The Crater; Or, Vulcan's Peak Part 27

For some months after the change of government, Mark Woolston was occupied in attending to the arrangement of his affairs, preparatory to an absence of some length. Bridget had expressed a strong wish to visit America once more, and her two eldest children were now of an age when their education had got to be a matter of some solicitude. It was the intention of their father to send them to Pennsylvania for that purpose, when the proper time arrived, and to place them under the care of his friends there, who would gladly take the charge. Recent events probably quickened this intention, both as to feeling and time, for Mark was naturally much mortified at the turn things had taken.

There was an obvious falling-off in the affairs of the colony from the time it became transcendantly free. In religion, the sects ever had fair-play, or ever since the arrival of the parsons, and that had been running down, from the moment it began to run into excesses and exaggerations. As soon as a man begins to _shout_ in religion, he may be pretty sure that he is "hallooing before he is out of the woods." It is true that all our feelings exhibit themselves, more or less, in conformity to habits and manners, but there is something profane in the idea that the spirit of G.o.d manifests it presence in yells and clamour, even when in possession of those who have not been trained to the more subdued deportment of reason and propriety. The shouting and declamatory parts of religion may be the evil spirits growling and yelling before they are expelled, but these must not be mistaken for the voice of the Ancient of Days.

The morals decayed as religion obtained its false directions.

Self-righteousness, the inseparable companion of the quarrels of sects, took the place of humility, and thus became prevalent that most dangerous condition of the soul of man, when he imagines that _he_ sanctifies what he does; a frame of mind, by the way, that is by no means strange to very many who ought to be conscious of their unworthiness. With the morals of the colony, its prosperity, even in worldly interests, began to lose ground. The merchants, as usual, had behaved badly in the political struggle. The intense selfishness of the caste kept them occupied with the pursuit of gain, at the most critical moments of the struggle, or when their influence might have been of use; and when the mischief was done, and they began to feel its consequences, or, what to them was the same thing, to fancy that the low price of oil in Europe was owing to the change of const.i.tution at the Crater, they started up in convulsed and mercenary efforts to counteract the evil, referring all to money, and not manifesting any particular notions of principles concerning the manner in which it was used. As the cooler heads of the minority--perhaps we ought to say of the majority, for, oddly enough, the minority now actually ruled in Craterdom, by carrying out fully the principle of the sway of the majority--but, as the cooler heads of the colony well understood that nothing material was to follow from such spasmodic and ill-directed efforts, the merchants were not backed in their rising, and, as commonly happens with the slave, the shaking of their chains only bound them so much the tighter.

At length the Rancocus returned from the voyage on which she had sailed just previously to the change in the const.i.tution, and her owner announced his intention to go in her to America, the next trip, himself.

His brothers, Heaton, Anne, their children, and, finally, Captain Betts, Friend Martha, and their issue, all, sooner or later, joined the party; a desire to visit the low sh.o.r.es of the Delaware once more, uniting with the mortification of the recent changes, to induce them all to wish to see the land of their fathers before they died. All the oil in the colony was purchased by Woolston, at rather favourable prices, the last quotations from abroad being low: the ex-governor disposed of most of his movables, in order to effect so large an operation. He also procured a glorious collection of sh.e.l.ls, and some other light articles of the sort, filling the ship as full as she could be stowed. It was then that the necessity of having a second vessel became apparent, and Betts determined to withdraw his brig from the fishery, and to go to America in her. The whales had been driven off the original fishing-ground, and the pursuit was no longer as profitable as it had been, three fish having been taken formerly to one now; a circ.u.mstance the hierarchy of the Crater did not fail to ascribe to the changes in the const.i.tution, while the journal attributed it to certain aristocratical tendencies which, as that paper averred, had crept into the management of the business.

The vessels were loaded, the pa.s.sengers disposing of as many of their movables as they could, and to good advantage, intending to lay in fresh supplies in Philadelphia, and using the funds thus obtained to procure a freight for the brig. At the end of a month, both vessels were ready; the different dwellings were transferred to new occupants, some by lease and others by sales, and all those who contemplated a voyage to America were a.s.sembled at the crater. Previously to taking leave of a place that had become endeared to him by so many a.s.sociations and interests, Mr.

Woolston determined to take the Anne, hiring her of the government for that purpose--Governor Pennock condescendingly deciding that the public interests would not suffer by the arrangement--and going in her once more through the colony, on a tour of private, if not of official inspection. Bridget, Heaton, Anne, and Captain Betts, were of the party; the children being left at the crater, in proper custody.

The first visit was paid to Rancocus Island. Here the damage done by the pirates had long been repaired; and the mills, kilns and other works, were in a state of prosperous industry. The wild hogs and goats were now so numerous as to be a little troublesome, particularly the former; but, a good many being shot, the inhabitants did not despair of successfully contending with them for the possession of the place. There were cattle, also, on this island; but they were still tame, the cows giving milk, and the oxen being used in the yoke. These were the descendants of the single pair Woolston had sent across, less than twelve years before, which had increased in an arithmetical proportion, care having been taken not to destroy any. They now exceeded a hundred, of whom quite half were cows; and the islanders occasionally treated themselves to fresh beef. As cows had been brought into the colony in every vessel that arrived, they were now in tolerably good numbers, Mark Woolston himself disposing of no less than six when he broke up his farming establishment for a visit to America. There were horses, too, though not in as great numbers as there were cows and oxen. Boats were so much used, that roadsters were very little needed; and this so much the less, on account of the great steadiness of the trades. By this time, everybody understood the last; and the different channels of the group were worked through with almost the same facility as would have been the case with so many highways. Nevertheless, horses were to be found in the colony, and some of the husbandmen preferred them to the horned cattle in working their lands.

A week was pa.s.sed in visiting the group. Something like a consciousness of having ill-treated Mark was to be traced among the people; and this feeling was manifested under a well-known law of our nature, which rendered those the most vindictive and morose, who had acted the worst.

Those who had little more to accuse themselves of than a compliant submission to the wrong-doing of others, in political matters everywhere the most numerous cla.s.s of all, received their visiters well enough, and in many instances they treated their guests with delicacy and distinction. On the whole, however, the late governor derived but little pleasure from the intercourse, so much mouthing imbecility being blended with the expressions of regret and sympathy, as to cause him to mourn over the compliance of his fellow-creatures, more than to rejoice at their testimony in his own favour.

But, notwithstanding all these errors of man, nature and time had done their work magnificently since the last "progress" of Woolston among the islands. The channels were in nearly every instance lined with trees, and the husbandry had a.s.sumed the aspect of an advanced civilization.

Hedges, beautiful in their luxuriance and flowers, divided the fields; and the buildings which contribute to the comforts of 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 c.o.c.k crowed from the midst of his attendant party of hens and chickens, the ex-governor in pa.s.sing 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 a.s.sociation. 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 a.s.sociation 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. G.o.d help the man whose rights are to be maintained against the ma.s.ses, when the immediate and dependent nominees of those ma.s.ses 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 ma.s.s, 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 j.a.pan.

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 pa.s.sengers 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 pa.s.sed 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 grat.i.tude, 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sengers 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 pa.s.sed Cape May lights the brig was actually in the bay, and ahead of her; This circ.u.mstance, however, afforded pleasure rather than anything else, and the two vessels landed their pa.s.sengers 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 j.a.pan. 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 mult.i.tude, 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 circ.u.mstances 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 pa.s.senger, having no scruples, now he had become comparatively wealthy, about eating with his old shipmate, and otherwise a.s.sociating with him, though it was always as a sort of humble companion.

The Heatons determined to remain in America, for a time at least. Mr.

Heaton felt the ingrat.i.tude of the colonists even more keenly than his brother-in-law; for he knew how much had been done for them, and how completely they had forgotten it all. Anne regretted the Peak, and its delicious climate; but her heart was mainly concentred in her family, and she could not be otherwise than happy, while permitted to dwell with her husband and children.

When the Rancocus sailed, therefore, she had no one on board her but Mark Woolston and Betts, with the exception of her proper crew. Her cargo was of no great intrinsic value, though it consisted in articles much used, and consequently in great demand, in the colony. As the vessel had lain some months at Philadelphia, where she had been thoroughly repaired and new-coppered, she sailed well, and made an excellent run to Rio, nor was her pa.s.sage bad as far as the straits of La Maire. Here she encountered westerly gales, and the Cape may be said to have been doubled in a tempest. After beating about for six weeks in that stormy ocean, the ship finally got into the Pacific, and went into Valparaiso, Here Mark Woolston received very favourable offers for most of his cargo, but, still feeling desirous to serve his colony, he refused them all, setting sail for the islands as soon as he had made a few repairs, and had a little refreshed his crew.

The pa.s.sages between Valparaiso and the Crater had usually consumed about five weeks, though somewhat dependent on the state of the trades.

On this occasion the run was rather long, it having been attempted to find a new course. Formerly, the vessels had fallen in with the Crater, between Betto's group and the Reef, which was bringing them somewhat to leeward, and Mr. Woolston now thought he would try a more southern route, and see if he could not make the Peak, which would not only bring him to windward, but which place was certainly giving him a more striking object to fall in with than the lower islands of the group.

It was on the morning of one of the most brilliant days of those seas, that Captain Saunders met the ex-governor on the quarter-deck, as the latter appeared there for the first time since quitting his berth, and announced that he had just sent look-outs aloft to have a search for the land. By his reckoning they must be within twelve leagues of the Peak, and he was rather surprised that it was not yet visible from the deck.

Make it they must very shortly; for he was quite certain of his lat.i.tude, and did not believe that he could be much out of the way, as respected his longitude. The cross-trees were next hailed, and the inquiry was made if the Peak could not be seen ahead. The answer was, that no land was in sight, in any part of the ocean!

For several hours the ship ran down before the wind, and the same extraordinary vacancy existed on the waters! At length an island was seen, and the news was sent down on deck. Towards that island the ship steered, and about two in the afternoon, she came up close under its lee, and backed her topsail. This island was a stranger to all on board!

The navigators were confident they must be within a few leagues of the Peak, as well as of the volcano; yet nothing could be seen of either, while here was an unknown island in their places! This strange land was of very small dimensions, rising out of the sea about three hundred feet. Its extent was no great matter, half a mile in diameter perhaps, and its form nearly circular. A boat was lowered, and a party pulled towards it.

As Mr. Woolston approached this as yet strange spot, something in its outlines recurred to his memory. The boat moved a little further north, and he beheld a solitary tree. Then a cry escaped him, and the whole of the terrible truth flashed on his mind. He beheld the summit of the Peak, and the solitary tree was that which he had himself preserved as a signal. The remainder of his paradise had sunk beneath the ocean!

On landing, and examining more minutely, this awful catastrophe was fully confirmed. No part of Vulcan's Peak remained above water but its rocky summit, and its venerable deposit of guano. All the rest was submerged; and when soundings were made, the plain, that spot which had almost as much of Heaven as of earth about it, according to the unenlightened minds of its inhabitants, was found to be nearly a hundred fathoms deep in the ocean!

It is scarcely possible to describe the sickening awe which came over the party, when they had a.s.sured themselves of the fatal facts by further observation. Everything, however, went to confirm the existence of the dire catastrophe. These internal fires had wrought a new convulsion, and the labours and hopes of years had vanished in a moment.

The crust of the earth had again been broken; and this time it was to destroy, instead of to create. The lead gave fearful confirmation of the nature of the disaster, the soundings answering accurately to the known formation of the land in the neighbourhood of the Peak. But, in the Peak itself, it was not possible to be mistaken: there it was in its familiar outline, just as it had stood in its more elevated position, when it crowned its charming mountain, and overlooked the whole of that enchanting plain which had so lately stretched beneath. It might be said to resemble, in this respect, that sublime rock, which is recognised as a part of the "everlasting hills," in Cole's series of n.o.ble landscapes that is called "the March of Empire;" ever the same amid the changes of time, and civilization, and decay, there it was the apex of the Peak; naked, storm-beaten, and familiar to the eye, though surrounded no longer by the many delightful objects which had once been seen in its neighbourhood.

Saddened, and chastened in spirit, by these proofs of what had befallen the colony, the party returned to the ship. That night, they remained near the little islet; next day they edged away in the direction of the place where the volcano had formerly risen up out of the waves. After running the proper distance, the ship was hove to, and her people sounded; two hundred fathoms of line were out, but no bottom was found.

Then the Rancocus bore up for the island which had borne her own name.

The spot was ascertained, but the mountain had also sunk into the ocean. In one place, soundings were had in ten fathoms water, and here the vessel was anch.o.r.ed. Next day, when the ship was again got under way, the anchor brought up with it, a portion of the skeleton of a goat.

It had doubtless fallen upon the remains of such an animal, and hooking it with its flukes thus unexpectedly brought once more to the light of day, the remains of a creature that may have been on the very summit of the island, when the earthquake in which it was swallowed, occurred.

The Rancocus next shaped her course in the direction of the group.

Soundings were struck near the western roads, and it was easy enough to carry the vessel towards what had formerly been the centre of those pleasant isles. The lead was kept going, and a good look-out was had for shoals; for, by this time, Mr. Woolston was satisfied that the greatest changes had occurred at the southward, as in the former convulsion, the group having sunk but a trifle compared with the Peak; nevertheless, every person, as well as thing, would seem to have been engulfed.

Towards evening, however, as the ship was feeling her way to windward with great caution, and when the ex-governor believed himself to be at no great distance from the centre of the group, the look-outs proclaimed shoal-water, and even small breakers, about half a mile on their larboard beam. The vessel was hove-to, and a boat went to examine the place, Woolston and his friend Betts going in her.

The shoal was made by the summit of the crater; breakers appearing in one or two places where the hill had been highest. The boat met with no difficulty, however, in pa.s.sing over the spot, merely avoiding the white water. When the lead was dropped into the centre of the crater, it took out just twenty fathoms of line. That distance, then, below the surface of the sea, had the crater, and its town, and its people sunk! If any object had floated, as many must have done, it had long before drifted off in the currents of the ocean, leaving no traces behind to mark a place that had so lately been tenanted by human beings. The Rancocus anch.o.r.ed in twenty-three fathoms, it being thought she lay nearly over the Colony House, and for eight-and-forty hours the exploration was continued. The sites of many a familiar spot were ascertained, but nothing could be found on which even a spar might be anch.o.r.ed, to buoy out a lost community.

At the end of the time mentioned, the ship bore up for Betto's group.

There young Ooroony was found, peacefully ruling as of old. Nothing was known of the fate of the colonists, though surprise had been felt at not receiving any visits from their vessels. The intercourse had not been great of late, and most of the Kannakas had come away. Soon after the Woolstons had left, the especial friends of humanity, and the almost exclusive lovers of the "people" having begun to oppress them by exacting more work than was usual, and forgetting to pay for it. These men could say but little about the condition of the colony beyond this fact. Not only they, but all in the group, however, could render some account of the awful earthquake of the last season, which, by their descriptions, greatly exceeded n violence anything formerly known in those regions. It was in that earthquake, doubtless, that the colony of the crater perished to a man.

Leaving handsome and useful presents with his friend, young Ooroony, and putting ash.o.r.e two or three Kannakas who were in the vessel, Woolston now sailed for Valparaiso. Here he disposed of his cargo to great advantage, and purchased copper in pigs at almost as great. With this new cargo he reached Philadelphia, after an absence of rather more than nine months.

Of the colony of the crater and its fortunes, little was ever said among its survivors. It came into existence in a manner that was most extraordinary, and went out of it in one that was awful. Mark and Bridget, however, pondered deeply on these things; the influence of which coloured and chastened their future lives. The husband often went over, in his mind, all the events connected with his knowledge of the Reef. He would thus recall his shipwreck and desolate condition when suffered first to reach the rocks; the manner in which he was the instrument in causing vegetation to spring up in the barren places; the earthquake, and the upheaving of the islands from out of the waters: the arrival of his wife and other friends: the commencement and progress of the colony; its blessings, so long as it pursued the right, and its curses, when it began to pursue the wrong; his departure, leaving it still a settlement surrounded with a sort of earthly paradise, and his return, to find all buried beneath the ocean. Of such is the world and its much-coveted advantages. For a time our efforts seem to create, and to adorn, and to perfect, until we forget our origin and destination, subst.i.tuting self for that divine hand which alone can unite the elements of worlds as they float in ga.s.ses, equally from His mysterious laboratory, and scatter them again into thin air when the works of His hand cease to find favour in His view.

Let those who would subst.i.tute the voice of the created for that of the Creator, who shout "the people, the people," instead of hymning the praises of their G.o.d, who vainly imagine that the ma.s.ses are sufficient for all things, remember their insignificance and tremble. They are but mites amid millions of other mites, that the goodness of providence has produced for its own wise ends; their boasted countries, with their vaunted climates and productions, have temporary possessions of but small portions of a globe that floats, a point, in s.p.a.ce, following the course pointed out by an invisible finger, and which will one day be suddenly struck out of its...o...b..t, as it was originally put there, by the hand that made it. Let that dread Being, then, be never made to act a second part in human affairs, or the rebellious vanity of our race imagine that either numbers, or capacity, or success, or power in arms, is aught more than a short-lived gift of His beneficence, to be resumed when His purposes are accomplished.