Page:The crater; or, Vulcan's peak.djvu/97

 OR, VULCAN S PEAK. 91 as their residence on the island was or was not protracted, and as they found the means of feeding them. There was still food enough in the ship to keep these creatures for some months, and food that had been especially laid in for that purpose ; but that food would serve equally well for the fowls, and our young man was of opinion, that eggs would be of more importance to himself and Betts, than hog s flesh. Then there was the goat; she would soon cease to be of any use at all, and green food was not to be had for her. A little hay, however, remained ; and Mark was fully determined that Kitty, as the playful little thing was called, should live at least as long as that lasted. She was fortunate in being content with a nourishment that no other animal wanted. Mark could see absolutely nothing on the rocks for a bird to live on, yet were the fowls constantly picking up something. They probably found insects that escaped his sight; while it was certain that the ducks were revelling in the pools of fresh water, of which there might, at that moment, have been a hundred on the reef. As all these creatures were, as yet, regularly fed from the supplies in the ship, each seemed to be filled with the joy of existence ; and Mark, as he walked among them, felt how profound ought to be his own gratitude, since he was still in a state of being which admitted of a consciousness of happiness so much beyond anything that was known to the inferior animals of creation. He had his mind, with all its stores gathered from study and observation, his love for God, and his hopes of a blessed future, ever at command. Even his love for Bridget had its sweets, as well as its sorrows. It was grateful to think of her tenderness to himself, her beauty, her constancy, of which he would not for a moment doubt, and of all the innocent and delightful converse they had had during a courtship that occupied so much of their brief lives. Just as the sun was setting, Bob returned from his fish ing excursion. To Mark s surprise, he saw that the dingui floated almost with her gunwale-to, and he hastened down to meet his friend, who came ashore in a little bay, quke near the gate-way, and in which the rock did not rise as much like a wall as it did on most of the exterior of the