“Litsi has since consoled herself with another husband,—related to poor Mungaw, and a real love-match, as they both freely confessed. Litsi was as playful and coy over it as a young lassie; though, when she stood up for the ceremony, she whisperingly informed the bystanders with a giggle that she didn’t want to get married! I suppose she thought some appearance of an apology necessary for her third presentation in that Church as a bride. We felt thankful when the marriage was past, for there had been the usual scramble to get her and consequent bitterness of feeling by the rejected ones, some of them far handsomer and better men than the prize winner, but Noopooraw had shown the depth of his affection by threatening _to kill her_ if she did not have him, which according to Native is the strongest expression of devotion, and is precisely the same as a wildly-enthusiastic admirer at home threatening _to kill himself_ in similar circumstances. The despairing lover in these Seas never dreams of taking away his own life, but hers instead, finding that probably the more powerful argument of the two!...
“It is getting very late and I must pass over all else and tell you what a charming time we had at Erromanga, where the Mission Synod was held this year. Mrs. McDonald and I were the only ladies to keep Mrs. Robertson company; and I was complimented upon now being the “mother” of the Mission, and carrying my honours quite becomingly—having become plump and vigorous since the Hurricane.... It seemed like fairy land to enter dear Mrs. Robertson’s pretty, shady, cool house after enduring two days’ suffocation with the horrid bilge water on board the _Dayspring_.... Every day brought us fresh pleasures, afternoon rambles on the mountains and walks by the river course up that beautiful valley, when ‘the brethren’ were at liberty to dance attendance on us, having all their Synod business over before dinner.... How pleasantly those days flew past, only they can understand who have been cut off from kindred spirits as we are! We three ladies were, of course, all that could be wished for (?); and every one of the Missionaries was kinder than another. Even in Synod, where Ministers are apt to indulge in the grace of _candour_ to an uncalled-for degree, there was not a jarring word—owing, perhaps, to that bilge water having taken all the bile out of them on the voyage!... The house is charmingly situated on terraced ground at the foot of a high mountain, near the centre of the Bay, with that lovely river to the right flowing past within a few yards of the enclosure.... Our eyes were constantly wandering off to the lovely scene before us,—and one with a history too! That very river was once reddened with the blood of Williams and of Harris; and the grass-covered mountain towering up from it was the scene of the Gordon tragedy,—while their grave-stones gleam white through the greenery on its opposite banks. Dear Mr. McNair’s grave is close beside them. All looked so peaceful now, with the _Dayspring_ lying quietly at anchor in the Bay, and canoes manned by _Christian_ Natives paddling about in its blue waters!
“What a contrast to these former days of blood; and even a contrast, as the Robertsons told us, to what they had to suffer only in January last. The Heathen Chiefs were getting fierce at the rapid strides Christianity was making all round the Island, and laid a deep plot to take the Missionaries’ lives. They chose their time well, when nearly all Mr. Robertson’s young men were away at Cook’s Bay; and you may imagine his and Mrs. Robertson’s feelings, when the alarm got up one night as they sat quietly reading. They went into their bedroom and took their stand beside their three sleeping children. Escape by sea was impossible, even could they get to their boat, the night being stormy. Mrs. Robertson turned to her husband and said,—‘Do you think they could touch those sleeping lambs?’ He smiled bitterly,—‘What do they care for our sleeping lambs?’ Yomit, a devoted Erromangan Teacher, came in to them, and she turned to him, saying,—‘O Yomit, do you think they could have the heart to kill those little sleeping darlings?’ He raised his arm and said,—‘Missi, they’ll have to cut this body of mine in pieces ere ever they get near them!’ He started off and collected all the available help necessary, sending secret messages overland in different directions to their friends, so that before morning the Mission House was surrounded by 200 warriors, ready to give their lives in defence of their Missionary. And these were the very men who murdered the Gordons;—explain the change! Jesus has been amongst them!...