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 I _would_ like 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, you _are_ such 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. "What _can_ be 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's_ the 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."