“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.
Chapter Twenty Six.
Treats of a Birth and of Devastation.
More than eighteen years had now elapsed without the dwellers on that little isle of the Southern Sea having beheld a visitant from the great world around them. That world, meanwhile, had been convulsed with useless wars. The great Napoleon had run through a considerable portion of his withering career, drenching the earth with blood, and heaping heavy burdens of debt on the unfortunate nations of Europe. Nelson had shattered his fleets, and Wellington was on the eve of commencing that victorious career which was destined, ere long, to scatter his armies; but no echo of the turmoil in which all this was being accomplished had reached the peaceful dwellers on Pitcairn, who went on the even tenor of their way, proving, in the most convincing and interesting manner, that after all “love is the fulfilling of the law.”
But the year 1808 had now arrived, a year fraught with novelty, interest, and importance to the Pitcairners.
The first great event of that year was the birth of a son to Thursday October Christian, and if ever there was a juvenile papa who opened his eyes to the uttermost, stared in sceptical wonder, pinched himself to see if he were awake, and went away into the bush to laugh and rejoice in secret, that man was TOC.