four in the
afternoon
Lord Hunsdon was much interested to learn that the dainty , varied , and appetising repast was ordered and partly cooked by the accomplished creature beside him -- whose eyes certainly had a most attractive Oriental slant . It so happened that his lordship was deeply concerned with the Orient , and hoped that the cares of state , now that the Tories were safely planted , would permit him to visit it . The negroes were dined on a platform in one of the bare cane fields , and danced afterward until the bridal party started for the beach before Charlestown ; then all , high and low , followed in the wake of the Grange coach with its four horses decorated with white ribbons and driven by postillions . One of the wedding presents had been a fine little sloop , and in it Warner and his bride set off at four in the afternoon , almost the entire population of Nevis , white and black , crowding the sands and cheering good will . * * * * * That honeymoon among the islands was so replete with beauty and bliss and the fulfilment of every romantic and ardent dream , that when it was finished it was almost a relief to Anne to adjust her faculties to the homely details of housekeeping . For two months they wandered amongst that chain of enchanted islands set in a summer sea , the sympathetic trade winds filling their sails and tempering the heat on shore . St. Thomas with its little city on three hills like a painted fairy tale ; St. Croix with its old Spanish arcades and palm avenues ; the red-roofed Dutch village in the green crater of St. Bartholomew , which shot straight out of the sea without a hand 's width of shore ; Antigua with its English landscapes and tropical hospitality ; St. Lucia , looking like an exploded mountain chain , that had caught the bright plains and forests of another island while the earth was in its throes , green as a shattered emerald by day , flaming with the long torches of gigantic fireflies by night ; St. Vincent with its smoking volcanoes and rich plantations ; Martinique , that bit of old France , with its almost perpendicular flights of street-steps cut in the rock , lined with ancient houses ; beautiful honey-coloured women always passing up and down with tall jars or baskets on their stately heads ; Dominica , with its rugged mountains , roaring cataracts , and brilliant verdure ; Trinidad , with its terrible cliffs , infinitely coloured valleys , mountain masses ; its groves of citron , and hedges of scarlet hybiscus and white hydrangea , towns set in the green amphitheatres of gentle hills , impenetrable forests , and lakes of boiling pitch : Warner and Anne lingered on all of them , climbed to the summit of volcanoes hidden in the clouds and gazed into awful craters evil of smell and resounding with the menace of deep , imprisoned , persistent tides ; sailed on the quiet lake in the crater of Mt. Pelée ; rode on creole ponies for days through scented chromatic forests with serrated heights frowning above them , and companioned by birds as vivid as the flowers and as silent .