It is unnecessary for us to dwell on the passage of the Rancocus.  In due time she entered the capes of the Delaware, surprising all interested with her appearance.  Friend Abraham White was dead, and the firm dissolved.  But the property had all been transferred, to the insurers by the payment of the amount underwritten, and Mark made his report at the office.  The teas were sold to great advantage, and the whole matter was taken fairly into consideration.  After deducting the sum paid the firm, principal and interest, the insurance company resolved to give the ship, and the balance of the proceeds of the sale, to Captain Woolston, as a reward for his integrity and prudence.  Mark had concealed nothing, but stated what he had done in reference to the Mermaid, and told his whole story with great simplicity, and with perfect truth.  The result was, that the young man got, in addition to the ship, which was legally conveyed to him, some eleven thousand dollars in hard money.  Thus was honesty shown to be the best policy!

It is scarcely necessary to say that his success made Mark Woolston a great man, in a small way.  Not only was he received with open arms by all of his own blood; but Dr. Yardley now relented, and took him by the hand.  A faithful account was rendered of his stewardship; and Mark received as much ready money, on account of his wife, as placed somewhat more than twenty thousand dollars at his disposal.  With this money he set to work, without losing a day, to make arrangements to return to Bridget and the crater; for he always deemed that his proper abode, in preference to the Peak.  In this feeling, his charming wife coincided; both probably encouraging a secret interest in the former, in consequence of the solitary hours that had been passed there by the young husband, while his anxious partner was far away.

Chapter XX.

    “There is no gloom on earth, for God above
      Chastens in love;
    Transmuting sorrows into golden joy
      Free from alloy. 
    His dearest attribute is still to bless,
    And man’s most welcome hymn is grateful cheerfulness.”

    Moral Alchemy.

The mode of proceeding now required great caution on the part of Mark Woolston.  His mind was fully made up not to desert his islands, although this might easily be done, by fitting out the ship for another voyage, filling her with sandal-wood, and bringing off all who chose to abandon the place.  But Woolston had become infatuated with the climate, which had all the witchery of a low latitude without any of its lassitude.  The sea-breezes kept the frame invigorated, and the air reasonably cool, even at the Reef; while, on the Peak, there was scarcely ever a day, in the warmest months, when one could not labour at noon.  In this respect the climate did not vary essentially from that of Pennsylvania, the difference existing in the fact that there was no winter in his new country.