The Lonely Island - Robert Michael Ballantyne (free novel 24 .TXT) 📗

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 it _very_ bad, John?" asked his sympathetic wife, who was cleaning up the house at the time.

"Ho-o-o-rible!" answered John.

"I'm _very_ sorry, 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 the _Bounty_.

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, and _must_ git 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. He _must_ come 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.


CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.


TELLS OF AN IMPORTANT MATTER.

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