Page:The crater; or, Vulcan's peak.djvu/214

208 THE CRATER; land-marks, that he might have no difficulty in running for his port. After a time, however, he caught sight of an object that he remembered, and found his way into the cove. Here lay the little namesake of his pretty wife, just as he had left her, the true Bridget smiling and blushing as the young husband pointed out the poor substitute he had been compelled to receive for herself, only ten days earlier. Mark, and Socrates, and Dido, and Teresa, Bigelow s wife, all carried up heavy loads; while Heaton had as much as he could do to help Anne and the child up the sharp acclivity. Bridget, with her light active step, and great eagerness to behold a scene that Mark had described with so much eloquence, was the first, by a quarter of an hour, on the plain. When the others reached the top, they saw the charming young thing running about in the nearest grove, that in which her husband had dined, col lecting fruit, and apparently as enchanted as a child. Mark paused, as he gained the height, to gaze on this sight, so agreeable in his eyes, and which rendered the place so very different from what it had been so recently, while he was in possession of its glorious beauties, a solitary man. Then, he had several times likened himself to Adam in the garden of Eden, before woman was given to him for a companion. Now, now he could feast his eyes on an Eve, who would have been highly attractive in any part of the world. The articles brought up on the plain, at this first trip, comprised all that was necessary to prepare and to partake of a breakfast in comfort. A fire was soon blazing, the kettle on, and the bread-fruit baking. It was almost pain ful to destroy the reed-birds, or becca field, so numerous were they, and so confiding. One discharge from each barrel of the fowling-piece had enabled Heaton to bring in enough for the whole party, and these were soon roasting. Mark had brought with him from the Reef, a basket of fresh eggs, and they had been Bridget s load, in ascending the mountain. He had promised her an American break fast, and these eggs, boiled, did serve to remind everybody of a distant home, that was still remembered with melan choly pleasure. A heartier, or a happier meal, notwith-