to hear a man’s voice once more, a good growlin’ bass. I wouldn’t be partickler as to sentiments or grammar, not I, if it was only gruff, an’ well spiced with sea-lingo an’ smelt o’ baccy. Not that I cares for baccy myself now, or grog either. Humph! it do make me a’most laugh to think o’ the times I’ve said, ay, and thought, that I couldn’t git along nohow without my pipe an’ my glass. Why, I wouldn’t give a chip of a brass farden for a pipe now, an’ as to grog, after what I’ve seen of its cursed natur’, I wouldn’t taste a drop even if they was to offer to make me Lord High Admiral o’ the British fleet for so doin’. But Iwouldlike once more to see a bearded man; even an unbearded one would be better than nothin’. Ah, well, it’s no manner o’ use sighin’, any more than cryin’, over spilt milk. Here I am, an’ I suppose here I shall be to the end o’ the chapter.”Again he was silent for a long time, while his eyes remained fixed, as usual, on the horizon. Suddenly the gaze became intent, and, leaning forward with an eager expression, he shaded his eyes with his hand.“It’s not creditable,” he murmured, as he fell back again into his former listless attitude, “it’s not creditable for an old salt like me to go mistakin’ sea-gulls for sails, as I’ve bin doin’ so often of late. I’m out o’ practice, that’s where it is.”“Come, John Adams,” he added, after another pause, and jumping up smartly, “this will never do. Rouse yourself, John, an’ give up this mumble-bumble style o’ thing. Why, it’ll kill you in the long-run if you don’t. Besides, you promised Mr Young to carry on the work, and you must keep your promise, old boy.”“Yes,” rang out a clear sweet voice from the inner end of the cave, “and you promised to give up coming here to mope; so you must keep your promise to me as well, father.”Otaheitan Sally tripped into the cave, and seating herself on the stone ledge opposite, beamed up in the sailor’s face.“You’re a good girl, Sall, an’ I’ll keep my promise to you from this day forth; see if I don’t. I’ll make a note of it in the log.”The log to which Adams here referred was a journal or register, which Edward Young had begun to keep, and in which were inserted the incidents of chief interest, including the births and deaths, that took place on the island from the day of landing. After Young’s death, John Adams continued to post it up from time to time.The promise to Sally was faithfully kept. From that time forward, Adams gave up going to the outlook, except now and then when anything unusual appeared on the sea, but never again to mope. He also devoted himself with increased assiduity to the instruction of the women and children in Bible truths, although still himself not very clear in his own mind as to the great central truth of all. In this work he was ably assisted by Sally, and also by Young’s widow, Susannah.We have mentioned this woman as being one of the youngest of the Otaheitans. She was also one of the most graceful, and, strange to say, though it was she who killed Tetaheite, she was by nature one of the gentlest of them all.The school never became a prison-house to these islanders, either women or children. Adams had wisdom enough at first to start it as a sort of play, and never fell into the civilised error of giving the pupils too much to do at a time. All the children answered the daily summons to school with equal alacrity, though it cannot be said that their performances there were equally creditable. Some were quick and intelligent, others were slow and stupid, while a few were slow but by no means stupid. Charlie Christian was among these last.“Oh, Charlie, youaresuch a booby!” one day exclaimed Otaheitan Sally, who, being advanced to the dignity of monitor, devoted much of her time to the instruction of her old favourite. “Whatcanbe the matter with your brains?”The innocent gaze of blank wonder with which the “Challie” of infancy had been wont to receive his companion’s laughing questions, had not quite departed; but it was chastened by this time with a slight puckering of the mouth and a faint twinkle of the eyes that were suggestive.Sitting modestly on the low bench, with his hands clasped before him, this strapping pupil looked at his teacher, and said that really he did not know what was wrong with his brains.“Perhaps,” he added, looking thoughtfully into the girl’s upturned orbs, “perhaps I haven’t got any brains at all.”“O yes, you have,” cried Sall, with a laugh; “you have got plenty, if you’d only use them.”“Ah!” sighed Charlie, stretching out one of his strong muscular arms and hands, “if brains were only things that one could lay hold of like an oar, or an axe, or a sledge-hammer, I’d soon let you see me use them; but bein’ only a soft kind o’ stuff in one’s skull, you know—”A burst of laughter from Sally not only cut short the sentence, but stopped the general hum of the school, and drew the attention of the master.“Hallo, Sall, I say, you know,” said Adams, in remonstrative tone, “you forget that you’re a monitor. If you go on like that we’ll have to make a school-girl of you again.”“Please, father, I couldn’t help it,” said Sally, while her cheeks flushed crimson, “Charlie is such a—”She stopped short, covered her face with both hands, and bending forward till she hid her confusion on her knees, went into an uncontrollable giggle, the only evidences of which, however, were the convulsive movements of her shoulders and an occasional squeak in the region of her little nose.“Come now, child’n,” cried Adams, seating himself on an inverted tea-box, which formed his official chair, “time’s up, so we’ll have a slap at Carteret before dismissing. Thursday October Christian will bring the book.”There was a general hum of satisfaction when this was said, for Carteret’s Voyages, which, with the Bible and Prayer-book, formed the only class-books of that singular school, were highly appreciated by young and old alike, especially as read to them by Adams, who accompanied his reading with a free running commentary of explanation, which infused great additional interest into that old writer’s book. TOC rose with alacrity, displaying in the act the immense relative difference between his very long legs and his ordinary body, in regard to which Adams used to console him by saying, “Never mind, Toc, your legs’ll stop growin’ at last, and when they do, your body will come out like a telescope. You’ll be a six-footer yet. Why, you’re taller than I am already by two inches.”In process of time Carteret was finished; it was then begun a second time, and once more read through. After that Adams felt a chill feeling of helplessness steal over him, for Carteret could not be read over and over again like the Bible, and he could not quite see his way to reading the Church of England prayers by way of recreation. In his extremity he had recourse to Sally for advice. Indeed, now that Sall was approaching young womanhood, not only the children but all the grown people of the island, including their chief or “father,” found themselves when in trouble gravitating, as if by instinct, to the sympathetic heart and the ready hand.“I’ll tell you what to do,” said Sally, when appealed to, as she took the seaman’s rough hand and fondled it; “just try to invent stories, and tell them to us as if you was readin’ a book. You might even turn Carteret upside down and pretend that you was readin’.”Adams shook his head.“I never could invent anything, Sall, ’xcept w’en I was tellin’ lies, an’ that’s a long while ago now—a long, long while. No; I doubt that I couldn’t invent, but I’ll tell ’ee what; I’ll try to remember some old yarns, and spin them off as well as I can.”The new idea broke on Adams’s mind so suddenly that his eyes sparkled, and he bestowed a nautical slap on his thigh.“The very thing!” cried Sally, whose eyes sparkled fully more than those of the sailor, while she clapped her hands; “nothing could be better. What will you begin with?”“Let me see,” said Adams, seating himself on a tree-stump, and knitting his brows with a severe strain of memory. “There’s Cinderella; an’ there’s Ally Babby or the fifty thieves—if it wasn’t forty—I’m not rightly sure which, but it don’t much matter; an’ there’s Jack the Giant-killer, an’ Jack and the Pea-stalk—no; let me see; it was a beanstalk, I think—anyhow, it was the stalk of a vegetable o’ some sort. Why, I wonder it never struck me before to tell you all about them tales.”Reader, if you had seen the joy depicted on Sally’s face, and the rich flush of her cheek, and her half-open mouth with its double row of pearls, while Adams ran over this familiar list, you would have thought it well worth that seaman’s while to tax his memory even more severely than he did.“And then,” he continued, knitting his brows still more severely, “there’s Gulliver an’ the Lillycups or putts, an’ the Pilgrim’s Progress—though, of course, I don’t mean for to say I knows ’em all right off by heart, but that’s no odds. An’ there’s Robinson Crusoe—ha!that’sthe story for you, Sall; that’s the tale that’ll make your hair stand on end, an’ a’most split your sides open, an’ cause the very marrow in your spine to wriggle. Yes; we’ll begin with Robinson Crusoe.”Having settled this point to their mutual and entire satisfaction, the two went off for a short walk before supper. On the way, they met Elizabeth Mills and Mary Christian, both of whom were now no longer staggerers, but far advanced as jumpers. They led between them Adams’s little daughter Dinah, who, being still very small, could not take long walks without assistance and an occasional carry.“Di, my pet,” cried her father, seizing the willing child, and hoisting her on his shoulder. “Come, you shall go along with us. And you too, lassies, if you have no other business in hand.”“Yes, we’ll go with you,” cried Bessy Mills. “May was just saying it was too soon to go home to supper.”“Come along, then,” cried Adams, tossing his child in the air as he went. “My beauty, you’ll beat your mammy in looks yet, eh? an’ when you’re old enough we’ll tell you all about Rob—”He checked himself abruptly, cleared his voice, and looked at Sally.“Well, father,” said May Christian, quickly, “about Rob who?”“Ahem! eh? well, yes, about Rob—ha, but we won’t talk about him just now, dear. Sally and I were havin’ some private conversation just now about Rob, though that isn’t the whole of his name neither, but we won’t make it public at present. You’ll hear about him time enough—eh, Sall?”The girls were so little accustomed to anything approaching to mystery or secrecy in John Adams, that they looked at him in silent wonder. Then they glanced at Sally, whose suppressed smile and downcast eyes told eloquently that there was, as Adams would have said, “something in the wind,” and they tried to get her to reveal the secret, but Sall was immovable. She would not add a single syllable to the information given inadvertently by Adams, but she and he laughed a good deal in a quiet way, and made frequent references to Rob in the course of the walk.Of course, when the mysterious word was pronounced in the village in the evening, and what had been said and hinted about it was repeated, curiosity was kindled into a violent flame; and when the entire colony was invited to a feast that night, the excitement was intense. From the oldest to the youngest, excluding the more recently arrived sprawlers, every eye was fixed on John Adams during the whole course of supper, except at the commencement, when the customary blessing was asked, at which point every eye was tightly closed.Adams, conscious of increased importance, spoke little during the meal, and maintained an air of profounder gravity than usual until the dishes were cleared away. Then he looked round the assembled circle, and said, “Women an’ child’n, I’m goin’ to tell ’ee a story.”
Faithful to his promise, John Adams, after the death of Young, did his best to carry on the good work that had been begun.
But at first his spirit was very heavy. It had not before occurred to him that there was a solitude far more profound and overwhelming than anything he had hitherto experienced. The difference between ten companions and one companion is not very great, but the difference between one and none is immeasurable. Of course we refer to that companionship which is capable of intelligent sympathy. The solitary seaman still had his Otaheitan wife and the bright children of the mutineers around him, and the death of Young had drawn out his heart more powerfully than ever towards these, but they could not in any degree fill the place of one who could talk intelligently of home, of Old England, of British battles fought and won, of ships and men, and things that might have belonged, as far as the women and children were concerned, to another world. They could only in a slight degree appreciate the nautical phraseology in which he had been wont to convey some of his strongest sentiments, and they could not in any degree enter into his feelings when, forgetting for a moment his circumstances, he came out with a pithy forecastle allusion to the politics or the Government of his native land.
“Oh, you meek-faced brute, if you could only speak!” he exclaimed one day, dropping his eyes from the sea, on which he had been gazing, to the eyes of a pet goat that had been looking up in his face. “What’s the use of having a tongue in your head if you can’t use it!”
As may be imagined, the goat made no reply to this remark, but continued its gaze with somewhat of the solemnity of the man himself.
For want of a companion, poor Adams at this time took to talking frequently in a quiet undertone to himself. He also fell a good deal into Fletcher Christian’s habit of retiring to the cave on the mountain-top, but he did not read the Bible while there. He merely communed with his own spirit, meditated sadly on the past, and wondered a good deal as to the probable future.
“It’s not that I ain’t happy enough here,” he muttered softly to himself one evening, while he gazed wistfully at the horizon as Christian had been wont to gaze. “I’m happy enough—more so than what I deserve to be, God knows—with them good—natured women an’ jolly bit things of child’n, but—but I’m awful hard up for a chum! I do believe that if Bill McCoy, or even Matt Quintal, was here, I’d get along pretty well with either of ’em. Ah, poor Quintal! I feel as if I’d never git over that. If it wasn’t murder, it feels awful like it; an’ yet I can’t see that they could call it murder. If we hadn’t done it he would certainly have killed both me an’ Mr Young, for Matt never threatened without performin’, and then he’d have gone mad an’ done for the women an’ child’n as well. No, it wasn’t murder. It was necessity.”
He remained silent for some time, and then his thoughts appeared to revert to the former channel.
“If only a ship would come an’ be wrecked here, now, we could start fresh once more with a new lot maybe, but I’m not so sure about that either. P’r’aps we’d quarrel an’ fight an’ go through the bloody business all over again. No, it’s better as it is. But a ship might touch in passin’, an’ we could prevail on two or three of the crew, or even one, to stop with us. What would I not give to hear a man’s voice once more, a good growlin’ bass. I wouldn’t be partickler as to sentiments or grammar, not I, if it was only gruff, an’ well spiced with sea-lingo an’ smelt o’ baccy. Not that I cares for baccy myself now, or grog either. Humph! it do make me a’most laugh to think o’ the times I’ve said, ay, and thought, that I couldn’t git along nohow without my pipe an’ my glass. Why, I wouldn’t give a chip of a brass farden for a pipe now, an’ as to grog, after what I’ve seen of its cursed natur’, I wouldn’t taste a drop even if they was to offer to make me Lord High Admiral o’ the British fleet for so doin’. But Iwouldlike once more to see a bearded man; even an unbearded one would be better than nothin’. Ah, well, it’s no manner o’ use sighin’, any more than cryin’, over spilt milk. Here I am, an’ I suppose here I shall be to the end o’ the chapter.”
Again he was silent for a long time, while his eyes remained fixed, as usual, on the horizon. Suddenly the gaze became intent, and, leaning forward with an eager expression, he shaded his eyes with his hand.
“It’s not creditable,” he murmured, as he fell back again into his former listless attitude, “it’s not creditable for an old salt like me to go mistakin’ sea-gulls for sails, as I’ve bin doin’ so often of late. I’m out o’ practice, that’s where it is.”
“Come, John Adams,” he added, after another pause, and jumping up smartly, “this will never do. Rouse yourself, John, an’ give up this mumble-bumble style o’ thing. Why, it’ll kill you in the long-run if you don’t. Besides, you promised Mr Young to carry on the work, and you must keep your promise, old boy.”
“Yes,” rang out a clear sweet voice from the inner end of the cave, “and you promised to give up coming here to mope; so you must keep your promise to me as well, father.”
Otaheitan Sally tripped into the cave, and seating herself on the stone ledge opposite, beamed up in the sailor’s face.
“You’re a good girl, Sall, an’ I’ll keep my promise to you from this day forth; see if I don’t. I’ll make a note of it in the log.”
The log to which Adams here referred was a journal or register, which Edward Young had begun to keep, and in which were inserted the incidents of chief interest, including the births and deaths, that took place on the island from the day of landing. After Young’s death, John Adams continued to post it up from time to time.
The promise to Sally was faithfully kept. From that time forward, Adams gave up going to the outlook, except now and then when anything unusual appeared on the sea, but never again to mope. He also devoted himself with increased assiduity to the instruction of the women and children in Bible truths, although still himself not very clear in his own mind as to the great central truth of all. In this work he was ably assisted by Sally, and also by Young’s widow, Susannah.
We have mentioned this woman as being one of the youngest of the Otaheitans. She was also one of the most graceful, and, strange to say, though it was she who killed Tetaheite, she was by nature one of the gentlest of them all.
The school never became a prison-house to these islanders, either women or children. Adams had wisdom enough at first to start it as a sort of play, and never fell into the civilised error of giving the pupils too much to do at a time. All the children answered the daily summons to school with equal alacrity, though it cannot be said that their performances there were equally creditable. Some were quick and intelligent, others were slow and stupid, while a few were slow but by no means stupid. Charlie Christian was among these last.
“Oh, Charlie, youaresuch a booby!” one day exclaimed Otaheitan Sally, who, being advanced to the dignity of monitor, devoted much of her time to the instruction of her old favourite. “Whatcanbe the matter with your brains?”
The innocent gaze of blank wonder with which the “Challie” of infancy had been wont to receive his companion’s laughing questions, had not quite departed; but it was chastened by this time with a slight puckering of the mouth and a faint twinkle of the eyes that were suggestive.
Sitting modestly on the low bench, with his hands clasped before him, this strapping pupil looked at his teacher, and said that really he did not know what was wrong with his brains.
“Perhaps,” he added, looking thoughtfully into the girl’s upturned orbs, “perhaps I haven’t got any brains at all.”
“O yes, you have,” cried Sall, with a laugh; “you have got plenty, if you’d only use them.”
“Ah!” sighed Charlie, stretching out one of his strong muscular arms and hands, “if brains were only things that one could lay hold of like an oar, or an axe, or a sledge-hammer, I’d soon let you see me use them; but bein’ only a soft kind o’ stuff in one’s skull, you know—”
A burst of laughter from Sally not only cut short the sentence, but stopped the general hum of the school, and drew the attention of the master.
“Hallo, Sall, I say, you know,” said Adams, in remonstrative tone, “you forget that you’re a monitor. If you go on like that we’ll have to make a school-girl of you again.”
“Please, father, I couldn’t help it,” said Sally, while her cheeks flushed crimson, “Charlie is such a—”
She stopped short, covered her face with both hands, and bending forward till she hid her confusion on her knees, went into an uncontrollable giggle, the only evidences of which, however, were the convulsive movements of her shoulders and an occasional squeak in the region of her little nose.
“Come now, child’n,” cried Adams, seating himself on an inverted tea-box, which formed his official chair, “time’s up, so we’ll have a slap at Carteret before dismissing. Thursday October Christian will bring the book.”
There was a general hum of satisfaction when this was said, for Carteret’s Voyages, which, with the Bible and Prayer-book, formed the only class-books of that singular school, were highly appreciated by young and old alike, especially as read to them by Adams, who accompanied his reading with a free running commentary of explanation, which infused great additional interest into that old writer’s book. TOC rose with alacrity, displaying in the act the immense relative difference between his very long legs and his ordinary body, in regard to which Adams used to console him by saying, “Never mind, Toc, your legs’ll stop growin’ at last, and when they do, your body will come out like a telescope. You’ll be a six-footer yet. Why, you’re taller than I am already by two inches.”
In process of time Carteret was finished; it was then begun a second time, and once more read through. After that Adams felt a chill feeling of helplessness steal over him, for Carteret could not be read over and over again like the Bible, and he could not quite see his way to reading the Church of England prayers by way of recreation. In his extremity he had recourse to Sally for advice. Indeed, now that Sall was approaching young womanhood, not only the children but all the grown people of the island, including their chief or “father,” found themselves when in trouble gravitating, as if by instinct, to the sympathetic heart and the ready hand.
“I’ll tell you what to do,” said Sally, when appealed to, as she took the seaman’s rough hand and fondled it; “just try to invent stories, and tell them to us as if you was readin’ a book. You might even turn Carteret upside down and pretend that you was readin’.”
Adams shook his head.
“I never could invent anything, Sall, ’xcept w’en I was tellin’ lies, an’ that’s a long while ago now—a long, long while. No; I doubt that I couldn’t invent, but I’ll tell ’ee what; I’ll try to remember some old yarns, and spin them off as well as I can.”
The new idea broke on Adams’s mind so suddenly that his eyes sparkled, and he bestowed a nautical slap on his thigh.
“The very thing!” cried Sally, whose eyes sparkled fully more than those of the sailor, while she clapped her hands; “nothing could be better. What will you begin with?”
“Let me see,” said Adams, seating himself on a tree-stump, and knitting his brows with a severe strain of memory. “There’s Cinderella; an’ there’s Ally Babby or the fifty thieves—if it wasn’t forty—I’m not rightly sure which, but it don’t much matter; an’ there’s Jack the Giant-killer, an’ Jack and the Pea-stalk—no; let me see; it was a beanstalk, I think—anyhow, it was the stalk of a vegetable o’ some sort. Why, I wonder it never struck me before to tell you all about them tales.”
Reader, if you had seen the joy depicted on Sally’s face, and the rich flush of her cheek, and her half-open mouth with its double row of pearls, while Adams ran over this familiar list, you would have thought it well worth that seaman’s while to tax his memory even more severely than he did.
“And then,” he continued, knitting his brows still more severely, “there’s Gulliver an’ the Lillycups or putts, an’ the Pilgrim’s Progress—though, of course, I don’t mean for to say I knows ’em all right off by heart, but that’s no odds. An’ there’s Robinson Crusoe—ha!that’sthe story for you, Sall; that’s the tale that’ll make your hair stand on end, an’ a’most split your sides open, an’ cause the very marrow in your spine to wriggle. Yes; we’ll begin with Robinson Crusoe.”
Having settled this point to their mutual and entire satisfaction, the two went off for a short walk before supper. On the way, they met Elizabeth Mills and Mary Christian, both of whom were now no longer staggerers, but far advanced as jumpers. They led between them Adams’s little daughter Dinah, who, being still very small, could not take long walks without assistance and an occasional carry.
“Di, my pet,” cried her father, seizing the willing child, and hoisting her on his shoulder. “Come, you shall go along with us. And you too, lassies, if you have no other business in hand.”
“Yes, we’ll go with you,” cried Bessy Mills. “May was just saying it was too soon to go home to supper.”
“Come along, then,” cried Adams, tossing his child in the air as he went. “My beauty, you’ll beat your mammy in looks yet, eh? an’ when you’re old enough we’ll tell you all about Rob—”
He checked himself abruptly, cleared his voice, and looked at Sally.
“Well, father,” said May Christian, quickly, “about Rob who?”
“Ahem! eh? well, yes, about Rob—ha, but we won’t talk about him just now, dear. Sally and I were havin’ some private conversation just now about Rob, though that isn’t the whole of his name neither, but we won’t make it public at present. You’ll hear about him time enough—eh, Sall?”
The girls were so little accustomed to anything approaching to mystery or secrecy in John Adams, that they looked at him in silent wonder. Then they glanced at Sally, whose suppressed smile and downcast eyes told eloquently that there was, as Adams would have said, “something in the wind,” and they tried to get her to reveal the secret, but Sall was immovable. She would not add a single syllable to the information given inadvertently by Adams, but she and he laughed a good deal in a quiet way, and made frequent references to Rob in the course of the walk.
Of course, when the mysterious word was pronounced in the village in the evening, and what had been said and hinted about it was repeated, curiosity was kindled into a violent flame; and when the entire colony was invited to a feast that night, the excitement was intense. From the oldest to the youngest, excluding the more recently arrived sprawlers, every eye was fixed on John Adams during the whole course of supper, except at the commencement, when the customary blessing was asked, at which point every eye was tightly closed.
Adams, conscious of increased importance, spoke little during the meal, and maintained an air of profounder gravity than usual until the dishes were cleared away. Then he looked round the assembled circle, and said, “Women an’ child’n, I’m goin’ to tell ’ee a story.”
Chapter Twenty Three.The Pitcairners have a Night of it.Although John Adams had often, in the course of his residence on Pitcairn, jested and chatted and taken his share in relating many an anecdote, he had never up till that time resolved to “go in,” as he said, “for a regular story, like a book.”“Women an’ child’n,” he began, “it may be that I’m goin’ to attempt more than I’m fit to carry out in this business, for my memory’s none o’ the best. However, that won’t matter much, for I tell ’ee, fair an’ aboveboard at the beginnin’, that when I come to gaps that I can’t fill up from memory, I’ll just bridge ’em over from imagination, d’ye see?”“What’s imagination?” demanded Dan McCoy, whose tendency to pert interruption and reply nothing yet discovered could restrain.“It’s a puzzler,” said Otaheitan Sally, in a low tone, which called forth a laugh from the others.It did not take much to make these people laugh, as the observant reader will have perceived.“Well, itisa puzzler,” said Adams, with a quiet smile and a perplexed look. “I may say, Dan McCoy, in an off-hand rough-an’-ready sort o’ way, that imagination is that power o’ the mind which enables a man to tell lies.”There was a general opening of juvenile eyes at this, as if recent biblical instruction had led them to believe that the use of such a power must be naughty.“You see,” explained Adams, “when a man, usin’ his imagination, tells what’s not true, just to deceive people an’ mislead ’em, we call it lyin’, but when his imagination invents what’s not true merely for the fun o’ the thing, an’ tells it as a joke, never pretendin’ that it’s true, he ain’t lyin’, he’s only tellin’ a story, or a anecdote, or a parable. Now, Dan, put that in your pipe an’ smoke it. Likewise shut your potato-trap, and let me go on wi’ my story, which is, (he looked impressively round, while every eye gazed, and ear listened, and mouth opened in breathless attention), the Adventure of Robinson Crusoe an’ his man Friday!”All eyes were turned, as if by magic, on Thursday,—as if there must be some strange connection here. Toc suddenly shut his mouth and hung his head in confusion at this unexpected concentration of attention on himself.“You’ve no need to be ashamed, Thursday,” said Adams, with a laugh. “You’ve got the advantage of Friday, anyhow, bein’ a day in advance of him. Well, as I was about to say, boys an’ girls, this Robinson Crusoe was a seafarin’ man, just like myself; an’ he went to sea, an’ was shipwrecked on a desolate island just like this, but there was nobody whatever on that island, not even a woman or a babby. Poor Robinson was all alone, an’ it wasn’t till a consid’rable time after he had gone ashore that he discovered Friday, (who was a black savage), through seein’ his footprint in the sand.”Adams having burst thus suddenly into the very marrow of his story, had no reason thereafter to complain either of interruption or inattention. Neither had he reason to find fault with the wealth of his prolific imagination. It would have done the soul of a painter good to have watched the faces of that rapt, eager, breathless audience, and it would have afforded much material for reflection to a student of mind, had he, knowing the original story of Robinson Crusoe, been permitted to trace the ingenious sinuosities and astounding creations by which Adams wove his meagre amount of original matter into a magnificent tale, which not only thrilled his audience, but amazed himself.In short, he quite justified the assurance formerly given to Sally, that the story of Robinson Crusoe would make the hair of his hearers stand on end, their sides almost split open, and the very marrow in their spines wriggle. Indeed, his version of the tale might have caused similar results in Robinson Crusoe himself, had he been there to hear it, besides causing his eyebrows to rise and vanish evermore among the hair of his head with astonishment.It was the same with the Pilgrim’s Progress, which he often told to them afterwards. Simple justice to Adams, however, requires us to state that he was particularly careful to impress on his hearers that the Pilgrim’s Progress was a religious tale.“It’s a allegory, you must know,” he said, on first introducing it, “which means a story intended to teach some good lesson—a story which says one thing and means another.”He looked pointedly at Dan McCoy here, as if to say, “That’s an exhaustive explanation, which takes the wind out o’yoursails, young man,” but Dan was not to be so easily silenced.“What’s the use, father,” he asked, with an air of affected simplicity, “of a story sayin’ one thing an’ meanin’ another? Wouldn’t it be more honest like if it said what it meant at once, straight off?”“P’r’aps it would,” returned Adams, who secretly enjoyed Dan’s irrepressible impudence; “but, then, if it did, Dan, it would take away your chance of askin’ questions, d’ye see? Anyhow,thisstory don’t say what it means straight off, an’ that gives me a chance to expound it.”Now, it was in the expounding of the Pilgrim’s Progress that John Adams’s peculiar talents shone out brilliantly, for not only did he “misremember,” jumble, and confuse the whole allegory, but he so misapprehended its meaning in many points, that the lessons taught and the morals drawn were very wide of the mark indeed. In regard to some particular points, too, he felt himself at liberty to let his genius have free untrammelled scope, as, for instance, in the celebrated battle between Christian and Apollyon. Arguing with himself that it was not possible for any man to overdo a fight with the devil, Adams made up his mind to “go well in” for that incident, and spent a whole evening over it, keeping his audience glaring and on the rack of expectation the whole time. Taking, perhaps, an unfair advantage of his minute knowledge as a man-of-war’s-man of cutlass-drill and of fighting in general, from pugilistic encounters to great-gun exercise, including all the intermediate performances with rapiers, swords, muskets, pistols, blunderbusses, and other weapons for “general scrimmaging,” he so wrought upon the nerves of his hearers that they quivered with emotion, and when at last he drove Apollyon discomfited from the field, like chaff before the wind, there burst forth a united cheer of triumph and relief, Dan McCoy, in particular, jumping up with tumbled yellow locks and glittering eyes in a perfect yell of exultation.But, to return from this digression to the story of Robinson Crusoe. It must not be supposed that Adams exhausted that tale in one night. No; soon discovering that he had struck an intellectual vein, so to speak, he resolved to work it out economically, and with that end in view, devoted the first evening to a minute dissection of Crusoe’s character as a man and a seaman, to the supposed fitting out and provisioning of his ship, to the imaginary cause of the disaster to the ship, which, (with Bligh, no doubt, in memory), he referred to the incompetence and wickedness of the skipper, and to the terrible incidents of the wreck, winding up with the landing of his hero, half-dead and alone, on the uninhabited island.“Now, child’n,” he concluded, “that’ll do for one night; and as it’s of no manner of use sending you all to bed to dream of bein’ shipwrecked and drownded, we’ll finish off with a game of blind-man’s-buff.”Need we say that the disappointment at the cutting short of the story was fully compensated by the game? Leaping up with another cheer, taught them by the best authorities, and given with true British fervour, they scattered about the room.Otaheitan Sally was, as a matter of course, the first to be blindfolded.And really, reader, it was wonderful how like that game, as played at Pitcairn, was to the same as performed in England. To justify this remark, let us describe it, and see whether there were any points of material difference.The apartment, let it be understood, was a pretty large one, lighted by two nut-candles in brackets on the walls. There was little furniture in it, only a few stools and two small tables, which were quickly thrust into a corner. Then Sally was taken to the centre of the room by Adams, and there blindfolded with a snuff-coloured silken bandana handkerchief, which had seen much service on board of theBounty.“Now, Sall, can you see?” asks Adams.“No, not one bit.”“Oh, yes you can,” from Charlie Christian, who hovers round her like the moth round the candle.“No, really, I can’t.”“Yes you can,” from Dan McCoy, who is on the alert; “I see your piercin’ black eyes comin’ right through the hankitchif.”“Get along, then,” cries Adams, twirling Sally round, and skipping out of the way.It is not the first time the women have played at that game, and their short garments, reaching little below the knees, seem admirably adapted to it, while they glide about with motions little less easy and agile than those of the children, and cause the roof to ring with laughter at the various misadventures that occur.Mrs Adams, however, does not join. Besides being considerably older than her husband, that good woman has become prematurely short-sighted and deaf. This being so, she sits in a corner, not inappropriately, to act the part of grandmother to the players, and to serve as an occasional buffer to such of the children as are hurled against her.Now, Otaheitan Sally, having gone rather cautiously about without catching any one except Charlie—whom she pretends not to know, examines from head to foot, and then guesses wrong on purpose—becomes suddenly wild, makes a desperate lunge, as she thinks, at Dan McCoy, and tumbles into Mrs Adams’s lap, amid shouts of delight.Of course Dan brought about this incident by wise forethought. His next success is unpremeditated. Making a pull at Sally’s skirt, he glides quickly out of her way as she wheels round, and hits Mainmast an unintentional backhander on the nose. This is received by Mainmast with a little scream, and by the children with an “Oh! o–o” of consternation, while Sally, pulling down the handkerchief, hastens to give needless assurance that she is “sovexed,” etcetera. Susannah joins her in condoling, and so does widow Martin; but Mainmast, with tears in her eyes, (drawn by the blow), and a smile on her lips, declares that she “don’t care a button.” Sally is therefore blindfolded again. She catches Charlie Christian immediately, and feeling that there is no other way of escaping from him, names him.Then Charlie, being blindfolded, sets to work with one solitary end in view, namely, to capture Sally. The injustice to the others of this proceeding never enters his innocent mind. He hears no voice but Sally’s; he clutches at nobody but Sally. When he is compelled to lay hold of any one else, he guesses wrong, not on purpose, but because he is thinking of Sally. Perceiving this, Sally retires quietly behind Mrs Adams’s chair, and Charlie, growing desperate, makes wild dashes, tumbling into the corner among the tables and stools, sending the staggerers spinning in all directions, and finally pitching headlong into Mrs Adams’s lap.At last he catches John Adams himself and as there is no possibility of mistaking him, the handkerchief is changed, and the game becomes more sedate, at the same time more nervous, for the stride of the seaman is awful, and the sweep of his outstretched arms comprehensive. Besides, he has a way of listening and making sudden darts in unexpected directions, which is very perplexing.After a few failures, Adams makes what he calls a wild roll to starboard, followed instantly by a heavy lurch to port, and pins Dan McCoy into a corner.“Ha! I’ve grabbed you at last, have I?” says he.“Who is it?” shout half-a-dozen voices.“Who but Dan’l? There’s impudence in the very feel of his hair.”So Dan is blindfolded. And now comes the tug of war. If it was fast and furious before, it is maniacal madness now. The noise is indescribable, yet it fails to waken two infants, who, with expressions of perfect peace on their innocent faces, repose in two bunks at one side of the room.At last Thursday October tumbles into one of these bunks, and all but immolates an infant. Mrs Adams is fairly overturned; one table comes by a damaged leg, the other is split lengthwise, and one of the candles is blown out. These symptoms are as good as a weather-glass to Adams.“Now, then, one and all, it’s time for bed,” he says.Instantly the rioting comes to a close, and still panting from their exertions, the elder children carry out the tables and rectify their damages as well as may be, while the younger range the stools round the wall and sit down on them or on the floor.“Fetch the Bible and Prayer-book, Matt Quintal,” says Adams.They are about to close the evening with worship. It has become habitual now, and there is no difficulty in calming the spirits of the children to the proper tone, for they have been trained by a man who is unaffected and sincere. They slide easily, because naturally, from gay to grave; and they would as soon think of going to work without breakfast, as of going to rest without worship.A chapter is read with comparative ease by John Adams, for he has applied himself heartily to his task, and overcome most of his old difficulties. Then he reads a short prayer, selected from the Prayer-book. The Lord’s Prayer follows, in which they all join, and the evening comes to a close.Trooping from Adams’s house, they dispersed to their respective homes. The lights are extinguished. Only the quiet stars remain to shed a soft radiance over the pleasant scene; and in a few minutes more the people of Pitcairn are wrapped in deep, healthy, sound repose.
Although John Adams had often, in the course of his residence on Pitcairn, jested and chatted and taken his share in relating many an anecdote, he had never up till that time resolved to “go in,” as he said, “for a regular story, like a book.”
“Women an’ child’n,” he began, “it may be that I’m goin’ to attempt more than I’m fit to carry out in this business, for my memory’s none o’ the best. However, that won’t matter much, for I tell ’ee, fair an’ aboveboard at the beginnin’, that when I come to gaps that I can’t fill up from memory, I’ll just bridge ’em over from imagination, d’ye see?”
“What’s imagination?” demanded Dan McCoy, whose tendency to pert interruption and reply nothing yet discovered could restrain.
“It’s a puzzler,” said Otaheitan Sally, in a low tone, which called forth a laugh from the others.
It did not take much to make these people laugh, as the observant reader will have perceived.
“Well, itisa puzzler,” said Adams, with a quiet smile and a perplexed look. “I may say, Dan McCoy, in an off-hand rough-an’-ready sort o’ way, that imagination is that power o’ the mind which enables a man to tell lies.”
There was a general opening of juvenile eyes at this, as if recent biblical instruction had led them to believe that the use of such a power must be naughty.
“You see,” explained Adams, “when a man, usin’ his imagination, tells what’s not true, just to deceive people an’ mislead ’em, we call it lyin’, but when his imagination invents what’s not true merely for the fun o’ the thing, an’ tells it as a joke, never pretendin’ that it’s true, he ain’t lyin’, he’s only tellin’ a story, or a anecdote, or a parable. Now, Dan, put that in your pipe an’ smoke it. Likewise shut your potato-trap, and let me go on wi’ my story, which is, (he looked impressively round, while every eye gazed, and ear listened, and mouth opened in breathless attention), the Adventure of Robinson Crusoe an’ his man Friday!”
All eyes were turned, as if by magic, on Thursday,—as if there must be some strange connection here. Toc suddenly shut his mouth and hung his head in confusion at this unexpected concentration of attention on himself.
“You’ve no need to be ashamed, Thursday,” said Adams, with a laugh. “You’ve got the advantage of Friday, anyhow, bein’ a day in advance of him. Well, as I was about to say, boys an’ girls, this Robinson Crusoe was a seafarin’ man, just like myself; an’ he went to sea, an’ was shipwrecked on a desolate island just like this, but there was nobody whatever on that island, not even a woman or a babby. Poor Robinson was all alone, an’ it wasn’t till a consid’rable time after he had gone ashore that he discovered Friday, (who was a black savage), through seein’ his footprint in the sand.”
Adams having burst thus suddenly into the very marrow of his story, had no reason thereafter to complain either of interruption or inattention. Neither had he reason to find fault with the wealth of his prolific imagination. It would have done the soul of a painter good to have watched the faces of that rapt, eager, breathless audience, and it would have afforded much material for reflection to a student of mind, had he, knowing the original story of Robinson Crusoe, been permitted to trace the ingenious sinuosities and astounding creations by which Adams wove his meagre amount of original matter into a magnificent tale, which not only thrilled his audience, but amazed himself.
In short, he quite justified the assurance formerly given to Sally, that the story of Robinson Crusoe would make the hair of his hearers stand on end, their sides almost split open, and the very marrow in their spines wriggle. Indeed, his version of the tale might have caused similar results in Robinson Crusoe himself, had he been there to hear it, besides causing his eyebrows to rise and vanish evermore among the hair of his head with astonishment.
It was the same with the Pilgrim’s Progress, which he often told to them afterwards. Simple justice to Adams, however, requires us to state that he was particularly careful to impress on his hearers that the Pilgrim’s Progress was a religious tale.
“It’s a allegory, you must know,” he said, on first introducing it, “which means a story intended to teach some good lesson—a story which says one thing and means another.”
He looked pointedly at Dan McCoy here, as if to say, “That’s an exhaustive explanation, which takes the wind out o’yoursails, young man,” but Dan was not to be so easily silenced.
“What’s the use, father,” he asked, with an air of affected simplicity, “of a story sayin’ one thing an’ meanin’ another? Wouldn’t it be more honest like if it said what it meant at once, straight off?”
“P’r’aps it would,” returned Adams, who secretly enjoyed Dan’s irrepressible impudence; “but, then, if it did, Dan, it would take away your chance of askin’ questions, d’ye see? Anyhow,thisstory don’t say what it means straight off, an’ that gives me a chance to expound it.”
Now, it was in the expounding of the Pilgrim’s Progress that John Adams’s peculiar talents shone out brilliantly, for not only did he “misremember,” jumble, and confuse the whole allegory, but he so misapprehended its meaning in many points, that the lessons taught and the morals drawn were very wide of the mark indeed. In regard to some particular points, too, he felt himself at liberty to let his genius have free untrammelled scope, as, for instance, in the celebrated battle between Christian and Apollyon. Arguing with himself that it was not possible for any man to overdo a fight with the devil, Adams made up his mind to “go well in” for that incident, and spent a whole evening over it, keeping his audience glaring and on the rack of expectation the whole time. Taking, perhaps, an unfair advantage of his minute knowledge as a man-of-war’s-man of cutlass-drill and of fighting in general, from pugilistic encounters to great-gun exercise, including all the intermediate performances with rapiers, swords, muskets, pistols, blunderbusses, and other weapons for “general scrimmaging,” he so wrought upon the nerves of his hearers that they quivered with emotion, and when at last he drove Apollyon discomfited from the field, like chaff before the wind, there burst forth a united cheer of triumph and relief, Dan McCoy, in particular, jumping up with tumbled yellow locks and glittering eyes in a perfect yell of exultation.
But, to return from this digression to the story of Robinson Crusoe. It must not be supposed that Adams exhausted that tale in one night. No; soon discovering that he had struck an intellectual vein, so to speak, he resolved to work it out economically, and with that end in view, devoted the first evening to a minute dissection of Crusoe’s character as a man and a seaman, to the supposed fitting out and provisioning of his ship, to the imaginary cause of the disaster to the ship, which, (with Bligh, no doubt, in memory), he referred to the incompetence and wickedness of the skipper, and to the terrible incidents of the wreck, winding up with the landing of his hero, half-dead and alone, on the uninhabited island.
“Now, child’n,” he concluded, “that’ll do for one night; and as it’s of no manner of use sending you all to bed to dream of bein’ shipwrecked and drownded, we’ll finish off with a game of blind-man’s-buff.”
Need we say that the disappointment at the cutting short of the story was fully compensated by the game? Leaping up with another cheer, taught them by the best authorities, and given with true British fervour, they scattered about the room.
Otaheitan Sally was, as a matter of course, the first to be blindfolded.
And really, reader, it was wonderful how like that game, as played at Pitcairn, was to the same as performed in England. To justify this remark, let us describe it, and see whether there were any points of material difference.
The apartment, let it be understood, was a pretty large one, lighted by two nut-candles in brackets on the walls. There was little furniture in it, only a few stools and two small tables, which were quickly thrust into a corner. Then Sally was taken to the centre of the room by Adams, and there blindfolded with a snuff-coloured silken bandana handkerchief, which had seen much service on board of theBounty.
“Now, Sall, can you see?” asks Adams.
“No, not one bit.”
“Oh, yes you can,” from Charlie Christian, who hovers round her like the moth round the candle.
“No, really, I can’t.”
“Yes you can,” from Dan McCoy, who is on the alert; “I see your piercin’ black eyes comin’ right through the hankitchif.”
“Get along, then,” cries Adams, twirling Sally round, and skipping out of the way.
It is not the first time the women have played at that game, and their short garments, reaching little below the knees, seem admirably adapted to it, while they glide about with motions little less easy and agile than those of the children, and cause the roof to ring with laughter at the various misadventures that occur.
Mrs Adams, however, does not join. Besides being considerably older than her husband, that good woman has become prematurely short-sighted and deaf. This being so, she sits in a corner, not inappropriately, to act the part of grandmother to the players, and to serve as an occasional buffer to such of the children as are hurled against her.
Now, Otaheitan Sally, having gone rather cautiously about without catching any one except Charlie—whom she pretends not to know, examines from head to foot, and then guesses wrong on purpose—becomes suddenly wild, makes a desperate lunge, as she thinks, at Dan McCoy, and tumbles into Mrs Adams’s lap, amid shouts of delight.
Of course Dan brought about this incident by wise forethought. His next success is unpremeditated. Making a pull at Sally’s skirt, he glides quickly out of her way as she wheels round, and hits Mainmast an unintentional backhander on the nose. This is received by Mainmast with a little scream, and by the children with an “Oh! o–o” of consternation, while Sally, pulling down the handkerchief, hastens to give needless assurance that she is “sovexed,” etcetera. Susannah joins her in condoling, and so does widow Martin; but Mainmast, with tears in her eyes, (drawn by the blow), and a smile on her lips, declares that she “don’t care a button.” Sally is therefore blindfolded again. She catches Charlie Christian immediately, and feeling that there is no other way of escaping from him, names him.
Then Charlie, being blindfolded, sets to work with one solitary end in view, namely, to capture Sally. The injustice to the others of this proceeding never enters his innocent mind. He hears no voice but Sally’s; he clutches at nobody but Sally. When he is compelled to lay hold of any one else, he guesses wrong, not on purpose, but because he is thinking of Sally. Perceiving this, Sally retires quietly behind Mrs Adams’s chair, and Charlie, growing desperate, makes wild dashes, tumbling into the corner among the tables and stools, sending the staggerers spinning in all directions, and finally pitching headlong into Mrs Adams’s lap.
At last he catches John Adams himself and as there is no possibility of mistaking him, the handkerchief is changed, and the game becomes more sedate, at the same time more nervous, for the stride of the seaman is awful, and the sweep of his outstretched arms comprehensive. Besides, he has a way of listening and making sudden darts in unexpected directions, which is very perplexing.
After a few failures, Adams makes what he calls a wild roll to starboard, followed instantly by a heavy lurch to port, and pins Dan McCoy into a corner.
“Ha! I’ve grabbed you at last, have I?” says he.
“Who is it?” shout half-a-dozen voices.
“Who but Dan’l? There’s impudence in the very feel of his hair.”
So Dan is blindfolded. And now comes the tug of war. If it was fast and furious before, it is maniacal madness now. The noise is indescribable, yet it fails to waken two infants, who, with expressions of perfect peace on their innocent faces, repose in two bunks at one side of the room.
At last Thursday October tumbles into one of these bunks, and all but immolates an infant. Mrs Adams is fairly overturned; one table comes by a damaged leg, the other is split lengthwise, and one of the candles is blown out. These symptoms are as good as a weather-glass to Adams.
“Now, then, one and all, it’s time for bed,” he says.
Instantly the rioting comes to a close, and still panting from their exertions, the elder children carry out the tables and rectify their damages as well as may be, while the younger range the stools round the wall and sit down on them or on the floor.
“Fetch the Bible and Prayer-book, Matt Quintal,” says Adams.
They are about to close the evening with worship. It has become habitual now, and there is no difficulty in calming the spirits of the children to the proper tone, for they have been trained by a man who is unaffected and sincere. They slide easily, because naturally, from gay to grave; and they would as soon think of going to work without breakfast, as of going to rest without worship.
A chapter is read with comparative ease by John Adams, for he has applied himself heartily to his task, and overcome most of his old difficulties. Then he reads a short prayer, selected from the Prayer-book. The Lord’s Prayer follows, in which they all join, and the evening comes to a close.
Trooping from Adams’s house, they dispersed to their respective homes. The lights are extinguished. Only the quiet stars remain to shed a soft radiance over the pleasant scene; and in a few minutes more the people of Pitcairn are wrapped in deep, healthy, sound repose.
Chapter Twenty Four.Refers to Things Spiritual and Physical.It was not until some years had elapsed after the death of Edward Young, that John Adams becameseriouslyimpressed with the great responsibility of his position.In the year 1804 a son was born to him, whom he named George, whether after the King of England or a relative of his own we are not prepared to state. After the King very likely, for Adams, although a mutineer, was a loyal subject at heart, and never ceased to condemn and deplore the act of mutiny into which, after all, he had been surprised rather than willingly led.This infant, George, was the last of this first generation, and his father was extremely proud and fond of him. Having already three daughters, he seemed to have peculiar satisfaction in the advent of a son; and having latterly acquired the habit of mingling a dash of Scriptural language with his usual phraseology, he went about the first day or two after the child’s birth, murmuring, “I’ve gotten a man-child from the Lord—a man-child, let’s be thankful; an’ a regular ship-shape, trim little craft he is too.”There can be no doubt that the seaman’s naturally serious mind became more profoundly impressed with religion shortly after this event. A dream which he appears to have had deepened his impressions. Like most dreams, it was not in itself very definite or noteworthy, but we have no doubt it was used as a means towards perfecting the good work which had been already begun. At all events, it is certain that about this time Adams began to understand the way of life more clearly, and to teach it more zealously to the little community which was fast growing up around him. The duties which he had undertaken to fulfil were now no longer carried on merely because of his promise to Edward Young and a sense of honour. While these motives did indeed continue to operate with all their original force, he was now attracted to his labour out of regard to the commands of God, and a strong desire for the welfare of the souls committed to his charge.Naturally he fell into one or two errors of judgment. Among other things, he at first imagined that it was his duty to attempt the keeping of all the Jewish festivals, and to institute a fast twice in the week. These errors were, however, corrected by increased knowledge in the course of time.But it must not be supposed that this earnest searcher after truth became ascetic or morose. Despite his mistakes, and the somewhat severe discipline which he was thereby led to impose on himself and the community, the effect on him and his large family of the Scriptures—pure, unadulterated, and without note or comment—was to create love to God, to intensify their love for each other, to render them anxious to imitate the example and walk in the footsteps of Jesus, and to cause them torejoiceat all times. It was quite evident, ere long, that the whole community had drunk deeply into the spirit of such passages in the Word as these:— “Delight thyself in the Lord,”—“By love serve one another,”—“Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, rejoice,”—“Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might, as unto the Lord and not unto men,”—“Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you,”—“Let each esteem other better than himself.”—“Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them.”—“Love is the fulfilling of the law,”—“Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.”The last text was a favourite one with Adams, who occasionally found that even among the tractable and kindly troop he had to deal with, sin was by no means extinct.Do not suppose, good reader, that we are now attempting to depict a species of exceptional innocence which never existed, an Arcadia which never really had a local habitation. On the contrary, we are taking pains to analyse the cause of a state of human goodness and felicity, springing up in the midst of exceptionally unpromising circumstances, which has no parallel, we think, in the history of mankind; which not only did exist, but which, with modifications, does still exist, and has been borne witness to through more than half a century by men of varied and unquestionable authority, including merchant-skippers, discoverers, travellers, captains and admirals in the Royal Navy. The point that we wish to press is, not that the enviable condition of things we have described is essentially true, but that this condition has been brought about by the unaided Word of God; that Word which so many now-a-days would fain underrate, but which for those who are taught by the Holy Spirit is still the power of God unto salvation.The hilarity of the Pitcairners increased rather than diminished as their love for the Bible deepened. Fun and solemnity are not necessarily, and never need be, antagonistic. Hand in hand these two have walked the earth together since Adam and Eve bid each other good-morning in the peaceful groves of Paradise. They are subject, no doubt, to the universal laws which make it impossible for two things to fill the same place at the same time, and they sometimes do get, as it were, out of step, and jostle each other slightly, which calls forth a gentle shake of the head from the one and a deprecatory smile from the other; but they seldom disagree, and never fight.Thus it came to pass that though John Adams, as time went on, read more than ever of the Bible to his audiences, and dilated much on the parables, he did not dismiss Robinson Crusoe, or expel Gulliver, or put a stop to blind-man’s-buff. On the contrary, waxing courageous under the influence of success, he cast off his moorings from the skeletons of the stories to which he had at first timidly attached himself, and crowding all sail alow and aloft, swept out into the unexplored seas of pure, unadulterated, and outrageous fiction of his own invention.“Them’s the stories for me,” Daniel McCoy was wont to say, when commenting on this subject. “Truth is all very well in its way, you know, but it’s a great bother when you’ve got to stick to it; of course I mean when story-tellin’.”Neither John Adams nor his pupils knew at that time, though doubtless their descendants have learned long ere now, that after all truth is in very deed stranger than fiction.As time passed changes more or less momentous occurred in the lonely island. True, none of those convulsions which rack and overturn the larger communities of men on earth visited that favoured spot; but forces of Nature were being slowly yet surely developed, which began to tell with considerable effect on the people of Pitcairn.They were not, however, much troubled by the ills that flesh is heir to. Leading, as they did, natural and healthy lives, eating simple and to a large extent vegetable fare, and knowing nothing of the abominations of tobacco or strong drink, their maladies were few and seldom fatal.John Adams himself had the constitution of a horse. Nevertheless, he was troubled now and then with a bad tooth, and once had a regular attack of raging toothache. As none of the people had ever even heard of this malady, they were much alarmed and not a little solemnised by its effects on their chief.Walking up and down the floor of his house, holding his afflicted jaw with both hands, the poor man endeavoured to endure it with fortitude; but when the quivering nerve began, as it were, to dance a hornpipe inside of his tooth, irrepressible groans burst from him and awed the community.“Is itverybad, John?” asked his sympathetic wife, who was cleaning up the house at the time.“Ho–o–o–rible!” answered John.“I’mverysorry, John,” said the wife.“Oh–o–o–o-oh!” groaned the husband.When it became known in the village that Adams was suffering from some mysterious complaint that nearly drove him mad, two or three of the children, unable to restrain their curiosity, ran to his house and peeped in at the open door and windows. The sufferer either disregarded or did not see them.In a few minutes the poor man’s steps became more frantic, and another groan burst from him. Then he stopped in the middle of the room, uttered a deep growl, and stamped.At this the heads of the peeping children disappeared. They gazed at each other in solemn wonder. They had never seen the like of this before. To stamp on the floor without an apparent reason, and without being done in fun, was beyond their comprehension.“Where’s the tool-box, lass?” gasped Adams suddenly.His helpmate brought to him an old hand-box for nails and small tools, which had once done service in theBounty.With eager haste Adams selected a pair of pincers, and, seizing his tooth therewith, he began to twist.At the same time his features began to screw up into an expression of agony.“Howgh!” he exclaimed, between a gasp and a short roar, as the pincers slipped. And no wonder, for it was a three-fanged grinder of the largest size, situate in the remote backwoods of the under jaw.He tried again, and again failed. Then a third time, and then discovered that, up to a certain point, his will was free to act, but that beyond that point, the agony was so intense that the muscles of the hand and arm refused to act responsive to the will. In other circumstances he might have moralised on this curious fact. As it was he only moaned aloud. Two of the children, of peculiarly sympathetic natures, echoed the moan unintentionally. They immediately vanished, but soon peeped up again in irresistible curiosity.“Old ’ooman,” said Adams, “this is out o’ sight the worst fit as ever I had. Just fetch me a bit of that small strong cord out o’ the cupboard there.”Mrs Adams did as she was bid, and her husband, making a sailor-like loop on it, fastened the same round his tooth, which was not difficult, for the evil grinder stood unsupported and isolated in the jaw.“Now,” said her husband, “you take hold o’ the end o’ this and haul; haul hard,—don’t be afraid.”Mrs Adams felt nervous, and remonstrated, but being persuaded after a time to try again, she gave a vigorous pull, which drew from the unhappy man a terrible yell, but did not draw the tooth.“This’ll never do,” groaned John, feeling the rebellious molar with his finger; “it’s as firm as a copper bolt yet. Come, wife, I’ll try another plan. You go outside that door an’ do what I bid you. Mind, never you heed what it means; you just obey orders exactly.”It was not necessary thus to caution poor tractable Mrs Adams. She went outside the door as bid.“Now, then,” said her husband, “when I cry, ‘Pull,’ you shut the door with all your might—with a bang. D’ye hear?”“Yes,” replied the wife, faintly.Fastening the cord once more round the tooth, the wretched sailor attached the other end to the handle of the door, and retiring till there was only about eight inches or a foot of “slack” cord left, stood up and drew a long breath. The glaring children also drew long breaths. One very small one, who had been lifted on to the window-sill by an amiable companion, lay there on his breast visibly affected by alarm.“Shut the door!” cried Adams.There was a tremendous bang, followed by an instantaneous yell. The children jumped nearly out of their own skins, and the little one on the window-sill fell flat on the ground in speechless horror; but the tooth was not yet out. The cord had slipped again.“This is becomin’ terrible,” said Adams, with a solemn look. “I’ll tell ’ee what, lass; you run round to the smiddy an’ tell Thursday that I want him d’rectly, an’ look alive, old girl.”Mrs Adams hastened out, and scattering the children, soon returned with the desired youth.And a most respectable youth had Thursday October Christian become at that time. He was over six feet high, though not quite sixteen years of age, with a breadth of shoulder and depth of chest that would have befitted a man of six-and-twenty. He had no beard, but he possessed a deep bass voice, which more than satisfied John Adams’s oft-expressed wish of earlier days to hear the “sound of a man.”“Toc,” said Adams, holding his jaw with one hand and the pincers in the other, “I’ve got a most astoundin’ fit o’ the toothache, andmustgit rid o’ this grinder; but it’s an awful one to hold on. I’ve tried it three times myself wi’ them pincers, an’ my old ’ooman has tried it wi’ this here cable—once with her fist an’ once wi’ the door as a sort o’ capstan; but it’s still hard an’ fast, like the sheet-anchor of a seventy-four. Now, Toc, my lad, you’re a stout young chap for your age. Just you take them pincers, lay hold o’ the rascally thing, an’ haul him out. Don’t be afeared. Hemustcome if you only heave with a will.”“What, father, do you mean that I’m to lay hold o’ that tooth wi’ them pincers an’ wrench it bodily out of your head?”“That’s just about what I do mean, Toc,” returned Adams, with a grim smile. “Moreover, I want you to make no bungle of it. Don’t let your narves come into play. Just take a grip like a brave man, heave away wi’ the force of a windlass, an’ don’t stop for my yellin’.”Thus adjured, Thursday October took the pincers, and gazed with a look of great anxiety into the cavernous mouth that Adams opened to his view.“Which one is it, father, asked Toc,” rolling up his shirt sleeves to the shoulder and displaying arms worthy of Vulcan.“Man alive! don’t you see it? The one furthest aft, with a black hole in it big enough a’most to stuff my George into.”Thursday applied the pincers gently. Adams, unable to use clear speech in the circumstances, said chokingly, “’At’s ’e un—’ool away!” which, interpreted, is, “That’s the one—pull away.”Toc pulled, Adams roared, the children quaked, and the pincers slipped.“Oh, Toc, Toc!” cried Adams, with a remonstrative look, such as martyrs are said to give when their heads are not properly cut off; “is that all you can do with your big strong arms? Fie, man, fie!”This disparaging reference to his strength put poor Thursday on his mettle.“I’ll try again, father,” he said.“Well, do; an’ see you make a better job of it this time.”The powerful youth got hold of the tooth a second time, and gave it a terrible wrench. Adams roared like a bull of Bashan, but Toc’s heart was hardened now; he wrenched again—a long, strong, and steady pull. The martyr howled as if his spinal marrow were being extracted. Toc suddenly staggered back; his arm flew up, displaying a bloody tooth with three enormous fangs. The “old ’ooman” shrieked, the child on the window-sill fell again therefrom in convulsions, and the others fled panic-struck into the woods, where they displayed their imitative tendencies and relieved their feelings by tearing up wild shrubs by the roots, amid yells and roars of agony, during the remainder of the day.
It was not until some years had elapsed after the death of Edward Young, that John Adams becameseriouslyimpressed with the great responsibility of his position.
In the year 1804 a son was born to him, whom he named George, whether after the King of England or a relative of his own we are not prepared to state. After the King very likely, for Adams, although a mutineer, was a loyal subject at heart, and never ceased to condemn and deplore the act of mutiny into which, after all, he had been surprised rather than willingly led.
This infant, George, was the last of this first generation, and his father was extremely proud and fond of him. Having already three daughters, he seemed to have peculiar satisfaction in the advent of a son; and having latterly acquired the habit of mingling a dash of Scriptural language with his usual phraseology, he went about the first day or two after the child’s birth, murmuring, “I’ve gotten a man-child from the Lord—a man-child, let’s be thankful; an’ a regular ship-shape, trim little craft he is too.”
There can be no doubt that the seaman’s naturally serious mind became more profoundly impressed with religion shortly after this event. A dream which he appears to have had deepened his impressions. Like most dreams, it was not in itself very definite or noteworthy, but we have no doubt it was used as a means towards perfecting the good work which had been already begun. At all events, it is certain that about this time Adams began to understand the way of life more clearly, and to teach it more zealously to the little community which was fast growing up around him. The duties which he had undertaken to fulfil were now no longer carried on merely because of his promise to Edward Young and a sense of honour. While these motives did indeed continue to operate with all their original force, he was now attracted to his labour out of regard to the commands of God, and a strong desire for the welfare of the souls committed to his charge.
Naturally he fell into one or two errors of judgment. Among other things, he at first imagined that it was his duty to attempt the keeping of all the Jewish festivals, and to institute a fast twice in the week. These errors were, however, corrected by increased knowledge in the course of time.
But it must not be supposed that this earnest searcher after truth became ascetic or morose. Despite his mistakes, and the somewhat severe discipline which he was thereby led to impose on himself and the community, the effect on him and his large family of the Scriptures—pure, unadulterated, and without note or comment—was to create love to God, to intensify their love for each other, to render them anxious to imitate the example and walk in the footsteps of Jesus, and to cause them torejoiceat all times. It was quite evident, ere long, that the whole community had drunk deeply into the spirit of such passages in the Word as these:— “Delight thyself in the Lord,”—“By love serve one another,”—“Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, rejoice,”—“Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might, as unto the Lord and not unto men,”—“Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you,”—“Let each esteem other better than himself.”—“Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them.”—“Love is the fulfilling of the law,”—“Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.”
The last text was a favourite one with Adams, who occasionally found that even among the tractable and kindly troop he had to deal with, sin was by no means extinct.
Do not suppose, good reader, that we are now attempting to depict a species of exceptional innocence which never existed, an Arcadia which never really had a local habitation. On the contrary, we are taking pains to analyse the cause of a state of human goodness and felicity, springing up in the midst of exceptionally unpromising circumstances, which has no parallel, we think, in the history of mankind; which not only did exist, but which, with modifications, does still exist, and has been borne witness to through more than half a century by men of varied and unquestionable authority, including merchant-skippers, discoverers, travellers, captains and admirals in the Royal Navy. The point that we wish to press is, not that the enviable condition of things we have described is essentially true, but that this condition has been brought about by the unaided Word of God; that Word which so many now-a-days would fain underrate, but which for those who are taught by the Holy Spirit is still the power of God unto salvation.
The hilarity of the Pitcairners increased rather than diminished as their love for the Bible deepened. Fun and solemnity are not necessarily, and never need be, antagonistic. Hand in hand these two have walked the earth together since Adam and Eve bid each other good-morning in the peaceful groves of Paradise. They are subject, no doubt, to the universal laws which make it impossible for two things to fill the same place at the same time, and they sometimes do get, as it were, out of step, and jostle each other slightly, which calls forth a gentle shake of the head from the one and a deprecatory smile from the other; but they seldom disagree, and never fight.
Thus it came to pass that though John Adams, as time went on, read more than ever of the Bible to his audiences, and dilated much on the parables, he did not dismiss Robinson Crusoe, or expel Gulliver, or put a stop to blind-man’s-buff. On the contrary, waxing courageous under the influence of success, he cast off his moorings from the skeletons of the stories to which he had at first timidly attached himself, and crowding all sail alow and aloft, swept out into the unexplored seas of pure, unadulterated, and outrageous fiction of his own invention.
“Them’s the stories for me,” Daniel McCoy was wont to say, when commenting on this subject. “Truth is all very well in its way, you know, but it’s a great bother when you’ve got to stick to it; of course I mean when story-tellin’.”
Neither John Adams nor his pupils knew at that time, though doubtless their descendants have learned long ere now, that after all truth is in very deed stranger than fiction.
As time passed changes more or less momentous occurred in the lonely island. True, none of those convulsions which rack and overturn the larger communities of men on earth visited that favoured spot; but forces of Nature were being slowly yet surely developed, which began to tell with considerable effect on the people of Pitcairn.
They were not, however, much troubled by the ills that flesh is heir to. Leading, as they did, natural and healthy lives, eating simple and to a large extent vegetable fare, and knowing nothing of the abominations of tobacco or strong drink, their maladies were few and seldom fatal.
John Adams himself had the constitution of a horse. Nevertheless, he was troubled now and then with a bad tooth, and once had a regular attack of raging toothache. As none of the people had ever even heard of this malady, they were much alarmed and not a little solemnised by its effects on their chief.
Walking up and down the floor of his house, holding his afflicted jaw with both hands, the poor man endeavoured to endure it with fortitude; but when the quivering nerve began, as it were, to dance a hornpipe inside of his tooth, irrepressible groans burst from him and awed the community.
“Is itverybad, John?” asked his sympathetic wife, who was cleaning up the house at the time.
“Ho–o–o–rible!” answered John.
“I’mverysorry, John,” said the wife.
“Oh–o–o–o-oh!” groaned the husband.
When it became known in the village that Adams was suffering from some mysterious complaint that nearly drove him mad, two or three of the children, unable to restrain their curiosity, ran to his house and peeped in at the open door and windows. The sufferer either disregarded or did not see them.
In a few minutes the poor man’s steps became more frantic, and another groan burst from him. Then he stopped in the middle of the room, uttered a deep growl, and stamped.
At this the heads of the peeping children disappeared. They gazed at each other in solemn wonder. They had never seen the like of this before. To stamp on the floor without an apparent reason, and without being done in fun, was beyond their comprehension.
“Where’s the tool-box, lass?” gasped Adams suddenly.
His helpmate brought to him an old hand-box for nails and small tools, which had once done service in theBounty.
With eager haste Adams selected a pair of pincers, and, seizing his tooth therewith, he began to twist.
At the same time his features began to screw up into an expression of agony.
“Howgh!” he exclaimed, between a gasp and a short roar, as the pincers slipped. And no wonder, for it was a three-fanged grinder of the largest size, situate in the remote backwoods of the under jaw.
He tried again, and again failed. Then a third time, and then discovered that, up to a certain point, his will was free to act, but that beyond that point, the agony was so intense that the muscles of the hand and arm refused to act responsive to the will. In other circumstances he might have moralised on this curious fact. As it was he only moaned aloud. Two of the children, of peculiarly sympathetic natures, echoed the moan unintentionally. They immediately vanished, but soon peeped up again in irresistible curiosity.
“Old ’ooman,” said Adams, “this is out o’ sight the worst fit as ever I had. Just fetch me a bit of that small strong cord out o’ the cupboard there.”
Mrs Adams did as she was bid, and her husband, making a sailor-like loop on it, fastened the same round his tooth, which was not difficult, for the evil grinder stood unsupported and isolated in the jaw.
“Now,” said her husband, “you take hold o’ the end o’ this and haul; haul hard,—don’t be afraid.”
Mrs Adams felt nervous, and remonstrated, but being persuaded after a time to try again, she gave a vigorous pull, which drew from the unhappy man a terrible yell, but did not draw the tooth.
“This’ll never do,” groaned John, feeling the rebellious molar with his finger; “it’s as firm as a copper bolt yet. Come, wife, I’ll try another plan. You go outside that door an’ do what I bid you. Mind, never you heed what it means; you just obey orders exactly.”
It was not necessary thus to caution poor tractable Mrs Adams. She went outside the door as bid.
“Now, then,” said her husband, “when I cry, ‘Pull,’ you shut the door with all your might—with a bang. D’ye hear?”
“Yes,” replied the wife, faintly.
Fastening the cord once more round the tooth, the wretched sailor attached the other end to the handle of the door, and retiring till there was only about eight inches or a foot of “slack” cord left, stood up and drew a long breath. The glaring children also drew long breaths. One very small one, who had been lifted on to the window-sill by an amiable companion, lay there on his breast visibly affected by alarm.
“Shut the door!” cried Adams.
There was a tremendous bang, followed by an instantaneous yell. The children jumped nearly out of their own skins, and the little one on the window-sill fell flat on the ground in speechless horror; but the tooth was not yet out. The cord had slipped again.
“This is becomin’ terrible,” said Adams, with a solemn look. “I’ll tell ’ee what, lass; you run round to the smiddy an’ tell Thursday that I want him d’rectly, an’ look alive, old girl.”
Mrs Adams hastened out, and scattering the children, soon returned with the desired youth.
And a most respectable youth had Thursday October Christian become at that time. He was over six feet high, though not quite sixteen years of age, with a breadth of shoulder and depth of chest that would have befitted a man of six-and-twenty. He had no beard, but he possessed a deep bass voice, which more than satisfied John Adams’s oft-expressed wish of earlier days to hear the “sound of a man.”
“Toc,” said Adams, holding his jaw with one hand and the pincers in the other, “I’ve got a most astoundin’ fit o’ the toothache, andmustgit rid o’ this grinder; but it’s an awful one to hold on. I’ve tried it three times myself wi’ them pincers, an’ my old ’ooman has tried it wi’ this here cable—once with her fist an’ once wi’ the door as a sort o’ capstan; but it’s still hard an’ fast, like the sheet-anchor of a seventy-four. Now, Toc, my lad, you’re a stout young chap for your age. Just you take them pincers, lay hold o’ the rascally thing, an’ haul him out. Don’t be afeared. Hemustcome if you only heave with a will.”
“What, father, do you mean that I’m to lay hold o’ that tooth wi’ them pincers an’ wrench it bodily out of your head?”
“That’s just about what I do mean, Toc,” returned Adams, with a grim smile. “Moreover, I want you to make no bungle of it. Don’t let your narves come into play. Just take a grip like a brave man, heave away wi’ the force of a windlass, an’ don’t stop for my yellin’.”
Thus adjured, Thursday October took the pincers, and gazed with a look of great anxiety into the cavernous mouth that Adams opened to his view.
“Which one is it, father, asked Toc,” rolling up his shirt sleeves to the shoulder and displaying arms worthy of Vulcan.
“Man alive! don’t you see it? The one furthest aft, with a black hole in it big enough a’most to stuff my George into.”
Thursday applied the pincers gently. Adams, unable to use clear speech in the circumstances, said chokingly, “’At’s ’e un—’ool away!” which, interpreted, is, “That’s the one—pull away.”
Toc pulled, Adams roared, the children quaked, and the pincers slipped.
“Oh, Toc, Toc!” cried Adams, with a remonstrative look, such as martyrs are said to give when their heads are not properly cut off; “is that all you can do with your big strong arms? Fie, man, fie!”
This disparaging reference to his strength put poor Thursday on his mettle.
“I’ll try again, father,” he said.
“Well, do; an’ see you make a better job of it this time.”
The powerful youth got hold of the tooth a second time, and gave it a terrible wrench. Adams roared like a bull of Bashan, but Toc’s heart was hardened now; he wrenched again—a long, strong, and steady pull. The martyr howled as if his spinal marrow were being extracted. Toc suddenly staggered back; his arm flew up, displaying a bloody tooth with three enormous fangs. The “old ’ooman” shrieked, the child on the window-sill fell again therefrom in convulsions, and the others fled panic-struck into the woods, where they displayed their imitative tendencies and relieved their feelings by tearing up wild shrubs by the roots, amid yells and roars of agony, during the remainder of the day.