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

Valparaiso, I received a letter from my dear mother telling me that she was ill. I quitted the Chilian navy at once, and went home, alas! to see her die.

"In 1822 I went to Naples, and was wrecked while on my way to Messina. In the following year I went to Sierra Leone as chief mate of a ship called the _Gambia_. Of nineteen persons who went out in that ship, only the captain, two coloured men, and myself lived to return."

"Why, Mr Nobbs," interrupted John Buffett at this point, "I used to think I'd seen a deal o' rough service, but I couldn't hold a candle to you, sir."

"It is an unenviable advantage to have of you," returned the other, with a sad smile. "However, I'm getting near the end now. In all that I have said I have not told you what the Lord has done for my soul. Another time I will tell that to you. At present it is enough to say, that I had heard of your little island here, and of the wonderful accounts of it brought home at various times. I had an intense longing to reach it and devote my life to the service of Jesus. I sold all my little possessions, resolving to quit England for ever. But I could find no means of getting to Pitcairn. Leaving England, however, in November 1825, I reached Calcutta in May 1826, sailed thence for Valparaiso in 1827, and proceeded on to Callao. Here I fell in with Bunker, to whom you have all been so kind. Finding no vessel going in this direction, and my finances being nearly exhausted, I agreed on a plan with him. He had a launch of eighteen tons, a mere boat, as you know, but, being in bad health and without means, could not fit her out. I agreed to spend my all in fitting this launch for sea, on the understanding that I should become part proprietor, and that Bunker should accompany me to Pitcairn.

"Well, you see, friends, we have managed it. Through the mercy of God we have, by our two selves, made this voyage of 3500 miles, and now I hope that my days of wandering are over, and that I shall begin here to do the work of the Prince of Peace; but, alas! I fear that my poor friend Bunker's days are numbered."

He was right. This bold adventurer, about whose history we know nothing, died a few weeks after his arrival at Pitcairn.


CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR.


FAREWELL!

And now, at last, approached a crisis in the Life of Pitcairn, which had indeed been long foreseen, long dreaded, and often thought of, but seldom hinted at by the islanders.

Good, patient, long-enduring John Adams began to draw towards the end of his strange, unique, and glorious career. For him to live had been Christ, to die was gain. And he knew it.

"George Nobbs," said he, about four months after the arrival of the former, "the Lord's ways are wonderful, past finding out, but always sure and _safe_. Nothing puzzles me so much as my own want of faith, when there's such good ground for confidence. But God's book tells me to expect even that," he added, after a pause, with a faint smile. "Does it not tell of the _desperately_ wicked and deceitful heart?"

"True, Mr Adams," replied his friend, with the term of respect which he felt constrained to use, "but it also tells of salvation to the _uttermost_."

"Ay. I know that too," returned Adams, with a cheery smile. "_Well_ do I know that. But don't mister me, George. There are times when the little titles of this world are ridiculous. Such a time is now. I am going to leave you, George. The hour of my departure is at hand. Strange, how anxious I used to feel! I used to think, what if I am killed by a fall from the cliffs, or by sickness, and these poor helpless children should be left fatherless! The dear Lord sent me a rebuke. He sent John Buffett to help me. But John Buffett has not the experience, or the education that's needful. Not that I had education myself, but, somehow, my experience, beginnin' as it did from the _very_ beginnin', went a long way to counterbalance that. Then, anxious thoughts _would_ rise up again. Want of faith, nothing else, George, nothing else. So the Lord rebuked me again, for he sent _you_."

"Ah, father, I hope it is as you say. I dare hardly believe it, yet I earnestly hope so."

"_I_ have no doubt, now," resumed Adams. "You have got just the qualities that are wanted. Regularly stored and victualled for the cruise. They'll be far better off than ever they were before. If I had only trusted more I should have suffered less. But I was always thinking of John Adams. Ah! that has been the great curse of my life--_John Adams_!--as if everything depended on him. Why," continued the old man, kindling with a sudden burst of indignation, "could _I_ have saved these souls by merely teaching 'em readin' and writin', or even by readin' God's book to 'em? Isn't it read every day by thousands to millions, against whom it falls like the sea on a great rock? Can the absence of temptation be pleaded, when here, in full force, there have been the most powerful temptations to disobedience continually? If that would have done, why were not all my brother mutineers saved from sin? It was not even when we read the Bible that deliverance came. I read it for ten years as a sealed book. No, George, no; it was when God's Holy Spirit opened the eyes and the heart, that I an' the dear women an' child'n became nothin', and fell in with His ways."

He stopped suddenly, as if exhausted, and his new friend led him gently to his house. Many loving eyes watched him as he went along, and many tender hearts beat for him, but better still, many true hearts prayed for him.

That night he became weaker, and next day he did not rise.

When this became known, all the settlement crowded to his house, while from his bed there was a constant coming and going of those who had the right to be nearest to him. Nursed by the loving women whom he had led--and whose children's children he had led--to Jesus, and surrounded by men whom he had dandled, played with, reared, and counselled, he passed into the presence of God, to behold "the King in his beauty," to be "for ever with the Lord."

May we join him, reader, you and I, when our time comes!

On a tombstone over a grave under the banyan-tree near his house, is the simple record, "John Adams, died 5th March 1829, aged 65."

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And here our tale must end, for the good work which we have sought to describe has no end. Yet, for the sake of those who have a regard for higher things than a mere tale, we would add a few words before making our farewell bow.

The colony of Pitcairn still exists and flourishes. But many changes have occurred since Adams left the scene, though the simple, guileless spirit of the people remains unchanged.

Here is a brief summary of its history since 1829.

George Nobbs had gained the affections of the people before Adams's death, and he at once filled the vacant place as well as it was possible for a stranger to do so.

In 1830 the colony consisted of nearly ninety souls, and it had for some time been a matter of grave consideration that the failure of water by drought might perhaps prove a terrible calamity. It was therefore proposed by Government that the people of Pitcairn should remove to Otaheite, or, to give the island its modern name, Tahiti. There was much division of opinion among the islanders, and Mr Nobbs objected. However, the experiment was tried, and it failed signally. The whole community was transported in a ship to Tahiti in March 1831.

But the loose manners and evil habits of many of the people there had such an effect on the Pitcairners that they took the first opportunity of returning to their much-loved island. John Buffett and a few families went first. The remainder soon followed in an American brig.

Thereafter, life on the Lonely Island flowed as happily as ever for many years, with the exception of a brief but dark interval, when a scoundrel, named Joshua Hill, went to the island, passed himself off as an agent of the British Government, misled the trusting inhabitants, and established a reign of terror, ill-treating Nobbs, Buffett, and Evans, whom for a time he compelled to quit the place. Fortunately this impostor was soon found out and removed. The banished men returned, and all went well again.

Rear-Admiral Moresby visited Pitcairn in 1851, and experienced a warm reception. Finding that the people wished Mr Nobbs to be ordained, he took him to England for this purpose. The faithful pastor did not fail to interest the English public in the romantic isle of which God had given him the oversight. During his visit he was presented to the Queen, who gave him portraits of herself and the Royal family. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel placed Mr Nobbs on their missionary list, with a salary of 50 pounds per annum.

Soon after this the increasing population of Pitcairn Island rendered it necessary that the islanders should find a wider home. Government, therefore, offered them houses and land in Norfolk Island, a penal settlement from which the convicts had been removed. Of course the people shrank from the idea of leaving Pitcairn when it was first proposed, but ultimately assented, and were landed on Norfolk Island, hundreds of miles from their old home, in June 1856. On this lovely spot the descendants of the mutineers of the _Bounty_ have lived ever since, under the care of that loved pastor on whom John Adams had dropped his mantle.

We believe that the Reverend George H. Nobbs is still alive. At all events he was so last year, (1879), having written a letter in June to the Secretary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, in which, among other things, he speaks of the "rapidly increasing community, now numbering 370 persons." He adds--"I am becoming very feeble from age, and my memory fails me in consequence of an operation at the back of my neck for carbuncle two years since;" and goes on to tell of the flourishing condition of his flock.

In regard to the other personages who have figured in our little tale, very few, perhaps none, now survive. So late as the year 1872 we read in a pamphlet of the "Melanesian Mission," that George Adams and his sister, Rachel Evans, (both over seventy years of age), were present at an evening service in Norfolk Island, and that Arthur Quintal was still alive, though quite imbecile. But dear Otaheitan Sally and her loving Charlie and all the rest had long before joined the Church above.

There was, however, a home-sick party of the Pitcairners who could