Chapter Twenty-Three

Martin Chuzzlewit

by Charles Dickens

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 of
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.

They had now but few people on board, and these few were as
flat, as dull, and stagnant, as the vegetation that oppressed their
eyes. No sound of cheerfulness or hope was heard; no pleasant talk
beguiled the tardy time; no little group made common cause against
the full depression of the scene. But that, at certain periods, they
swallowed food together from a common trough, it might have been old
Charon's boat, conveying melancholy shades to judgment.

At length they drew near New Thermopylae; where, that same
evening, Mrs Hominy would disembark. A gleam of comfort sunk into
Martin's bosom when she told him this. Mark needed none; but he was
not displeased.

It was almost night when they came alongside the landing-place.
A steep bank with an hotel like a barn on the top of it; a wooden
store or two; and a few scattered sheds.

'You sleep here to-night, and go on in the morning, I suppose,
ma'am?' said Martin.

'Where should I go on to?' cried the mother of the modern
Gracchi.

'To New Thermopylae.'

'My! ain't I there?' said Mrs Hominy.

Martin looked for it all round the darkening panorama; but he
couldn't see it, and was obliged to say so.

'Why that's it!' cried Mrs Hominy, pointing to the sheds just
mentioned.

'That!' exclaimed Martin.

'Ah! that; and work it which way you will, it whips Eden,' said
Mrs Hominy, nodding her head with great expression.

The married Miss Hominy, who had come on board with her husband,
gave to this statement her most unqualified support, as did that
gentleman also. Martin gratefully declined their invitation to
regale himself at their house during the half hour of the vessel's
stay; and having escorted Mrs Hominy and the red pocket-handkerchief
(which was still on active service) safely across the gangway,
returned in a thoughtful mood to watch the emigrants as they removed
their goods ashore.

Mark, as he stood beside him, glanced in his face from time to
time; anxious to discover what effect this dialogue had had upon him,
and not unwilling that his hopes should be dashed before they reached
their destination, so that the blow he feared might be broken in its
fall. But saving that he sometimes looked up quickly at the poor
erections on the hill, he gave him no clue to what was passing in his
mind, until they were again upon their way.

'Mark,' he said then, 'are there really none but ourselves on
board this boat who are bound for Eden?'

'None at all, sir. Most of 'em, as you know, have stopped
short; and the few that are left are going further on. What matters
that! More room there for us, sir.'

'Oh, to be sure!' said Martin. 'But I was thinking--' and there
he paused.

'Yes, sir?' observed Mark.

'How odd it was that the people should have arranged to try
their fortune at a wretched hole like that, for instance, when there
is such a much better, and such a very different kind of place, near
at hand, as one may say.'

He spoke in a tone so very different from his usual confidence,
and with such an obvious dread of Mark's reply, that the good-natured
fellow was full of pity.

'Why, you know, sir,' said Mark, as gently as he could by any
means insinuate the observation, 'we must guard against being too
sanguine. There's no occasion for it, either, because we're
determined to make the best of everything, after we know the worst of
it. Ain't we, sir?'

Martin looked at him, but answered not a word.

'Even Eden, you know, ain't all built,' said Mark.

'In the name of Heaven, man,' cried Martin angrily, 'don't talk
of Eden in the same breath with that place. Are you mad? There--God
forgive me!--don't think harshly of me for my temper!'

After that, he turned away, and walked to and fro upon the deck
full two hours. Nor did he speak again, except to say 'Good night,'
until next day; nor even then upon this subject, but on other topics
quite foreign to the purpose.

As they proceeded further on their track, and came more and more
towards their journey's end, the monotonous desolation of the scene
increased to that degree, that for any redeeming feature it presented
to their eyes, they might have entered, in the body, on the grim
domains of Giant Despair. A flat morass, bestrewn with fallen
timber; a marsh on which the good growth of the earth seemed to have
been wrecked and cast away, that from its decomposing ashes vile and
ugly things might rise; where the very trees took the aspect of huge
weeds, begotten of the slime from which they sprung, by the hot sun
that burnt them up; where fatal maladies, seeking whom they might
infect, came forth at night in misty shapes, and creeping out upon
the water, hunted them like spectres until day; where even the
blessed sun, shining down on festering elements of corruption and
disease, became a horror; this was the realm of Hope through which
they moved.

At last they stopped. At Eden too. The waters of the Deluge
might have left it but a week before; so choked with slime and matted
growth was the hideous swamp which bore that name.

There being no depth of water close in shore, they landed from
the vessel's boat, with all their goods beside them. There were a
few log-houses visible among the dark trees; the best, a cow-shed or
a rude stable; but for the wharves, the market-place, the public
buildings--

'Here comes an Edener,' said Mark. 'He'll get us help to carry
these things up. Keep a good heart, sir. Hallo there!'

The man advanced toward them through the thickening gloom, very
slowly; leaning on a stick. As he drew nearer, they observed that he
was pale and worn, and that his anxious eyes were deeply sunken in
his head. His dress of homespun blue hung about him in rags; his
feet and head were bare. He sat down on a stump half-way, and
beckoned them to come to him. When they complied, he put his hand
upon his side as if in pain, and while he fetched his breath stared
at them, wondering.

'Strangers!' he exclaimed, as soon as he could speak.

'The very same,' said Mark. 'How are you, sir?'

'I've had the fever very bad,' he answered faintly. 'I haven't
stood upright these many weeks. Those are your notions I see,'
pointing to their property.

'Yes, sir,' said Mark, 'they are. You couldn't recommend us
some one as would lend a hand to help carry 'em up to the--to the
town, could you, sir?'

'My eldest son would do it if he could,' replied the man; 'but
today he has his chill upon him, and is lying wrapped up in the
blankets. My youngest died last week.'

'I'm sorry for it, governor, with all my heart,' said Mark,
shaking him by the hand. 'Don't mind us. Come along with me, and
I'll give you an arm back. The goods is safe enough, sir'--to
Martin--'there ain't many people about, to make away with 'em. What
a comfort that is!'

'No,' cried the man. 'You must look for such folk here,'
knocking his stick upon the ground, 'or yonder in the bush, towards
the north. We've buried most of 'em. The rest have gone away. Them
that we have here, don't come out at night.'

'The night air ain't quite wholesome, I suppose?' said Mark.

'It's deadly poison,' was the settler's answer.

Mark showed no more uneasiness than if it had been commended to
him as ambrosia; but he gave the man his arm, and as they went along
explained to him the nature of their purchase, and inquired where it
lay. Close to his own log-house, he said; so close that he had used
their dwelling as a store-house for some corn; they must excuse it
that night, but he would endeavour to get it taken out upon the
morrow. He then gave them to understand, as an additional scrap of
local chit-chat, that he had buried the last proprietor with his own
hands; a piece of information which Mark also received without the
least abatement of his equanimity.

In a word, he conducted them to a miserable cabin, rudely
constructed of the trunks of trees; the door of which had either
fallen down or been carried away long ago; and which was consequently
open to the wild landscape and the dark night. Saving for the little
store he had mentioned, it was perfectly bare of all furniture; but
they had left a chest upon the landing-place, and he gave them a rude
torch in lieu of candle. This latter acquisition Mark planted in the
earth, and then declaring that the mansion 'looked quite
comfortable,' hurried Martin off again to help bring up the chest.
And all the way to the landing-place and back, Mark talked
incessantly; as if he would infuse into his partner's breast some
faint belief that they had arrived under the most auspicious and
cheerful of all imaginable circumstances.

But many a man who would have stood within a home dismantled,
strong in his passion and design of vengeance, has had the firmness
of his nature conquered by the razing of an air-built castle. When
the log-hut received them for the second time, Martin laid down upon
the ground, and wept aloud.

'Lord love you, sir!' cried Mr Tapley, in great terror; 'Don't
do that! Don't do that, sir! Anything but that! It never helped
man, woman, or child, over the lowest fence yet, sir, and it never
will. Besides its being of no use to you, it's worse than of no use
to me, for the least sound of it will knock me flat down. I can't
stand up agin it, sir. Anything but that!'

There is no doubt he spoke the truth, for the extraordinary
alarm with which he looked at Martin as he paused upon his knees
before the chest, in the act of unlocking it, to say these words,
sufficiently confirmed him.

'I ask your forgiveness a thousand times, my dear fellow,' said
Martin. 'I couldn't have helped it, if death had been the
penalty.'

'Ask my forgiveness!' said Mark, with his accustomed
cheerfulness, as he proceeded to unpack the chest. 'The head partner
a-asking forgiveness of Co., eh? There must be something wrong in
the firm when that happens. I must have the books inspected and the
accounts gone over immediate. Here we are. Everything in its proper
place. Here's the salt pork. Here's the biscuit. Here's the
whiskey. Uncommon good it smells too. Here's the tin pot. This tin
pot's a small fortun' in itself! Here's the blankets. Here's the
axe. Who says we ain't got a first-rate fit out? I feel as if I was
a cadet gone out to Indy, and my noble father was chairman of the
Board of Directors. Now, when I've got some water from the stream
afore the door and mixed the grog,' cried Mark, running out to suit
the action to the word, 'there's a supper ready, comprising every
delicacy of the season. Here we are, sir, all complete. For what we
are going to receive, et cetrer. Lord bless you, sir, it's very like
a gipsy party!'

It was impossible not to take heart, in the company of such a
man as this. Martin sat upon the ground beside the box; took out his
knife; and ate and drank sturdily.

'Now you see,' said Mark, when they had made a hearty meal;
'with your knife and mine, I sticks this blanket right afore the
door. Or where, in a state of high civilization, the door would be.
And very neat it looks. Then I stops the aperture below, by putting
the chest agin it. And very neat that looks. Then there's your
blanket, sir. Then here's mine. And what's to hinder our passing a
good night?'

For all his light-hearted speaking, it was long before he slept
himself. He wrapped his blanket round him, put the axe ready to his
hand, and lay across the threshold of the door; too anxious and too
watchful to close his eyes. The novelty of their dreary situation,
the dread of some rapacious animal or human enemy, the terrible
uncertainty of their means of subsistence, the apprehension of death,
the immense distance and the hosts of obstacles between themselves
and England, were fruitful sources of disquiet in the deep silence of
the night. Though Martin would have had him think otherwise, Mark
felt that he was waking also, and a prey to the same reflections.
This was almost worse than all, for if he began to brood over their
miseries instead of trying to make head against them there could be
little doubt that such a state of mind would powerfully assist the
influence of the pestilent climate. Never had the light of day been
half so welcome to his eyes, as when awaking from a fitful doze, Mark
saw it shining through the blanket in the doorway.

He stole out gently, for his companion was sleeping now; and
having refreshed himself by washing in the river, where it snowed
before the door, took a rough survey of the settlement. There were
not above a score of cabins in the whole; half of these appeared
untenanted; all were rotten and decayed. The most tottering, abject,
and forlorn among them was called, with great propriety, the Bank,
and National Credit Office. It had some feeble props about it, but
was settling deep down in the mud, past all recovery.

Here and there an effort had been made to clear the land, and
something like a field had been marked out, where, among the stumps
and ashes of burnt trees, a scanty crop of Indian corn was growing.
In some quarters, a snake or zigzag fence had been begun, but in no
instance had it been completed; and the felled logs, half hidden in
the soil, lay mouldering away. Three or four meagre dogs, wasted and
vexed with hunger; some long-legged pigs, wandering away into the
woods in search of food; some children, nearly naked, gazing at him
from the huts; were all the living things he saw. A fetid vapour,
hot and sickening as the breath of an oven, rose up from the earth,
and hung on everything around; and as his foot-prints sunk into the
marshy ground, a black ooze started forth to blot them out.

Their own land was mere forest. The trees had grown so think
and close that they shouldered one another out of their places, and
the weakest, forced into shapes of strange distortion, languished
like cripples. The best were stunted, from the pressure and the want
of room; and high about the stems of all grew long rank grass, dank
weeds, and frowsy underwood; not divisible into their separate kinds,
but tangled all together in a heap; a jungle deep and dark, with
neither earth nor water at its roots, but putrid matter, formed of
the pulpy offal of the two, and of their own corruption.

He went down to the landing-place where they had left their
goods last night; and there he found some half-dozen men--wan and
forlorn to look at, but ready enough to assist--who helped him to
carry them to the log-house. They shook their heads in speaking of
the settlement, and had no comfort to give him. Those who had the
means of going away had all deserted it. They who were left had lost
their wives, their children, friends, or brothers there, and suffered
much themselves. Most of them were ill then; none were the men they
had been once. They frankly offered their assistance and advice,
and, leaving him for that time, went sadly off upon their several
tasks.

Martin was by this time stirring; but he had greatly changed,
even in one night. He was very pale and languid; he spoke of pains
and weakness in his limbs, and complained that his sight was dim, and
his voice feeble. Increasing in his own briskness as the prospect
grew more and more dismal, Mark brought away a door from one of the
deserted houses, and fitted it to their own habitation; then went
back again for a rude bench he had observed, with which he presently
returned in triumph; and having put this piece of furniture outside
the house, arranged the notable tin pot and other such movables upon
it, that it might represent a dresser or a sideboard. Greatly
satisfied with this arrangement, he next rolled their cask of flour
into the house and set it up on end in one corner, where it served
for a side-table. No better dining-table could be required than the
chest, which he solemnly devoted to that useful service thenceforth.
Their blankets, clothes, and the like, he hung on pegs and nails. And
lastly, he brought forth a great placard (which Martin in the
exultation of his heart had prepared with his own hands at the
National Hotel) bearing the inscription, Chuzzlewit & Co.,
Architects and Surveyors, which he displayed upon the most
conspicuous part of the premises, with as much gravity as if the
thriving city of Eden had a real existence, and they expected to be
overwhelmed with business.

'These here tools,' said Mark, bringing forward Martin's case of
instruments and sticking the compasses upright in a stump before the
door, 'shall be set out in the open air to show that we come
provided. And now, if any gentleman wants a house built, he'd better
give his orders, afore we're other ways bespoke.'

Considering the intense heat of the weather, this was not a bad
morning's work; but without pausing for a moment, though he was
streaming at every pore, Mark vanished into the house again, and
presently reappeared with a hatchet; intent on performing some
impossibilities with that implement.

'Here's ugly old tree in the way, sir,' he observed, 'which'll
be all the better down. We can build the oven in the afternoon.
There never was such a handy spot for clay as Eden is. That's
convenient, anyhow.'

But Martin gave him no answer. He had sat the whole time with
his head upon his hands, gazing at the current as it rolled swiftly
by; thinking, perhaps, how fast it moved towards the open sea, the
high road to the home he never would behold again.

Not even the vigorous strokes which Mark dealt at the tree awoke
him from his mournful meditation. Finding all his endeavours to
rouse him of no use, Mark stopped in his work and came towards
him.

'Don't give in, sir,' said Mr Tapley.

'Oh, Mark,' returned his friend, 'what have I done in all my
life that has deserved this heavy fate?'

'Why, sir,' returned Mark, 'for the matter of that, everybody as
is here might say the same thing; many of 'em with better reason
p'raps than you or me. Hold up, sir. Do something. Couldn't you
ease your mind, now, don't you think, by making some personal
obserwations in a letter to Scadder?'

'No,' said Martin, shaking his head sorrowfully: 'I am past
that.'

'But if you're past that already,' returned Mark, 'you must be
ill, and ought to be attended to.'

'Don't mind me,' said Martin. 'Do the best you can for
yourself. You'll soon have only yourself to consider. And then God
speed you home, and forgive me for bringing you here! I am destined
to die in this place. I felt it the instant I set foot upon the
shore. Sleeping or waking, Mark, I dreamed it all last night.'

'I said you must be ill,' returned Mark, tenderly, 'and now I'm
sure of it. A touch of fever and ague caught on these rivers, I dare
say; but bless you, that's nothing. It's only a seasoning, and we
must all be seasoned, one way or another. That's religion that is,
you know,' said Mark.

He only sighed and shook his head.

'Wait half a minute,' said Mark cheerily, 'till I run up to one
of our neighbours and ask what's best to be took, and borrow a little
of it to give you; and to-morrow you'll find yourself as strong as
ever again. I won't be gone a minute. Don't give in while I'm away,
whatever you do!'

Throwing down his hatchet, he sped away immediately, but stopped
when he had got a little distance, and looked back; then hurried on
again.

'Now, Mr Tapley,' said Mark, giving himself a tremendous blow in
the chest by way of reviver, 'just you attend to what I've got to
say. Things is looking about as bad as they can look, young man.
You'll not have such another opportunity for showing your jolly
disposition, my fine fellow, as long as you live. And therefore,
Tapley, Now's your time to come out strong; or Never!'