While these things were occurring, much had[Pg 314] happened to Martin and Mark Tapley far away in America.

The sailing vessel on which they crossed was crowded and dirty, and in order to save their money they had taken passage in the steerage. For a long time Martin was very seasick, and even when he grew better he was so ashamed at having to travel in the worst and cheapest part of the vessel that he would not go on deck.

But Tapley had none of this false pride. He made friends with all, helped every one he could and soon became such a general favorite that (as he thought sadly) he was having much too good a time for him to be jolly with any credit.

The long voyage of so many weeks came to an end at last, and they reached New York. They found it a strange place indeed, and met many strange characters in it. Only one they met pleased them: a gentleman named Bevan, and from him they got much information and advice. There seemed, however, to be little opening for an architect in New York, and Martin at length decided to go West and settle in some newer region.

In the western town where they left the train they found a land agent who was selling lots in a new settlement, on the Mississippi River, called Eden. To buy their railway tickets Martin had already sold the ring Mary Graham had given him, and he had just enough to purchase a tract of land in Eden and to pay their fare there.[Pg 315]

Martin looked at the agent\'s splendid plans of the new town, showing wharves, churches and public buildings, and thought it a capital place for a young architect; so they closed the bargain without more ado and took the next steamer down the desolate Mississippi.

A terrible disappointment awaited them when they found what Eden really was—a handful of rotting log cabins set in a swamp. The wharves and public buildings existed only on the agent\'s map with which he had so cruelly cheated them. There were only a few wan men alive there—the rest had succumbed to the sickly hot vapor that rose from the swamp and hung in the air. At the sight of what they had come to, Martin lay down and wept in very despair. But for his comrade\'s cheerfulness he would have wholly given up hope.

Next morning Martin found himself in the grip of the deadly fever with which the place reeked, and for many days thereafter he lay helpless and burning, nursed like a child by the faithful Mark Tapley. When he had begun to recover it came the other\'s turn to fall ill and Martin took his place at nursing.

Through all Tapley never complained. At last he found himself in circumstances where to be jolly was really a credit to anybody. He always insisted that he was in great spirits, and when he was weakest and could not speak he wrote "jolly" on a slate for Martin to see.[Pg 316]

Watching beside his friend day by day, Martin came to know himself truly and to see his own selfishness. As he nursed Tapley to health again he determined to root it out of his nature and to return to England a nobler man. He began to think not of what he had sacrificed for Mary, but of what she would have sacrificed for him, and to wish with all his heart that he had not parted from his grandfather in anger. And even before Tapley was able to sit up Martin had determined to return as soon as possible to Englan............