The voyage between the two islands lost something of its gravity each time it was made.  Mark learned a little every trip, of the courses to be steered, the peculiarities of the currents, and the height of the seas.  He ran down to Rancocus, on this occasion, in three hours less time than he had done it before, sailing at dusk, and reaching port next day at noon.  Nothing had occurred, and to work the men went at once, to load the pinnace.  Room was left for one of the cows and its calf:  and Bob being seriously impressed with the importance of improving every moment, the little sloop put to sea again, the evening of the very day on which it had arrived.

Bridget was standing on a rock, by the side of the limpid water of the cove, when the Neshamony shot through its entrance into the little haven, and her hand was in Mark’s the instant he landed.  Tears gushed into the eyes of the young man as he recalled his year of solitude, and felt how different was such a welcome from his many melancholy arrivals and departures, previously to the recent events.

It was rather a troublesome matter to get the cow and calf up the mountain.  The first did not see enough that was attractive in naked rocks, to induce her to mount in the best of humours.  She drank freely, however, at the brook, appearing to relish its waters particularly well.  At length the plan was adopted of carrying the calf up a good distance, the cries of the little thing inducing its mother immediately to follow.  In this way both were got up into Eden, in the course of an hour.  And well did the poor cow vindicate the name, when she got a look at the broad glades of the sweetest grasses, that were stretched before her.  So strongly was her imagination struck with the view—­for we suppose that some cows have even more imagination than many men—­that she actually kicked up her heels, and away she went, head down and tail erect, scampering athwart the sward like a colt.  It was not long, however, before she began to graze, the voyage having been made on a somewhat short allowance of both food and water.  If there ever was a happy animal, it was that cow!  Her troubles were all over.  Sea-sickness, dry food, short allowances of water, narrow lodgings, and hard beds, were all, doubtless, forgotten, as she roamed at pleasure over boundless fields, on which the grass was perennial, seeming never to be longer or shorter than was necessary to give a good bite; and among which numberless rills of the purest waters were sparkling like crystal.  The great difficulty in possessing a dairy, in a warm climate, is the want of pasture, the droughts usually being so long in the summer months.  At Vulcan’s Peak, however, and indeed in all of that fine region, it rained occasionally, throughout the year; more in winter than in summer, and that was the sole distinction in the seasons, after allowing for a trifling change in the temperature.  These peculiarities appear to have been owing to the direction of the prevalent