Chapter 16

"Forthwith a guard at every gun
Was placed along the wall;
The beacon blazed upon the roof
Of Edgecombe's lofty hall;
And many a fishing bark put out,
To pry along the coast;
And with loose rein, and bloody spur
Rode inland many a post."

_The Spanish Armada._ Macauley.

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