Page:The crater; or, Vulcan's peak.djvu/160

 1 54 T II E C R A T E R ; another shipwrecked mariner of whom he had read or heard. The spring passed as pleasantly as thoughts of home and Bridget would allow, and his beds and plantations flou rished to a degree that surprised him. As for the grass, as soon as it once got root, it became a most beneficial assistant to his plans of husbandry. Nor was it grass alone that rewarded Mark s labours and forethought in his mea dows and pastures. Various flowers appeared in the herb age; and he was delighted at finding a little patch of the common wild strawberry, the seed of which had doubtless got mixed with those of the grasses. Instead of indulging his palate with a taste of this delicious and most salubrious fruit, Mark carefully collected it all, made a bed in his garden, and included the cultivation of this among his other plants. He would not disturb a single root of the twenty or thirty different shoots that he found, all being together, and coming from the same cast of his hand while sowing, lest it might die; but, with the seed of the fruit, he was less chary. One thing struck Mark as singular. Thus far his garden was absolutely free from weeds of every sort. The seed that he put into the ground came up, and nothing else. This greatly simplified his toil, though he had no doubt that, in the course of time, he should meet with intruders in his beds. He could only account for this circumstance by the facts, that the ashes of the volcano contained of themselves no combination of the elements necessary to produce plants, and that the manures he used, in their nature, were free from weeds.