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

a population were to be found on every side. The broad plains of soft mud, by the aid of the sun, the rains, the guano, and the plough, had now been some years converted into meadows and arable lands; and those which still lay remote from the peopled parts of the group, still nine-tenths of its surface, were fast getting the character of rich pastures, where cattle, and horses, and hogs were allowed to roam at pleasure. As the cock crowed from the midst of his attendant party of hens and chickens, the ex-governor in passing would smile sadly, his thoughts reverting to the time when its predecessor raised its shrill notes on the naked rocks of the Reef!

That Reef itself had undergone more changes than any other spot in the colony, as the Peak had undergone fewer. The town by this time contained more than two hundred buildings, of one sort and another, and the population exceeded five hundred souls. This was a small population for so many tenements; but the children, as yet, did not bear a just proportion to the adults. The crater was the subject of what to Mark Woolston was a most painful law-suit. From the first, he had claimed that spot as his private property; though he had conceded its use to the public, under a lease, since it was so well adapted, by natural formation, to be a place of refuge when invasions were apprehended. But the crater he had found barren, and had rendered fertile; the crater had even seemed to him to be an especial gift of Providence bestowed on him in his misery; and the crater was his by possession, as well as by other rights, when he received strangers into his association. None of the older inhabitants denied this claim. It is the last comers who are ever the most anxious to dispute ancient rights. As they can possess none of these established privileges themselves, they dislike that others should enjoy them; and association places no restraints on their cupidity. Pennock, once in the hands of "the people," was obliged to maintain their rights, or what some among them chose to call their rights; and he authorized the attorney-general to bring an action of ejectment against the party in possession. Some pretty hard-faced trickery was attempted in the way of legislation, in order to help along the claim of the public; for, if the truth must be said, the public is just as wont to resort to such unworthy means to effect its purposes as private individuals, when it is deemed necessary. But there was little fear of the "people's" failing; they made the law, and they administered it, through their agents; the power being now so completely in their hands that it required twice the usual stock of human virtue to be able to say them nay, as had formerly been the case. God help the man whose rights are to be maintained against the masses, when the immediate and dependent nominees of those masses are to sit in judgment! If the public, by any inadvertency, have had the weakness to select servants that are superior to human infirmities, and who prefer to do right rather than to do as their masters would have them, it is a weakness that experience will be sure to correct, and which will not be often repeated.

The trial of this cause kept the Woolstons at the crater a week longer than they would have remained. When the cause was submitted to the jury, Mr. Attorney-General had a great deal to say about aristocracy and privileged orders, as well as about the sacred rights of the people. To hear him, one might have imagined that the Woolstons were princes in the full possession of their hereditary states, and who were dangerous to the liberties or the mass, instead of being what they really were, citizens without one right more than the meanest man in the colony, and with even fewer chances of maintaining their share of these common rights, in consequence of the prejudice, and jealousy, and most of all, the envy , of the majority. Woolston argued his own cause, making a clear, forcible and manly appeal to the justice and good sense of the jury, in vindication of his claims; which, on every legal as well as equitable principle, was out of all question such as every civilized community should have maintained. But the great and most powerful foe of justice, in cases of this sort, is SLANG; and SLANG in this instance came very near being too much for law. The jury were divided, ten going for the 'people,' and two for the right; one of the last being Bigelow, who was a fearless, independent fellow, and cared no more for the bug-bear called the 'people,' by the slang-whangers of politics, than he did for the Emperor of Japan.

The day after this fruitless trial, which left Mark's claim in abeyance until the next court, a period of six months, the intended travellers repaired on board ship, and the brig, with her party, went to sea, under her owner, captain Betts, who had provided himself with a good navigator in the person of his mate. The Rancocus, however, crossed over to the Peak, and the passengers all ascended to the plain, to take leave of that earthly paradise. Nature had done so much for this place, that it had been the settled policy of Mark Woolston to suffer its native charms to be marred as little as possible. But the Peak had ever been deemed a sort of West-End of the Colony; and, though the distribution of it had been made very fairly, those who parted with their shares receiving very ample compensations for them, a certain distinction became attached to the residence on the Peak. Some fancied it was on account of its climate; some, because it was a mountain, and was more raised up in the world than the low islands near it; some, because it had most edible birds, and the best figs; but none of those who now coveted residences there for their families, or the name of residences there, would allow even to themselves, what was the simple fact, that the place received it highest distinction on account of the more distinguished individuals who dwelt on it. At first, the name was given to several settlements in the group, just as the Manhattanese have their East and West Broadway; and, just for the very same reasons that have made them so rich in Broadways, they will have ere long, first-fifth, second-fifth, and third-fifth avenue, unless common sense begins to resume its almost forgotten sway among the aldermen. But this demonstration in the way of names, did not satisfy the minor-majority, after they got into the ascendant; and a law was passed authorizing a new survey, and a new subdivision of the public lands on the Peak, among the citizens of the colony. On some pretence of justice, that is not very easily to be understood, those who had property there already were not to have shares in the new lottery; a lottery, by the way, in which the prizes were about twice as large as those which had originally been distributed among the colonists.

But, Mark and Bridget endeavoured to forget everything unpleasant in this visit to their much-loved home. They regarded the place as a boon from Providence, that demanded all their gratitude, in spite of the abuses of which it was the subject; and never did it seem to them more exquisitely beautiful, perhaps it never had been more perfectly lovely, than it appeared the hour they left it. Mark remembered it as he found it, a paradise in the midst of the waters, wanting only in man to erect the last great altar in his heart, in honour of its divine creator. As yet, its beauties had not been much marred; though the new irruption menaced them, with serious injuries.

Mr. and Mrs. Woolston took leave of their friends, and tore themselves away from the charming scenery of the Peak, with heavy hearts. The Rancocus was waiting for them, under the lee of the island, and everybody was soon on board her. The sails were filled, and the ship passed out from among the islands, by steering south, and hauling up between the Peak and the volcano. The latter now seemed to be totally extinct. No more smoke arose from it, or had indeed risen from it, for a twelvemonth. It was an island, and in time it might become habitable, like the others near it.

Off Cape Horn the Rancocus spoke the Dragon; Captain Betts and his passengers being all well. The two vessels saw no more of each other until the ship was coming out of the Bay of Rio, as the brig was going in. Notwithstanding this advantage, and the general superiority of the sailing of the Rancocus, such was the nature of the winds that the last encountered, that when she passed Cape May lights the brig was actually in the bay, and ahead of her; This circumstance, however, afforded pleasure rather than anything else, and the two vessels landed their passengers on the wharves of Philadelphia within an hour of each other.

Great was the commotion in the little town of Bristol at the return of all the Woolstons, who had gone off, no one knew exactly whither; some saying to New Holland; others to China; and a few even to Japan. The excitement extended across the river to the little city of Burlington, and there was danger of the whole history of the colony's getting into the newspapers. The colonists, however, were still discreet, and in a week something else occurred to draw the attention of the multitude, and the unexpected visit was soon regarded like any other visit.

Glad enough, notwithstanding, were the near relatives of Bridget and Anne, in particular, to see those two fine young women again. Neither appeared much more than a twelvemonth older than when she went away. This was owing to the delicious, yet not enervating climate, in which both had lived. They were mothers, and a little more matronly in appearance, but none the less lovely; their children, like themselves, were objects of great interest, in their respective families, and happy indeed were the households which received them. It in no degree lessened the satisfaction of any of the parties, that the travellers had all returned much better off in their circumstances than when they went away. Even the two younger Woolstons were now comfortable, and early announced an intention not to return to the islands. As for the ex-governor, he might be said to be rich; but his heart was still in the colony, over the weaknesses of which his spirit yearned, as the indulgent parent feels for the failings of a backsliding child. Nevertheless, Bridget was persuaded to remain with her father a twelvemonth longer than her husband, for the health of the old gentleman had become infirm, and he could not bear to part with his only child so soon again, after she had once been restored to his arms. It was, therefore, decided, that Mr. Mark Woolston should fill the Rancocus with such articles as were deemed the most useful to the colony, and go back in that vessel, leaving his wife and children at Bristol, with the understanding he would return and seek them the succeeding summer. A similar arrangement was made for the wife and children of Captain Betts, Friend Martha Betts being much in the practice of regulating her conduct by that of Friend Bridget Woolston. Betts sold his brig, and consented to go in the Rancocus as a passenger, having no scruples, now he had become comparatively wealthy, about eating with his old shipmate, and otherwise associating with