The Crater | Page 6

James Fenimore Cooper

any sort, but let the girls obey their own tastes, as if satisfied it was
quite sufficient for "professors of religion" to hate in their own persons,
without entailing the feeling on posterity. Anne and Bridget
consequently became warm friends, the two sweet, pretty young things

both believing, in the simplicity of their hearts, that the very
circumstance which in truth caused the alienation, not to say the
hostility of the elder members of their respective families, viz.
professional identity, was an additional reason why they should love
each other so much the more. The girls were about two and three years
the juniors of Mark, but well grown for their time of life, and frank and
affectionate as innocence and warm hearts could make them. Each was
more than pretty, though it was in styles so very different, as scarcely
to produce any of that other sort of rivalry, which is so apt to occur
even in the gentler sex. Anne had bloom, and features, and fine teeth,
and, a charm that is so very common in America, a good mouth; but
Bridget had all these added to expression. Nothing could be more soft,
gentle and feminine, than Bridget Yardley's countenance, in its
ordinary state of rest; or more spirited, laughing, buoyant or pitying
than it became, as the different passions or feelings were excited in her
young bosom. As Mark was often sent to see his sister home, in her
frequent visits to the madam's house, where the two girls held most of
their intercourse, he was naturally enough admitted into their
association. The connection commenced by Mark's agreeing to be
Bridget's brother, as well as Anne's. This was generous, at least; for
Bridget was an only child, and it was no more than right to repair the
wrongs of fortune in this particular. The charming young thing declared
that she would "rather have Mark Woolston for her brother than any
other boy in Bristol; and that it was delightful to have the same person
for a brother as Anne!" Notwithstanding this flight in the romantic,
Bridget Yardley was as natural as it was possible for a female in a
reasonably civilized condition of society to be. There was a vast deal of
excellent, feminine self-devotion in her temperament, but not a particle
of the exaggerated, in either sentiment or fueling. True as steel in all
her impulses and opinions, in adopting Mark for a brother she merely
yielded to a strong natural sympathy, without understanding its
tendency or its origin. She would talk by the hour, with Anne, touching
their brother, and what they must make him do, and where he must go
with them, and in what they could oblige him most. The real sister was
less active than her friend, in mind and body, and she listened to all
these schemes and notions with a quiet submission that was not entirely
free from wonder.

The result of all this intercourse was to awaken a feeling between Mark
and Bridget, that was far more profound than might have been thought
in breasts so young, and which coloured their future lives. Mark first
became conscious of the strength of this feeling when he lost sight of
the Capes, and fancied the dear little. Bucks county girl he had left
behind him, talking with his sister of his own absence and risks. But
Mark had too much of the true spirit of a sailor in him, to pine, or
neglect his duty; and, long ere the ship had doubled the Cape of Good
Hope, he had become an active and handy lad aloft. When the ship
reached the China seas, he actually took his trick at the helm.
As was usual in that day, the voyage of the Rancocus lasted about a
twelvemonth. If John Chinaman were only one-half as active as
Jonathan Restless, it might be disposed of in about one-fourth less time;
but teas are not transported along the canals of the Celestial Empire
with anything like the rapidity with which wheat was sent to market
over the rough roads of the Great Republic, in the age of which we are
writing.
When Mark Woolston re-appeared in Bristol, after the arrival of the
Rancocus below had been known there about twenty-four hours, he was
the envy of all the lads in the place, and the admiration of most of the
girls. There he was, a tall, straight, active, well-made, well-grown and
decidedly handsome lad of seventeen, who had doubled the Cape of
Good Hope, seen foreign parts, and had a real India handkerchief
hanging out of each pocket of a blue round-about of superfine cloth,
besides one around his half-open well-formed throat, that was
carelessly tied in a true sailor knot! The questions he had to answer,
and
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