“My poor boy! you must be mad,” and Mrs. Jericho sighed and shook her head.
“Not mad, my dear lady; only wondrous happy. You see, mother, we’ve been shopping. Delightful employment, you’ll own that? Been cheapening a few of Vulcan’s nick-nacks with which we propose to set-off nature. Such ploughs, I say; fancy took a flight into the future, and I thought I heard the corn wave to and fro while I looked at ’em. Such axes! How they will startle the wood-nymphs! Such hoes, such rakes, such pitchforks! I never felt so proud in my life, as while I handled ’em. Every tool seemed to me at once the weapon and the ornament of independence. With such magnificent arms a true man may go forth and conquer the wilderness; making the earth smile with the noblest of victories.”
“Rhapsodist!” cried Mrs. Jericho. “And you can leave home, can quit fortune, family, every grace and happiness of life for the whim of a desert?”
“Grace and happiness a man may, if he will, always carry with him. The most valuable of luggage, they pack very easily. Desert! Look here, my dear mother—see,” and Basil took from his pocket a map, which unfolding, he spread upon the table. “Quite a land of plenty! Earth is here so kind, that just tickle her with a hoe and she laughs with a harvest.”
Mrs. Jericho said nothing; but shook her head and sighed. And here Mrs. Carraways quietly withdrew.
“Look here, my dear mother,” and Basil traced the map with his finger, “see, here’s where we shall disembark. Here, you see is Port Pancake. Here is Van Dumplings Land—now we skirt along here, till we come to Smokejack Point. Then we trend to the left by Pudding Mount, until we break upon Sea Pie Bay. Then we at once get into the Lavender.”
“Lavender!” echoed Mrs. Jericho feebly.
“Yes, a home in the Lavender is where we are bound for—and then, you see—and then”—
For a minute Mrs. Jericho’s tears had fallen upon the map; Basil would not see them; at length his voice thickened, then fairly broke, and the next moment son and mother were sobbing in each other’s arms.
“And you can leave me—you can quit us?” said the mother. “Oh Basil! can you leave us?”