silent and deserted.

Arthur Stanhope had withdrawn from the crowd, and stood alone on the
margin of the bay, which curved its broad basin around the peninsula of
Boston. He had received no tidings from St. John's, since the day he
quitted it; and, with extreme impatience, he awaited the return of a
small trading vessel, which was hourly expected from thence. But his
eyes vainly traversed the wide expanse of water; all around it blended
with the bright blue sky, and no approaching bark darkened its unruffled
surface. Silence reigned over the scene as undisturbed as when the
adventurous pilgrims first leaped upon the inhospitable shore. But it
was the silence of that hallowed rest which man offered in homage to his
creator, not that primeval calm which then brooded over the savage
wilderness. Time, since the day on which they took possession, had
caused the waste places to "rejoice, and the desert to blossom as a
rose." The land to which they fled from the storms of persecution had
become a pleasant abode; and their interests and affections were
detached from the parent country, and fixed on the home of their
adoption.

The tide of emigration ceased with the triumph of the puritan cause in
England; but the early colonists had already laid deep the broad
foundations on which the fabric of civil and religious liberty was
reared. Prudence and persevering zeal had conquered the first and most
arduous labors of the settlement; and they looked forward with pious
confidence to its future prosperity, firmly persuaded that God had
reserved it for the resting place of his chosen people. The rugged soil
yielded to the hand of industry, and brought forth its treasures. The
shores of the bay no longer presented a scene of wild and solitary
magnificence. Forests, which had defied the blasts of ages, were swept
away; and, in their stead, fields of waving grain hung their golden ears
in the ripening sun, ready for the coming harvest. Flocks and herds
grazed in the green pastures which sloped to the water's edge, or
collected in meditative groups beneath the scattered trees that spread
their ample branches to shelter them. The noble range of hills which
rose beyond in beautiful inequalities, girdling the indented coast,
presented a rich and variegated prospect. Broad patches of cultivation
appeared in every sheltered nook, and tracts of smooth mown grass
relieved the eye from the midst of sterile wilds. Luxuriant corn-fields
fringed th