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

away she went, head down and tail erect, scampering athwart the sward like a colt. It was not long, however, before she began to graze, the voyage having been made on a somewhat short allowance of both food and water. If there ever was a happy animal, it was that cow! Her troubles were all over. Sea-sickness, dry food, short allowances of water, narrow lodgings, and hard beds, were all, doubtless, forgotten, as she roamed at pleasure over boundless fields, on which the grass was perennial, seeming never to be longer or shorter than was necessary to give a good bite; and among which numberless rills of the purest waters were sparkling like crystal. The great difficulty in possessing a dairy, in a warm climate, is the want of pasture, the droughts usually being so long in the summer months. At Vulcan's Peak, however, and indeed in all of that fine region, it rained occasionally, throughout the year; more in winter than in summer, and that was the sole distinction in the seasons, after allowing for a trifling change in the temperature. These peculiarities appear to have been owing to the direction of the prevalent winds, which not only brought frequent showers, but which preserved a reasonable degree of freshness in the atmosphere. Within the crater, Mark had often found the beat oppressive, even in the shade; but, without , scarcely ever, provided his body was not directly exposed to the sun's rays. Nor was the difference in the temperature between the Reef and the Peak, as marked as might have been expected from the great elevation of the last. This was owing to the circumstance that the sea air, and that usually in swift motion, entered so intimately into the composition of the atmosphere down on that low range of rocks, imparting its customary freshness to everything it passed over.

Mark did not make the next trip to Rancocus. By this time Anne passed half the day in the open air, and was so fast regaining her strength that Heaton did not hesitate to leave her. The doctor had left many things behind him that he much wished to see embarked in person, and he volunteered to be the companion of Socrates, on this occasion, leaving the bridegroom behind, with his bride. By this time Heaton himself was a reasonably good sailor, and to him Mark confided the instructions as to the course to be steered, and the distance to be run. All resulted favourably, the Neshamony making the trip in very good time, bringing into the cove, the fourth day after she had sailed, not only the remaining cow, and her calf, but several of the goats. Convinced he might now depend on Heaton and Socrates to sail the pinnace, and Anne expressing a perfect willingness to remain on the Peak, in company with Teresa and Dido, Mark resolved to proceed to the crater with his two Bridgets, feeling the propriety of no longer neglecting the property in that quarter of his dominions. There was nothing to excite apprehension, and the women had all acquired a certain amount of resolution that more properly belonged to their situation than to their sex or nature. Anne's great object of concern was the baby. As long as that was safe, everything with her was going on well; and Dido being a renowned baby doctor, and all the simples for a child's ailings being in the possession of the young mother, she raised no objection whatever to her brother's quitting her.

Bridget had great impatience to make this voyage, for she longed to see the spot where her husband had passed so many days in solitude. Everything he had mentioned, in their many conferences on this subject, was already familiar to her in imagination; but, she wished to become more intimately acquainted with each and all. For Kitty she really entertained a decided fondness, and even the pigs, as Mark's companions, had a certain romantic value in her eyes.

The morning was taken for the departure, and just as the little craft got out from under the lee of the Peak, and began to feel the true breeze, the sun rose gloriously out of the eastern waves, lighting the whole of the blue waters with his brilliant rays. Never did Vulcan's Peak appear more grand or more soft--for grandeur or sublimity, blended with softness, make the principal charm of noble tropical scenery--than it did that morning; and Bridget looked up at the dark, overhanging cliffs, with a smile, as she said--

"We may love the Reef, dear Mark, for what it did for you in your distress, but I foresee that this Eden will eventually become our home."

"There are many things to render this mountain preferable to the Reef; though, now we are seriously thinking of a colony, it may be well to keep both. Even Rancocus would be of great value to us, as a pasture for goats, and a range for cattle. It may be long before the space will be wanted by human beings, for actual cultivation; but each of our present possessions is now, and long will continue to be, of great use to us as assistants. We shall live principally on the Peak, I think myself; but we must fish, get our salt, and obtain most of our vegetables from the Reef."

"Oh! that Reef, that Reef--how long will it be, Mark, before we see it?"

The enamoured young husband laughed, and kissed his charming wife, and told her to restrain her impatience. Several hours must elapse before they could even come in sight of the rocks. These hours did pass, and with the occurrence of no event worthy of being recorded. The Trades usually blew fresh in that quarter of the ocean, but it was seldom that they brought tempests. Occasionally squalls did occur, it is true; but a prudent and experienced mariner could ordinarily guard against their consequences, while the hurricane seldom failed, like most other great physical phenomena, to have its precursors, that were easily seen and understood. On the present occasion, the boat ran across the passage in very good time, making the crater in about five hours, and the ship's masts in six. Mark made a good land-fall coming in to leeward of the cape, or low promontory already mentioned--Cape South he called it--while there still remained several hours of day. Bridget was greatly struck with the vast difference she could not help finding between the appearance of these low, dark, and so often naked rocks, and that of the Eden she had just left. Tears came into her eyes, as she pictured her husband a solitary wanderer over these wastes, with no water, even, but that which fell from the clouds, or which came from the casks of the ship. When, however, she gave utterance to this feeling, one so natural to her situation, Mark told her to have patience until they reached the crater, when she would see that he had possessed a variety of blessings, for which he had every reason to be grateful to God.

There was no difficulty in getting into the proper channel, when the boat fairly flew along the rocks that lined the passages. So long as she was in rough water, the sails of so small a craft were necessarily becalmed a good deal of the time; but, now that there was nothing to intercept the breeze, she caught it all, and made the most of it. To Mark's surprise, as they passed the Prairie, he saw all of his swine on it, now, including two half-unconsumed litters of well-grown pigs, some seventeen in number. These animals had actually found their way along the rocks, a distance of at least twenty miles from home, and by the crooked path they had taken, probable one much greater. They all appeared full, and contented. So much of the water had already evaporated as to make it tolerable walking on the sea-weed; and Mark, stopping to examine the progress of things, prognosticated that another year, in that climate, would convert the whole of that wide plain into dry land. In many places, the hogs had already found their way down, through the sea-weed, into the mud; and there was one particular spot, quite near the channel, where the water was all gone, and where the pigs had rooted over so much of the surface, as to convert two or three acres into a sort of half-tilled field, in which the sea-weed was nearly turned under the mud. Nothing but drenching rains were wanting to render such a place highly productive, and it was certain those rains would come at the end of the season.

About the middle of the day, Mark ran the beat alongside of the Reef, at the usual landing, and welcomed Bridget to his and her home, with a kiss. Everything was in its place, and a glance sufficed to show that no human foot had been there, during the weeks of his absence. Kitty was browsing on the Summit, and no spaniel could have played more antics than she did, at the sight of her master. At first, Mark had thought of transferring this gentle and playful young goat to the Peak, and to place her in the little flock collected there; but he had been induced to change his mind, by recollecting how much she contributed to the beauty of the Summit, by keeping down the grass. He had therefore brought her a companion, which had no sooner been landed on the Reef, than it bounded off to make acquaintance with the stranger on the elevation.

Bridget was almost overcome when she got on board the ship. There was even a certain sublimity in the solitude that reigned over everything, that impressed her imagination, and she wondered that any human being could so long have dwelt there alone, uncheered by the hope of deliverance. In the cabin of that vessel she had plighted her faith to Mark, and a flood of recollections burst upon her as she entered it. Mark was obliged to allow her to seek relief in tears. But, half an hour brought her round again, and then she set about putting things in order, and making this very important abode submit to the influence of woman's love of comfort and order. By the time Mark came back from his garden, whither he had gone to ascertain its condition, Bridget had his supper ready for him, prepared with a neatness and method to which he had long been a stranger. That was a very delicious meal to both. The husband had lighted a fire in the galley, where the wife had cooked the meal, which consisted principally of some pan-fish, taken in the narrow channels between the rocks, and which had been cleaned by Mark himself, as they sailed along. It was, indeed, a great point of solicitude with this young husband to prevent his charming wife from performing duties for which she was unfitted by education, while the wife herself was only too solicitous to make herself useful. In one sense, Bridget was a very knowing person about a household. She knew how to prepare many savoury compounds, and had the whole culinary art at her fingers' ends, in the way of giving directions. It was no wonder, then, that Mark found everything she touched, or prepared, good, as everything she said sounded pleasant and reasonable. The last is a highly important ingredient in matrimonial life, but the first has its merit. And Bridget Woolston was both pleasant and reasonable. Though a little romantic, and inclined to hazard all for feeling, and what she conceived to be duty, at the bottom of all ran a vein of excellent sense, which had been reasonably attended to. Her temper was sweetness itself, and that is one of