 an
aggravated kind of fever, accompanied with ague; which was very common in those
parts, and which he predicted would be worse to-morrow, and for many more
to-morrows. He had had it himself off and on, he said, for a couple of years or
so; but he was thankful that, while so many he had known had died about him, he
had escaped with life.
    »And with not too much of that,« thought Mark, surveying his emaciated form.
»Eden for ever!«
    They had some medicine in their chest; and this man of sad experience showed
Mark how and when to administer it, and how he could best alleviate the
sufferings of Martin. His attentions did not stop there; for he was backwards
and forwards constantly, and rendered Mark good service in all his brisk
attempts to make their situation more endurable. Hope or comfort for the future
he could not bestow. The season was a sickly one; the settlement a grave. His
child died that night; and Mark, keeping the secret from Martin, helped to bury
it, beneath a tree, next day.
    With all his various duties of attendance upon Martin (who became the more
exacting in his claims, the worse he grew), Mark worked out of doors, early and
late; and with the assistance of his friend and others, laboured to do something
with their land. Not that he had the least strength of heart or hope, or steady
purpose in so doing, beyond the habitual cheerfulness of his disposition, and
his amazing power of self-sustainment; for within himself, he looked on their
condition as beyond all hope, and, in his own words, »came out strong« in
consequence.
    »As to coming out as strong as I could wish, sir,« he confided to Martin in
a leisure moment; that is to say, one evening, while he was washing the linen of
the establishment, after a hard day's work, »that I give up. It's a piece of
good fortune as never is to happen to me, I see!«
    »Would you wish for circumstances stronger than these?« Martin retorted with
a groan, from underneath his blanket.
    »Why, only see how easy they might have been stronger, sir,« said Mark, »if
it wasn't for the envy of that uncommon fortun of mine, which is always after
me, and tripping me up. The night we landed here, I thought things did look
pretty jolly. I won't
