第218章

`You miss the imposts of your country. You miss the house dues?' observed Chollop.

`And the houses -- rather,' said Mark.

`No window dues here, sir,' observed Chollop.

`And no windows to put 'em on,' said Mark.

`No stakes, no dungeons, no blocks, no racks, no scaffolds, no thumbscrews, no pikes, no pillories,' said Chollop.

`Nothing but rewolwers and bowie-knives,' returned Mark. `And what are they? Not worth mentioning!'

The man who had met them on the night of their arrival came crawling up at this juncture, and looked in at the door.

`Well, sir,' said Chollop. `How do you git along?'

He had considerable difficulty in getting along at all, and said as much in reply.

`Mr. Co. And me, sir,' observed Chollop, `are disputating a piece. He ought to be slicked up pretty smart to disputate between the Old World and the New, I do expect?'

`Well!' returned the miserable shadow. `So he had.'

`I was merely observing, sir,' said Mark, addressing this new visitor, `that I looked upon the city in which we have the honour to live, as being swampy. What's your sentiments?'

`I opinionate it's moist perhaps, at certain times,' returned the man.

`But not as moist as England, sir?' cried Chollop, with a fierce expression in his face.

`Oh! Not as moist as England; let alone its Institutions,' said the man.

`I should hope there ain't a swamp in all Americay, as don't whip that small island into mush and molasses,' observed Chollop, decisively. `You bought slick, straight, and right away, of Scadder, sir?' to Mark.

He answered in the affirmative. Mr. Chollop winked at the other citizen.

`Scadder is a smart man, sir? He is a rising man? He is a man as will come up'ards, right side up, sir?' Mr. Chollop winked again at the other citizen.

`He should have his right side very high up, if I had my way,' said Mark. `As high up as the top of a good tall gallows, perhaps.'

Mr. Chollop was so delighted at the smartness of his excellent countryman having been too much for the Britisher, and at the Britisher's resenting it, that he could contain himself no longer, and broke forth in a shout of delight. But the strangest exposition of this ruling passion was in the other: the pestilence-stricken, broken, miserable shadow of a man; who derived so much entertainment from the circumstance that he seemed to forget his own ruin in thinking of it, and laughed outright when he said `that Scadder was a smart man, and had draw'd a lot of British capital that way, as sure as sun-up.'

After a full enjoyment of this joke, Mr. Hannibal Chollop sat smoking and improving the circle, without making any attempts either to converse or to take leave; apparently labouring under the not uncommon delusion that for a free and enlightened citizen of the United States to convert another man's house into a spittoon for two or three hours together, was a delicate attention, full of interest and politeness, of which nobody could ever tire. At last he rose.

`I am a-going easy,' he observed.

Mark entreated him to take particular care of himself.

`Afore I go,' he said sternly, `I have got a leetle word to say to you.

You are damnation 'cute, you are.'

Mark thanked him for the compliment.

`But you are much too 'cute to last. I can't con-ceive of any spotted Painter in the bush, as ever was so riddled through and through as you will be, I bet.'

`What for?' asked Mark.

`We must be cracked-up, sir,' retorted Chollop, in a tone of menace.

`You are not now in A despotic land. We are a model to the airth, and must be jist cracked-up, I tell you.'

`What! I speak too free, do I?' cried Mark.

`I have draw'd upon A man, and fired upon A man for less,' said Chollop, frowning. `I have know'd strong men obleeged to make themselves uncommon skase for less. I have know'd men Lynched for less, and beaten into punkin'-sarse for less, by an enlightened people. We are the intellect and virtue of the airth, the cream of human natur', and the flower Of moral force. Our backs is easy ris. We must be cracked-up, or they rises, and we snarls.

We shows our teeth, I tell you, fierce. You'd better crack us up, you had!'

After the delivery of this caution, Mr. Chollop departed; with Ripper, Tickler, and the revolvers, all ready for action on the shortest notice.

`Come out from under the blanket, sir,' said Mark, `he's gone. What's this!' he added softly: kneeling down to look into his partner's face, and taking his hot hand. `What's come of all that chattering and swaggering?

He's wandering in his mind to-night, and don't know me!'

Martin indeed was dangerously ill; very near his death. He lay in that state many days, during which time Mark's poor friends, regardless of themselves, attended him. Mark, fatigued in mind and body; working all the day and sitting up at night; worn with hard living and the unaccustomed toil of his new life; surrounded by dismal and discouraging circumstances of every kind; never complained or yielded in the least degree. If ever he had thought Martin selfish or inconsiderate, or had deemed him energetic only by fits and starts, and then too passive for their desperate fortunes, he now forgot it all. He remembered nothing but the better qualities of his fellow-wanderer, and was devoted to him, heart and hand.

Many weeks elapsed before Martin was strong enough to move about with the help of a stick and Mark's arm; and even then his recovery, for want of wholesome air and proper nourishment, was very slow. He was yet in a feeable and weak condition, when the misfourtune he had so much dreaded fell upon them. Mark was taken ill.

Mark fought against it; but the malady fought harder, and his efforts were in vain.

`Floored for the present, sir,' he said one morning, sinking back upon his bed: `but jolly!'

Floored indeed, and by a heavy blow! As any one but Martin might have known beforehand.