Even when they began to clear it was no better; for then a stream of gentlemen, every one with a lady on each arm (exactly like the chorus to the National Anthem when Royalty goes in state to the play), came gliding in—every new group fresher than the last, and bent on staying to the latest moment. If they spoke to him, which was not often, they invariably asked the same questions, in the same tone; with no more remorse, or delicacy, or consideration, than if he had been a figure of stone, purchased, and paid for, and set up there for their delight. Even when, in the slow course of time, these died off, it was as bad as ever, if not worse; for then the boys grew bold, and came in as a class of themselves, and did everything that the grown-up people had done. Uncouth stragglers, too, appeared; men of a ghostly kind, who being in, didn't know how to get out again; insomuch that one silent gentleman with glazed and fishy eyes and only one button on his waistcoat (which was a very large metal one, and shone prodigiously), got behind the door, and stood there, like a clock, long after everybody else was gone.
Martin felt, from pure fatigue, and heat, and worry, as if he could have fallen on the ground and willingly remained there, if they would but have had the mercy to leave him alone. But as letters and messages, threatening his public denouncement if he didn't see the senders, poured in like hail; and as more visitors came while he took his coffee by himself; and as Mark, with all his vigilance, was unable to keep them from the door; he resolved to go to bed—not that he felt at all sure of bed being any protection, but that he might not leave a forlorn hope untried.
He had communicated this design to Mark, and was on the eve of escaping, when the door was thrown open in a great hurry, and an elderly gentleman entered; bringing with him a lady who certainly could not be considered young—that was matter of fact; and probably could not be considered handsome—but that was matter of opinion. She was very straight, very tall, and not at all flexible in face or figure. On her head she wore a great straw bonnet, with trimmings of the same, in which she looked as if she had been thatched by an unskillful labourer; and in her hand she held a most enormous fan.
“Mr Chuzzlewit, I believe?” said the gentleman.
“That is my name.”
“Sir,” said the gentleman, “I am pressed for time.”
“Thank God!” thought Martin.
“I go back Toe my home, sir,” pursued the gentleman, “by the return train, which starts immediate. Start is not a word you use in your country, sir.”
“Oh yes, it is,” said Martin.
“You air mistaken, sir,” returned the gentleman, with great decision: “but we will not pursue the subject, lest it should awake your preju—dice. Sir, Mrs Hominy.”
Martin bowed.
“Mrs Hominy, sir, is the lady of Major Hominy, one of our chicest spirits; and belongs Toe one of our most aristocratic families. You air, p'raps, acquainted, sir, with Mrs Hominy's writings.”
Martin couldn't say he was.
“You have much Toe learn, and Toe enjoy, sir,” said the gentleman. “Mrs Hominy is going Toe stay until the end of the Fall, sir, with her married daughter at the settlement of New Thermopylae, three days this side of Eden. Any attention, sir, that you can show Toe Mrs Hominy upon the journey, will be very grateful Toe the Major and our fellow-citizens. Mrs Hominy, I wish you good night, ma'am, and a pleasant pro-gress on your route!”
Martin could scarcely believe it; but he had gone, and Mrs Hominy was drinking the milk.
“A'most used-up I am, I do declare!” she observed. “The jolting in the cars is pretty nigh as bad as if the rail was full of snags and sawyers.”
“Snags and sawyers, ma'am?” said Martin.
“Well, then, I do suppose you'll hardly realise my meaning, sir,” said Mrs Hominy. “My! Only think! DO tell!”
It did not appear that these expressions, although they seemed to conclude with an urgent entreaty, stood in need of any answer; for Mrs Hominy, untying her bonnet-strings, observed that she would withdraw to lay that article of dress aside, and would return immediately.
“Mark!” said Martin. “Touch me, will you. Am I awake?”
“Hominy is, sir,” returned his partner—'Broad awake! Just the sort of woman, sir, as would be discovered with her eyes wide open, and her mind a-working for her country's good, at any hour of the day or night.”
They had no opportunity of saying more, for Mrs Hominy stalked in again—very erect, in proof of her aristocratic blood; and holding in her clasped hands a red cotton pocket-handkerchief, perhaps a parting gift from that choice spirit, the Major. She had laid aside her bonnet, and now appeared in a highly aristocratic and classical cap, meeting beneath her chin: a style of headdress so admirably adapted to her countenance, that if the late Mr Grimaldi had appeared in the lappets of Mrs Siddons, a more complete effect could not have been produced.
Martin handed her to a chair. Her first words arrested him before he could get back to his own seat.
“Pray, sir!” said Mrs Hominy, “where do you hail from?”
“I am afraid I am dull of comprehension,” answered Martin, “being extremely tired; but upon my word I don't understand you.”
Mrs Hominy shook her head with a melancholy smile that said, not inexpressively, “They corrupt even the language in that old country!” and added then, as coming down a step or two to meet his low capacity, “Where was you rose?”
“Oh!” said Martin “I was born in Kent.”
“And how do you like our country, sir?” asked Mrs Hominy.
“Very much indeed,” said Martin, half asleep. “At least—that is— pretty well, ma'am.”
“Most strangers—and partick'larly Britishers—are much surprised by what they see in the U-nited States,” remarked Mrs Hominy.
“They have excellent reason to be so, ma'am,” said Martin. “I never was so much surprised in all my life.”
“Our institutions make our people smart much, sir,” Mrs Hominy remarked.
“The most short-sighted man could see that at a glance, with his naked eye,” said Martin.
Mrs Hominy was a philosopher and an authoress, and consequently had a pretty strong digestion; but this coarse, this indecorous phrase, was almost too much for her. For a gentleman sitting alone with a lady—although the door WAS open—to talk about a naked eye!
A long interval elapsed before even she—woman of masculine and towering intellect though she was—could call up fortitude enough to resume the conversation. But Mrs Hominy was a traveller. Mrs Hominy was a writer of reviews and analytical disquisitions. Mrs Hominy had had her letters from abroad, beginning “My ever dearest blank,” and signed “The Mother of the Modern Gracchi” (meaning the married Miss Hominy), regularly printed in a public journal, with all the indignation in capitals, and all the sarcasm in italics. Mrs Hominy had looked on foreign countries with the eye of a perfect republican hot from the model oven; and Mrs Hominy could talk (or write) about them by the hour together. So Mrs Hominy at last came down on Martin heavily, and as he was fast asleep, she had it all her own way, and bruised him to her heart's content.
It is no great matter what Mrs Hominy said, save that she had learnt it from the cant of a class, and a large class, of her fellow countrymen, who in their every word, avow themselves to be as senseless to the high principles on which America sprang, a nation, into life, as any Orson in her legislative halls. Who are no more capable of feeling, or of caring if they did feel, that by reducing their own country to the ebb of honest men's contempt, they put in hazard the rights of nations yet unborn, and very progress of the human race, than are the swine who wallow in their streets. Who think that crying out to other nations, old in their iniquity, “We are no worse than you!” (No worse!) is high defence and “vantageground enough for that Republic, but yesterday let loose upon her noble course, and but to-day so maimed and lame, so full of sores and ulcers, foul to the eye and almost hopeless to the sense, that her best friends turn from the loathsome creature with disgust. Who, having b
y their ancestors declared and won their Independence, because they would not bend the knee to certain Public vices and corruptions, and would not abrogate the truth, run riot in the Bad, and turn their backs upon the Good; and lying down contented with the wretched boast that other Temples also are of glass, and stones which batter theirs may be flung back; show themselves, in that alone, as immeasurably behind the import of the trust they hold, and as unworthy to possess it as if the sordid hucksterings of all their little governments—each one a kingdom in its small depravity—were brought into a heap for evidence against them.
Martin by degrees became so far awake, that he had a sense of a terrible oppression on his mind; an imperfect dream that he had murdered a particular friend, and couldn't get rid of the body. When his eyes opened it was staring him full in the face. There was the horrible Hominy talking deep truths in a melodious snuffle, and pouring forth her mental endowments to such an extent that the Major's bitterest enemy, hearing her, would have forgiven him from the bottom of his heart. Martin might have done something desperate if the gong had not sounded for supper; but sound it did most opportunely; and having stationed Mrs Hominy at the upper end of the table he took refuge at the lower end himself; whence, after a hasty meal he stole away, while the lady was yet busied with dried beef and a saucer-full of pickled fixings.
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 alive!”
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 race-horse.
“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.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
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 day of their lives and think nothing of—they begin to sing out so surprising loud. Take notice of my words, sir. If ever the defaulting part of this here country pays its debts—along of finding that not paying “em won't do in a commercial point of view, you see, and is inconvenient in its consequences—they'll take such a shine out of it, and make such bragging speeches, that a man might suppose no borrowed money had ever been paid afore, since the world was first begun. That's the way they gammon each other, sir. Bless you, I know “em. Take notice of my words, now!”
“You seem to be growing profoundly sagacious!” cried Martin, laughing.
“Whether that is,” thought Mark, “because I'm a day's journey nearer Eden, and am brightening up afore I die, I can't say. P'rhaps by the time I get there I shall have growed into a prophet.”
He gave no utterance to these sentiments; but the excessive joviality they inspired within him, and the merriment they brought upon his shining face, were quite enough for Martin. Although he might sometimes profess to make light of his partner's inexhaustible cheerfulness, and might sometimes, as in the case of Zephaniah Scadder, find him too jocose a commentator, he was always sensible o
f the effect of his example in rousing him to hopefulness and courage. Whether he were in the humour to profit by it, mattered not a jot. It was contagious, and he could not choose but be affected.
At first they parted with some of their passengers once or twice a day, and took in others to replace them. But by degrees, the towns upon their route became more thinly scattered; and for many hours together they would see no other habitations than the huts of the wood-cutters, where the vessel stopped for fuel. Sky, wood, and water all the livelong day; and heat that blistered everything it touched.
On they toiled through great solitudes, where the trees upon the banks grew thick and close; and floatad in the stream; and held up shrivelled arms from out the river's depths; and slid down from the margin of the land, half growing, half decaying, in the miry water. On through the weary day and melancholy night; beneath the burning sun, and in the mist and vapour of the evening; on, until return appeared impossible, and restoration to their home a miserable dream.
Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit Page 46