The Crater; Or, Vulcan's Peak Part 8

This done, a look at the garden, with a free use of the hoe, was the next thing undertaken. That night Mark slept in his hammock, under the crater-awning, and when he awoke in the morning it was to experience a weight, like that of lead in his forehead, a raging thirst, and a burning fever. Now it was that our poor solitary hermit felt the magnitude of his imprudence and the weight of the evils of his peculiar situation. That he was about to be seriously ill he knew, and it behoved him to improve the time that remained to him, to the utmost. Everything useful to him was in the ship, and thither it became indispensable for him to repair, if he wished to retain even a chance for life. Opening an umbrella, then, and supporting his tottering legs by a cane, Mark commenced a walk of very near a mile, under an almost perpendicular sun, at the hottest season of the year. Twenty times did the young man think he should be compelled to sink on the bare rock, where there is little question he would soon have expired, under the united influence of the fever within and the burning heat without. Despair urged him on, and, after pausing often to rest, he succeeded in entering the cabin, at the end of the most perilous hour he had ever yet pa.s.sed.

No words of ours can describe the grateful sense of coolness, in spite of the boiling blood in his veins, that Mark Woolston experienced when he stepped beneath the shade of the p.o.o.p-deck of the Rancocus. The young man knew that he was about to be seriously ill and his life might depend on the use he made of the next hour, or half-hour, even. He threw himself on a settee, to get a little rest, and while there he endeavoured to reflect on his situation, and to remember what he ought to do. The medicine-chest always stood in the cabin, and he had used its contents too often among the crew, not to have some knowledge of their general nature and uses. Potions were kept prepared in that depository, and he staggered to the table, opened the chest, took a ready-mixed dose of the sort he believed best for him, poured water on it from the filterer, and swallowed it. Our mate ever afterwards believed that draught saved his life. It soon made him deadly sick, and produced an action in his whole system. For an hour he was under its influence, when he was enabled to get into his berth, exhausted and literally unable any longer to stand. How long he remained in that berth, or near it rather--for he was conscious of having crawled from it in quest of water, and for other purposes, on several occasions--but, how long he was confined to his cabin, Mark Woolston never knew. The period was certainly to be measured by days, and he sometimes fancied by weeks. The first probably was the truth, though it might have been a fortnight.

Most of that time his head was light with fever, though there were intervals when reason was, at least partially, restored to him, and he became painfully conscious of the horrors of his situation. Of food and water he had a sufficiency, the filterer and a bread-bag being quite near him, and he helped himself often from the first, in particular; a single mouthful of the ship's biscuit commonly proving more than he could swallow, even after it was softened in the water. At length he found himself indisposed to rise at all, and he certainly remained eight-and-forty hours in his berth, without quitting it, and almost without sleeping, though most of the time in a sort of doze.

At length the fever abated in its violence, though it began to a.s.sume, what for a man in Mark Woolston's situation was perhaps more dangerous, a character of a low type, lingering in his system and killing him by inches. Mark was aware of his condition, and though: of the means of relief. The ship had some good Philadelphia porter in her, and a bottle of it stood on a shelf over his berth. This object caught his eye, and he actually longed for a draught of that porter. He had sufficient strength to raise himself high enough to reach it, but it far exceeded his powers to draw the cork, even had the ordinary means been at hand, which they were not. There was a hammer on the shelf, however, and with that instrument he did succeed in making a hole in the side of the bottle, and in filling a tumbler. This liquor he swallowed at a single draught. It tasted deliciously to him, and he took a second tumbler full, when he lay down, uncertain as to the consequences. That his head was affected by these two gla.s.ses of porter, Mark himself was soon aware, and shortly after drowsiness followed. After lying in an uneasy slumber for half an hour, his whole person was covered with a gentle perspiration, in which condition, after drawing the sheet around him, the sick man fell asleep.

Our patient never knew how long he slept, on this all-important occasion. The period certainly included part of two days and one entire night; but, afterwards, when Mark endeavoured to correct his calendar, and to regain something, like a record of the time, he was inclined to think he must have lain there two nights with the intervening day. When he awoke, Mark was immediately sensible that he was free from disease.

He was not immediately sensible, nevertheless, how extremely feeble disease had left him. At first, he fancied he had only to rise, take nourishment, and go about his ordinary pursuits. But the sight of his emaciated limbs, and the first effort he made to get up, convinced him that he had a long state of probation to go through, before he became the man he had been a week or two before. It was well, perhaps, that his head was so clear, and his judgment so un.o.bscured at this, his first return to consciousness.

Mark deemed it a good symptom that he felt disposed to eat. How many days he had been altogether without nourishment he could not say, but they must have been several; nor had he received more than could be obtained from a single ship's biscuit since his attack. All this came to his mind, with a distinct recollection that he must be his own physician and nurse. For a few minutes he lay still, during which he addressed himself to G.o.d, with thanks for having spared his life until reason was restored. Then he bethought him, well as his feeble state would allow, of the course he ought to pursue. On a table in the cabin, and in sight of his berth, through the state-room door, was a liquor-case, containing wines, brandy, and gin. Our sick man thought all might yet go well, could he get a few spoonsfull of an excellent port wine which that case, contained, and which had been provided expressly for cases of sickness.

To do this, however, it was necessary to obtain the key, to open the case, and to pour out the liquor; three things, of which he distrusted his powers to perform that which was the least difficult.

The key of the liquor-case was in the draw of an open secretary, which, fortunately, stood between him and the table. Another effort was made to rise, which so far succeeded as to enable the invalid to sit up in his bed. The cool breeze which aired the cabin revived him a little, and he was able to stretch out a hand and turn the c.o.c.k of the filterer, which he had himself drawn near his berth, while under the excitement of fever, in order to obtain easy access to water. Accidentally this filterer stood in a draught, and the quart or two of water that had not yet evaporated was cool and palatable; that is, cool for a ship and such a climate. One swallow of the water was all Mark ventured on, but it revived him more than he could believe possible. Near the gla.s.s into which he had drawn the water, lay a small piece of pilot bread, and this he dropped into the tumbler. Then he ventured to try his feet, when he found a dizziness come over him, that compelled him to fall back on his berth. Recovering from this in a minute or two, a second attempt succeeded better, and the poor fellow, by supporting himself against the bulkheads, and by leaning on chairs, was enabled to reach the desk. The key was easily obtained, and the table was next reached. Here Mark sunk into a chair, as much exhausted as he would have been, previously to his illness, by a desperate effort to defend life.

The invalid was in his shirt, and the cool sea-breeze had the effect of an air-bath on him. It revived him in a little while, when he applied the key, opened the case, got out the bottle by using both hands, though it was nearly empty, and poured out a wine-gla.s.s of the liquor. With these little exertions he was so much exhausted as almost to faint.

Nothing saved him, probably, but a sip of the wine which he took from the gla.s.s as it stood on the table. It has been much the fashion, of late years, to decry wine, and this because it is a gift of Providence that has been greatly abused. In Mark Woolston's instance it proved, what it was designed to be, a blessing instead of a curse. That single sip of wine produced an effect on him like that of magic. It enabled him soon to obtain his tumbler of water, into which he poured the remainder of the liquor. With the tumbler in his hand, the invalid next essayed to cross the cabin, and to reach the berth in the other state-room. He was two or three minutes in making this pa.s.sage, sustained by a chair, into which he sunk not less than three times, and revived by a few more sips of the wine and water. In this state-room was a bed with clean cool linen, that had been prepared for Bob, but which that worthy fellow had pertinaciously refused to use, out of respect to his officer. On these sheets Mark now sank, almost exhausted. He had made a happy exchange, however, the freshness and sweetness of the new bed, of itself, acting as delicious restoratives.

After resting a few minutes, the solitary invalid formed a new plan of proceeding. He knew the importance of not over-exerting himself, but he also knew the importance of cleanliness and of a renovation of his strength. By this time the biscuit had got to be softened in the wine and water, and he took a piece, and after masticating it well, swallowed it. This was positively the first food the sick and desolate young man had received in a week. Fully aware of this, he abstained from taking a second mouthful, though sorely pressed to it by hunger. So strong was the temptation, and so sweet did that morse taste, that Mark felt he might not refrain unless he had something to occupy his mind for a few minutes. Taking a small swallow of the wine and water, he again got on his feet, and staggered to the drawer in which poor Captain Crutchely had kept his linen. Here he got a shirt, and tottered on as far as the quarter-deck. Beneath the awning Mark had kept the section of a hogshead, as a bathing-tub, and for the purpose of catching the rain-water that ran from the awning, Kitty often visiting the ship and drinking from this reservoir.

The invalid found the tub full of fresh and sweet water, and throwing aside the shirt in which he had lain so long, he rather fell than seated himself in the water. After remaining a sufficient, time to recover his breath, Mark washed his head, and long matted beard, and all parts of his frame, as well as his strength would allow. He must have remained in the water several minutes, when he managed to tear himself from it, as fearful of excess from this indulgence as from eating. The invalid now felt like a new man! It is scarcely possible to express the change that came over his feelings, when he found himself purified from the effects of so long a confinement in a feverish bed, without change, or nursing of any sort. After drying himself as well as he could with a towel, though the breeze and the climate did that office for him pretty effectually, Mark put on the clean, fresh shirt, and tottered back to his own berth, where he fell on the mattress, nearly exhausted. It was half-an-hour before he moved again, though all that time experiencing the benefits of the nourishment taken, and the purification undergone.

The bath, moreover, had acted as a tonic, giving a stimulus to the whole system. At the end^of the half hour, the young man took another mouthful of the biscuit, half emptied the tumbler, fell back on his pillow, and was soon in a sweet sleep.

It was near sunset when Mark lost his consciousness on this occasion, nor did he recover it until the light of day was once more cheering the cabin. He had slept profoundly twelve hours, and this so much the more readily from the circ.u.mstance that he had previously refreshed himself with a bath and clean linen. The first consciousness of his situation was accompanied with the bleat of poor Kitty. That gentle animal, intended by nature to mix with herds, had visited the cabin daily, and had been at the sick man's side, when his fever was at its height; and had now come again, as if to inquire after his night's rest. Mark held out his hand, and spoke to his companion, for such she was, and thought she was rejoiced to hear his voice again, and to be allowed to lick his hand. There was great consolation in this mute intercourse, poor Mark feeling the want of sympathy so much as to find a deep pleasure in this proof of affection even in a brute.

Mark now arose, and found himself sensibly improved by his night's rest, the washing, and the nourishment received, little as the last had been.

His first step was to empty the tumbler, bread and all. Then he took another bath, the last doing quite as much good, he fancied, as his breakfast. All that day, the young man managed his case with the same self-denial and prudence, consuming a ship's biscuit in the course of the next twenty-four hours, and taking two or three gla.s.ses of the wine, mixed with water and sweetened with sugar. In the afternoon he endeavoured to shave, but the first effort convinced him he was getting well too fast.

It was thrice twenty-four hours after his first bath, before Mark Woolston had sufficient strength to reach the galley and light a fire.

In this he then succeeded, and he treated himself to a cup of good warm tea. He concocted some dishes of arrow-root and cocoa, too, in the course of that and the next day, continuing his baths, and changing his linen repeatedly. On the fifth day, he got off his beard, which was a vast relief to him, and by the end of the week he actually crawled up on the p.o.o.p, where he could get a sight of his domains.

The Summit was fast getting to be really green in considerable patches, for the whole rock was now covered with gra.s.s. Kitty was feeding quietly enough on the hillside, the gentle creature having learned to pa.s.s the curtain at the gate, and go up and down the ascents at pleasure. Mark scarce dared to look for his hogs, but there they were rooting and grunting about the Reef, actually fat and contented. He knew that this foreboded evil to his garden, for the creatures must have died for want of food during his illness, had not some such relief been found. As yet, his strength would not allow him to go ash.o.r.e, and he was obliged to content himself with this distant view of his estate. The poultry appeared to be well, and the invalid fancied he saw chickens running at the side of one of the hens.

It was a week later before Mark ventured to go as far as the crater. On entering it, he found that his conjectures concerning the garden were true. Two-thirds of it had been dug over by the snouts of his pigs, quite as effectually as he could have done it, in his vigour, with the spade. Tops and roots had been demolished alike, and about as much wasted as had been consumed, Kitty was found, _flagrante delictu_, nibbling at the beans, which, by this time, were dead ripe. The peas, and beans, and Indian corn had made good picking for the poultry; and everything possessing life had actually been living in abundance, while the sick man had lain unconscious of even his own, existence, in a state as near death as life.

Mark found his awning standing, and was glad to rest an hour or two in his hammock, after looking at the garden. While there the hogs entered the crater, and made a meal before his eyes. To his surprise, the sow was followed by ten little creatures, that were already getting to be of the proper size for eating. A ravenous appet.i.te was now Mark's greatest torment, and the coa.r.s.e food of the ship was rather too heavy for him.

He had exhausted his wit in contriving dishes of flour, and pined for something more grateful than salted beef, or pork. Although he somewhat distrusted his strength, yet longing induced him to make an experiment.

A fowling-piece, loaded with ball, was under the awning; and freshening the priming, the young man watched his opportunity when one of the grunters was in a good position, and shot it in the head. Then cutting its throat with a knife, he allowed it to bleed, when he cleaned, and _skinned it_. This last operation was not very artistical, but it was necessary in the situation of our invalid. With the carcase of this pig, which was quite as much as he could even then carry back to the ship, though the animal was not yet six weeks old, Mark made certain savoury and nourishing dishes, that contributed essentially to the restoration of his strength. In the course of the ensuing month three more of the pigs shared the same fate, as did half-a-dozen of the brood of chickens already mentioned, though the last were not yet half-grown. But Mark felt, now, as if he could eat the crater, though as yet he had not been able to clamber to the Summit.

Chapter X.

"Yea! long as nature's humblest child Hath kept her temple undefiled By sinful sacrifice, Earth's fairest scenes are all his own, He is a monarch, and his throne Is built amid the skies."

Wilson.

Our youthful hermit was quite two months in regaining his strength, though, by the end of one he was able to look about him, and turn his hand to many little necessary jobs. The first thing he undertook was to set up a gate that would keep the animals on the outside of the crater.

The pigs had not only consumed much the largest portion of his garden truck, but they had taken a fancy to break up the crust of that part of the crater where the gra.s.s was showing itself, and to this inroad upon his meadows, Mark had no disposition to submit. He had now ascertained that the surface of the plain, though of a rocky appearance, was so far sh.e.l.ly and porous that the seeds had taken very generally; and as soon as their roots worked their way into the minute crevices, he felt certain they would of themselves convert the whole surface into a soil sufficiently rich to nourish the plants he wished to produce there.

Under such circ.u.mstances he did not desire the a.s.sistance of the hogs.

As yet, however, the animals had done good, rather than harm to the garden, by stirring the soil up, and mixing the sea-weed and decayed fish with it; but among the gra.s.s they threatened to be more destructive; than useful. In most places the crust of the plain was just thick enough to bear the weight of a man, and Mark, no geologist, by the way, came to the conclusion that it existed at all more through the agency of the salt deposited in ancient floods, than from any other cause. According to the great general law of the earth, soil should have been formed from rock, and not rock from soil: though there certainly are cases in which the earths indurate, as well as become disintegrated.

As we are not professing to give a scientific account of these matters, we shall simply state the facts, leaving better scholars than ourselves to account for their existence.

Mark made his gate out of the fife-rail, at the foot of the mainmast, sawing off the stanchions for that purpose. With a little alteration it answered perfectly, being made to swing from a post that was wedged into the arch, by cutting it to the proper length. As this was the first attack upon the Rancocus that had yet been made, by axe or saw, it made the young man melancholy; and it was only with great reluctance that he could prevail on himself to begin what appeared like the commencement of breaking up the good craft. It was done, however, and the gate was hung, thereby saving the rest of the crop. It was high time; the hogs and poultry, to say nothing of Kitty, having already got their full share.

The inroads of the first, however, were of use in more ways than one, since they taught our young cultivator a process by which he could get his garden turned up at a cheap rate. They also suggested to him an idea that he subsequently turned to good account. Having dug his roots so early, it occurred to Mark that, in so low a climate, and with such a store of manure, he might raise two crops in a year, those which came in the cooler months varying a little in their properties from those which came in the warmer. On this hint he endeavoured to improve, commencing anew beds that, without it, would probably have lain fallow some months longer.

In this way did our young man employ-himself until he found his strength perfectly restored. But the severe illness he had gone through, with the sad views it had given him of some future day, when he might be compelled to give up life itself, without a friendly hand to smooth his pillow, or to close his eyes, led him to think far more seriously than he had done before, on the subject of the true character of our probationary condition here on earth, and on the unknown and awful future to which it leads us. Mark had been carefully educated on the subject of religion, and was well enough disposed to enter into the inquiry in a suitable spirit of humility; but, the grave circ.u.mstances in which he was now placed, contributed largely to the clearness of his views of the necessity of preparing for the final change. Cut off, as he was, from all communion with his kind; cast on what was, when he first knew it, literally a barren rock in the midst of the vast Pacific Ocean, Mark found himself, by a very natural operation of causes, in much closer communion with his Creator, than he might have been in the haunts of the world. On the Reef, there was little to divert his thoughts from their true course; and the very ills that pressed upon him, became so many guides to his grat.i.tude by showing, through the contrasts, the many blessings which had been left him by the mercy of the hand that had struck him. The nights in that climate and season were much the pleasantest portions of the four-and-twenty hours. There were no exhalations from decayed vegetable substances or stagnant pools, to create miasma, but the air was as pure and little to be feared under a placid moon as under a noon-day sun. The first hours of night, therefore, were those in which our solitary man chose to take most of his exercise, previously to his complete restoration to strength; and then it was that he naturally fell into an obvious and healthful communion with the stars.

So far as the human mind has as yet been able to penetrate the mysteries of our condition here on-earth, with the double connection between the past and the future, all its just inferences tend to the belief in an existence of a vast and beneficent design. We have somewhere heard, or read, that the gipsies believe that men are the fallen angels, oiling their way backward on the fatal path along which hey formerly rushed to perdition. This may not be, probably is not true in its special detail; but that men are placed here to prepare themselves for a future and higher condition of existence, is not only agreeable to our consciousness, but is in harmony with revelation. Among the many things that have been revealed to us, where so many are hid, we are told that our information is to increase, as we draw nearer to the millennium, until "The whole earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." We may be far from that blessed day; probably are; but he has lived in vain, who has dwelt his half century in the midst of the civilization of this our own age, and does not see around him the thousand proofs of the tendency of things to the fulfilment of the decrees, announced to us ages ago by the pens of holy men. Rome, Greece, Egypt, and all that we know of the past, which comes purely of man and his pa.s.sions; empires, dynasties, heresies and novelties, come and go like the changes of the seasons; while the only thing that can be termed stable, is the slow but sure progress of prophecy. The agencies that have been employed to bring about the great ends foretold so many centuries since, are so very natural, that we often lose sight of the mighty truth in its seeming simplicity. But, the signs of the times are not to be mistaken. Let any man of fifty, for instance, turn his eyes toward the East, the land of Judea, and compare its condition, its promises of to-day, with those that existed in his own youth, and ask himself how the change has been produced. That which the Richards and Sts. Louis of the middle ages could not effect with their armed hosts, is about to happen as a consequence of causes so obvious and simple that they are actually overlooked by the mult.i.tude.

The Ottoman power and Ottoman prejudices are melting away, as it might be under the heat of divine truth, which is clearing for itself a path that will lead to the fulfilment of its own predictions.

Among the agents that are to be employed, in impressing the human race with a sense of the power and benevolence of the Deity, we think the science of astronomy, with its mechanical auxiliaries, is to act its full share. The more deeply we penetrate into the arcana of nature, the stronger becomes the proofs of design; and a deity thus obviously, tangibly admitted, the more profound will become the reverence for his character and power. In Mark Woolston's youth, the great progress which has since been made in astronomy, more especially in the way of its details through observations, had but just commenced. A vast deal, it is true, had been accomplished in the way of pure science, though but little that came home to the understandings and feelings of the ma.s.s.

Mark's education had given him an outline of what Herschel and his contemporaries had been about, however; and when he sat on the Summit, communing with the stars, and through those distant and still unknown worlds, with their Divine First Cause, it was with as much familiarity with the subject as usually belongs to the liberally educated, without carrying a particular branch of learning into its recesses. He had increased his school acquisitions a little, by the study and practice of Navigation, and had several works that he was fond of reading, which may have made him a somewhat more accurate astronomer than those who get only leading ideas on the subject. Hours at a time did Mark linger on the Summit, studying the stars in the clear, transparent atmosphere of the tropics, his spirit struggling the while to get into closer communion with that dread Being which had produced all these mighty results; among which the existence of the earth, its revolutions, its heats and colds, its misery and happiness, are but specks in the incidents of a universe. Previously to this period, he had looked into these things from curiosity and a love of science; now, they impressed him with the deepest sense of the power and wisdom of the Deity, and caused him the better to understand his own position in the scale of created beings.

Not only did our young hermit study the stars with his own eyes, but he had the aid of instruments. The ship had two very good spy-gla.s.ses, and Mark himself was the owner of a very neat reflecting telescope, which he had purchased with his wages, and had brought with him as a source of amus.e.m.e.nt and instruction. To this telescope there was a bra.s.s stand, and he conveyed it to the tent on the Summit, where it was kept for use.

Aided by this instrument, Mark could see the satellites of Jupiter and Saturn, the ring of the latter, the belts of the former, and many of the phenomena of the moon. Of course, the spherical forms of all the nearer planets, then known to astronomers, were plainly to be seen by the a.s.sistance of this instrument; and there is no one familiar fact connected with our observations of the heavenly bodies, that strikes the human mind, through the senses, as forcibly as this. For near a month, Mark almost pa.s.sed the nights' gazing at the stars, and reflecting on their origin and uses. He had no expectations of making discoveries, or of even adding to his own stores of knowledge: but his thoughts were brought nearer to his Divine Creator by investigations of this sort; for where a zealous mathematician might have merely exulted in the confirmation of some theory by means of a fact, he saw the hand of G.o.d instead of the solution of a problem. Thrice happy would it be for the man of science, could he ever thus hold his powers in subjection to the great object for which they were brought into existence; and, instead of exulting in, and quarrelling about the pride of human reason, be brought to humble himself and his utmost learning, at the feet of Infinite Knowledge and power, and wisdom, as they are thus to be traced in the path of the Ancient of Days!

By the time his strength returned, Mark had given up, altogether, the hope of ever seeing Betts again. It was just possible that the poor fellow might fall in with a ship, or find his way to some of the islands; but, if he did so, it would be the result of chance and not of calculations. The pinnace was well provisioned, had plenty of water, and, tempests excepted, was quite equal to navigating the Pacific; and there was a faint hope that Bob might continue his course to the eastward, with a certainty of reaching some part of South America in time. If he should lake this course, and succeed, what would be the consequence? Who would put sufficient faith in the story of a simple seaman, like Robert Betts, and send a ship to look for Mark Woolston? In these later times, the government would doubtless despatch a vessel of war on such an errand, did no other means of rescuing the man offer; but, at the close of the last century, government did not exercise that much of power. It scarcely protected its seamen from the English press-gang and the Algerine slave-driver; much less did it think of rescuing a solitary individual from a rock in the midst of the Pacific.

American vessels did then roam over that distant ocean, but it was comparatively in small numbers, and under circ.u.mstances that promised but little to the hopes of the hermit. It was a subject he did not like to dwell on, and he kept his thoughts as much diverted from it as it was in his power so to do.

The season had now advanced into as much of autumn as could be found within the tropics, and on land so low. Everything in the garden had ripened, and much had been thrown out to the pigs and poultry, in antic.i.p.ation of its decay. Mark saw that it was time to re-commence his beds, selecting such seed as would best support the winter of that climate, if winter it could be called. In looking around him, he made a regular survey of all his possessions, inquiring into the state of each plant he had put into the ground, as well as into that of the ground itself. First, then, as respects the plants.

The growth of the oranges, lemons, cocoa-nuts, limes, figs, &c., placed in rows beneath the cliffs, had been prodigious. The water had run off the adjacent rocks and kept them well moistened most of the season, though a want of rain was seldom known on the Reef. Of the two, too much, rather than too little water fell; a circ.u.mstance that was of great service, however, in preserving the stock, which had used little beside that it found in the pools, for the last ten months. The shrubs, or little trees, were quite a foot high, and of an excellent colour.

Mark gave each of them a dressing with the hoe, and manured all with a sufficient quant.i.ty of the guano. About half he transplanted to spots more favourable, putting the cocoa-nuts, in particular, as near the sea as he could get them.

With respect to the other plants, it was found that each had flourished precisely in proportion to its adaptation to the climate. The products of some were increased in size, while those of others had dwindled. Mark took note of these facts, determining to cultivate those most which succeeded best. The melons of both sorts, the tomatoes, the egg-plants, the peppers, cuc.u.mbers, onions, beans, corn, sweet-potatoes, &c. &c., had all flourished; while the Irish potato, in particular, had scarce produced a tuber at all.

As for the soil, on examination Mark found it had beer, greatly improved by the manure, tillage and water it had received. The hogs were again let in to turn it over with their snouts, and this they did most effectually in the course of two or three days. By this time, in addition to the three grown porkers our young man possessed, there were no less than nine young ones. This number was getting to be formidable, and he saw the necessity of killing off, in order to keep them within reasonable limits. One of the fattest and best he converted into pickled pork, not from any want of that article, there being still enough left in the ship to last him several years, but because he preferred it corned to that which had been in the salt so long a time. He saw the mistake he had made in allowing the pigs to get to be so large, since the meat would spoil long before he could consume even the smallest-sized shoats. For their own good, however, he was compelled to shoot no less than five, and these he buried entire, in deep places in his garden, having heard that earth which had imbibed animal substances, in this way, was converted into excellent manure.

Mark now made a voyage to Loam Island, in quest of a cargo, using the raft, and towing the dingui. It was on this occasion that our young man was made to feel how much he had lost, in the way of labour, in being deprived of the a.s.sistance of Bob. He succeeded in loading his raft, however, and was just about to sail for home again, when it occurred to him that possibly the seeds and roots of the asparagus he had put into a corner of the deposit might have come to something. Sure enough, on going to the spot, Mark found that the seed had taken well, and hundreds of young plants were growing flourishingly, while plants fit to eat had pushed their tops through the loam, from the roots. This was an important discovery, asparagus being a vegetable of which Mark was exceedingly fond, and one easily cultivated. In that climate, and in a soil sufficiently rich, it might be made to send up new shoots the entire year; and there was little fear of scurvy so long as he could obtain plenty of this plant to eat. The melons and other vegetables, however, had removed all Mark's dread of that formidable disease; more especially as he had now eggs, chickens, and fresh fish, the latter in quant.i.ties that were almost oppressive. In a word, the means of subsistence now gave the young man no concern whatever. When he first found himself on a barren rock, indeed, the idea had almost struck terror into his mind; but, now that he had ascertained that his crater could be cultivated, and promised, like most other extinct volcanoes, unbounded fertility, he could no longer apprehend a disease which is commonly owing to salted provisions.

When Mark found his health completely re-established, he sat down and drew up a regular plan of dividing his time between work, contemplation, and amus.e.m.e.nt. Fortunately, perhaps, for one who lived in a climate where vegetation was so luxuriant when it could be produced at all, work was pressed into his service as an amus.e.m.e.nt. Of the last, there was certainly very little, in the common acceptation of the word; but our hermit was not without it altogether. He studied the habits of the sea-birds that congregated in thousands around so many of the rocks of the Reef, though so few scarce ever ventured on the crater island. He made voyages to and fro, usually connecting business with pleasure.

Taking favourable times for such purposes, he floated several cargoes of loam to the Reef, as well as two enormous rafts of sea-weed. Mark was quite a month in getting these materials into his compost heap, which he intended should lie in a pile during the winter, in order that it might be ready for spading in the spring. We use these terms by way of distinguishing the seasons, though of winter, strictly speaking, there was none. Of the two, the gra.s.s grew better at mid-winter than at mid-summer, the absence of the burning heat of the last being favourable to its growth. As the season advanced, Mark saw his gra.s.s very sensibly increase, not only in surface, but in thickness. There were now spots of some size, where a turf was forming, nature performing all her tasks in that genial climate, in about a fourth of the time it would take to effect the same object in the temperate zone. On examining these places, Mark came to the conclusion that the roots of his gra.s.ses acted as cultivators, by working their way into the almost insensible crevices of the crust, letting in air and water to places whence they had hitherto been excluded. This seemed, in particular, to be the case with the gra.s.s that grew within the crater, which had increased so much in the course of what may be termed the winter, that it was really fast converting a plain of a light drab colour, that was often painful to the eyes, into a plot of as lovely verdure as ever adorned the meadows of a Swiss cottage. It became desirable to keep this gra.s.s down, and Kitty being unable to crop a meadow of so many acres, Mark was compelled to admit his pigs and poultry again. This he did at stated times only, however; or when he was at work himself in the garden, and could prevent their depredations on his beds. The rooting gave him the most trouble; but this he contrived in a great measure to prevent, by admitting his hogs only when they were eager for gra.s.s, and turning them out as soon as they began to generalize, like an epicure picking his nuts after dinner.

It was somewhere near mid-winter, by Mark's calculations, when the young man commenced a new task that was of great importance to his comfort, and which _might_ affect his future life. He had long determined to lay down a boat, one of sufficient size to explore the whole reef in, if not large enough to carry him out to sea. The dingui was altogether too small for labour; though exceedingly useful in its way, and capable of being managed even in pretty rough water by a skilful hand, it wanted both weight and room. It was difficult to float in, even a raft of sea-weed, with so light a boat; and as for towing the raft, it was next to impossible. But the raft was unwieldy, and when loaded down, besides carrying very little for its great weight, it was very much at the mercy of the currents and waves. Then the construction of a boat was having an important purpose in view, and, in that sense, was a desirable undertaking.

Mark had learned so much in putting the pinnace together, that he believed himself equal to this new undertaking. Materials enough remained in the ship to make half-a-dozen boats, and in tumbling over the lumber he had found a quant.i.ty of stuff that had evidently been taken in with a view to repair boats, if not absolutely to construct them. A ship's hold is such an omnium gatherum, stowage being necessarily so close, that it usually requires time for who does not know where to put his hand on everything, to ascertain how much or how little is to be found in it. Such was the fact with Mark, whose courtship and marriage had made a considerable inroad on his duties as a mate. As he overhauled the hold, he daily found fresh reasons for believing that Friend Abraham White had made provisions, of one sort and another, of which he was profoundly ignorant, but which, as the voyage had terminated, proved to be of the greatest utility. Thus it was, that just as he was about to commence getting out these great requisites from new planks, he came across a stem, stern-frame, and keel of a boat, that was intended to be eighteen feet long. Of course our young man profited by this discovery, getting the materials of all sorts, including these, round to the ship-yard by means of the raft.

For the next two months, or until he had reason to believe spring had fairly set in, Mark toiled faithfully at his boat. Portions of his work gave him a great deal of trouble; some of it on account of ignorance of the craft, and some on account of his being alone. Getting the awning up anew cost poor Mark the toil of several days, and this because his single strength was not sufficient to hoist the corners of that heavy course, even when aided by watch-tackles. He was compelled to rig a crab, with which he effected his purpose, reserving the machine to aid him on other occasions. Then the model of the boat cost him a great deal of time and labour. Mark knew a good bottom when he saw it, but that was a very different thing from knowing how to make one. Of the rules of draughting he was altogether ignorant, and his eye was his only guide.

He adopted a plan that was sufficiently ingenious, though it would never do to build a navy on the same principle.

Having a great plenty of deal, Mark got out in the rough about twice as many timbers for one side of his boat as would be required, in this thin stuff, when he set them up in their places. Aided by this beginning, the young man began to dub and cut away, until he got each piece into something very near the shape his eye told him it ought to be. Even after he had got as far as this, our boat-builder pa.s.sed a week in shaving, and planing, and squinting, and in otherwise reducing his lines to fair proportions. Satisfied, at length, with the bottom he had thus fashioned, Mark took out just one half of his pieces, leaving the other half standing. After these moulds did he saw and cut his boat's timbers, making, in each instance, duplicates. When the ribs and floors of his craft were ready, he set them up in the vacancies, and secured them, after making an accurate fit with the pieces left standing. On knocking away the deal portions of his work, Mark had the frame of his boat complete. This was much the most troublesome part of the whole job; nor was it finished, when the young man was obliged, by the progress of the seasons, to quit the ship-yard for the garden.

Mark had adopted a system of diet and a care of his person, that kept him in perfect health, illness being the evil that he most dreaded. His food was more than half vegetable, several plants having come forward even in the winter; and the asparagus, in particular, yielding at a rate that would have made the fortune of a London gardener. The size of the plants he cut was really astounding, a dozen stems actually making a meal. The hens laid all winter, and eggs were never wanting. The corned pork gave substance, as well as a relish, to all the dishes the young man cooked; and the tea, sugar and coffee, promising to hold out years longer, the table still gave him little concern. Once in a month, or so, he treated himself to a bean-soup, or a pea-soup, using the stores of the Rancocus for that purpose, foreseeing that the salted meats would spoil after a time, and the dried vegetables get to be worthless, by means of insects and worms. By this time, however, there were fresh crops of both those vegetables, which grew better in the winter than they could in the summer, in that hot climate. Fish, too, were used as a change, whenever the young man had an inclination for that sort of food, which was as often as three or four times a week; the little pan-fish already mentioned, being of a sort of which one would scarcely ever tire.

It being a matter of some moment to save unnecessary labour, Mark seldom cooked more than once in twenty-four hours, and then barely enough to last for that day. In consequence of this rule, he soon learned how little was really necessary for the wants of one person, it being his opinion that a quarter of an acre of such soil as that which now composed his garden, would more than furnish all the vegetables he could consume. The soil, it is true, was of a very superior quality. Although it had lain so long unproductive and seemingly barren, now that it had been stirred, and air and water were admitted, and guano, and sea-weed, and loam, and dead fish had been applied, and all in quant.i.ties that would have been deemed very ample in the best wrought gardens of christendom, the acre he had under tillage might be said to have been brought to the highest stage of fertility. It wanted a little in consistency, perhaps; but the compost heap was very large, containing enough of all the materials just mentioned to give the garden another good dressing. As for the gra.s.s, Mark was convinced the guano was all-sufficient for that, and this he took care to apply as often as once in two or three months.