The Crater, James Fenimore Cooper [good book club books TXT] 📗

emptied the tumbler, fell back on his pillow, and was soon in a sweet sleep.

It was near sunset when Mark lost his consciousness on this occasion, nor did he recover it until the light of day was once more cheering the cabin. He had slept profoundly twelve hours, and this so much the more readily from the circumstance that he had previously refreshed himself with a bath and clean linen. The first consciousness of his situation was accompanied with the bleat of poor Kitty. That gentle animal, intended by nature to mix with herds, had visited the cabin daily, and had been at the sick man's side, when his fever was at its height; and had now come again, as if to inquire after his night's rest. Mark held out his hand, and spoke to his companion, for such she was, and thought she was rejoiced to hear his voice again, and to be allowed to lick his hand. There was great consolation in this mute intercourse, poor Mark feeling the want of sympathy so much as to find a deep pleasure in this proof of affection even in a brute.

Mark now arose, and found himself sensibly improved by his night's rest, the washing, and the nourishment received, little as the last had been. His first step was to empty the tumbler, bread and all. Then he took another bath, the last doing quite as much good, he fancied, as his breakfast. All that day, the young man managed his case with the same self-denial and prudence, consuming a ship's biscuit in the course of the next twenty-four hours, and taking two or three glasses of the wine, mixed with water and sweetened with sugar. In the afternoon he endeavoured to shave, but the first effort convinced him he was getting well too fast.

It was thrice twenty-four hours after his first bath, before Mark Woolston had sufficient strength to reach the galley and light a fire. In this he then succeeded, and he treated himself to a cup of good warm tea. He concocted some dishes of arrow-root and cocoa, too, in the course of that and the next day, continuing his baths, and changing his linen repeatedly. On the fifth day, he got off his beard, which was a vast relief to him, and by the end of the week he actually crawled up on the poop, where he could get a sight of his domains.

The Summit was fast getting to be really green in considerable patches, for the whole rock was now covered with grass. Kitty was feeding quietly enough on the hillside, the gentle creature having learned to pass the curtain at the gate, and go up and down the ascents at pleasure. Mark scarce dared to look for his hogs, but there they were rooting and grunting about the Reef, actually fat and contented. He knew that this foreboded evil to his garden, for the creatures must have died for want of food during his illness, had not some such relief been found. As yet, his strength would not allow him to go ashore, and he was obliged to content himself with this distant view of his estate. The poultry appeared to be well, and the invalid fancied he saw chickens running at the side of one of the hens.

It was a week later before Mark ventured to go as far as the crater. On entering it, he found that his conjectures concerning the garden were true. Two-thirds of it had been dug over by the snouts of his pigs, quite as effectually as he could have done it, in his vigour, with the spade. Tops and roots had been demolished alike, and about as much wasted as had been consumed, Kitty was found, flagrante delictu , nibbling at the beans, which, by this time, were dead ripe. The peas, and beans, and Indian corn had made good picking for the poultry; and everything possessing life had actually been living in abundance, while the sick man had lain unconscious of even his own, existence, in a state as near death as life.

Mark found his awning standing, and was glad to rest an hour or two in his hammock, after looking at the garden. While there the hogs entered the crater, and made a meal before his eyes. To his surprise, the sow was followed by ten little creatures, that were already getting to be of the proper size for eating. A ravenous appetite was now Mark's greatest torment, and the coarse food of the ship was rather too heavy for him. He had exhausted his wit in contriving dishes of flour, and pined for something more grateful than salted beef, or pork. Although he somewhat distrusted his strength, yet longing induced him to make an experiment. A fowling-piece, loaded with ball, was under the awning; and freshening the priming, the young man watched his opportunity when one of the grunters was in a good position, and shot it in the head. Then cutting its throat with a knife, he allowed it to bleed, when he cleaned, and skinned it . This last operation was not very artistical, but it was necessary in the situation of our invalid. With the carcase of this pig, which was quite as much as he could even then carry back to the ship, though the animal was not yet six weeks old, Mark made certain savoury and nourishing dishes, that contributed essentially to the restoration of his strength. In the course of the ensuing month three more of the pigs shared the same fate, as did half-a-dozen of the brood of chickens already mentioned, though the last were not yet half-grown. But Mark felt, now, as if he could eat the crater, though as yet he had not been able to clamber to the Summit.


Chapter X.


"Yea! long as nature's humblest child
Hath kept her temple undefiled
By sinful sacrifice,
Earth's fairest scenes are all his own,
He is a monarch, and his throne
Is built amid the skies."

Wilson.


Our youthful hermit was quite two months in regaining his strength, though, by the end of one he was able to look about him, and turn his hand to many little necessary jobs. The first thing he undertook was to set up a gate that would keep the animals on the outside of the crater. The pigs had not only consumed much the largest portion of his garden truck, but they had taken a fancy to break up the crust of that part of the crater where the grass was showing itself, and to this inroad upon his meadows, Mark had no disposition to submit. He had now ascertained that the surface of the plain, though of a rocky appearance, was so far shelly and porous that the seeds had taken very generally; and as soon as their roots worked their way into the minute crevices, he felt certain they would of themselves convert the whole surface into a soil sufficiently rich to nourish the plants he wished to produce there. Under such circumstances he did not desire the assistance of the hogs. As yet, however, the animals had done good, rather than harm to the garden, by stirring the soil up, and mixing the sea-weed and decayed fish with it; but among the grass they threatened to be more destructive; than useful. In most places the crust of the plain was just thick enough to bear the weight of a man, and Mark, no geologist, by the way, came to the conclusion that it existed at all more through the agency of the salt deposited in ancient floods, than from any other cause. According to the great general law of the earth, soil should have been formed from rock, and not rock from soil: though there certainly are cases in which the earths indurate, as well as become disintegrated. As we are not professing to give a scientific account of these matters, we shall simply state the facts, leaving better scholars than ourselves to account for their existence.

Mark made his gate out of the fife-rail, at the foot of the mainmast, sawing off the stanchions for that purpose. With a little alteration it answered perfectly, being made to swing from a post that was wedged into the arch, by cutting it to the proper length. As this was the first attack upon the Rancocus that had yet been made, by axe or saw, it made the young man melancholy; and it was only with great reluctance that he could prevail on himself to begin what appeared like the commencement of breaking up the good craft. It was done, however, and the gate was hung, thereby saving the rest of the crop. It was high time; the hogs and poultry, to say nothing of Kitty, having already got their full share. The inroads of the first, however, were of use in more ways than one, since they taught our young cultivator a process by which he could get his garden turned up at a cheap rate. They also suggested to him an idea that he subsequently turned to good account. Having dug his roots so early, it occurred to Mark that, in so low a climate, and with such a store of manure, he might raise two crops in a year, those which came in the cooler months varying a little in their properties from those which came in the warmer. On this hint he endeavoured to improve, commencing anew beds that, without it, would probably have lain fallow some months longer.

In this way did our young man employ-himself until he found his strength perfectly restored. But the severe illness he had gone through, with the sad views it had given him of some future day, when he might be compelled to give up life itself, without a friendly hand to smooth his pillow, or to close his eyes, led him to think far more seriously than he had done before, on the subject of the true character of our probationary condition here on earth, and on the unknown and awful future to which it leads us. Mark had been carefully educated on the subject of religion, and was well enough disposed to enter into the inquiry in a suitable spirit of humility; but, the grave circumstances in which he was now placed, contributed largely to the clearness of his views of the necessity of preparing for the final change. Cut off, as he was, from all communion with his kind; cast on what was, when he first knew it, literally a barren rock in the midst of the vast Pacific Ocean, Mark found himself, by a very natural operation of causes, in much closer communion with his Creator, than he might have been in the haunts of the world. On the Reef, there was little to divert his thoughts from their true course; and the very ills that pressed upon him, became so many guides to his gratitude by showing, through the contrasts, the many blessings which had been left him by the mercy of the hand that had struck him. The nights in that climate and season were much the pleasantest portions of the four-and-twenty hours. There were no exhalations from decayed vegetable substances or stagnant pools, to create miasma, but the air was as pure and little to be feared under a placid moon as under a noon-day sun. The first hours of night, therefore, were those in which our solitary man chose to take most of his exercise, previously to his complete restoration to strength; and then it was