It would be difficult to give an adequate idea of Mrs. Hominy’s freshness next day, or of the avidity with which she went headlong into moral philosophy at breakfast. Some little additional degree of asperity, perhaps, was visible in her features, but not more than the pickles would have naturally produced. All that day she clung to Martin. She sat beside him while he received his friends (for there was another Reception, yet more numerous than the former), propounded theories, and answered imaginary objections, so that Martin really began to think he must be dreaming, and speaking for two; she quoted interminable passages from certain essays on government, written by herself; used the Major’s pocket-handkerchief as if the snuffle were a temporary malady, of which she was determined to rid herself by some means or other; and, in short, was such a remarkable companion, that Martin quite settled it between himself and his conscience, that in any new settlement it would be absolutely necessary to have such a person knocked on the head for the general peace of society.
In the meantime Mark was busy, from early in the morning until late at night, in getting on board the steamboat such provisions, tools and other necessaries, as they had been forewarned it would be wise to take. The purchase of these things, and the settlement of their bill at the National, reduced their finances to so low an ebb, that if the captain had delayed his departure any longer, they would have been in almost as bad a plight as the unfortunate poorer emigrants, who (seduced on board by solemn advertisement) had been living on the lower deck a whole week, and exhausting their miserable stock of provisions before the voyage commenced. There they were, all huddled together with the engine and the fires. Farmers who had never seen a plough; woodmen who had never used an axe; builders who couldn’t make a box; cast out of their own land, with not a hand to aid them: newly come into an unknown world, children in helplessness, but men in wants, with younger children at their backs, to live or die as it might happen!
The morning came, and they would start at noon. Noon came, and they would start at night. But nothing is eternal in this world; not even the procrastination of an American skipper; and at night all was ready.
Dispirited and weary to the last degree, but a greater lion than ever (he had done nothing all the afternoon but answer letters from strangers; half of them about nothing; half about borrowing money; and all requiring an instantaneous reply), Martin walked down to the wharf, through a concourse of people, with Mrs. Hominy upon his arm; and went on board. But Mark was bent on solving the riddle of this lionship, if he could; and so, not without the risk of being left behind, ran back to the hotel.
Captain Kedgick was sitting in the colonnade, with a julep on his knee, and a cigar in his mouth. He caught Mark’s eye, and said:
“Why, what the ’Tarnal brings you here?”
“I’ll tell you plainly what it is, Captain,” said Mark. “I want to ask you a question.”
“A man may ask a question, so he may,” returned Kedgick; strongly implying that another man might not answer a question, so he mightn’t.
“What have they been making so much of him for, now?” said Mark, slyly. “Come!”
“Our people like ex‑citement,” answered Kedgick, sucking his cigar.
“But how has he excited ’em?” asked Mark.
The Captain looked at him as if he were half inclined to unburden his mind of a capital joke.
“You air a-going?” he said.
“Going!” cried Mark. “Ain’t every moment precious?”
“Our people like ex‑citement,” said the Captain, whispering. “He ain’t like emigrants in gin’ ral; and he excited ’em along of this;” he winked and burst into a smothered laugh; “along of this. Scadder is a smart man, and—and—nobody as goes to Eden ever comes back a‑live!”
The wharf was close at hand, and at that instant Mark could hear them shouting out his name; could even hear Martin calling to him to make haste, or they would be separated. It was too late to mend the matter, or put any face upon it but the best. He gave the Captain a parting benediction, and ran off like a racehorse.
“Mark! Mark!” cried Martin.
“Here am I, sir!” shouted Mark, suddenly replying from the edge of the quay, and leaping at a bound on board. “Never was half so jolly, sir. All right. Haul in! Go ahead!”
The sparks from the wood fire streamed upward from the two chimneys, as if the vessel were a great firework just lighted; and they roared away upon the dark water.
XXIII
Martin and his partner take possession of their estate. The joyful occasion involves some further account of Eden.
There happened to be on board the steamboat several gentlemen passengers, of the same stamp as Martin’s New York friend Mr. Bevan; and in their society he was cheerful and happy. They released him as well as they could from the intellectual entanglements of Mrs. Hominy; and exhibited, in all they said and did, so much good sense and high feeling, that he could not like them too well. “If this were a republic of Intellect and Worth,” he said, “instead of vapouring and jobbing, they would not want the levers to keep it in motion.”
“Having good tools, and using bad ones,” returned Mr. Tapley, “would look as if they was rather a poor sort of carpenters, sir, wouldn’t it?”
Martin nodded. “As if their work were infinitely above their powers and purpose, Mark; and they botched it in consequence.”
“The best on it is,” said Mark, “that when they do happen to make a decent stroke; such as better workmen, with no such opportunities, make every
