Dolly blushed as she spoke, but not with consciousness. It was but innocent truthfulness. John Buffett paused, and looked at her steadily. What John Buffett thought we are not prepared to say, but it may be guessed, when we state that within two months of that date, he and Dolly Young were united in marriage by old Adams, with all the usual ceremonial, including the curtain-ring which did duty on all such occasions, and the unfailing game of blind-man’s-buff.
John Evans was encouraged, a few months later, to take heart and do likewise. He was even bolder than Buffett, for he wooed and won a princess; at least, if John Adams was in any sense a king, his second daughter Rachel must have been a princess! Be this as it may, Evans married her, and became a respected member of the little community.
And now another of these angel-like visits was looming in the distance. About twelve years after the departure of the Britain and Tagus, one of H.M. cruisers, the Blossom, Captain Beechy, sailed out of the Great Unknown into the circlet of Pitcairn, and threw the islanders into a more intense flutter than ever, for there were now upwards of fifty souls there, many of whom had not only never seen a man-of-war, but had had their imaginations excited by the glowing descriptions of those who had. This was in 1825.
The Blossom had been fitted out for discovery. When Buffett first recognised her pennant he was in great trepidation lest they had come to carry off Adams, but such was not the case. It was merely a passing visit. Three weeks the Blossom stayed, during which the captain and officers were entertained in turn at the different houses; and it seems to have been to both parties like a brief foretaste of the land of Beulah.
Naturally, Captain Beechy was anxious to test the truth of the glowing testimony of former visitors. He had ample opportunity, and afterwards sent home letters quite as enthusiastic as those of his predecessors in regard to the simplicity, truthfulness, and genuine piety alike of old and young.
If a few hours’ visit had on former occasions given the community food for talk and reflection, you may be sure that the three weeks’ of the Blossom’s sojourn gave them a large supply for future years. It seemed to Otaheitan Sally, and Dinah Adams, and Dolly and Polly Young, and the rest of them, that the island was not large enough now to contain all their new ideas, and they said so to John Adams one evening.
“My dears,” said John, in reply, laying his hand on that of Sally, who sat beside him on their favourite confabulation-knoll, which overlooked Bounty Bay, “ideas don’t take up much room, and if they did, we could send ’em out on the sea, for they won’t drown. Ah! Sall, Sall—”
“What are you thinking of, dear father?” asked Sally, with a sympathetic look, as the old man stopped.
“That my time can’t be long now. I feel as if I was about worn-out.”
“Oh, don’t say that, father!” cried his daughter Hannah, laying her cheek on his arm, and hugging it. “There’s ever so much life in you yet.”