“That is what we have met to talk about,” returned Nehow. “I would hear what my brothers have to say. When they have spoken I will open my mouth.”
The group now drew closer together, and speaking in still lower tones, as if they feared that the very bushes might overhear and betray them, they secretly plotted the murder of the mutineers.
Chapter Fourteen.
The Influence of Infancy, also of Villainy.
While the dark plots referred to in the last chapter were being hatched, another life was introduced into the little community in the form of a third child to Fletcher Christian,—a little girl. Much though this man loved his two boys, a tenderer, though not, perhaps, a deeper region of his heart was touched by his daughter. He at once named her Mary. Who can tell the multitude of old memories and affections which were revived by this name? Might it not have been that a mother, a sister, some lost though not forgotten one, came forcibly to mind, and accounted, in some degree at least, for the wealth of affection which he lavished on the infant from the day of her birth? We cannot tell, but certain it is that there never was a more devoted father than this man, who in England had been branded with all that was ferocious, mean, desperate,—this hardened outlaw, this chief of the mutineers.
Otaheitan mothers are not particular in the matter of infant costume. Little Mary’s dress may be described in one word—nothing. Neither are such mothers much troubled with maternal anxieties. Long before a European baby would have been let out of the hands of mother or nurse, even for a moment, little Molly Christian was committed to the care of her delighted father, who daily bore her off to a favourite resort among the cliffs, and there played with her.
One day, on reaching his place of retirement, he was surprised to find a man in possession before him. Drawing nearer, he observed that the man also had a baby in his arms.
“Why, I declare, it’s Edward Young!” he exclaimed, on going up.