furnishing the necessary
materials. But there was neither chimney nor plastering, for Heaton had
neither bricks nor lime. Bricks he insisted he could and would make, and
did, though in no great number; but lime, for some time, baffled his
ingenuity. At last, Socrates suggested the burning of oyster-shells, and
by dint of fishing a good deal, among the channels of the reef, a noble
oyster-bed was found, and the boats brought in enough of the shells to
furnish as much lime as would put up a chimney for the kitchen; one
apartment for that sort of work being made, as yet, to suffice for the
wants of all who dwelt in Eden.

These various occupations and interests consumed many months, and
carried the new-comers through the first wet season which they
encountered as a colony. As everybody was busy, plenty reigned, and the
climate being so very delicious as to produce a sense of enjoyment in
the very fact of existence, everybody but Peters was happy. He, poor
fellow, mourned much for his Peggy, as he called the pretty young
heathen wife he had left behind him in Waally's country.

Chapter XVI.

"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,