He
contributed as much as any one to bring about a peaceful submission to
the inevitable, for he had been a near witness of what had happened to
the crew when they attempted their rebellion to the authorities; but he
did not profess to understand the matter, and from time to time he seemed
to question the reality of it.
The two masters, as you would call Mr. Thrall and Lord Moors, both took
an attitude of amiable curiosity towards their fate, and accepted it with
interest when they had partly chosen and partly been chosen by it. Mr.
Thrall had been brought up on a farm till his ambition carried him into
the world; and he found the light gardening assigned him for his first
task by no means a hardship. He was rather critical of the Altrurian
style of hoe at first, but after he got the hang of it, as he said, he
liked it better, and during the three hours of the first morning's
Obligatoires, his ardor to cut all the weeds out at once had to be
restrained rather than prompted. He could not be persuaded to take five
minutes for rest out of every twenty, and he could not get over his
life-long habit of working against time.
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