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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
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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 the greatest requisites in married happiness. To this great quality
must be added affection, for she was devoted to Mark, and nothing he
wished would she hesitate about striving to obtain, even at painful
sacrifices to herself. One as generous-minded and manly as her husband,
could not fail to discover and appreciate such a disposition, which
entered very largely into the composition of their future happiness.
Our young couple did not visit the crater and the Summit until the sun
had lost most of its power. Then Mark introduced his wife into his
garden, and to his lawn. Exclamations of delight escaped the last, at
nearly every step; for, in addition to the accidental peculiarities of
such a place, the vegetation had advanced, as vegetation only can
advance within the tropics, favoured by frequent rains and a rich soil.
The radishes were half as large as Bridget's wrists, and as tender as
her heart. The lettuce was already heading; the beans were fit to pull;
the onions large enough to boil, and the peas even too old. On the
Summit Mark cut a couple of melons, which were of a flavour surpassing
any he had ever before tasted. With that spot Bridget was especially
delighted. It was, just then, as green as grass could be, and Kitty had
found its plants so very sweet, that she had scarce descended once to
trespass on the garden. Here and there the imprint of her little hoof
was to be traced on a bed, it is true, but she appeared to have gone
there more to look after the condition of the garden than to gratify her
appetite.
While on the Summit, Mark pointed out to his wife the fowls, now
increased to something like fifty. Two or three broods of chickens had
come within the last month, making their living on the reef that was
separated from that of the crater by means of the bridge of planks. As
two or three flew across the narrow pass, however, he was aware that the
state of his garden must be owing to the fact that they still found a
plenty on those rocks for their support. In returning to the ship, he
visited a half-barrel prepared for that purpose, and, as he expected,
found a nest containing a dozen eggs. These he took the liberty of
appropriating to his own use, telling Bridget that they could eat some
of them for their breakfast.
But food never had been an interest to give our solitary man much
uneasiness. From the hour when he found muck, and sea-weed, and guano,
he felt assured of the means of subsistence; being in truth, though he
may not have known it himself, more in danger of falling behind hand, in
consequence of the indisposition to activity that almost ever
accompanies the abundance of a warm climate, than from the absolute want
of the means of advancing. That night Mark and Bridget knelt, side by
side, and returned thanks to God for all his mercies. How sweet the
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former found it to see the light form of his beautiful companion moving
about the spacious cabin, giving it an air of home and happiness, no one
can fully appreciate who has not been cut off from these accustomed
joys, and then been suddenly restored to them.
Chapter XV.
"I beg, good Heaven, with just desires,
What need, not luxury, requires;
Give me, with sparing hands, but moderate wealth,
A little honour, and enough of health;
Free from the busy city life,
Near shady groves and purling streams confined,
A faithful friend, a pleasing wife;
And give me all in one, give a contented mind."
Anonymous.
Mark and Bridget remained at the Reef a week, entirely alone. To them
the time seemed but a single day; and so completely were they engrossed
with each other, and their present happiness, that they almost dreaded
the hour of return. Everything was visited, however, even to the
abandoned anchor, and Mark made a trip to the eastward, carrying his
wife out into the open water, in that direction. But the ship and the
crater gave Bridget the greatest happiness. Of these she never tired,
though the first gave her the most pleasure. A ship was associated with
all her earliest impressions of Mark; on board that very ship she had
been married; and now it formed her home, temporarily, if not
permanently. Bridget had been living so long beneath a tent, and in
savage huts, that the accommodations of the Rancocus appeared like those
of a palace. They were not inelegant even, though it was not usual, in
that period of the republic, to fit up vessels with a magnificence
little short of royal yachts, as is done at present. In the way of
convenience, however, our ship could boast of a great deal. Her cabins
were on deck, or under a poop, and consequently enjoyed every advantage
of light and air. Beneath were store-rooms, still well supplied with
many articles of luxury, though time was beginning to make its usual
inroads on their qualities. The bread was not quite as sound as it was
once, nor did the teas retain all their strength and flavour. But the
sugar was just as sweet as the day it was shipped, and in the coffee
there was no apparent change. Of the butter, we do not choose to say
anything. Bridget, in the prettiest manner imaginable, declared that as
soon as she could set Dido at work the store-rooms should be closely
examined, and thoroughly cleaned. Then the galley made such a convenient
and airy kitchen! Mark had removed the house, the awning answering every
purpose, and his wife declared that it was a pleasure to cook a meal for
him, in so pleasant a place.
The first dish Bridget ever literally cooked for Mark, with her own
hands, or indeed for any one else, was a mess of 'grass,' as it was the
custom of even the most polished people of America then to call
asparagus. They had gone together to the asparagus bed on Loam Island,
and had found the plant absolutely luxuriating in its favourite soil.
The want of butter was the greatest defect in this mess, for, to say the
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truth, Bridget refused the ship's butter on this occasion, but luckily,
enough oil remained to furnish a tolerable substitute. Mark declared he
had never tasted anything in his life half so good!
At the end of the week, the governor, as Heaton had styled Mark, and as
Bridget had begun playfully to term him, gave the opinion that it was
necessary for them to tear themselves away from their paradise. Never
before, most certainly, had the Reef appeared to the young husband a [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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