Mark, and Socrates, and Dido, and Teresa, Bigelow’s wife, all carried up heavy loads; while Heaton had as much as he could do to help Anne and the child up the sharp acclivity.  Bridget, with her light active step, and great eagerness to behold a scene that Mark had described with so much eloquence, was the first, by a quarter of an hour, on the plain.  When the others reached the top, they saw the charming young thing running about in the nearest grove, that in which her husband had dined, collecting fruit, and apparently as enchanted as a child.  Mark paused as he gained the height, to gaze on this sight, so agreeable in his eyes, and which rendered the place so very different from what it had been so recently, while he was in possession of its glorious beauties, a solitary man.  Then, he had several times likened himself to Adam in the garden of Eden, before woman was given to him for a companion.  Now, now he could feast his eyes on an Eve, who would have been highly attractive in any part of the world.

The articles brought up on the plain, at this first trip, comprised all that was necessary to prepare and to partake of a breakfast in comfort.  A fire was soon blazing, the kettle on, and the bread-fruit baking.  It was almost painful to destroy the reed-birds, or becca fichi so numerous were they, and so confiding.  One discharge from each barrel of the fowling-piece had enabled Heaton to bring in enough for the whole party, and these were soon roasting.  Mark had brought with him from the Reef a basket of fresh eggs, and they had been Bridget’s load, in ascending the mountain.  He had promised her an American breakfast, and these eggs, boiled, did serve to remind everybody of a distant home, that was still remembered with melancholy pleasure.  A heartier, or a happier meal, notwithstanding, was never made than was that breakfast.  The mountain air, invigorating though bland, the exercise, the absence of care, the excellence of the food, which comprised fresh figs, a tree or two of tolerable sweetness having been found, the milk of the cocoa-nut, the birds, the eggs, the bread-fruit, &c., all contributed their share to render the meal memorable.

The men, and the three labouring women, were employed two days in getting the cargo of the Neshamony up on the plain; or to Eden, as Bridget named the spot, unconscious how often she herself had been likened to a lovely Eve, in the mind of her young husband.  Two of the marquees had been brought, and were properly erected, having board floors, and everything comfortably arranged within and without them.  A roof, however, was scarcely necessary in that delicious climate, where one could get into the shade of a grove; and a thatched shed was easily prepared for a dwelling for the others.  By the end of the third day the whole party in Eden was comfortably established, and Mark took a short leave of his bride, to sail for Rancocus again, Bridget shed fears at this separation short as it was intended to be; and numberless were the injunctions to be wary of the natives, should the latter have visited Betts, in the time intervening between the departure of the Neshamony and her return.