Not very long after this, Thursday October Christian experienced at the hands of John Adams treatment which bore some slight resemblance to a species of tooth-drawing. In fact, Adams may be said to have had his revenge. It happened thus:—
Adams was seated, one afternoon, in front of his house on a low stool, where he was wont to sun himself and smoke an imaginary pipe, while the children were at play in the grassy square. He was absorbed, apparently, in what he used to term a brown study. Thursday October, making his appearance from among the bushes on the opposite side of the square, leaped the four-foot fence like a greyhound, without a run, and crossed over.
Whether it was the leap or the rate at which he had walked home through the woods, we cannot say; but his handsome face was unusually flushed, and he stopped once or twice on nearing Adams, as if undecided what to do. At last he seemed to make up his mind, walked straight up to the seaman, and stood before him with folded arms.
“Hallo, Toc,” said Adams, rousing himself; “you’ve caught me napping. The truth is, I’ve bin inventin’ a lot of awful whackers to spin a yarn out o’ for the child’n. This is Friday, you know, an’ as they’ve bin fastin’, poor things, I want to give ’em what you may call mental food, to keep their bread-baskets quiet, d’ye see? But you’ve got somethin’ to tell me, Toc; what is it?”
“Father,” said Thursday,—and then followed a long pause, during which the youth shifted from one leg to the other.
“Well, now, Toc,” said Adams, eyeing the lad with a twinkling expression, “d’ye know, I have heard it said or writ somewhere, that brevity is the soul of wit. If that sayin’s true, an’ I’ve no reason for to suppose that it isn’t, I should say that that observation of yours was wit without either soul or body, it’s so uncommon short; too witty, in short. Couldn’t you manage to add something more to it?”
“Yes, father,” said Thursday, with a deprecating smile, “I have come to ask—to ask you for leave to—to—to—”
“Well, Toc, you have my cheerful leave to—to—to, and tootle too, as much as you please,” replied Adams, with a bland smile.
“In short,” said Thursday, with a desperate air, “I—I—want leave to marry.”
“Whew!” whistled Adams, with a larger display of eyeball than he had made since he settled on the island. “You’ve come to the point now, and no mistake. You—want—leave—to—marry, Thursday October Christian, eh?”
“Yes, father, if you’ve no objection.”
“Hem! no objection, marry—eh?” said Adams, while his eyebrows began to return slowly to their wonted position. “Ha! well, now, let’s hear; who do you want to marry?”
Having fairly broken the ice, the bashful youth said quickly, “Susannah.”
Again John Adams uttered a prolonged whistle, while his eyebrows sprang once more to the roots of his hair.
“What! the widdy?”
“Yes, Mr Young’s widow,” replied Thursday, covered with confusion.
“Well, I never! But this does beat cock-fightin’.” He gave his thigh a sounding slap, and seemed about to give way to irrepressible laughter, when he suddenly checked himself and became grave.
“I say, Toc,” said he, earnestly, “hand me down the Prayer-book.”
Somewhat surprised, the lad took the book from its shelf, and placed it on the sailor’s knees.
“Look ’ee here, Toc; there’s somethin’ here that touches on your case, if I don’t misremember where. Let me see. Ah, here it is, ‘A man may not marry his grandmother,’ much less a boy,” he added, looking up.
“But, father, Susannah ain’t my grandmother,” said Toc, stoutly feeling that he had got an advantage here.
“True, lad, but she might be your mother. She’s to the full sixteen years older than yourself. But seriously, boy, do you mean it, and is she willin’?”
“Yes, father, I do mean it, an’ she is quite willin’. Susannah has bin kinder to me than any one else I ever knew, and I love her better than everybody else put together. She did laugh a bit at first when I spoke to her about it, an’ told me not to talk so foolishly, an’ said, just as you did, that she might be my mother; but that made no odds to me, for she’s not one bit like my mother, you know.”
“No, she’s not,” said Adams, with an assenting nod. “She’s not like Mainmast by any means, bein’ a deal younger an’ better lookin’. Well, now, Toc, you’ve given me matter to put in my pipe, (if I had one), an’ smoke it for some time to come—food for reflection, so to speak. Just you go to work, my lad, as if there was nothin’ in the wind, an’ when I’ve turned it over, looked at it on all sides, gone right round the compass with it, worked at it, so to speak, like a cooper round a cask, I’ll send for you an’ let you know how the land lies.”
When Adams had anything perplexing on his mind, he generally retired to the outlook cave at the mountain-top. Thither he went upon this occasion. The result was, that on the following day he sent for Thursday, and made him the following oration:—
“Thursday, my lad, it’s not for the likes o’ me to fly in the face o’ Providence. If you still remain in earnest about this little matter, an’ Susannah’s mind ain’t changed, I’ll throw no difficulty in your way. I’ve bin searchin’ the Book in reference to it, an’ I see nothin’ particular there regardin’ age one way or another. It’s usual in Old England, Toc, for the man to be a deal older than the wife, but there’s no law against its bein’ the other way, as I knows on. All I can find on the subject is, that a man must leave his father and mother, an’ cleave to his wife. You han’t got no father to leave, my boy, more’s the pity, an’ as for Mainmast, you can leave her when you like, though, in the circumstances, you can’t go very far away from her, your tether bein’ somewhat limited. As to the ceremony, I can’t find nothin’ about that in the Bible, but there’s full directions in the Prayer-book; so I’ll marry you off all ship-shape, fair an’ above board, when the time comes. But there’s one point. Toc, that I feel bound to settle, and it’s this: That you can’t be married till you’ve got a good bit of ground under cultivation, so that you may be able to keep your wife comfortably without callin’ on her to work too hard. You’ve bin a busy enough fellow, I admit, since ever you was able to do a hand’s turn, but you haven’t got a garden of your own yet. Now, I’ll go up with you to-morrow, an’ mark off a bit o’ your father’s property, which you can go to work on, an’ when you’ve got it into something of a for’ard state, I’ll marry you. So—that’s a good job settled.”
When Adams finished, he turned away with a profound sigh of relief, as if he felt that he had not only disposed of a particular and knotty case, but had laid down a great general principle by which he should steer his course in all time to come.
It need scarcely be said that Thursday October was quite prepared to undertake this probationary work; that the new garden was quickly got into a sufficiently “for’ard state;” and that, ere long, the first wedding on Pitcairn was celebrated under circumstances of jubilant rejoicing.
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