The island

by Richard Whiteing

I have seen the Ancient, of course, and have had many a talk with him. There are the evenings; and it is not Victoria all the time. I am one of the great family, and I come and go in that unnoticed way which is the true footing of friendship and love.

I am more particularly aware of the Ancient just now, because he is issuing a proclamation. There is to be a public holiday in celebration of the Queen’s birthday, and the proclamation is to regulate the order of proceedings. It is written on a slate, and hung outside his Excellency’s hut. He has been elaborating it for days, with my modest help, for the text, and Victoria’s, for the common sense. Whenever we are going to do anything foolish, she interrupts from the window, where she sews by the fading light. She has thus effectually vetoed the following projects—a review of the garrison; a banquet with speeches; and a levée at Government House.

It is all settled now. There is to be a Spelling Bee at the schoolhouse, followed by a lecture on the Antiquities of the Island, by the schoolmaster. The populace will then be released for Sports and Pastimes, with prizes ranging from a nosegay to a sack of potatoes. For the wind-up, there is to be another lecture, ‘to steady their minds,’ and I am to be the lecturer.

I fought hard against it; I honestly did, but I was overborne. ‘Something about England, sir; we are never tired of that.’ The voice from the window assented, and then I gave way.

It begins, it begins; never mind the preliminaries, the blessed day is here! Vive la joie! Three fowling-pieces fire a salute, the first thing in the morning, and proclaim our revel to the universe. The Union Jack is run up at the flag-staff. Our breakfasts are despatched in a few minutes, and in less than an hour we are amid the fierce excitements of the Bee.

The competition is open to all comers, but it is, in effect, confined to the younger folk. The scholars, in their best, sit at one end of the schoolroom, with the schoolmaster in front of them, to call time, and an admiring audience beyond. The severity of the struggle betokens much secret preparation. The first heat is the spelling of proper names from Scripture. ‘Achaichus’ is attacked with much spirit, and carried with a shout, but we have to mourn the loss of some of our number before the flag waves over the conquered word. ‘Achaicharus’ yields in time, though it leaves but few survivors of a forlorn hope. ‘Habaziniah’ covers the field with slain, yet still we win. ‘Geuel,’ owing to some invincible difficulty in the placing of the vowels, plunges many of the competitors into tears. ‘Gezerites’ restores us all to good humour with a sense of universal failure. We cannot manage the final ‘s,’ where it is emphatic—a disability common to all our Island folk.

I pass over the other heats, to come to that lecture on Antiquities. Like the memorable trial, it is a function held in the open air. We break up the Bee, and troop forth, the man of learning at our head, and examine a few huge flat stones, which we have seen a hundred times before. They are the gravestones of our pre-historic race. There is one in front of a cottage, whither it has been removed to make a flag-stone for the porch. Another lies, where the vanished men left it, in a field on the other side of the Ridge. We know what we should find beneath, if we took it up—a human skeleton sleeping the long sleep, with a pearl shell for a pillow. For centuries it has slept there; for centuries let it sleep on. We cross the Ridge again, to the Peak where I first met Victoria; and we are told to look for the traces of four rude stone figures that once stood there on a platform, as though to keep eternal watch upon the sea. Most of us have seen these traces from our earliest infancy, but we look for them again with great diligence, and communicate the result with the cries appropriate to sudden and unexpected discovery—all to please the schoolmaster. We ask how they came there? what they signify?—’tis a part of the game. We are told that they afford undoubted evidence of a remoter Island race. But how did the race reach the Island? The lecturer bids us guess. Is there one of us so ill-bred as to hazard the suggestion of a boat? Not one! We play out our honest piece honestly, to the last scene. We hold our tongues: our virtue, or our habit, or verbal veracity will not allow us to do more. A rosy brown infant, who cries ‘I know,’ is hustled to the rear by Victoria, and has his mouth stopped with an orange. For that matter, the whole comedy is devoid of guile.

The lecturer knows that we might all echo the cry of the infant; only he must have an opening for his line:—‘How about a raft from the Gambier Islands, three hundred miles away?’ ‘Ah, yes, a raft to be sure! But then, why should they come here?’ It is impossible to deny him that. ‘Suppose they came because they couldn’t help it,’ returns the man of lore. ‘That would certainly alter the case. But how?’ He needs no more. ‘In earlier times, especially, and even within living memory, it was the custom of the rude natives of the South Pacific to put their vanquished enemies on a raft, and commit them to the mercy of the waves.’ There is more of it, but this may serve.

‘Come, and I will show you something,’ says the good man; and we follow him again—this time down the steep path to the market grove, and up the other steep path to the settlement, and through the settlement, till we stop at his own cottage door, and come to a final halt in his bedroom, which is the museum of the Island. What matter, if we have already seen the solitary shelf that holds the entire national collection! What matter, if these spear heads and axe heads of stone are only less familiar to the hand than our own knives and forks! We are doing a fellow-creature a kindness—that is enough. And the way of doing it is so pleasant to ourselves! It is the ideal combination duty and delight. For, that walk to the museum was a walk through the fields of Paradise, with barelegged children for attendant angels, fleet as any shapes with wings. Behind these, the bigger lads and lasses, too old for play, too young for love, trod the rock, as though it were soft cloud, in the lightness of their perfect strength. And behind them, man and maiden, maiden and man, dragged the slow foot of the deepest spiritual joy. May the time be far distant when they, too, shall sleep on the pearl shell!

I have forgotten all about my lecture, until the schoolmaster reminds me of it, at the conclusion of his own. He uses the freedom of a brother artist to make a courteous inquiry as to my choice of a topic, and I am obliged to confess that no thought of preparation for the coming duty has once entered my mind. ‘We shall expect you to do your best for us,’ he says, with a smile. ‘I could not venture to do less,’ is my answer, ‘after what I have just heard.’ But this, like most smooth sayings, leaves us just where we were. I begin to cast about for a theme. ‘I have seen your festival; how would you like to hear of a festival on a larger scale, on the other side of the world? “A Roman Holiday”—what do you think of that?’