Great was the interest aroused on board the _Topaz_ when Jack Brace
narrated his experiences among the islanders, and Captain Folger
resolved to pay them a visit. He did so next day, accompanied by the
Englishman and some of the other men, the sight of whom gladdened the
eyes and hearts of Adams and his large family.
Besides assuring himself of the truth of Brace's statements, the Captain
obtained additional proof of the truth of Adams's account of himself and
his community in the form of the chronometer and azimuth compass of the
_Bounty_.
"How many did you say your colony consists of?" asked Folger.
"Thirty-five all told, sir," answered Adams; "but I fear we shall be
only thirty-four soon."
"How so?"
"One of our lads, a dear boy of about eight years of age, is dying, I
fear," returned Adams, sadly.
"I'm sorry to hear it, and still more sorry that I have no doctor in my
ship," said Folger, "but I have a smatterin' of doctors' work myself.
Let me see him."
Adams led the way to the hut where poor James Young lay, tenderly nursed
by Mary Christian. The boy was lying on his bed as they entered, gazing
wistfully out at the little window which opened from the side of it like
the port-lights or bull's-eyes of a ship's berth. His young nurse sat
beside him with the _Bounty_ Bible open on her knees. She shut it and
rose as the strangers entered.
The poor invalid was too weak to take much interest in them. He was
extremely thin, and breathed with great difficulty. Nevertheless his
face flushed, and a gleam of surprise shot from his eyes as he turned
languidly towards the Captain.
"My poor boy," said Folger, taking his hand and gently feeling his
pulse, "do you suffer much?"
"Yes,--very much," said little James, with a sickly smile.
"Can you rest at all?" asked the Captain.
"I am--always--resting," he replied, with a pause between each word;
"resting--on Jesus."
The Captain was evidently surprised by the answer.
"Who told you about Jesus?" he asked.
"God's book--and--the Holy--Spirit."
It was obvious that the exertion of thinking and talking was not good
for poor little James. Captain Folger therefore, after smoothing the
hair on his forehead once or twice very tenderly, bade him good-bye, and
went out.
"Doctors could do nothing for the child," he said, while returning with
Adams to his house; "but he is rather to be envied than pitied. I would
give much for the _rest_ which he apparently has found."
"_Give_ much!" exclaimed Adams, with an earnest look. "Rest in the Lord
is not to be purchased by gifts. Itself is the grand free gift of God
to man, to be had for the asking."
"I know it," was the Captain's curt reply, as he entered Adams's house.
"Where got you the chronometer and azimuth compass?" he said, on
observing these instruments.
"They belonged to the _Bounty_. You are heartily welcome to both of
them if you choose; they are of no use to me." [See Note.]
Folger accepted the gift, and promised to write to England and acquaint
the Government with his discovery of the colony.
"You see, sir," said Adams, with a grave look, while hospitably
entertaining his visitor that afternoon, "we are increasing at a great
rate, and although they may perhaps take me home and swing me up to the
yard-arm, I think it better to run the risk o' that than to leave all
these poor young things here unprotected. Why, just think what might
happen if one o' them traders which are little better than pirates were
to come an' find us here."
He looked at the Captain earnestly.
"Now, if we were under the protection o' the British flag--only just
recognised, as it were,--that would go a long way to help us, and
prevent mischief."
At this point the importunities of some of the young people to hear
about the outside world prevailed, and Folger began, as Jack Brace had
done the day before, to tell them some of the most stirring events in
the history of his own land.
But he soon found out that the mental capacity of the Pitcairners was
like a bottomless pit. However much they got, they wanted more.
Anecdote after anecdote, story after story, fact after fact, was thrown
into the gulf, and still the cry was, "More! more!"
At last he tore himself away.
"Good-bye, and God bless you all," he said, while stepping into the
canoe which was to carry him off. "I won't forget my promise."
"And tell 'em to send us story-books," shouted Daniel McCoy, as the
canoe rose on the back of the breakers.
The Captain waved his hand. Most of the women and children wiped their
eyes, and then they all ran to the heights to watch the _Topaz_ as she
sailed away. They watched her till she vanished over that mysterious
horizon which seemed to the Pitcairners the utmost boundary of the
world, and some of them continued to gaze until the stars came out, and
the gulls retired to bed, and the soft black mantle of night descended
like a blessing of tranquillity on land and sea.
Before bidding the _Topaz_ farewell, we may remark that Captain Folger
faithfully fulfilled his promise. He wrote a letter to England giving a
full account of his discovery of the retreat of the mutineers, which
aroused much interest all over the land; but at that time the stirring
events of warfare filled the minds of men in Europe so exclusively, that
the lonely island and its inhabitants were soon forgotten--at least no
action was taken by the Government--and six years elapsed before another
vessel sailed out of the great world into the circle of vision around
Pitcairn.
Meanwhile the Pitcairners, knowing that, even at the shortest, a long,
long time must pass before Folger could communicate with the "old
country," continued the even tenor of their innocent lives.
The school prospered and became a vigorous institution. The church not
less so. More children were born to Thursday October, insomuch that he
at last had one for every working-day in the week; more yam-fields were
cultivated, and more marriages took place--but hold, this is
anticipating.
We have said that the school prospered. The entire community went to
it, male and female, old and young. John Adams not only taught his
pupils all he knew, but set himself laboriously to acquire all the
knowledge that was to be obtained by severe study of the Bible, the
Prayer-book. Carteret's Voyages, and by original meditation. From the
first mine he gathered and taught the grand, plain, and blessed truths
about salvation through Jesus, together with a few tares of error
resulting from misconception and imperfect reasoning. From the second
he adopted the forms of worship of the Church of England. From the
third he gleaned and amplified a modicum of nautical, geographical, and
general information; and from the fourth he extracted a flood of
miscellaneous, incomplete, and disjointed facts, fancies, and fallacies,
which at all events served the good purpose of interesting his pupils
and exercising their mental powers.
But into the midst of all this life death stepped and claimed a victim.
The great destroyer came not, however, as an enemy but as a friend, to
raise little James Young to that perfect rest of which he had already
had a foretaste on the island.
It was the first death among the second generation, and naturally had a
deeply solemnising effect on the young people. This occurred soon after
the departure of the _Topaz_. The little grave was made under the shade
of a palm-grove, where wild-flowers grew in abundance, and openings in
the leafy canopy let in the glance of heaven's blue eye.
One evening, about six months after this event, Adams went up the hill
to an eminence to which he was fond of retiring when a knotty problem in
arithmetic had to be tackled. Arithmetic was his chief difficulty. The
soliloquy which he uttered on reaching his place of meditation will
explain his perplexities.
"That 'rithmetic do bother me, an' no mistake," he said, with a grave
shake of the head at a lively lizard which was looking up in his face.
"You see, history is easy. What I knows I knows an' can teach, an' what
I don't know I let alone, an there's an end on't. There's no makin' a
better o' _that_. Then, as to writin', though my hand is crabbed
enough, and my pot-hooks are shaky and sprawly, still I know the shapes
o' things, an' the youngsters are so quick that they can most of 'em
write better than myself; but in regard to that 'rithmetic, it's a
heartbreak altogether, for I've only just got enough of it to puzzle me.
Wi' the use o' my fingers I can do simple addition pretty well, an' I
can screw round subtraction, but multiplication's a terrible business.
Unfort'nitely my edication has carried me only the length o' the fourth
line, an' that ain't enough."
He paused, and the lively lizard, ready to fly at a moment's notice, put
its head on one side as if interested in the man's difficulty.
"Seven times eight, now," continued Adams. "I've no more notion what
that is than the man in the moon. An' I've no table to tell me, an' no
way o' findin' it out--eh? Why, yes I have. I'll mark 'em down one at
a time an' count 'em up."
He gave his thigh a slap, which sent the lively lizard into his hole,
horrified.
"Poor thing, I didn't mean that," he said to the absent animal.
"Hows'ever, I'll try it. Why, I'll make a multiplication-table for
myself. Strange that that way never struck me before."
As he went on muttering he busied himself in rubbing clean a flat
surface of rock, on which, with a piece of reddish stone, he made a row
of eight marks, one below another. Alongside of that he made another
row of eight marks, and so on till he had put down seven rows, when he
counted them up, and found the result to be fifty-six. This piece of
acquired knowledge he jotted down in a little notebook, which, with a
quantity of other stationery, had originally belonged to that great
fountain of wealth, the _Bounty_.
"Why, I'll make out the whole table in this way," he said, quite
heartily, as he sat down again on the flat rock and went to work.
Of course he found the process laborious, especially when he got among
the higher numbers; but Adams was not a man to be turned from his
purpose by trifles. He persevered until his efforts were crowned with
success.
While he was engaged with the multiplication problem on that day, he was
interrupted by the sound of merry voices, and soon Otaheitan Sally,
Bessy Mills, May Christian, Sarah Quintal, and his own daughter Dinah,
came tripping up the hill towards him.
These five, ranging from fifteen to nineteen, were fond of rambling
through the woods in company, being not only the older members of the
young flock, but like-minded in many things. Sally was looked up to by
the other four as being the eldest and wisest, as well as the most
beautiful; and truly, the fine clear complexion of the pretty brunette
contrasted well with their fairer skins and golden or light-brown locks.
"We came up to have a chat with you, father," said Sally, as they drew
near. "Are you too busy to be bothered with us?"
"Never too busy to chat with such dear girls," said the gallant seaman,
throwing down his piece of red chalk, and taking one of Sally's hands in
his. "Sit down, Sall; sit down, May, on the other side--there. Now,
what have you come to chat about?"
"About that dear _Topaz_, of course, and that darling Captain Folger,
and Jack Brace, and all the rest of them," answered Sarah Quintal, with
sparkling eyes.
"Hallo, Sarah! you've sent your heart away with them, I fear," said
Adams.
"Not quite, but nearly," returned Sarah. "I would give anything if the
whole crew would only have stayed with us altogether."
"Oh! how charming! delightful! _so_ nice!" exclaimed three of the
others. Sally said nothing, but gave a little smile, which sent a
sparkle from her pearly teeth that harmonised well with the gleam of her
laughter-loving eyes.
"No doubt," said Adams, with a peculiar laugh; "but, I say, girls, you
must not go on thinking for ever about that ship. Why, it is six months
or more since it left us, and you are all as full of it as if it had
sailed but yesterday."
"How can we help it, father?" said Sally. "It is about the most
wonderful thing that has happened since we were born, and you can't
expect us to get it out of our heads easily."
"And how can we help thinking, and talking too," said Bessy Mills,
"about all the new and strange things that Jack Brace related to us?"
"Besides, father," said Dinah, "you are quite as bad as we are, for you
talk about nothing else now, almost, except Lord Nelson and the battles
of the Nile and Trafalgar."
"Come, come, Di; don't be hard on me. I don't say much about them
battles now."
"Indeed you do," cried May Christian, "and it is only last night that I
heard you muttering something about Trafalgar in your sleep, and you
suddenly broke out with a half-muttered shout like this: `Englan' 'specs
every man'll do's dooty!'"
May was not a bad mimic. This was received with a shout of laughter by
the other girls.
While they were conversing thus two tall and slim but broad-shouldered
youths were seen climbing the hill towards them, engaged in very earnest
conversation. And this reference to conversation reminds us of the
curious fact that the language of the young Pitcairners had greatly
improved of late. As they had no other living model to improve upon
than John Adams, this must have been entirely the result of reading.
Although the books they had were few, they proved to be sufficient not
only to fill their minds with higher thoughts, but their mouths with
purer English than that nautical type which had been peculiar to the
mutineers.
The tall striplings who now approached were Daniel McCoy and Charlie
Christian. These two were great friends and confidants. We will not
reveal the subject of their remarkably earnest conversation, but merely
give the concluding sentences.
"Well, Charlie," said Dan, as they came in view of the knoll on which
Adams and the girls were seated, "we will pluck up courage and make a
dash at it together."
"Ye-es," said Charlie, with hesitation.
"And shall we break the ice by referring to Toc's condition, eh?" said
Dan.
"Well, it seems to me the easiest plan; perhaps I should say the least
difficult," returned Charlie, with a faint smile.
"Come, don't lose heart, Charlie," said Dan, with an attempt to look
humorous, which signally failed.
"Hallo, lads! where away?" said Adams, as they came up.
"Just bin havin' a walk and a talk, father," answered Dan. "We saw you
up here, and came to walk back with you."
"I'm not so sure that we'll let you. The girls and I have been having a
pleasant confab, an' p'r'aps they don't want to be interrupted."
"Oh, we don't mind; they may come," said Di Adams, with a laugh.
So the youths joined the party, and they all descended the mountain in
company.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A footnote in Lady Belcher's book tells us that this chronometer had
been twice carried out by Captain Cook on his voyages of discovery. It
was afterwards supplied to the _Bounty_ when she was fitted out for what
was to be her last voyage, and carried by the mutineers to Pitcairn
Island. Captain Folger brought it away, but it was taken from him the
same year by the governor of Juan Fernandez, and sold in Chili to A
Caldeleugh, Esquire, of Valparaiso, from whom it was purchased by
Captain, (afterwards Admiral), Sir T. Herbert for fifty guineas. That
officer took it to China, and in 1843 brought it to England and
transmitted it to the Admiralty, by which department it was presented to
the United Service Museum, in Great Scotland Yard, where the writer saw
it only a few days ago, and was told that it keeps excellent time still.