Page:The crater; or, Vulcan's peak.djvu/207

OR, VULCAN S PEAK. 201 next morning, he altered his course, and beat up for the strange island. When Mark first discovered him, he had nearly made the circuit of Vulcan s Peak, in a vain endea vour to land, and he would actually have gone on his way, had it not been for the firing of the fowling-piece, the re port of which he heard, and the smoke of which he saw. CHAPTER XIV. " Compell the hawlce to sit, that is unmanned, Or make the hound, untaught, to draw the deere, Or bring the free, against his will, in band, Or move the sad, a pleasant tale to heere, Your time is lost, and you no whit the neere ! So love ne learnes, offeree, the heart to knit: She serves but those, that feels sweet fancie s fit." Churchyard. WE leave the reader to imagine with what feelings Mark heard these facts. Bridget, for whom his tenderness was unabated : Bridget, who had been the subject of so many of his thoughts since his shipwreck, had shown herself worthy to be thus loved, and was now on an island that he might easily reach in a run of a few hours! The young man retired further within the grove, leaving Bob and So crates behind, and endeavoured to regain his composure by himself. Before rejoining his companions, he knelt and returned thanks to God for this instance of his great kindness. It was a long time, notwithstanding, before he could become accustomed to the idea of having associates, at all. Time and again, within the next month or two, did he dream that all this fancied happiness was only a dream, and awoke under a sense of having been the subject of an agreeable illusion. It took months perfectly to re store the tone of his mind in this respect, and to bring it back into the placid current of habitual happiness. The deep sense of gratitude to God he never lost ; but the re collection of what he had suffered, and from what he had