The Crater | Page 7

did answer, about whales, Chinese feet, and "mountain waves!"
Although Bristol lies on a navigable river, up and down which frigates
had actually been seen to pass in the revolution, it was but little that its
people knew of the ocean. Most of the worthy inhabitants of the place
actually fancied that the waves of the sea were as high as mountains,
though their notions of the last were not very precise, there being no
elevations in that part of the country fit even for a windmill.
But Mark cared little for these interrogatories. He was happy; happy

enough, at being the object of so much attention; happier still in the
bosom of a family of which he had always been the favourite and was
now the pride; and happiest of all when he half ravished a kiss from the
blushing cheek of Bridget Yardley. Twelve months had done a great
deal for each of the young couple. If they had not quite made a man of
Mark, they had made him manly, and his _soi-disant_ sister wondered
that any one could be so much improved by a sea-faring life. As for
Bridget, herself, she was just bursting into young womanhood,
resembling the bud as its leaves of green are opening to permit those of
the deepest rose-coloured tint to be seen, before they expand into the
full-blown flower. Mark was more than delighted, he was fascinated;
and young as they were, the month he passed at home sufficed to
enable him to tell his passion, and to obtain a half-ready, half-timid
acceptance of the offer of his hand. All this time, the parents of these
very youthful lovers were as profoundly ignorant of what was going on,
as their children were unobservant of the height to which professional
competition had carried hostilities between their respective parents.
Doctors Woolston and Yardley no longer met even in consultations; or,
if they did meet in the house of some patient whose patronage was of
too much value to be slighted, it was only to dispute, and sometimes
absolutely to quarrel.
At the end of one short month, however, Mark was once more
summoned to his post on board the Rancocus, temporarily putting an
end to his delightful interviews with Bridget. The lovers had made
Anne their confidant, and she, well-meaning girl, seeing no sufficient
reason why the son of one respectable physician should not be a
suitable match for the daughter of another respectable physician,
encouraged them in their vows of constancy, and pledges to become
man and wife at a future, but an early day. To some persons all this
may seem exceedingly improper, as well as extremely precocious; but
the truth compels us to say, that its impropriety was by no means as
obvious as its precocity. The latter it certainly was, though Mark had
shot up early, and was a man at a time of life when lads, in less genial
climates, scarcely get tails to their coats; but its impropriety must
evidently be measured by the habits of the state of society in which the
parties were brought up, and by the duties that had been inculcated. In

America, then, as now, but little heed was taken by parents, more
especially in what may be called the middle classes, concerning the
connections thus formed by their children. So Long as the parties were
moral, bore good characters, had nothing particular against them, and
were of something near the same social station, little else was asked for;
or, if more were actually required, it was usually when it was too late,
and after the young people had got themselves too deeply in love to
allow ordinary prudential reasons to have their due force.
Mark went to sea this time, dragging after him a "lengthening chain,"
but, nevertheless, filled with hope. His years forbade much
despondency, and, while he remained as constant as if he had been a
next-door neighbour, he was buoyant, and the life of the whole crew,
after the first week out. This voyage was not direct to Canton, like the
first; but the ship took a cargo of sugar to Amsterdam, and thence went
to London, where she got a freight for Cadiz. The war of the French
Revolution was now blazing in all the heat of its first fires, and
American bottoms were obtaining a large portion of the carrying trade
of the world. Captain Crutchely had orders to keep the ship in Europe,
making the most of her, until a certain sum in Spanish dollars could be
collected, when he was to fill up with provisions and water, and again
make the best of his way to Canton. In obeying these instructions, he
went from port to port; and, as a sort of consequence of having