The building of the houses, and of the schooner, was occupation for everybody, for a long time.  The first were completed in season to escape the rains; but the last was on the stocks fully six months after her keel had been laid.  The fine weather had returned, even, and she was not yet launched.  So long a period had intervened since Waally’s visit to Rancocus Island without bringing any results, that the council began to hope the Indians had given up their enterprises, from the consciousness of not having the means to carry them out; and almost every one ceased to apprehend danger from that quarter.  In a word, so smoothly did the current of life flow, on the Reef and at Vulcan’s Peak, that there was probably more danger of their inhabitants falling into the common and fatal error of men in prosperity, than of anything else; or, of their beginning to fancy that they deserved all the blessings that were conferred on them, and forgetting the hand that bestowed them.  As if to recall them to a better sense of things, events now occurred which it is our business to relate, and which aroused the whole colony from the sort of pleasing trance into which they had fallen, by the united influence of security, abundance, and a most seductive climate.

As time rolled on, in the first place, the number of the colony had begun to augment by natural means.  Friend Martha had presented Friend Robert with a little Robert; and Bridget made Mark the happy parent of a very charming girl.  This last event occurred about the commencement of the summer, and just a twelvemonth after the happy reunion of the young couple.  According to Mark’s prophecy, Jones had succeeded with Joan, and they were married even before the expiration of the six months mentioned.  On the subject of a marriage ceremony there was no difficulty, Robert and Martha holding a Friends’ meeting especially to quiet the scruples of the bride, though she was assured the form could do no good, since the bridegroom did not belong to meeting.  The governor read the church service on the occasion, too, which did no harm, if it did no good.  About this time, poor Peters, envying the happiness of all around him, and still pining for his Petrina, or Peggy, as he called her himself, begged of the governor the use of the Dido, in order that he might make a voyage to Wally’s group in quest of his lost companion.  Mark knew how to feel for one in the poor fellow’s situation, and he could not think of letting him go alone on an expedition of so much peril.  After deliberating on the matter, he determined to visit Rancocus Island himself—­not having been in that direction, now, for months—­and to go in the Neshamony, in order to take a couple of hogs over; it having long been decided to commence breeding that valuable animal, in the wild state, on the hills of that uninhabited land.