Rising from their knees they eagerly explored the land around them. A living landscape, vivid and beautiful, lay spread before their eyes. Great yellow pines like the masts of ships towered above them. Cedars, the rivals of Lebanon, mingled their branches with the live oak, tulip, and walnut trees, while closer to mother earth clung the sassafras and witch hazel. Scuppernong grapes flung their vines, loaded with ripening fruit, from limb to limb of the copper beeches and bathed their trailing branches in the briny waters of the Occam.
Dotted all around were the log cabins left by the previous settlers. Melon vines with luscious fruits festooned the windows and carpeted the floors, and in their open doors stood the startled deer poised for flight. The gardens were overgrown in weeds and fences were broken down. The little children ran hither and thither chasing the “Lazy Lawrence” as it danced in the sun, and over all hung the languorous air of July, steeped in the fragrance of blossoming jasmine and magnolia.
Soon the bright blades of the axes made flashes in the sun, and down came the pine, filling the air with the perfume of its crushed needles. Many another cabin was added to the “City of Raleigh.”
Meanwhile, a party headed by Governor White had searched the island for the missing men. Far in the heart of the forest they came upon their bleaching skeletons, and they decently interred them.
Eleanor Dare chose the cedar cabin, which Lane had used, as a home for herself and her husband, and she occupied herself busily in transforming its interior into a restful abiding-place; in one corner was a mahogany chest with shining brass handles; over the wide fireplace hung a bit of landscape of her girlhood’s home; and the pewter plates upon the dresser reflected the dancing flames leaping up the chimney. In the center of the room stood a table of English oak.
One evening the table was spread for the evening meal, and now and then Eleanor Dare paused at the window to watch the swaying of the wonderful gray moss draping the mighty live-oaks.
As she bent over the fire stirring the contents of a copper kettle hanging on the crane, her husband entered and gently chided her for too much exertion.
“Come rest beside me on the settle, dear heart, and let us talk of the future. Soon your tender hands will have new duties to perform,” and sitting side by side they talked together as the twilight shadows fell.
In the hush of the August morn, just as the mocking-birds chanted “The Creation,” a tiny babe—a babe with Eleanor’s eyes—nestled in the hollow of Eleanor Dare’s arm. Her husband bending over her mingled his kisses with the Magnificat breathing on her lips, and soon came the women of the colony to inquire after mother and child and offer their congratulations to the happy father.