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Erewhon Revisited Twenty Years Later, Both by the Original Discoverer of the Country and by His Son

by Samuel Butler · English · Gutenberg #1971 · 479,174 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Erewhon Revisited Twenty Years Later, Both by the Original Discoverer of the Country and by His Son

Author: Samuel Butler


        
Release date: November 1, 1999 [eBook #1971]
                Most recently updated: April 20, 2025

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1971

Credits: David Price, email
        ccx074@coventry.ac.uk from the 1916 A. C. Fifield edition


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EREWHON REVISITED TWENTY YEARS LATER, BOTH BY THE ORIGINAL DISCOVERER OF THE COUNTRY AND BY HIS SON ***


EREWHON REVISITED
TWENTY YEARS LATER
Both by the Original Discoverer of the Country and by his Son


I forget when, but not very long after I had published “Erewhon” in
1872, it occurred to me to ask myself what course events in Erewhon
would probably take after Mr. Higgs, as I suppose I may now call him,
had made his escape in the balloon with Arowhena. Given a people in
the conditions supposed to exist in Erewhon, and given the apparently
miraculous ascent of a remarkable stranger into the heavens with an
earthly bride--what would be the effect on the people generally?

There was no use in trying to solve this problem before, say, twenty
years should have given time for Erewhonian developments to assume
something like permanent shape, and in 1892 I was too busy with books
now published to be able to attend to Erewhon. It was not till the
early winter of 1900, i.e. as nearly as may be thirty years after the
date of Higgs’s escape, that I found time to deal with the question
above stated, and to answer it, according to my lights, in the book
which I now lay before the public.

I have concluded, I believe rightly, that the events described in
Chapter XXIV. of “Erewhon” would give rise to such a cataclysmic change
in the old Erewhonian opinions as would result in the development
of a new religion. Now the development of all new religions follows
much the same general course. In all cases the times are more or
less out of joint--older faiths are losing their hold upon the
masses. At such times, let a personality appear, strong in itself,
and made to seem still stronger by association with some supposed
transcendent miracle, and it will be easy to raise a Lo here! that will
attract many followers. If there be a single great, and apparently
well-authenticated, miracle, others will accrete round it; then, in
all religions that have so originated, there will follow temples,
priests, rites, sincere believers, and unscrupulous exploiters of
public credulity. To chronicle the events that followed Higgs’s balloon
ascent without shewing that they were much as they have been under like
conditions in other places, would be to hold the mirror up to something
very wide of nature.

Analogy, however, between courses of events is one thing--historic
parallelisms abound; analogy between the main actors in events is a
very different one, and one, moreover, of which few examples can be
found. The development of the new ideas in Erewhon is a familiar one,
but there is no more likeness between Higgs and the founder of any
other religion, than there is between Jesus Christ and Mahomet. He is a
typical middle- class Englishman, deeply tainted with priggishness in
his earlier years, but in great part freed from it by the sweet uses of
adversity.

If I may be allowed for a moment to speak about myself, I would say
that I have never ceased to profess myself a member of the more
advanced wing of the English Broad Church. What those who belong to
this wing believe, I believe. What they reject, I reject. No two
people think absolutely alike on any subject, but when I converse with
advanced Broad Churchmen I find myself in substantial harmony with
them. I believe--and should be very sorry if I did not believe--that,
mutatis mutandis, such men will find the advice given on pp. 277-281
and 287-291 of this book much what, under the supposed circumstances,
they would themselves give.

Lastly, I should express my great obligations to Mr. R. A. Streatfeild
of the British Museum, who, in the absence from England of my friend
Mr. H. Festing Jones, has kindly supervised the corrections of my book
as it passed through the press.

SAMUEL BUTLER. May 1, 1901.




CHAPTER I: UPS AND DOWNS OF FORTUNE--MY FATHER STARTS FOR EREWHON


Before telling the story of my father’s second visit to the remarkable
country which he discovered now some thirty years since, I should
perhaps say a few words about his career between the publication of his
book in 1872, and his death in the early summer of 1891. I shall thus
touch briefly on the causes that occasioned his failure to maintain
that hold on the public which he had apparently secured at first.

His book, as the reader may perhaps know, was published anonymously,
and my poor father used to ascribe the acclamation with which it was
received, to the fact that no one knew who it might not have been
written by. _Omne ignotum pro magnifico_, and during its month of
anonymity the book was a frequent topic of appreciative comment in good
literary circles. Almost coincidently with the discovery that he was a
mere nobody, people began to feel that their admiration had been too
hastily bestowed, and before long opinion turned all the more seriously
against him for this very reason. The subscription, to which the Lord
Mayor had at first given his cordial support, was curtly announced as
closed before it had been opened a week; it had met with so little
success that I will not specify the amount eventually handed over, not
without protest, to my father; small, however, as it was, he narrowly
escaped being prosecuted for trying to obtain money under false
pretences.

The Geographical Society, which had for a few days received him
with open arms, was among the first to turn upon him--not, so far
as I can ascertain, on account of the mystery in which he had
enshrouded the exact whereabouts of Erewhon, nor yet by reason of
its being persistently alleged that he was subject to frequent
attacks of alcoholic poisoning--but through his own want of tact,
and a highly-strung nervous state, which led him to attach too much
importance to his own discoveries, and not enough to those of other
people. This, at least, was my father’s version of the matter, as I
heard it from his own lips in the later years of his life.

“I was still very young,” he said to me, “and my mind was more or less
unhinged by the strangeness and peril of my adventures.” Be this as it
may, I fear there is no doubt that he was injudicious; and an ounce of
judgement is worth a pound of discovery.

Hence, in a surprisingly short time, he found himself dropped even by
those who had taken him up most warmly, and had done most to find him
that employment as a writer of religious tracts on which his livelihood
was then dependent. The discredit, however, into which my father
fell, had the effect of deterring any considerable number of people
from trying to rediscover Erewhon, and thus caused it to remain as
unknown to geographers in general as though it had never been found.
A few shepherds and cadets at up-country stations had, indeed, tried
to follow in my father’s footsteps, during the time when his book was
still being taken seriously; but they had most of them returned, unable
to face the difficulties that had opposed them. Some few, however,
had not returned, and though search was made for them, their bodies
had not been found. When he reached Erewhon on his second visit, my
father learned that others had attempted to visit the country more
recently--probably quite independently of his own book; and before he
had himself been in it many hours he gathered what the fate of these
poor fellows doubtless was.

Another reason that made it more easy for Erewhon to remain unknown,
was the fact that the more mountainous districts, though repeatedly
prospected for gold, had been pronounced non-auriferous, and as there
was no sheep or cattle country, save a few river-bed flats above the
upper gorges of any of the rivers, and no game to tempt the sportsman,
there was nothing to induce people to penetrate into the fastnesses
of the great snowy range. No more, therefore, being heard of Erewhon,
my father’s book came to be regarded as a mere work of fiction, and
I have heard quite recently of its having been seen on a second-hand
bookstall, marked “6d. very readable.”

Though there was no truth in the stories about my father’s being
subject to attacks of alcoholic poisoning, yet, during the first few
years after his return to England, his occasional fits of ungovernable
excitement gave some colour to the opinion that much of what he said
he had seen and done might be only subjectively true. I refer more
particularly to his interview with Chowbok in the wool-shed, and
his highly coloured description of the statues on the top of the
pass leading into Erewhon. These were soon set down as forgeries of
delirium, and it was maliciously urged, that though in his book he had
only admitted having taken “two or three bottles of brandy” with him,
he had probably taken at least a dozen; and that if on the night before
he reached the statues he had “only four ounces of brandy” left, he
must have been drinking heavily for the preceding fortnight or three
weeks. Those who read the following pages will, I think, reject all
idea that my father was in a state of delirium, not without surprise
that any one should have ever entertained it.

It was Chowbok who, if he did not originate these calumnies, did much
to disseminate and gain credence for them. He remained in England for
some years, and never tired of doing what he could to disparage my
father. The cunning creature had ingratiated himself with our leading
religious societies, especially with the more evangelical among them.
Whatever doubt there might be about his sincerity, there was none about
his colour, and a coloured convert in those days was more than Exeter
Hall could resist. Chowbok saw that there was no room for him and for
my father, and declared my poor father’s story to be almost wholly
false. It was true, he said, that he and my father had explored the
head-waters of the river described in his book, but he denied that my
father had gone on without him, and he named the river as one distant
by many thousands of miles from the one it really was. He said that
after about a fortnight he had returned in company with my father, who
by that time had become incapacitated for further travel. At this point
he would shrug his shoulders, look mysterious, and thus say “alcoholic
poisoning” even more effectively than if he had uttered the words
themselves. For a man’s tongue lies often in his shoulders.

Readers of my father’s book will remember that Chowbok had given a very
different version when he had returned to his employer’s station; but
Time and Distance afford cover under which falsehood can often do truth
to death securely.

I never understood why my father did not bring my mother forward to
confirm his story. He may have done so while I was too young to know
anything about it. But when people have made up their minds, they are
impatient of further evidence; my mother, moreover, was of a very
retiring disposition. The Italians say:-

“Chi lontano va ammogliare Sarà ingannato, o vorrà ingannare.”

“If a man goes far afield for a wife, he will be deceived--or means
deceiving.” The proverb is as true for women as for men, and my mother
was never quite happy in her new surroundings. Wilfully deceived she
assuredly was not, but she could not accustom herself to English modes
of thought; indeed she never even nearly mastered our language; my
father always talked with her in Erewhonian, and so did I, for as a
child she had taught me to do so, and I was as fluent with her language
as with my father’s. In this respect she often told me I could pass
myself off anywhere in Erewhon as a native; I shared also her personal
appearance, for though not wholly unlike my father, I had taken more
closely after my mother. In mind, if I may venture to say so, I believe
I was more like my father.

I may as well here inform the reader that I was born at the end of
September 1871, and was christened John, after my grandfather. From
what I have said above he will readily believe that my earliest
experiences were somewhat squalid. Memories of childhood rush vividly
upon me when I pass through a low London alley, and catch the faint
sickly smell that pervades it--half paraffin, half black-currants,
but wholly something very different. I have a fancy that we lived in
Blackmoor Street, off Drury Lane. My father, when first I knew of
his doing anything at all, supported my mother and myself by drawing
pictures with coloured chalks upon the pavement; I used sometimes to
watch him, and marvel at the skill with which he represented fogs,
floods, and fires. These three “f’s,” he would say, were his three best
friends, for they were easy to do and brought in halfpence freely. The
return of the dove to the ark was his favourite subject. Such a little
ark, on such a hazy morning, and such a little pigeon--the rest of
the picture being cheap sky, and still cheaper sea; nothing, I have
often heard him say, was more popular than this with his clients. He
held it to be his masterpiece, but would add with some naïveté that
he considered himself a public benefactor for carrying it out in such
perishable fashion. “At any rate,” he would say, “no one can bequeath
one of my many replicas to the nation.”

I never learned how much my father earned by his profession, but it
must have been something considerable, for we always had enough to eat
and drink; I imagine that he did better than many a struggling artist
with more ambitious aims. He was strictly temperate during all the time
that I knew anything about him, but he was not a teetotaler; I never
saw any of the fits of nervous excitement which in his earlier years
had done so much to wreck him. In the evenings, and on days when the
state of the pavement did not permit him to work, he took great pains
with my education, which he could very well do, for as a boy he had
been in the sixth form of one of our foremost public schools. I found
him a patient, kindly instructor, while to my mother he was a model
husband. Whatever others may have said about him, I can never think of
him without very affectionate respect.

Things went on quietly enough, as above indicated, till I was about
fourteen, when by a freak of fortune my father became suddenly
affluent. A brother of his father’s had emigrated to Australia in 1851,
and had amassed great wealth. We knew of his existence, but there had
been no intercourse between him and my father, and we did not even know
that he was rich and unmarried. He died intestate towards the end of
1885, and my father was the only relative he had, except, of course,
myself, for both my father’s sisters had died young, and without
leaving children.

The solicitor through whom the news reached us was, happily, a man
of the highest integrity, and also very sensible and kind. He was a
Mr. Alfred Emery Cathie, of 15 Clifford’s Inn, E.C., and my father
placed himself unreservedly in his hands. I was at once sent to a
first-rate school, and such pains had my father taken with me that I
was placed in a higher form than might have been expected considering
my age. The way in which he had taught me had prevented my feeling any
dislike for study; I therefore stuck fairly well to my books, while
not neglecting the games which are so important a part of healthy
education. Everything went well with me, both as regards masters and
school-fellows; nevertheless, I was declared to be of a highly nervous
and imaginative temperament, and the school doctor more than once urged
our headmaster not to push me forward too rapidly--for which I have
ever since held myself his debtor.

Early in 1890, I being then home from Oxford (where I had been entered
in the preceding year), my mother died; not so much from active
illness, as from what was in reality a kind of _maladie du pays_.
All along she had felt herself an exile, and though she had borne up
wonderfully during my father’s long struggle with adversity, she began
to break as soon as prosperity had removed the necessity for exertion
on her own part.

My father could never divest himself of the feeling that he had wrecked
her life by inducing her to share her lot with his own; to say that he
was stricken with remorse on losing her is not enough; he had been so
stricken almost from the first year of his marriage; on her death he
was haunted by the wrong he accused himself--as it seems to me very
unjustly--of having done her, for it was neither his fault nor hers--it
was Atè.

His unrest soon assumed the form of a burning desire to revisit the
country in which he and my mother had been happier together than
perhaps they ever again were. I had often heard him betray a hankering
after a return to Erewhon, disguised so that no one should recognise
him; but as long as my mother lived he would not leave her. When death
had taken her from him, he so evidently stood in need of a complete
change of scene, that even those friends who had most strongly
dissuaded him from what they deemed a madcap enterprise, thought it
better to leave him to himself. It would have mattered little how much
they tried to dissuade him, for before long his passionate longing for
the journey became so overmastering that nothing short of restraint in
prison or a madhouse could have stayed his going; but we were not easy
about him. “He had better go,” said Mr. Cathie to me, when I was at
home for the Easter vacation, “and get it over. He is not well, but he
is still in the prime of life; doubtless he will come back with renewed
health and will settle down to a quiet home life again.”

This, however, was not said till it had become plain that in a few days
my father would be on his way. He had made a new will, and left an
ample power of attorney with Mr. Cathie--or, as we always called him,
Alfred--who was to supply me with whatever money I wanted; he had put
all other matters in order in case anything should happen to prevent
his ever returning, and he set out on October 1, 1890, more composed
and cheerful than I had seen him for some time past.

I had not realised how serious the danger to my father would be if he
were recognised while he was in Erewhon, for I am ashamed to say that
I had not yet read his book. I had heard over and over again of his
flight with my mother in the balloon, and had long since read his few
opening chapters, but I had found, as a boy naturally would, that the
succeeding pages were a little dull, and soon put the book aside. My
father, indeed, repeatedly urged me not to read it, for he said there
was much in it--more especially in the earlier chapters, which I had
alone found interesting--that he would gladly cancel if he could. “But
there!” he had said with a laugh, “what does it matter?”

He had hardly left, before I read his book from end to end, and, on
having done so, not only appreciated the risks that he would have to
run, but was struck with the wide difference between his character
as he had himself portrayed it, and the estimate I had formed of
it from personal knowledge. When, on his return, he detailed to me
his adventures, the account he gave of what he had said and done
corresponded with my own ideas concerning him; but I doubt not the
reader will see that the twenty years between his first and second
visit had modified him even more than so long an interval might be
expected to do.

I heard from him repeatedly during the first two months of his absence,
and was surprised to find that he had stayed for a week or ten days at
more than one place of call on his outward journey. On November 26 he
wrote from the port whence he was to start for Erewhon, seemingly in
good health and spirits; and on December 27, 1891, he telegraphed for a
hundred pounds to be wired out to him at this same port. This puzzled
both Mr. Cathie and myself, for the interval between November 26 and
December 27 seemed too short to admit of his having paid his visit to
Erewhon and returned; as, moreover, he had added the words, “Coming
home,” we rather hoped that he had abandoned his intention of going
there.

We were also surprised at his wanting so much money, for he had taken a
hundred pounds in gold, which from some fancy, he had stowed in a small
silver jewel-box that he had given my mother not long before she died.
He had also taken a hundred pounds worth of gold nuggets, which he had
intended to sell in Erewhon so as to provide himself with money when he
got there.

I should explain that these nuggets would be worth in Erewhon fully ten
times as much as they would in Europe, owing to the great scarcity of
gold in that country. The Erewhonian coinage is entirely silver--which
is abundant, and worth much what it is in England--or copper, which is
also plentiful; but what we should call five pounds’ worth of silver
money would not buy more than one of our half-sovereigns in gold.

He had put his nuggets into ten brown holland bags, and he had had
secret pockets made for the old Erewhonian dress which he had worn when
he escaped, so that he need never have more than one bag of nuggets
accessible at a time. He was not likely, therefore, to have been
robbed. His passage to the port above referred to had been paid before
he started, and it seemed impossible that a man of his very inexpensive
habits should have spent two hundred pounds in a single month--for the
nuggets would be immediately convertible in an English colony. There
was nothing, however, to be done but to cable out the money and wait my
father’s arrival.

Returning for a moment to my father’s old Erewhonian dress, I should
say that he had preserved it simply as a memento and without any idea
that he should again want it. It was not the court dress that had been
provided for him on the occasion of his visit to the king and queen,
but the everyday clothing that he had been ordered to wear when he was
put in prison, though his English coat, waistcoat, and trousers had
been allowed to remain in his own possession. These, I had seen from
his book, had been presented by him to the queen (with the exception of
two buttons, which he had given to Yram as a keepsake), and had been
preserved by her displayed upon a wooden dummy. The dress in which he
escaped had been soiled during the hours that he and my mother had been
in the sea, and had also suffered from neglect during the years of
his poverty; but he wished to pass himself off as a common peasant or
working-man, so he preferred to have it set in order as might best be
done, rather than copied.

So cautious was he in the matter of dress that he took with him the
boots he had worn on leaving Erewhon, lest the foreign make of his
English boots should arouse suspicion. They were nearly new, and when
he had had them softened and well greased, he found he could still wear
them quite comfortably.

But to return. He reached home late at night one day at the beginning
of February, and a glance was enough to show that he was an altered
man. “What is the matter?” said I, shocked at his appearance. “Did you
go to Erewhon, and were you ill-treated there?”

“I went to Erewhon,” he said, “and I was not ill-treated there, but I
have been so shaken that I fear I shall quite lose my reason. Do not
ask me more now. I will tell you about it all to-morrow. Let me have
something to eat, and go to bed.”

When we met at breakfast next morning, he greeted me with all his usual
warmth of affection, but he was still taciturn. “I will begin to tell
you about it,” he said, “after breakfast. Where is your dear mother?
How was it that I have . . . ”

Then of a sudden his memory returned, and he burst into tears.

I now saw, to my horror, that his mind was gone. When he recovered, he
said: “It has all come back again, but at times now I am a blank, and
every week am more and more so. I daresay I shall be sensible now for
several hours. We will go into the study after breakfast, and I will
talk to you as long as I can do so.”

Let the reader spare me, and let me spare the reader any description of
what we both of us felt.

When we were in the study, my father said, “My dearest boy, get pen and
paper and take notes of what I tell you. It will be all disjointed; one
day I shall remember this, and another that, but there will not be many
more days on which I shall remember anything at all. I cannot write a
coherent page. You, when I am gone, can piece what I tell you together,
and tell it as I should have told it if I had been still sound. But
do not publish it yet; it might do harm to those dear good people.
Take the notes now, and arrange them the sooner the better, for you
may want to ask me questions, and I shall not be here much longer. Let
publishing wait till you are confident that publication can do no harm;
and above all, say nothing to betray the whereabouts of Erewhon, beyond
admitting (which I fear I have already done) that it is in the Southern
hemisphere.”

These instructions I have religiously obeyed. For the first days after
his return, my father had few attacks of loss of memory, and I was in
hopes that his former health of mind would return when he found himself
in his old surroundings. During these days he poured forth the story
of his adventures so fast, that if I had not had a fancy for acquiring
shorthand, I should not have been able to keep pace with him. I
repeatedly urged him not to overtax his strength, but he was oppressed
by the fear that if he did not speak at once, he might never be able to
tell me all he had to say; I had, therefore, to submit, though seeing
plainly enough that he was only hastening the complete paralysis which
he so greatly feared.

Sometimes his narrative would be coherent for pages together, and he
could answer any questions without hesitation; at others, he was now
here and now there, and if I tried to keep him to the order of events
he would say that he had forgotten intermediate incidents, but that
they would probably come back to him, and I should perhaps be able to
put them in their proper places.

After about ten days he seemed satisfied that I had got all the facts,
and that with the help of the pamphlets which he had brought with him
I should be able to make out a connected story. “Remember,” he said,
“that I thought I was quite well so long as I was in Erewhon, and do
not let me appear as anything else.”

When he had fully delivered himself, he seemed easier in his mind, but
before a month had passed he became completely paralysed, and though
he lingered till the beginning of June, he was seldom more than dimly
conscious of what was going on around him.

His death robbed me of one who had been a very kind and upright elder
brother rather than a father; and so strongly have I felt his influence
still present, living and working, as I believe for better within me,
that I did not hesitate to copy the epitaph which he saw in the Musical
Bank at Fairmead, {1} and to have it inscribed on the very simple
monument which he desired should alone mark his grave.

* * * * *

The foregoing was written in the summer of 1891; what I now add should
be dated December 3, 1900. If, in the course of my work, I have
misrepresented my father, as I fear I may have sometimes done, I would
ask my readers to remember that no man can tell another’s story without
some involuntary misrepresentation both of facts and characters. They
will, of course, see that “Erewhon Revisited” is written by one who has
far less literary skill than the author of “Erewhon;” but again I would
ask indulgence on the score of youth, and the fact that this is my
first book. It was written nearly ten years ago, _i.e_. in the months
from March to August 1891, but for reasons already given it could not
then be made public. I have now received permission, and therefore
publish the following chapters, exactly, or very nearly exactly, as
they were left when I had finished editing my father’s diaries, and the
notes I took down from his own mouth--with the exception, of course, of
these last few lines, hurriedly written as I am on the point of leaving
England, of the additions I made in 1892, on returning from my own
three hours’ stay in Erewhon, and of the Postscript.




CHAPTER II: TO THE FOOT OF THE PASS INTO EREWHON


When my father reached the colony for which he had left England some
twenty-two years previously, he bought a horse, and started up country
on the evening of the day after his arrival, which was, as I have said,
on one of the last days of November 1890. He had taken an English
saddle with him, and a couple of roomy and strongly made saddle-bags.
In these he packed his money, his nuggets, some tea, sugar, tobacco,
salt, a flask of brandy, matches, and as many ship’s biscuits as he
thought he was likely to want; he took no meat, for he could supply
himself from some accommodation-house or sheep-station, when nearing
the point after which he would have to begin camping out. He rolled
his Erewhonian dress and small toilette necessaries inside a warm red
blanket, and strapped the roll on to the front part of his saddle. On
to other D’s, with which his saddle was amply provided, he strapped his
Erewhonian boots, a tin pannikin, and a billy that would hold about a
quart. I should, perhaps, explain to English readers that a billy is a
tin can, the name for which (doubtless of French Canadian origin) is
derived from the words “_faire bouillir_.” He also took with him a pair
of hobbles and a small hatchet.

He spent three whole days in riding across the plains, and was struck
with the very small signs of change that he could detect, but the fall
in wool, and the failure, so far, to establish a frozen meat trade, had
prevented any material development of the resources of the country.
When he had got to the front ranges, he followed up the river next
to the north of the one that he had explored years ago, and from the
head waters of which he had been led to discover the only practicable
pass into Erewhon. He did this, partly to avoid the terribly dangerous
descent on to the bed of the more northern river, and partly to escape
being seen by shepherds or bullock-drivers who might remember him.

If he had attempted to get through the gorge of this river in 1870,
he would have found it impassable; but a few river-bed flats had been
discovered above the gorge, on which there was now a shepherd’s hut,
and on the discovery of these flats a narrow horse track had been made
from one end of the gorge to the other.

He was hospitably entertained at the shepherd’s hut just mentioned,
which he reached on Monday, December 1. He told the shepherd in
charge of it that he had come to see if he could find traces of a
large wingless bird, whose existence had been reported as having been
discovered among the extreme head waters of the river.

“Be careful, sir,” said the shepherd; “the river is very dangerous;
several people--one only about a year ago--have left this hut, and
though their horses and their camps have been found, their bodies have
not. When a great fresh comes down, it would carry a body out to sea in
twenty-four hours.”

He evidently had no idea that there was a pass through the ranges up
the river, which might explain the disappearance of an explorer.

Next day my father began to ascend the river. There was so much
tangled growth still unburnt wherever there was room for it to grow,
and so much swamp, that my father had to keep almost entirely to the
river-bed--and here there was a good deal of quicksand. The stones
also were often large for some distance together, and he had to cross
and recross streams of the river more than once, so that though he
travelled all day with the exception of a couple of hours for dinner,
he had not made more than some five and twenty miles when he reached a
suitable camping ground, where he unsaddled his horse, hobbled him, and
turned him out to feed. The grass was beginning to seed, so that though
it was none too plentiful, what there was of it made excellent feed.

He lit his fire, made himself some tea, ate his cold mutton and
biscuits, and lit his pipe, exactly as he had done twenty years before.
There was the clear starlit sky, the rushing river, and the stunted
trees on the mountain-side; the woodhens cried, and the “more-pork”
hooted out her two monotonous notes exactly as they had done years
since; one moment, and time had so flown backwards that youth came
bounding back to him with the return of his youth’s surroundings; the
next, and the intervening twenty years--most of them grim ones--rose
up mockingly before him, and the buoyancy of hope yielded to the
despondency of admitted failure. By and by buoyancy reasserted itself,
and, soothed by the peace and beauty of the night, he wrapped himself
up in his blanket and dropped off into a dreamless slumber.

Next morning, _i.e_. December 3, he rose soon after dawn, bathed in
a backwater of the river, got his breakfast, found his horse on the
river- bed, and started as soon as he had duly packed and loaded. He
had now to cross streams of the river and recross them more often than
on the preceding day, and this, though his horse took well to the
water, required care; for he was anxious not to wet his saddle-bags,
and it was only by crossing at the wide, smooth, water above a rapid,
and by picking places where the river ran in two or three streams,
that he could find fords where his practised eye told him that the
water would not be above his horse’s belly--for the river was of great
volume. Fortunately, there had been a late fall of snow on the higher
ranges, and the river was, for the summer season, low.

Towards evening, having travelled, so far as he could guess, some
twenty or five and twenty miles (for he had made another mid day halt),
he reached the place, which he easily recognised, as that where he
had camped before crossing to the pass that led into Erewhon. It was
the last piece of ground that could be called a flat (though it was
in reality only the sloping delta of a stream that descended from
the pass) before reaching a large glacier that had encroached on the
river-bed, which it traversed at right angles for a considerable
distance.

Here he again camped, hobbled his horse, and turned him adrift, hoping
that he might again find him some two or three months hence, for there
was a good deal of sweet grass here and there, with sow-thistle and
anise; and the coarse tussock grass would be in full seed shortly,
which alone would keep him going for as long a time as my father
expected to be away. Little did he think that he should want him again
so shortly.

Having attended to his horse, he got his supper, and while smoking his
pipe congratulated himself on the way in which something had smoothed
away all the obstacles that had so nearly baffled him on his earlier
journey. Was he being lured on to his destruction by some malicious
fiend, or befriended by one who had compassion on him and wished him
well? His naturally sanguine temperament inclined him to adopt the
friendly spirit theory, in the peace of which he again laid himself
down to rest, and slept soundly from dark till dawn.

In the morning, though the water was somewhat icy, he again bathed,
and then put on his Erewhonian boots and dress. He stowed his European
clothes, with some difficulty, into his saddle-bags. Herein also he
left his case full of English sovereigns, his spare pipes, his purse,
which contained two pounds in gold and seven or eight shillings,
part of his stock of tobacco, and whatever provision was left him,
except the meat--which he left for sundry hawks and parrots that were
eyeing his proceedings apparently without fear of man. His nuggets he
concealed in the secret pockets of which I have already spoken, keeping
one bag alone accessible.

He had had his hair and beard cut short on shipboard the day before he
landed. These he now dyed with a dye that he had brought from England,
and which in a few minutes turned them very nearly black. He also
stained his face and hands deep brown. He hung his saddle and bridle,
his English boots, and his saddle-bags on the highest bough that he
could reach, and made them fairly fast with strips of flax leaf, for
there was some stunted flax growing on the ground where he had camped.
He feared that, do what he might, they would not escape the inquisitive
thievishness of the parrots, whose strong beaks could easily cut
leather; but he could do nothing more. It occurs to me, though my
father never told me so, that it was perhaps with a view to these birds
that he had chosen to put his English sovereigns into a metal box, with
a clasp to it which would defy them.

He made a roll of his blanket, and slung it over his shoulder; he also
took his pipe, tobacco, a little tea, a few ship’s biscuits, and his
billy and pannikin; matches and salt go without saying. When he had
thus ordered everything as nearly to his satisfaction as he could,
he looked at his watch for the last time, as he believed, till many
weeks should have gone by, and found it to be about seven o’clock.
Remembering what trouble it had got him into years before, he took down
his saddle-bags, reopened them, and put the watch inside. He then set
himself to climb the mountain side, towards the saddle on which he had
seen the statues.




CHAPTER III: MY FATHER WHILE CAMPING IS ACCOSTED BY PROFESSORS HANKY
AND PANKY


My father found the ascent more fatiguing than he remembered it to have
been. The climb, he said, was steady, and took him between four and
five hours, as near as he could guess, now that he had no watch; but it
offered nothing that could be called a difficulty, and the watercourse
that came down from the saddle was a sufficient guide; once or twice
there were waterfalls, but they did not seriously delay him.

After he had climbed some three thousand feet, he began to be on the
alert for some sound of ghostly chanting from the statues; but he heard
nothing, and toiled on till he came to a sprinkling of fresh snow--part
of the fall which he had observed on the preceding day as having
whitened the higher mountains; he knew, therefore, that he must now be
nearing the saddle. The snow grew rapidly deeper, and by the time he
reached the statues the ground was covered to a depth of two or three
inches.

He found the statues smaller than he had expected. He had said in his
book--written many months after he had seen them--that they were about
six times the size of life, but he now thought that four or five times
would have been enough to say. Their mouths were much clogged with
snow, so that even though there had been a strong wind (which there
was not) they would not have chanted. In other respects he found them
not less mysteriously impressive than at first. He walked two or three
times all round them, and then went on.

The snow did not continue far down, but before long my father entered
a thick bank of cloud, and had to feel his way cautiously along the
stream that descended from the pass. It was some two hours before
he emerged into clear air, and found himself on the level bed of an
old lake now grassed over. He had quite forgotten this feature of
the descent--perhaps the clouds had hung over it; he was overjoyed,
however, to find that the flat ground abounded with a kind of quail,
larger than ours, and hardly, if at all, smaller than a partridge. The
abundance of these quails surprised him, for he did not remember them
as plentiful anywhere on the Erewhonian side of the mountains.

The Erewhonian quail, like its now nearly, if not quite, extinct New
Zealand congener, can take three successive flights of a few yards
each, but then becomes exhausted; hence quails are only found on ground
that is never burned, and where there are no wild animals to molest
them; the cats and dogs that accompany European civilisation soon
exterminate them; my father, therefore, felt safe in concluding that
he was still far from any village. Moreover he could see no sheep or
goat’s dung; and this surprised him, for he thought he had found signs
of pasturage much higher than this. Doubtless, he said to himself,
when he wrote his book he had forgotten how long the descent had been.
But it was odd, for the grass was good feed enough, and ought, he
considered, to have been well stocked.

Tired with his climb, during which he had not rested to take food, but
had eaten biscuits, as he walked, he gave himself a good long rest, and
when refreshed, he ran down a couple of dozen quails, some of which he
meant to eat when he camped for the night, while the others would help
him out of a difficulty which had been troubling him for some time.

What was he to say when people asked him, as they were sure to do,
how he was living? And how was he to get enough Erewhonian money to
keep him going till he could find some safe means of selling a few of
his nuggets? He had had a little Erewhonian money when he went up in
the balloon, but had thrown it over, with everything else except the
clothes he wore and his MSS., when the balloon was nearing the water.
He had nothing with him that he dared offer for sale, and though he had
plenty of gold, was in reality penniless.

When, therefore, he saw the quails, he again felt as though some
friendly spirit was smoothing his way before him. What more easy than
to sell them at Coldharbour (for so the name of the town in which he
had been imprisoned should be translated), where he knew they were a
delicacy, and would fetch him the value of an English shilling a piece?

It took him between two and three hours to catch two dozen. When he
had thus got what he considered a sufficient stock, he tied their legs
together with rushes, and ran a stout stick through the whole lot. Soon
afterwards he came upon a wood of stunted pines, which, though there
was not much undergrowth, nevertheless afforded considerable shelter
and enabled him to gather wood enough to make himself a good fire. This
was acceptable, for though the days were long, it was now evening, and
as soon as the sun had gone the air became crisp and frosty.

Here he resolved to pass the night. He chose a part where the trees
were thickest, lit his fire, plucked and cleaned four quails, filled
his billy with water from the stream hard by, made tea in his pannikin,
grilled two of his birds on the embers, ate them, and when he had done
all this, he lit his pipe and began to think things over. “So far so
good,” said he to himself; but hardly had the words passed through
his mind before he was startled by the sound of voices, still at some
distance, but evidently drawing towards him.

He instantly gathered up his billy, pannikin, tea, biscuits, and
blanket, all of which he had determined to discard and hide on the
following morning; everything that could betray him he carried full
haste into the wood some few yards off, in the direction opposite to
that from which the voices were coming, but he let his quails lie where
they were, and put his pipe and tobacco in his pocket.

The voices drew nearer and nearer, and it was all my father could do to
get back and sit down innocently by his fire, before he could hear what
was being said.

“Thank goodness,” said one of the speakers (of course in the Erewhonian
language), “we seem to be finding somebody at last. I hope it is not
some poacher; we had better be careful.”

“Nonsense!” said the other. “It must be one of the rangers. No one
would dare to light a fire while poaching on the King’s preserves. What
o’clock do you make it?”

“Half after nine.” And the watch was still in the speaker’s hand as he
emerged from darkness into the glowing light of the fire. My father
glanced at it, and saw that it was exactly like the one he had worn on
entering Erewhon nearly twenty years previously.

The watch, however, was a very small matter; the dress of these two
men (for there were only two) was far more disconcerting. They were
not in the Erewhonian costume. The one was dressed like an Englishman
or would- be Englishman, while the other was wearing the same kind
of clothes but turned the wrong way round, so that when his face was
towards my father his body seemed to have its back towards him, and
_vice verso_. The man’s head, in fact, appeared to have been screwed
right round; and yet it was plain that if he were stripped he would be
found built like other people.

What could it all mean? The men were about fifty years old. They were
well-to-do people, well clad, well fed, and were felt instinctively by
my father to belong to the academic classes. That one of them should
be dressed like a sensible Englishman dismayed my father as much as
that the other should have a watch, and look as if he had just broken
out of Bedlam, or as King Dagobert must have looked if he had worn all
his clothes as he is said to have worn his breeches. Both wore their
clothes so easily--for he who wore them reversed had evidently been
measured with a view to this absurd fashion--that it was plain their
dress was habitual.

My father was alarmed as well as astounded, for he saw that what little
plan of a campaign he had formed must be reconstructed, and he had no
idea in what direction his next move should be taken; but he was a
ready man, and knew that when people have taken any idea into their
heads, a little confirmation will fix it. A first idea is like a strong
seedling; it will grow if it can.

In less time than it will have taken the reader to get through the last
foregoing paragraphs, my father took up the cue furnished him by the
second speaker.

“Yes,” said he, going boldly up to this gentleman, “I am one of the
rangers, and it is my duty to ask you what you are doing here upon the
King’s preserves.”

“Quite so, my man,” was the rejoinder. “We have been to see the statues
at the head of the pass, and have a permit from the Mayor of Sunch’ston
to enter upon the preserves. We lost ourselves in the thick fog, both
going and coming back.”

My father inwardly blessed the fog. He did not catch the name of the
town, but presently found that it was commonly pronounced as I have
written it.

“Be pleased to show it me,” said my father in his politest manner. On
this a document was handed to him.

I will here explain that I shall translate the names of men and places,
as well as the substance of the document; and I shall translate all
names in future. Indeed I have just done so in the case of Sunch’ston.
As an example, let me explain that the true Erewhonian names for Hanky
and Panky, to whom the reader will be immediately introduced, are
Sukoh and Sukop--names too cacophonous to be read with pleasure by the
English public. I must ask the reader to believe that in all cases I am
doing my best to give the spirit of the original name.

I would also express my regret that my father did not either uniformly
keep to the true Erewhonian names, as in the cases of Senoj Nosnibor,
Ydgrun, Thims, &c.--names which occur constantly in Erewhon--or
else invariably invent a name, as he did whenever he considered
the true name impossible. My poor mother’s name, for example, was
really Nna Haras, and Mahaina’s Enaj Ysteb, which he dared not face.
He, therefore, gave these characters the first names that euphony
suggested, without any attempt at translation. Rightly or wrongly, I
have determined to keep consistently to translation for all names not
used in my father’s book; and throughout, whether as regards names or
conversations, I shall translate with the freedom without which no
translation rises above construe level.

Let me now return to the permit. The earlier part of the document was
printed, and ran as follows:-

   “Extracts from the Act for the afforesting of certain lands lying
   between the town of Sunchildston, formerly called Coldharbour, and the
   mountains which bound the kingdom of Erewhon, passed in the year
   Three, being the eighth year of the reign of his Most Gracious Majesty
   King Well-beloved the Twenty-Second.

   “Whereas it is expedient to prevent any of his Majesty’s subjects from
   trying to cross over into unknown lands beyond the mountains, and in
   like manner to protect his Majesty’s kingdom from intrusion on the
   part of foreign devils, it is hereby enacted that certain lands, more
   particularly described hereafter, shall be afforested and set apart as
   a hunting-ground for his Majesty’s private use.

   “It is also enacted that the Rangers and Under-rangers shall be
   required to immediately kill without parley any foreign devil whom
   they may encounter coming from the other side of the mountains. They
   are to weight the body, and throw it into the Blue Pool under the
   waterfall shown on the plan hereto annexed; but on pain of
   imprisonment for life they shall not reserve to their own use any
   article belonging to the deceased. Neither shall they divulge what
   they have done to any one save the Head Ranger, who shall report the
   circumstances of the case fully and minutely to his Majesty.

   “As regards any of his Majesty’s subjects who may be taken while
   trespassing on his Majesty’s preserves without a special permit signed
   by the Mayor of Sunchildston, or any who may be convicted of poaching
   on the said preserves, the Rangers shall forthwith arrest them and
   bring them before the Mayor of Sunchildston, who shall enquire into
   their antecedents, and punish them with such term of imprisonment,
   with hard labour, as he may think fit, provided that no such term be
   of less duration than twelve calendar months.

   “For the further provisions of the said Act, those whom it may concern
   are referred to the Act in full, a copy of which may be seen at the
   official residence of the Mayor of Sunchildston.”

Then followed in MS. “XIX. xii. 29. Permit Professor Hanky, Royal
Professor of Worldly Wisdom at Bridgeford, seat of learning, city
of the people who are above suspicion, and Professor Panky, Royal
Professor of Unworldly Wisdom in the said city, or either of them”
[here the MS. ended, the rest of the permit being in print] “to pass
freely during the space of forty-eight hours from the date hereof,
over the King’s preserves, provided, under pain of imprisonment with
hard labour for twelve months, that they do not kill, nor cause to
be killed, nor eat, if another have killed, any one or more of his
Majesty’s quails.”

The signature was such a scrawl that my father could not read it,
but underneath was printed, “Mayor of Sunchildston, formerly called
Coldharbour.”

What a mass of information did not my father gather as he read, but
what a far greater mass did he not see that he must get hold of ere he
could reconstruct his plans intelligently.

“The year three,” indeed; and XIX. xii. 29, in Roman and Arabic
characters! There were no such characters when he was in Erewhon
before. It flashed upon him that he had repeatedly shewn them to
the Nosnibors, and had once even written them down. It could not be
that . . . No, it was impossible; and yet there was the European dress,
aimed at by the one Professor, and attained by the other. Again “XIX.”
what was that? “xii.” might do for December, but it was now the 4th of
December not the 29th. “Afforested” too? Then that was why he had seen
no sheep tracks. And how about the quails he had so innocently killed?
What would have happened if he had tried to sell them in Coldharbour?
What other like fatal error might he not ignorantly commit? And why had
Coldharbour become Sunchildston?

These thoughts raced through my poor father’s brain as he slowly
perused the paper handed to him by the Professors. To give himself time
he feigned to be a poor scholar, but when he had delayed as long as he
dared, he returned it to the one who had given it him. Without changing
a muscle he said--

“Your permit, sir, is quite regular. You can either stay here the night
or go on to Sunchildston as you think fit. May I ask which of you two
gentlemen is Professor Hanky, and which Professor Panky?”

“My name is Panky,” said the one who had the watch, who wore his
clothes reversed, and who had thought my father might be a poacher.

“And mine Hanky,” said the other.

“What do you think, Panky,” he added, turning to his brother Professor,
“had we not better stay here till sunrise? We are both of us tired, and
this fellow can make us a good fire. It is very dark, and there will
be no moon this two hours. We are hungry, but we can hold out till we
get to Sunchildston; it cannot be more than eight or nine miles further
down.”

Panky assented, but then, turning sharply to my father, he said, “My
man, what are you doing in the forbidden dress? Why are you not in
ranger’s uniform, and what is the meaning of all those quails?” For his
seedling idea that my father was in reality a poacher was doing its
best to grow.

Quick as thought my father answered, “The Head Ranger sent me a message
this morning to deliver him three dozen quails at Sunchildston by
to-morrow afternoon. As for the dress, we can run the quails down
quicker in it, and he says nothing to us so long as we only wear out
old clothes and put on our uniforms before we near the town. My uniform
is in the ranger’s shelter an hour and a half higher up the valley.”

“See what comes,” said Panky, “of having a whippersnapper not yet
twenty years old in the responsible post of Head Ranger. As for this
fellow, he may be speaking the truth, but I distrust him.”

“The man is all right, Panky,” said Hanky, “and seems to be a decent
fellow enough.” Then to my father, “How many brace have you got?” And
he looked at them a little wistfully.

“I have been at it all day, sir, and I have only got eight brace. I
must run down ten more brace to-morrow.”

“I see, I see.” Then, turning to Panky, he said, “Of course, they are
wanted for the Mayor’s banquet on Sunday. By the way, we have not yet
received our invitation; I suppose we shall find it when we get back to
Sunchildston.”

“Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!” groaned my father inwardly; but he changed
not a muscle of his face, and said stolidly to Professor Hanky, “I
think you must be right, sir; but there was nothing said about it to
me, I was only told to bring the birds.”

Thus tenderly did he water the Professor’s second seedling. But Panky
had his seedling too, and, Cain-like, was jealous that Hanky’s should
flourish while his own was withering.

“And what, pray, my man,” he said somewhat peremptorily to my father,
“are those two plucked quails doing? Were you to deliver them plucked?
And what bird did those bones belong to which I see lying by the fire
with the flesh all eaten off them? Are the under-rangers allowed not
only to wear the forbidden dress but to eat the King’s quails as well?”

The form in which the question was asked gave my father his cue.
He laughed heartily, and said, “Why, sir, those plucked birds are
landrails, not quails, and those bones are landrail bones. Look at this
thigh-bone; was there ever a quail with such a bone as that?”

I cannot say whether or no Professor Panky was really deceived by the
sweet effrontery with which my father proffered him the bone. If he was
taken in, his answer was dictated simply by a donnish unwillingness to
allow any one to be better informed on any subject than he was himself.

My father, when I suggested this to him, would not hear of it. “Oh no,”
he said; “the man knew well enough that I was lying.” However this may
be, the Professor’s manner changed.

“You are right,” he said, “I thought they were landrail bones, but was
not sure till I had one in my hand. I see, too, that the plucked birds
are landrails, but there is little light, and I have not often seen
them without their feathers.”

“I think,” said my father to me, “that Hanky knew what his friend
meant, for he said, ‘Panky, I am very hungry.’”

“Oh, Hanky, Hanky,” said the other, modulating his harsh voice till it
was quite pleasant. “Don’t corrupt the poor man.”

“Panky, drop that; we are not at Bridgeford now; I am very hungry, and
I believe half those birds are not quails but landrails.”

My father saw he was safe. He said, “Perhaps some of them might prove
to be so, sir, under certain circumstances. I am a poor man, sir.”

“Come, come,” said Hanky; and he slipped a sum equal to about
half-a-crown into my father’s hand.

“I do not know what you mean, sir,” said my father, “and if I did,
half-a- crown would not be nearly enough.”

“Hanky,” said Panky, “you must get this fellow to give you lessons.”




CHAPTER IV: MY FATHER OVERHEARS MORE OF HANKY AND PANKY’S CONVERSATION


My father, schooled under adversity, knew that it was never well to
press advantage too far. He took the equivalent of five shillings for
three brace, which was somewhat less than the birds would have been
worth when things were as he had known them. Moreover, he consented
to take a shilling’s worth of Musical Bank money, which (as he has
explained in his book) has no appreciable value outside these banks.
He did this because he knew that it would be respectable to be seen
carrying a little Musical Bank money, and also because he wished to
give some of it to the British Museum, where he knew that this curious
coinage was unrepresented. But the coins struck him as being much
thinner and smaller than he had remembered them.

It was Panky, not Hanky, who had given him the Musical Bank money.
Panky was the greater humbug of the two, for he would humbug even
himself--a thing, by the way, not very hard to do; and yet he was
the less successful humbug, for he could humbug no one who was worth
humbugging--not for long. Hanky’s occasional frankness put people
off their guard. He was the mere common, superficial, perfunctory
Professor, who, being a Professor, would of course profess, but would
not lie more than was in the bond; he was log-rolled and log-rolling,
but still, in a robust wolfish fashion, human.

Panky, on the other hand, was hardly human; he had thrown himself so
earnestly into his work, that he had become a living lie. If he had had
to play the part of Othello he would have blacked himself all over, and
very likely smothered his Desdemona in good earnest. Hanky would hardly
have blacked himself behind the ears, and his Desdemona would have been
quite safe.

Philosophers are like quails in the respect that they can take two or
three flights of imagination, but rarely more without an interval of
repose. The Professors had imagined my father to be a poacher and a
ranger; they had imagined the quails to be wanted for Sunday’s banquet;
they had imagined that they imagined (at least Panky had) that they
were about to eat landrails; they were now exhausted, and cowered down
into the grass of their ordinary conversation, paying no more attention
to my father than if he had been a log. He, poor man, drank in every
word they said, while seemingly intent on nothing but his quails, each
one of which he cut up with a knife borrowed from Hanky. Two had been
plucked already, so he laid these at once upon the clear embers.

“I do not know what we are to do with ourselves,” said Hanky, “till
Sunday. To-day is Thursday--it is the twenty-ninth, is it not? Yes,
of course it is--Sunday is the first. Besides, it is on our permit.
To-morrow we can rest; what, I wonder, can we do on Saturday? But the
others will be here then, and we can tell them about the statues.”

“Yes, but mind you do not blurt out anything about the landrails.”

“I think we may tell Dr. Downie.”

“Tell nobody,” said Panky.

They then talked about the statues, concerning which it was plain that
nothing was known. But my father soon broke in upon their conversation
with the first instalment of quails, which a few minutes had sufficed
to cook.

“What a delicious bird a quail is,” said Hanky.

“Landrail, Hanky, landrail,” said the other reproachfully.

Having finished the first birds in a very few minutes they returned to
the statues.

“Old Mrs. Nosnibor,” said Panky, “says the Sunchild told her they were
symbolic of ten tribes who had incurred the displeasure of the sun, his
father.”

I make no comment on my father’s feelings.

“Of the sun! his fiddlesticks’ ends,” retorted Hanky. “He never called
the sun his father. Besides, from all I have heard about him, I take it
he was a precious idiot.”

“O Hanky, Hanky! you will wreck the whole thing if you ever allow
yourself to talk in that way.”

“You are more likely to wreck it yourself, Panky, by never doing so.
People like being deceived, but they like also to have an inkling of
their own deception, and you never inkle them.”

“The Queen,” said Panky, returning to the statues, “sticks to it
that . . . ”

“Here comes another bird,” interrupted Hanky; “never mind about the
Queen.”

The bird was soon eaten, whereon Panky again took up his parable about
the Queen.

“The Queen says they are connected with the cult of the ancient Goddess
Kiss-me-quick.”

“What if they are? But the Queen sees Kiss-me-quick in everything.
Another quail, if you please, Mr. Ranger.”

My father brought up another bird almost directly. Silence while it was
being eaten.

“Talking of the Sunchild,” said Panky; “did you ever see him?”

“Never set eyes on him, and hope I never shall.”

And so on till the last bird was eaten.

“Fellow,” said Panky, “fetch some more wood; the fire is nearly dead.”

“I can find no more, sir,” said my father, who was afraid lest some
genuine ranger might be attracted by the light, and was determined to
let it go out as soon as he had done cooking.

“Never mind,” said Hanky, “the moon will be up soon.”

“And now, Hanky,” said Panky, “tell me what you propose to say on
Sunday. I suppose you have pretty well made up your mind about it by
this time.”

“Pretty nearly. I shall keep it much on the usual lines. I shall dwell
upon the benighted state from which the Sunchild rescued us, and shall
show how the Musical Banks, by at once taking up the movement, have
been the blessed means of its now almost universal success. I shall
talk about the immortal glory shed upon Sunch’ston by the Sunchild’s
residence in the prison, and wind up with the Sunchild Evidence
Society, and an earnest appeal for funds to endow the canonries
required for the due service of the temple.”

“Temple! what temple?” groaned my father inwardly.

“And what are you going to do about the four black and white horses?”

“Stick to them, of course--unless I make them six.”

“I really do not see why they might not have been horses.”

“I dare say you do not,” returned the other drily, “but they were black
and white storks, and you know that as well as I do. Still, they have
caught on, and they are in the altar-piece, prancing and curvetting
magnificently, so I shall trot them out.”

“Altar-piece! Altar-piece!” again groaned my father inwardly.

He need not have groaned, for when he came to see the so-called altar-
piece he found that the table above which it was placed had nothing in
common with the altar in a Christian church. It was a mere table, on
which were placed two bowls full of Musical Bank coins; two cashiers,
who sat on either side of it, dispensed a few of these to all comers,
while there was a box in front of it wherein people deposited coin of
the realm according to their will or ability. The idea of sacrifice was
not contemplated, and the position of the table, as well as the name
given to it, was an instance of the way in which the Erewhonians had
caught names and practices from my father, without understanding what
they either were or meant. So, again, when Professor Hanky had spoken
of canonries, he had none but the vaguest idea of what a canonry is.

I may add further that as a boy my father had had his Bible well
drilled into him, and never forgot it. Hence biblical passages and
expressions had been often in his mouth, as the effect of mere
unconscious cerebration. The Erewhonians had caught many of these,
sometimes corrupting them so that they were hardly recognizable. Things
that he remembered having said were continually meeting him during the
few days of his second visit, and it shocked him deeply to meet some
gross travesty of his own words, or of words more sacred than his own,
and yet to be unable to correct it. “I wonder,” he said to me, “that no
one has ever hit on this as a punishment for the damned in Hades.”

Let me now return to Professor Hanky, whom I fear that I have left too
long.

“And of course,” he continued, “I shall say all sorts of pretty things
about the Mayoress--for I suppose we must not even think of her as Yram
now.”

“The Mayoress,” replied Panky, “is a very dangerous woman; see how she
stood out about the way in which the Sunchild had worn his clothes
before they gave him the then Erewhonian dress. Besides, she is a
sceptic at heart, and so is that precious son of hers.”

“She was quite right,” said Hanky, with something of a snort. “She
brought him his dinner while he was still wearing the clothes he came
in, and if men do not notice how a man wears his clothes, women do.
Besides, there are many living who saw him wear them.”

“Perhaps,” said Panky, “but we should never have talked the King over
if we had not humoured him on this point. Yram nearly wrecked us by her
obstinacy. If we had not frightened her, and if your study, Hanky, had
not happened to have been burned . . . ”

“Come, come, Panky, no more of that.”

“Of course I do not doubt that it was an accident; nevertheless if
your study had not been accidentally burned, on the very night the
clothes were entrusted to you for earnest, patient, careful, scientific
investigation--and Yram very nearly burned too--we should never have
carried it through. See what work we had to get the King to allow the
way in which the clothes were worn to be a matter of opinion, not
dogma. What a pity it is that the clothes were not burned before the
King’s tailor had copied them.”

Hanky laughed heartily enough. “Yes,” he said, “it was touch and go.
Why, I wonder, could not the Queen have put the clothes on a dummy that
would show back from front? As soon as it was brought into the council
chamber the King jumped to a conclusion, and we had to bundle both
dummy and Yram out of the royal presence, for neither she nor the King
would budge an inch.”

Even Panky smiled. “What could we do? The common people almost worship
Yram; and so does her husband, though her fair-haired eldest son was
born barely seven months after marriage. The people in these parts
like to think that the Sunchild’s blood is in the country, and yet
they swear through thick and thin that he is the Mayor’s duly begotten
offspring--Faugh! Do you think they would have stood his being jobbed
into the rangership by any one else but Yram?”

My father’s feelings may be imagined, but I will not here interrupt the
Professors.

“Well, well,” said Hanky; “for men must rob and women must job so long
as the world goes on. I did the best I could. The King would never have
embraced Sunchildism if I had not told him he was right; then, when
satisfied that we agreed with him, he yielded to popular prejudice and
allowed the question to remain open. One of his Royal Professors was to
wear the clothes one way, and the other the other.”

“My way of wearing them,” said Panky, “is much the most convenient.”

“Not a bit of it,” said Hanky warmly. On this the two Professors fell
out, and the discussion grew so hot that my father interfered by
advising them not to talk so loud lest another ranger should hear them.
“You know,” he said, “there are a good many landrail bones lying about,
and it might be awkward.”

The Professors hushed at once. “By the way,” said Panky, after a pause,
“it is very strange about those footprints in the snow. The man had
evidently walked round the statues two or three times, as though they
were strange to him, and he had certainly come from the other side.”

“It was one of the rangers,” said Hanky impatiently, “who had gone a
little beyond the statues, and come back again.”

“Then we should have seen his footprints as he went. I am glad I
measured them.”

“There is nothing in it; but what were your measurements?”

“Eleven inches by four and a half; nails on the soles; one nail missing
on the right foot and two on the left.” Then, turning to my father
quickly, he said, “My man, allow me to have a look at your boots.”

“Nonsense, Panky, nonsense!”

Now my father by this time was wondering whether he should not set upon
these two men, kill them if he could, and make the best of his way
back, but he had still a card to play.

“Certainly, sir,” said he, “but I should tell you that they are not my
boots.”

He took off his right boot and handed it to Panky.

“Exactly so! Eleven inches by four and a half, and one nail missing.
And now, Mr. Ranger, will you be good enough to explain how you became
possessed of that boot. You need not show me the other.” And he spoke
like an examiner who was confident that he could floor his examinee in
_vivâ voce_.

“You know our orders,” answered my father, “you have seen them on your
permit. I met one of those foreign devils from the other side, of whom
we have had more than one lately; he came from out of the clouds that
hang higher up, and as he had no permit and could not speak a word of
our language, I gripped him, flung him, and strangled him. Thus far I
was only obeying orders, but seeing how much better his boots were than
mine, and finding that they would fit me, I resolved to keep them. You
may be sure I should not have done so if I had known there was snow on
the top of the pass.”

“He could not invent that,” said Hanky; “it is plain he has not been up
to the statues.”

Panky was staggered. “And of course,” said he ironically, “you took
nothing from this poor wretch except his boots.”

“Sir,” said my father, “I will make a clean breast of everything. I
flung his body, his clothes, and my own old boots into the pool; but
I kept his blanket, some things he used for cooking, and some strange
stuff that looks like dried leaves, as well as a small bag of something
which I believe is gold. I thought I could sell the lot to some dealer
in curiosities who would ask no questions.”

“And what, pray, have you done with all these things?”

“They are here, sir.” And as he spoke he dived into the wood, returning
with the blanket, billy, pannikin, tea, and the little bag of nuggets,
which he had kept accessible.

“This is very strange,” said Hanky, who was beginning to be afraid of
my father when he learned that he sometimes killed people.

Here the Professors talked hurriedly to one another in a tongue
which my father could not understand, but which he felt sure was the
hypothetical language of which he has spoken in his book.

Presently Hanky said to my father quite civilly, “And what, my good
man, do you propose to do with all these things? I should tell you at
once that what you take to be gold is nothing of the kind; it is a base
metal, hardly, if at all, worth more than copper.”

“I have had enough of them; to-morrow morning I shall take them with me
to the Blue Pool, and drop them into it.”

“It is a pity you should do that,” said Hanky musingly: “the things are
interesting as curiosities, and--and--and--what will you take for them?”

“I could not do it, sir,” answered my father. “I would not do it, no,
not for--” and he named a sum equivalent to about five pounds of our
money. For he wanted Erewhonian money, and thought it worth his while
to sacrifice his ten pounds’ worth of nuggets in order to get a supply
of current coin.

Hanky tried to beat him down, assuring him that no curiosity dealer
would give half as much, and my father so far yielded as to take £4,
10s. in silver, which, as I have already explained, would not be worth
more than half a sovereign in gold. At this figure a bargain was
struck, and the Professors paid up without offering him a single
Musical Bank coin. They wanted to include the boots in the purchase,
but here my father stood out.

But he could not stand out as regards another matter, which caused him
some anxiety. Panky insisted that my father should give them a receipt
for the money, and there was an altercation between the Professors
on this point, much longer than I can here find space to give. Hanky
argued that a receipt was useless, inasmuch as it would be ruin to my
father ever to refer to the subject again. Panky, however, was anxious,
not lest my father should again claim the money, but (though he did
not say so outright) lest Hanky should claim the whole purchase as his
own. In so the end Panky, for a wonder, carried the day, and a receipt
was drawn up to the effect that the undersigned acknowledged to have
received from Professors Hanky and Panky the sum of £4, 10s. (I
translate the amount), as joint purchasers of certain pieces of yellow
ore, a blanket, and sundry articles found without an owner in the
King’s preserves. This paper was dated, as the permit had been, XIX.
xii. 29.

My father, generally so ready, was at his wits’ end for a name, and
could think of none but Mr. Nosnibor’s. Happily, remembering that
this gentleman had also been called Senoj--a name common enough in
Erewhon--he signed himself “Senoj, Under-ranger.”

Panky was now satisfied. “We will put it in the bag,” he said, “with
the pieces of yellow ore.”

“Put it where you like,” said Hanky contemptuously; and into the bag it
was put.

When all was now concluded, my father laughingly said, “If you have
dealt unfairly by me, I forgive you. My motto is, ‘Forgive us our
trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us.’”

“Repeat those last words,” said Panky eagerly. My father was alarmed at
his manner, but thought it safer to repeat them.

“You hear that, Hanky? I am convinced; I have not another word to
say. The man is a true Erewhonian; he has our corrupt reading of the
Sunchild’s prayer.”

“Please explain.”

“Why, can you not see?” said Panky, who was by way of being great at
conjectural emendations. “Can you not see how impossible it is for the
Sunchild, or any of the people to whom he declared (as we now know
provisionally) that he belonged, could have made the forgiveness of his
own sins depend on the readiness with which he forgave other people?
No man in his senses would dream of such a thing. It would be asking a
supposed all-powerful being not to forgive his sins at all, or at best
to forgive them imperfectly. No; Yram got it wrong. She mistook ‘but
do not’ for ‘as we.’ The sound of the words is very much alike; the
correct reading should obviously be, ‘Forgive us our trespasses, but do
not forgive them that trespass against us.’ This makes sense, and turns
an impossible prayer into one that goes straight to the heart of every
one of us.” Then, turning to my father, he said, “You can see this, my
man, can you not, as soon as it is pointed out to you?”

My father said that he saw it now, but had always heard the words as he
had himself spoken them.

“Of course you have, my good fellow, and it is because of this that I
know they never can have reached you except from an Erewhonian source.”

Hanky smiled,--snorted, and muttered in an undertone, “I shall begin to
think that this fellow is a foreign devil after all.”

“And now, gentlemen,” said my father, “the moon is risen. I must be
after the quails at daybreak; I will therefore go to the ranger’s
shelter” (a shelter, by the way, which existed only in my father’s
invention), “and get a couple of hours’ sleep, so as to be both close
to the quail-ground; and fresh for running. You are so near the
boundary of the preserves that you will not want your permit further;
no one will meet you, and should any one do so, you need only give your
names and say that you have made a mistake. You will have to give it up
to-morrow at the Ranger’s office; it will save you trouble if I collect
it now, and give it up when I deliver my quails.

“As regards the curiosities, hide them as you best can outside the
limits. I recommend you to carry them at once out of the forest, and
rest beyond the limits rather than here. You can then recover them
whenever, and in whatever way, you may find convenient. But I hope you
will say nothing about any foreign devil’s having come over on to this
side. Any whisper to this effect unsettles people’s minds, and they are
too much unsettled already; hence our orders to kill any one from over
there at once, and to tell no one but the Head Ranger. I was forced
by you, gentlemen, to disobey these orders in self-defence; I must
trust your generosity to keep what I have told you secret. I shall, of
course, report it to the Head Ranger. And now, if you think proper, you
can give me up your permit.”

All this was so plausible that the Professors gave up their permit
without a word but thanks. They bundled their curiosities hurriedly
into “the poor foreign devil’s” blanket, reserving a more careful
packing till they were out of the preserves. They wished my father a
very good night, and all success with his quails in the morning; they
thanked him again for the care he had taken of them in the matter of
the landrails, and Panky even went so far as to give him a few Musical
Bank coins, which he gratefully accepted. They then started off in the
direction of Sunch’ston.

My father gathered up the remaining quails, some of which he meant to
eat in the morning, while the others he would throw away as soon as he
could find a safe place. He turned towards the mountains, but before
he had gone a dozen yards he heard a voice, which he recognised as
Panky’s, shouting after him, and saying--

“Mind you do not forget the true reading of the Sunchild’s prayer.”

“You are an old fool,” shouted my father in English, knowing that he
could hardly be heard, still less understood, and thankful to relieve
his feelings.




CHAPTER V: MY FATHER MEETS A SON, OF WHOSE EXISTENCE HE WAS IGNORANT;
AND STRIKES A BARGAIN WITH HIM


The incidents recorded in the two last chapters had occupied about two
hours, so that it was nearly midnight before my father could begin
to retrace his steps and make towards the camp that he had left that
morning. This was necessary, for he could not go any further in a
costume that he now knew to be forbidden. At this hour no ranger was
likely to meet him before he reached the statues, and by making a push
for it he could return in time to cross the limits of the preserves
before the Professors’ permit had expired. If challenged, he must
brazen it out that he was one or other of the persons therein named.

Fatigued though he was, he reached the statues as near as he could
guess, at about three in the morning. What little wind there had been
was warm, so that the tracks, which the Professors must have seen
shortly after he had made them, had disappeared. The statues looked
very weird in the moonlight but they were not chanting.

While ascending, he pieced together the information he had picked up
from the Professors. Plainly, the Sunchild, or child of the sun, was
none other than himself, and the new name of Coldharbour was doubtless
intended to commemorate the fact that this was the first town he had
reached in Erewhon. Plainly, also, he was supposed to be of superhuman
origin--his flight in the balloon having been not unnaturally believed
to be miraculous. The Erewhonians had for centuries been effacing
all knowledge of their former culture; archaeologists, indeed, could
still glean a little from museums, and from volumes hard to come by,
and still harder to understand; but archaeologists were few, and even
though they had made researches (which they may or may not have done),
their labours had never reached the masses. What wonder, then, that the
mushroom spawn of myth, ever present in an atmosphere highly charged
with ignorance, had germinated in a soil so favourably prepared for its
reception?

He saw it all now. It was twenty years next Sunday since he and my
mother had eloped. That was the meaning of XIX. xii. 29. They had made
a new era, dating from the day of his return to the palace of the sun
with a bride who was doubtless to unite the Erewhonian nature with
that of the sun. The New Year, then, would date from Sunday, December
7, which would therefore become XX. i. 1. The Thursday, now nearly if
not quite over, being only two days distant from the end of a month of
thirty- one days, which was also the last of the year, would be XIX.
xii. 29, as on the Professors’ permit.

I should like to explain here what will appear more clearly on a later
page--I mean, that the Erewhonians, according to their new system,
do not believe the sun to be a god except as regards this world and
his other planets. My father had told them a little about astronomy,
and had assured them that all the fixed stars were suns like our own,
with planets revolving round them, which were probably tenanted by
intelligent living beings, however unlike they might be to ourselves.
From this they evolved the theory that the sun was the ruler of
this planetary system, and that he must be personified, as they had
personified the air-god, the gods of time and space, hope, justice,
and the other deities mentioned in my father’s book. They retain their
old belief in the actual existence of these gods, but they now make
them all subordinate to the sun. The nearest approach they make to our
own conception of God is to say that He is the ruler over all the suns
throughout the universe--the suns being to Him much as our planets
and their denizens are to our own sun. They deny that He takes more
interest in one sun and its system than in another. All the suns with
their attendant planets are supposed to be equally His children, and He
deputes to each sun the supervision and protection of its own system.
Hence they say that though we may pray to the air-god, &c., and even
to the sun, we must not pray to God. We may be thankful to Him for
watching over the suns, but we must not go further.

Going back to my father’s reflections, he perceived that the
Erewhonians had not only adopted our calendar, as he had repeatedly
explained it to the Nosnibors, but had taken our week as well, and were
making Sunday a high day, just as we do. Next Sunday, in commemoration
of the twentieth year after his ascent, they were about to dedicate
a temple to him; in this there was to be a picture showing himself
and his earthly bride on their heavenward journey, in a chariot drawn
by four black and white horses--which, however, Professor Hanky had
positively affirmed to have been only storks.

Here I interrupted my father. “But were there,” I said, “any storks?”

“Yes,” he answered. “As soon as I heard Hanky’s words I remembered that
a flight of some four or five of the large storks so common in Erewhon
during the summer months had been wheeling high aloft in one of those
aërial dances that so much delight them. I had quite forgotten it, but
it came back to me at once that these creatures, attracted doubtless
by what they took to be an unknown kind of bird, swooped down towards
the balloon and circled round it like so many satellites to a heavenly
body. I was fearful lest they should strike at it with their long and
formidable beaks, in which case all would have been soon over; either
they were afraid, or they had satisfied their curiosity--at any rate,
they let us alone; but they kept with us till we were well away from
the capital. Strange, how completely this incident had escaped me.”

I return to my father’s thoughts as he made his way back to his old
camp.

As for the reversed position of Professor Panky’s clothes, he
remembered having given his own old ones to the Queen, and having
thought that she might have got a better dummy on which to display them
than the headless scarecrow, which, however, he supposed was all her
ladies-in-waiting could lay their hands on at the moment. If that dummy
had never been replaced, it was perhaps not very strange that the King
could not at the first glance tell back from front, and if he did not
guess right at first, there was little chance of his changing, for his
first ideas were apt to be his last. But he must find out more about
this.

Then how about the watch? Had their views about machinery also changed?
Or was there an exception made about any machine that he had himself
carried?

Yram too. She must have been married not long after she and he had
parted. So she was now wife to the Mayor, and was evidently able to
have things pretty much her own way in Sunch’ston, as he supposed he
must now call it. Thank heaven she was prosperous! It was interesting
to know that she was at heart a sceptic, as was also her light-haired
son, now Head Ranger. And that son? Just twenty years of age! Born
seven months after marriage! Then the Mayor doubtless had light hair
too; but why did not those wretches say in which month Yram was
married? If she had married soon after he had left, this was why he had
not been sent for or written to. Pray heaven it was so. As for current
gossip, people would talk, and if the lad was well begotten, what could
it matter to them whose son he was? “But,” thought my father, “I am
glad I did not meet him on my way down. I had rather have been killed
by some one else.”

Hanky and Panky again. He remembered Bridgeford as the town where the
Colleges of Unreason had been most rife; he had visited it, but he had
forgotten that it was called “The city of the people who are above
suspicion.” Its Professors were evidently going to muster in great
force on Sunday; if two of them had robbed him, he could forgive them,
for the information he had gleaned from them had furnished him with a
_pied à terre_. Moreover, he had got as much Erewhonian money as he
should want, for he had resolved to retrace his steps immediately after
seeing the temple dedicated to himself. He knew the danger he should
run in returning over the preserves without a permit, but his curiosity
was so great that he resolved to risk it.

Soon after he had passed the statues he began to descend, and it being
now broad day, he did so by leaps and bounds, for the ground was not
precipitous. He reached his old camp soon after five--this, at any
rate, was the hour at which he set his watch on finding that it had
run down during his absence. There was now no reason why he should not
take it with him, so he put it in his pocket. The parrots had attacked
his saddle-bags, saddle, and bridle, as they were sure to do, but
they had not got inside the bags. He took out his English clothes and
put them on--stowing his bags of gold in various pockets, but keeping
his Erewhonian money in the one that was most accessible. He put his
Erewhonian dress back into the saddle-bags, intending to keep it as a
curiosity; he also refreshed the dye upon his hands, face, and hair; he
lit himself a fire, made tea, cooked and ate two brace of quails, which
he had plucked while walking so as to save time, and then flung himself
on to the ground to snatch an hour’s very necessary rest. When he woke
he found he had slept two hours, not one, which was perhaps as well,
and by eight he began to reascend the pass.

He reached the statues about noon, for he allowed himself not a
moment’s rest. This time there was a stiffish wind, and they were
chanting lustily. He passed them with all speed, and had nearly reached
the place where he had caught the quails, when he saw a man in a dress
which he guessed at once to be a ranger’s, but which, strangely enough,
seeing that he was in the King’s employ, was not reversed. My father’s
heart beat fast; he got out his permit and held it open in his hand,
then with a smiling face he went towards the Ranger, who was standing
his ground.

“I believe you are the Head Ranger,” said my father, who saw that he
was still smooth-faced and had light hair. “I am Professor Panky, and
here is my permit. My brother Professor has been prevented from coming
with me, and, as you see, I am alone.”

My father had professed to pass himself off as Panky, for he had rather
gathered that Hanky was the better known man of the two.

While the youth was scrutinising the permit, evidently with suspicion,
my father took stock of him, and saw his own past self in him too
plainly--knowing all he knew--to doubt whose son he was. He had the
greatest difficulty in hiding his emotion, for the lad was indeed one
of whom any father might be proud. He longed to be able to embrace him
and claim him for what he was, but this, as he well knew, might not be.
The tears again welled into his eyes when he told me of the struggle
with himself that he had then had.

“Don’t be jealous, my dearest boy,” he said to me. “I love you quite as
dearly as I love him, or better, but he was sprung upon me so suddenly,
and dazzled me with his comely debonair face, so full of youth, and
health, and frankness. Did you see him, he would go straight to your
heart, for he is wonderfully like you in spite of your taking so much
after your poor mother.”

I was not jealous; on the contrary, I longed to see this youth, and
find in him such a brother as I had often wished to have. But let me
return to my father’s story.

The young man, after examining the permit, declared it to be in form,
and returned it to my father, but he eyed him with polite disfavour.

“I suppose,” he said, “you have come up, as so many are doing, from
Bridgeford and all over the country, to the dedication on Sunday.”

“Yes,” said my father. “Bless me!” he added, “what a wind you have up
here! How it makes one’s eyes water, to be sure;” but he spoke with a
cluck in his throat which no wind that blows can cause.

“Have you met any suspicious characters between here and the statues?”
asked the youth. “I came across the ashes of a fire lower down; there
had been three men sitting for some time round it, and they had all
been eating quails. Here are some of the bones and feathers, which I
shall keep. They had not been gone more than a couple of hours, for the
ashes were still warm; they are getting bolder and bolder--who would
have thought they would dare to light a fire? I suppose you have not
met any one; but if you have seen a single person, let me know.”

My father said quite truly that he had met no one. He then laughingly
asked how the youth had been able to discover as much as he had.

“There were three well-marked forms, and three separate lots of quail
bones hidden in the ashes. One man had done all the plucking. This is
strange, but I dare say I shall get at it later.”

After a little further conversation the Ranger said he was now going
down to Sunch’ston, and, though somewhat curtly, proposed that he and
my father should walk together.

“By all means,” answered my father.

Before they had gone more than a few hundred yards his companion said,
“If you will come with me a little to the left, I can show you the Blue
Pool.”

To avoid the precipitous ground over which the stream here fell, they
had diverged to the right, where they had found a smoother descent;
returning now to the stream, which was about to enter on a level
stretch for some distance, they found themselves on the brink of a
rocky basin, of no great size, but very blue, and evidently deep.

“This,” said the Ranger, “is where our orders tell us to fling any
foreign devil who comes over from the other side. I have only been Head
Ranger about nine months, and have not yet had to face this horrid
duty; but,” and here he smiled, “when I first caught sight of you I
thought I should have to make a beginning. I was very glad when I saw
you had a permit.”

“And how many skeletons do you suppose are lying at the bottom of this
pool?”

“I believe not more than seven or eight in all. There were three or
four about eighteen years ago, and about the same number of late years;
one man was flung here only about three months before I was appointed.
I have the full list, with dates, down in my office, but the rangers
never let people in Sunch’ston know when they have Blue-Pooled any one;
it would unsettle men’s minds, and some of them would be coming up here
in the dark to drag the pool, and see whether they could find anything
on the body.”

My father was glad to turn away from this most repulsive place. After
a time he said, “And what do you good people hereabouts think of next
Sunday’s grand doings?”

Bearing in mind what he had gleaned from the Professors about the
Ranger’s opinions, my father gave a slightly ironical turn to his
pronunciation of the words “grand doings.” The youth glanced at him
with a quick penetrative look, and laughed as he said, “The doings will
be grand enough.”

“What a fine temple they have built,” said my father. “I have not yet
seen the picture, but they say the four black and white horses are
magnificently painted. I saw the Sunchild ascend, but I saw no horses
in the sky, nor anything like horses.”

The youth was much interested. “Did you really see him ascend?” he
asked; “and what, pray, do you think it all was?”

“Whatever it was, there were no horses.”

“But there must have been, for, as you of course know, they have lately
found some droppings from one of them, which have been miraculously
preserved, and they are going to show them next Sunday in a gold
reliquary.”

“I know,” said my father, who, however, was learning the fact for the
first time. “I have not yet seen this precious relic, but I think they
might have found something less unpleasant.”

“Perhaps they would if they could,” replied the youth, laughing, “but
there was nothing else that the horses could leave. It is only a number
of curiously rounded stones, and not at all like what they say it is.”

“Well, well,” continued my father, “but relic or no relic, there are
many who, while they fully recognise the value of the Sunchild’s
teaching, dislike these cock and bull stories as blasphemy against
God’s most blessed gift of reason. There are many in Bridgeford who
hate this story of the horses.”

The youth was now quite reassured. “So there are here, sir,” he said
warmly, “and who hate the Sunchild too. If there is such a hell as he
used to talk about to my mother, we doubt not but that he will be cast
into its deepest fires. See how he has turned us all upside down. But
we dare not say what we think. There is no courage left in Erewhon.”

Then waxing calmer he said, “It is you Bridgeford people and your
Musical Banks that have done it all. The Musical Bank Managers saw
that the people were falling away from them. Finding that the vulgar
believed this foreign devil Higgs--for he gave this name to my mother
when he was in prison--finding that--But you know all this as well as
I do. How can you Bridgeford Professors pretend to believe about these
horses, and about the Sunchild’s being son to the sun, when all the
time you know there is no truth in it?”

“My son--for considering the difference in our ages I may be allowed
to call you so--we at Bridgeford are much like you at Sunch’ston; we
dare not always say what we think. Nor would it be wise to do so, when
we should not be listened to. This fire must burn itself out, for it
has got such hold that nothing can either stay or turn it. Even though
Higgs himself were to return and tell it from the house-tops that he
was a mortal--ay, and a very common one--he would be killed, but not
believed.”

“Let him come; let him show himself, speak out and die, if the people
choose to kill him. In that case I would forgive him, accept him for my
father, as silly people sometimes say he is, and honour him to my dying
day.”

“Would that be a bargain?” said my father, smiling in spite of emotion
so strong that he could hardly bring the words out of his mouth.

“Yes, it would,” said the youth doggedly.

“Then let me shake hands with you on his behalf, and let us change the
conversation.”

He took my father’s hand, doubtfully and somewhat disdainfully, but he
did not refuse it.




CHAPTER VI: FURTHER CONVERSATION BETWEEN FATHER AND SON--THE
PROFESSORS’ HOARD


It is one thing to desire a conversation to be changed, and another to
change it. After some little silence my father said, “And may I ask
what name your mother gave you?”

“My name,” he answered, laughing, “is George, and I wish it were some
other, for it is the first name of that arch-impostor Higgs. I hate it
as I hate the man who owned it.”

My father said nothing, but he hid his face in his hands.

“Sir,” said the other, “I fear you are in some distress.”

“You remind me,” replied my father, “of a son who was stolen from me
when he was a child. I searched for him, during many years, and at last
fell in with him by accident, to find him all the heart of father could
wish. But alas! he did not take kindly to me as I to him, and after two
days he left me; nor shall I ever again see him.”

“Then, sir, had I not better leave you?”

“No, stay with me till your road takes you elsewhere; for though I
cannot see my son, you are so like him that I could almost fancy he
is with me. And now--for I shall show no more weakness--you say your
mother knew the Sunchild, as I am used to call him. Tell me what kind
of a man she found him.”

“She liked him well enough in spite of his being a little silly. She
does not believe he ever called himself child of the sun. He used
to say he had a father in heaven to whom he prayed, and who could
hear him; but he said that all of us, my mother as much as he, have
this unseen father. My mother does not believe he meant doing us any
harm, but only that he wanted to get himself and Mrs. Nosnibor’s
younger daughter out of the country. As for there having been anything
supernatural about the balloon, she will have none of it; she says that
it was some machine which he knew how to make, but which we have lost
the art of making, as we have of many another.

“This is what she says amongst ourselves, but in public she confirms
all that the Musical Bank Managers say about him. She is afraid of
them. You know, perhaps, that Professor Hanky, whose name I see on your
permit, tried to burn her alive?”

“Thank heaven!” thought my father, “that I am Panky;” but aloud he
said, “Oh, horrible! horrible! I cannot believe this even of Hanky.”

“He denies it, and we say we believe him; he was most kind and
attentive to my mother during all the rest of her stay in Bridgeford.
He and she parted excellent friends, but I know what she thinks. I
shall be sure to see him while he is in Sunch’ston, I shall have to be
civil to him but it makes me sick to think of it.”

“When shall you see him?” said my father, who was alarmed at learning
that Hanky and the Ranger were likely to meet. Who could tell but that
he might see Panky too?

“I have been away from home a fortnight, and shall not be back till
late on Saturday night. I do not suppose I shall see him before Sunday.”

“That will do,” thought my father, who at that moment deemed that
nothing would matter to him much when Sunday was over. Then, turning to
the Ranger, he said, “I gather, then, that your mother does not think
so badly of the Sunchild after all?”

“She laughs at him sometimes, but if any of us boys and girls say a
word against him we get snapped up directly. My mother turns every one
round her finger. Her word is law in Sunch’ston; every one obeys her;
she has faced more than one mob, and quelled them when my father could
not do so.”

“I can believe all you say of her. What other children has she besides
yourself?”

“We are four sons, of whom the youngest is now fourteen, and three
daughters.”

“May all health and happiness attend her and you, and all of you,
henceforth and for ever,” and my father involuntarily bared his head as
he spoke.

“Sir,” said the youth, impressed by the fervency of my father’s manner,
“I thank you, but you do not talk as Bridgeford Professors generally
do, so far as I have seen or heard them. Why do you wish us all well so
very heartily? Is it because you think I am like your son, or is there
some other reason?”

“It is not my son alone that you resemble,” said my father tremulously,
for he knew he was going too far. He carried it off by adding, “You
resemble all who love truth and hate lies, as I do.”

“Then, sir,” said the youth gravely, “you much belie your reputation.
And now I must leave you for another part of the preserves, where I
think it likely that last night’s poachers may now be, and where I
shall pass the night in watching for them. You may want your permit for
a few miles further, so I will not take it. Neither need you give it up
at Sunch’ston. It is dated, and will be useless after this evening.”

With this he strode off into the forest, bowing politely but somewhat
coldly, and without encouraging my father’s half proffered hand.

My father turned sad and unsatisfied away.

“It serves me right,” he said to himself; “he ought never to have
been my son; and yet, if such men can be brought by hook or by crook
into the world, surely the world should not ask questions about the
bringing. How cheerless everything looks now that he has left me.”

* * * * *

By this time it was three o’clock, and in another few minutes my father
came upon the ashes of the fire beside which he and the Professors had
supped on the preceding evening. It was only some eighteen hours since
they had come upon him, and yet what an age it seemed! It was well the
Ranger had left him, for though my father, of course, would have known
nothing about either fire or poachers, it might have led to further
falsehood, and by this time he had become exhausted--not to say, for
the time being, sick of lies altogether.

He trudged slowly on, without meeting a soul, until he came upon some
stones that evidently marked the limits of the preserves. When he
had got a mile or so beyond these, he struck a narrow and not much
frequented path, which he was sure would lead him towards Sunch’ston,
and soon afterwards, seeing a huge old chestnut tree some thirty or
forty yards from the path itself, he made towards it and flung himself
on the ground beneath its branches. There were abundant signs that he
was nearing farm lands and homesteads, but there was no one about,
and if any one saw him there was nothing in his appearance to arouse
suspicion.

He determined, therefore, to rest here till hunger should wake him, and
drive him into Sunch’ston, which, however, he did not wish to reach
till dusk if he could help it. He meant to buy a valise and a few
toilette necessaries before the shops should close, and then engage a
bedroom at the least frequented inn he could find that looked fairly
clean and comfortable.

He slept till nearly six, and on waking gathered his thoughts together.
He could not shake his newly found son from out of them, but there was
no good in dwelling upon him now, and he turned his thoughts to the
Professors. How, he wondered, were they getting on, and what had they
done with the things they had bought from him?

“How delightful it would be,” he said to himself, “if I could find
where they have hidden their hoard, and hide it somewhere else.”

He tried to project his mind into those of the Professors, as though
they were a team of straying bullocks whose probable action he must
determine before he set out to look for them.

On reflection, he concluded that the hidden property was not likely
to be far from the spot on which he now was. The Professors would
wait till they had got some way down towards Sunch’ston, so as to
have readier access to their property when they wanted to remove
it; but when they came upon a path and other signs that inhabited
dwellings could not be far distant, they would begin to look out for
a hiding-place. And they would take pretty well the first that came.
“Why, bless my heart,” he exclaimed, “this tree is hollow; I wonder
whether--” and on looking up he saw an innocent little strip of the
very tough fibrous leaf commonly used while green as string, or even
rope, by the Erewhonians. The plant that makes this leaf is so like
the ubiquitous New Zealand _Phormium tenax_, or flax, as it is there
called, that I shall speak of it as flax in future, as indeed I have
already done without explanation on an earlier page; for this plant
grows on both sides of the great range. The piece of flax, then, which
my father caught sight of was fastened, at no great height from the
ground, round the branch of a strong sucker that had grown from the
roots of the chestnut tree, and going thence for a couple of feet or so
towards the place where the parent tree became hollow, it disappeared
into the cavity below. My father had little difficulty in swarming the
sucker till he reached the bough on to which the flax was tied, and
soon found himself hauling up something from the bottom of the tree.
In less time than it takes to tell the tale he saw his own familiar
red blanket begin to show above the broken edge of the hollow, and in
another second there was a clinkum-clankum as the bundle fell upon
the ground. This was caused by the billy and the pannikin, which were
wrapped inside the blanket. As for the blanket, it had been tied
tightly at both ends, as well as at several points between, and my
father inwardly complimented the Professors on the neatness with which
they had packed and hidden their purchase. “But,” he said to himself
with a laugh, “I think one of them must have got on the other’s back to
reach that bough.”

“Of course,” thought he, “they will have taken the nuggets with them.”
And yet he had seemed to hear a dumping as well as a clinkum-clankum.
He undid the blanket, carefully untying every knot and keeping the
flax. When he had unrolled it, he found to his very pleasurable
surprise that the pannikin was inside the billy, and the nuggets with
the receipt inside the pannikin. The paper containing the tea having
been torn, was wrapped up in a handkerchief marked with Hanky’s name.

“Down, conscience, down!” he exclaimed as he transferred the nuggets,
receipt, and handkerchief to his own pocket. “Eye of my soul that you
are! if you offend me I must pluck you out.” His conscience feared him
and said nothing. As for the tea, he left it in its torn paper.

He then put the billy, pannikin, and tea, back again inside the
blanket, which he tied neatly up, tie for tie with the Professor’s own
flax, leaving no sign of any disturbance. He again swarmed the sucker,
till he reached the bough to which the blanket and its contents had
been made fast, and having attached the bundle, he dropped it back into
the hollow of the tree. He did everything quite leisurely, for the
Professors would be sure to wait till nightfall before coming to fetch
their property away.

“If I take nothing but the nuggets,” he argued, “each of the Professors
will suspect the other of having conjured them into his own pocket
while the bundle was being made up. As for the handkerchief, they must
think what they like; but it will puzzle Hanky to know why Panky should
have been so anxious for a receipt, if he meant stealing the nuggets.
Let them muddle it out their own way.”

Reflecting further, he concluded, perhaps rightly, that they had left
the nuggets where he had found them, because neither could trust the
other not to filch a few, if he had them in his own possession, and
they could not make a nice division without a pair of scales. “At any
rate,” he said to himself, “there will be a pretty quarrel when they
find them gone.”

Thus charitably did he brood over things that were not to happen.
The discovery of the Professors’ hoard had refreshed him almost as
much as his sleep had done, and it being now past seven, he lit his
pipe--which, however, he smoked as furtively as he had done when he
was a boy at school, for he knew not whether smoking had yet become an
Erewhonian virtue or no--and walked briskly on towards Sunch’ston.




CHAPTER VII: SIGNS OF THE NEW ORDER OF THINGS CATCH MY FATHER’S EYE ON
EVERY SIDE


He had not gone far before a turn in the path--now rapidly
widening--showed him two high towers, seemingly some two miles off;
these he felt sure must be at Sunch’ston, he therefore stepped out,
lest he should find the shops shut before he got there.

On his former visit he had seen little of the town, for he was in
prison during his whole stay. He had had a glimpse of it on being
brought there by the people of the village where he had spent his
first night in Erewhon--a village which he had seen at some little
distance on his right hand, but which it would have been out of his way
to visit, even if he had wished to do so; and he had seen the Museum
of old machines, but on leaving the prison he had been blindfolded.
Nevertheless he felt sure that if the towers had been there he should
have seen them, and rightly guessed that they must belong to the temple
which was to be dedicated to himself on Sunday.

When he had passed through the suburbs he found himself in the main
street. Space will not allow me to dwell on more than a few of the
things which caught his eye, and assured him that the change in
Erewhonian habits and opinions had been even more cataclysmic than
he had already divined. The first important building that he came to
proclaimed itself as the College of Spiritual Athletics, and in the
window of a shop that was evidently affiliated to the college he saw
an announcement that moral try-your-strengths, suitable for every kind
of ordinary temptation, would be provided on the shortest notice. Some
of those that aimed at the more common kinds of temptation were kept
in stock, but these consisted chiefly of trials to the temper. On
dropping, for example, a penny into a slot, you could have a jet of
fine pepper, flour, or brickdust, whichever you might prefer, thrown on
to your face, and thus discover whether your composure stood in need
of further development or no. My father gathered this from the writing
that was pasted on to the try-your-strength, but he had no time to go
inside the shop and test either the machine or his own temper. Other
temptations to irritability required the agency of living people,
or at any rate living beings. Crying children, screaming parrots, a
spiteful monkey, might be hired on ridiculously easy terms. He saw one
advertisement, nicely framed, which ran as follows:-

   “Mrs. Tantrums, Nagger, certificated by the College of Spiritual
   Athletics. Terms for ordinary nagging, two shillings and sixpence per
   hour. Hysterics extra.”

Then followed a series of testimonials--for example:-

   “Dear Mrs. Tantrums,--I have for years been tortured with a husband of
   unusually peevish, irritable temper, who made my life so intolerable
   that I sometimes answered him in a way that led to his using personal
   violence towards me. After taking a course of twelve sittings from
   you, I found my husband’s temper comparatively angelic, and we have
   ever since lived together in complete harmony.”

Another was from a husband:-

   “Mr. --- presents his compliments to Mrs. Tantrums, and begs to assure
   her that her extra special hysterics have so far surpassed anything
   his wife can do, as to render him callous to those attacks which he
   had formerly found so distressing.”

There were many others of a like purport, but time did not permit my
father to do more than glance at them. He contented himself with the two
following, of which the first ran:-

   “He did try it at last. A little correction of the right kind taken
   at the right moment is invaluable. No more swearing. No more bad
   language of any kind. A lamb-like temper ensured in about twenty
   minutes, by a single dose of one of our spiritual indigestion
   tabloids. In cases of all the more ordinary moral ailments, from
   simple lying, to homicidal mania, in cases again of tendency to
   hatred, malice, and uncharitableness; of atrophy or hypertrophy of the
   conscience, of costiveness or diarrhoea of the sympathetic instincts,
   &c., &c., our spiritual indigestion tabloids will afford unfailing and
   immediate relief.

   “_N.B_.--A bottle or two of our Sunchild Cordial will assist the
   operation of the tabloids.”

The second and last that I can give was as follows:-

   “All else is useless. If you wish to be a social success, make
   yourself a good listener. There is no short cut to this. A would-be
   listener must learn the rudiments of his art and go through the mill
   like other people. If he would develop a power of suffering fools
   gladly, he must begin by suffering them without the gladness.
   Professor Proser, ex-straightener, certificated bore, pragmatic or
   coruscating, with or without anecdotes, attends pupils at their own
   houses. Terms moderate.

   “Mrs. Proser, whose success as a professional mind-dresser is so well-
   known that lengthened advertisement is unnecessary, prepares ladies or
   gentlemen with appropriate remarks to be made at dinner-parties or at-
   homes. Mrs. P. keeps herself well up to date with all the latest
   scandals.”

“Poor, poor, straighteners!” said my father to himself. “Alas! that it
should have been my fate to ruin you--for I suppose your occupation is
gone.”

Tearing himself away from the College of Spiritual Athletics and its
affiliated shop, he passed on a few doors, only to find himself looking
in at what was neither more nor less than a chemist’s shop. In the
window there were advertisements which showed that the practice of
medicine was now legal, but my father could not stay to copy a single
one of the fantastic announcements that a hurried glance revealed to
him.

It was also plain here, as from the shop already more fully described,
that the edicts against machines had been repealed, for there were
physical try-your-strengths, as in the other shop there had been moral
ones, and such machines under the old law would not have been tolerated
for a moment.

My father made his purchases just as the last shops were closing.
He noticed that almost all of them were full of articles labelled
“Dedication.” There was Dedication gingerbread, stamped with a moulded
representation of the new temple; there were Dedication syrups,
Dedication pocket-handkerchiefs, also shewing the temple, and in one
corner giving a highly idealised portrait of my father himself. The
chariot and the horses figured largely, and in the confectioners’ shops
there were models of the newly discovered relic--made, so my father
thought, with a little heap of cherries or strawberries, smothered in
chocolate. Outside one tailor’s shop he saw a flaring advertisement
which can only be translated, “Try our Dedication trousers, price ten
shillings and sixpence.”

Presently he passed the new temple, but it was too dark for him to
do more than see that it was a vast fane, and must have cost an
untold amount of money. At every turn he found himself more and more
shocked, as he realised more and more fully the mischief he had already
occasioned, and the certainty that this was small as compared with that
which would grow up hereafter.

“What,” he said to me, very coherently and quietly, “was I to do? I
had struck a bargain with that dear fellow, though he knew not what I
meant, to the effect that I should try to undo the harm I had done, by
standing up before the people on Sunday and saying who I was. True,
they would not believe me. They would look at my hair and see it black,
whereas it should be very light. On this they would look no further,
but very likely tear me in pieces then and there. Suppose that the
authorities held a _post-mortem_ examination, and that many who knew
me (let alone that all my measurements and marks were recorded twenty
years ago) identified the body as mine: would those in power admit that
I was the Sunchild? Not they. The interests vested in my being now in
the palace of the sun are too great to allow of my having been torn to
pieces in Sunch’ston, no matter how truly I had been torn; the whole
thing would be hushed up, and the utmost that could come of it would be
a heresy which would in time be crushed.

“On the other hand, what business have I with ‘would be’ or ‘would not
be?’ Should I not speak out, come what may, when I see a whole people
being led astray by those who are merely exploiting them for their own
ends? Though I could do but little, ought I not to do that little? What
did that good fellow’s instinct--so straight from heaven, so true, so
healthy--tell him? What did my own instinct answer? What would the
conscience of any honourable man answer? Who can doubt?

“And yet, is there not reason? and is it not God-given as much as
instinct? I remember having heard an anthem in my young days, ‘O
where shall wisdom be found? the deep saith it is not in me.’ As the
singers kept on repeating the question, I kept on saying sorrowfully
to myself--‘Ah, where, where, where?’ and when the triumphant answer
came, ‘The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is
understanding,’ I shrunk ashamed into myself for not having foreseen
it. In later life, when I have tried to use this answer as a light by
which I could walk, I found it served but to the raising of another
question, ‘What is the fear of the Lord, and what is evil in this
particular case?’ And my easy method with spiritual dilemmas proved to
be but a case of _ignotum per ignotius_.

“If Satan himself is at times transformed into an angel of light, are
not angels of light sometimes transformed into the likeness of Satan?
If the devil is not so black as he is painted, is God always so white?
And is there not another place in which it is said, ‘The fear of the
Lord is the beginning of wisdom,’ as though it were not the last word
upon the subject? If a man should not do evil that good may come, so
neither should he do good that evil may come; and though it were good
for me to speak out, should I not do better by refraining?

“Such were the lawless and uncertain thoughts that tortured me very
cruelly, so that I did what I had not done for many a long year--I
prayed for guidance. ‘Shew me Thy will, O Lord,’ I cried in great
distress, ‘and strengthen me to do it when Thou hast shewn it me.’
But there was no answer. Instinct tore me one way and reason another.
Whereon I settled that I would obey the reason with which God had
endowed me, unless the instinct He had also given me should thrash it
out of me. I could get no further than this, that the Lord hath mercy
on whom He will have mercy, and whom He willeth He hardeneth; and again
I prayed that I might be among those on whom He would shew His mercy.

“This was the strongest internal conflict that I ever remember to have
felt, and it was at the end of it that I perceived the first, but
as yet very faint, symptoms of that sickness from which I shall not
recover. Whether this be a token of mercy or no, my Father which is in
heaven knows, but I know not.”

From what my father afterwards told me, I do not think the above
reflections had engrossed him for more than three or four minutes;
the giddiness which had for some seconds compelled him to lay hold of
the first thing he could catch at in order to avoid falling, passed
away without leaving a trace behind it, and his path seemed to become
comfortably clear before him. He settled it that the proper thing to
do would be to buy some food, start back at once while his permit
was still valid, help himself to the property which he had sold the
Professors, leaving the Erewhonians to wrestle as they best might with
the lot that it had pleased Heaven to send them.

This, however, was too heroic a course. He was tired, and wanted a
night’s rest in a bed; he was hungry, and wanted a substantial meal; he
was curious, moreover, to see the temple dedicated to himself, and hear
Hanky’s sermon; there was also this further difficulty, he should have
to take what he had sold the Professors without returning them their
£4, 10s., for he could not do without his blanket, &c.; and even
if he left a bag of nuggets made fast to the sucker, he must either
place it where it could be seen so easily that it would very likely
get stolen, or hide it so cleverly that the Professors would never
find it. He therefore compromised by concluding that he would sup and
sleep in Sunch’ston, get through the morrow as he best could without
attracting attention, deepen the stain on his face and hair, and rely
on the change so made in his appearance to prevent his being recognised
at the dedication of the temple. He would do nothing to disillusion
the people--to do this would only be making bad worse. As soon as the
service was over, he would set out towards the preserves, and, when
it was well dark, make for the statues. He hoped that on such a great
day the rangers might be many of them in Sunch’ston; if there were any
about, he must trust the moonless night and his own quick eyes and ears
to get him through the preserves safely.

The shops were by this time closed, but the keepers of a few stalls
were trying by lamplight to sell the wares they had not yet got rid of.
One of these was a bookstall, and, running his eye over some of the
volumes, my father saw one entitled--

   “The Sayings of the Sunchild during his stay in Erewhon, to which is
   added a true account of his return to the palace of the sun with his
   Erewhonian bride. This is the only version authorised by the
   Presidents and Vice-Presidents of the Musical Banks; all other
   versions being imperfect and inaccurate.--Bridgeford, XVIII., 150 pp.
   8vo. Price 3s.

The reader will understand that I am giving the prices as nearly as I can
in their English equivalents. Another title was--

   “The Sacrament of Divorce: an Occasional Sermon preached by Dr.
   Gurgoyle, President of the Musical Banks for the Province of
   Sunch’ston. 8vo, 16 pp. 6d.

Other titles ran--

   “Counsels of Imperfection.” 8vo, 20 pp. 6d.

   “Hygiene; or, How to Diagnose your Doctor. 8vo, 10 pp. 3d.

   “The Physics of Vicarious Existence,” by Dr. Gurgoyle, President of
   the Musical Banks for the Province of Sunch’ston. 8vo, 20 pp. 6d.

There were many other books whose titles would probably have attracted
my father as much as those that I have given, but he was too tired and
hungry to look at more. Finding that he could buy all the foregoing for
4s. 9d., he bought them and stuffed them into the valise that he had
just bought. His purchases in all had now amounted to a little over £1,
10s. (silver), leaving him about £3 (silver), including the money for
which he had sold the quails, to carry him on till Sunday afternoon. He
intended to spend say £2 (silver), and keep the rest of the money in
order to give it to the British Museum.

He now began to search for an inn, and walked about the less fashionable
parts of the town till he found an unpretending tavern, which he thought
would suit him. Here, on importunity, he was given a servant’s room at
the top of the house, all others being engaged by visitors who had come
for the dedication. He ordered a meal, of which he stood in great need,
and having eaten it, he retired early for the night. But he smoked a
pipe surreptitiously up the chimney before he got into bed.

Meanwhile other things were happening, of which, happily for his repose,
he was still ignorant, and which he did not learn till a few days later.
Not to depart from chronological order I will deal with them in my next
chapter.




CHAPTER VIII: YRAM, NOW MAYORESS, GIVES A DINNER-PARTY, IN THE COURSE OF
WHICH SHE IS DISQUIETED BY WHAT SHE LEARNS FROM PROFESSOR HANKY: SHE
SENDS FOR HER SON GEORGE AND QUESTIONS HIM


The Professors, returning to their hotel early on the Friday morning,
found a note from the Mayoress urging them to be her guests during the
remainder of their visit, and to meet other friends at dinner on this
same evening. They accepted, and then went to bed; for they had passed
the night under the tree in which they had hidden their purchase, and, as
may be imagined, had slept but little. They rested all day, and
transferred themselves and their belongings to the Mayor’s house in time
to dress for dinner.

When they came down into the drawing-room they found a brilliant company
assembled, chiefly Musical-Bankical like themselves. There was Dr.
Downie, Professor of Logomachy, and perhaps the most subtle dialectician
in Erewhon. He could say nothing in more words than any man of his
generation. His text-book on the “Art of Obscuring Issues” had passed
through ten or twelve editions, and was in the hands of all aspirants for
academic distinction. He had earned a high reputation for sobriety of
judgement by resolutely refusing to have definite views on any subject;
so safe a man was he considered, that while still quite young he had been
appointed to the lucrative post of Thinker in Ordinary to the Royal
Family. There was Mr. Principal Crank, with his sister Mrs. Quack;
Professors Gabb and Bawl, with their wives and two or three erudite
daughters.

Old Mrs. Humdrum (of whom more anon) was there of course, with her
venerable white hair and rich black satin dress, looking the very ideal
of all that a stately old dowager ought to be. In society she was
commonly known as Ydgrun, so perfectly did she correspond with the
conception of this strange goddess formed by the Erewhonians. She was
one of those who had visited my father when he was in prison twenty years
earlier. When he told me that she was now called Ydgrun, he said, “I am
sure that the Erinyes were only Mrs. Humdrums, and that they were
delightful people when you came to know them. I do not believe they did
the awful things we say they did. I think, but am not quite sure, that
they let Orestes off; but even though they had not pardoned him, I doubt
whether they would have done anything more dreadful to him than issue a
_mot d’ordre_ that he was not to be asked to any more afternoon teas.
This, however, would be down-right torture to some people. At any rate,”
he continued, “be it the Erinyes, or Mrs. Grundy, or Ydgrun, in all times
and places it is woman who decides whether society is to condone an
offence or no.”

Among the most attractive ladies present was one for whose Erewhonian
name I can find no English equivalent, and whom I must therefore call
Miss La Frime. She was Lady President of the principal establishment for
the higher education of young ladies, and so celebrated was she, that
pupils flocked to her from all parts of the surrounding country. Her
primer (written for the Erewhonian Arts and Science Series) on the Art of
Man-killing, was the most complete thing of the kind that had yet been
done; but ill-natured people had been heard to say that she had killed
all her own admirers so effectually that not one of them had ever lived
to marry her. According to Erewhonian custom the successful marriages of
the pupils are inscribed yearly on the oak paneling of the college
refectory, and a reprint from these in pamphlet form accompanies all the
prospectuses that are sent out to parents. It was alleged that no other
ladies’ seminary in Erewhon could show such a brilliant record during all
the years of Miss La Frime’s presidency. Many other guests of less note
were there, but the lions of the evening were the two Professors whom we
have already met with, and more particularly Hanky, who took the Mayoress
in to dinner. Panky, of course, wore his clothes reversed, as did
Principal Crank and Professor Gabb; the others were dressed English
fashion.

Everything hung upon the hostess, for the host was little more than a
still handsome figure-head. He had been remarkable for his good looks as
a young man, and Strong is the nearest approach I can get to a
translation of his Erewhonian name. His face inspired confidence at
once, but he was a man of few words, and had little of that grace which
in his wife set every one instantly at his or her ease. He knew that all
would go well so long as he left everything to her, and kept himself as
far as might be in the background.

Before dinner was announced there was the usual buzz of conversation,
chiefly occupied with salutations, good wishes for Sunday’s weather, and
admiration for the extreme beauty of the Mayoress’s three daughters, the
two elder of whom were already out; while the third, though only
thirteen, might have passed for a year or two older. Their mother was so
much engrossed with receiving her guests that it was not till they were
all at table that she was able to ask Hanky what he thought of the
statues, which she had heard that he and Professor Panky had been to see.
She was told how much interested he had been with them, and how unable he
had been to form any theory as to their date or object. He then added,
appealing to Panky, who was on the Mayoress’s left hand, “but we had
rather a strange adventure on our way down, had we not, Panky? We got
lost, and were benighted in the forest. Happily we fell in with one of
the rangers who had lit a fire.”

“Do I understand, then,” said Yram, as I suppose we may as well call her,
“that you were out all last night? How tired you must be! But I hope
you had enough provisions with you?”

“Indeed we were out all night. We staid by the ranger’s fire till
midnight, and then tried to find our way down, but we gave it up soon
after we had got out of the forest, and then waited under a large
chestnut tree till four or five this morning. As for food, we had not so
much as a mouthful from about three in the afternoon till we got to our
inn early this morning.”

“Oh, you poor, poor people! how tired you must be.”

“No; we made a good breakfast as soon as we got in, and then went to bed,
where we staid till it was time for us to come to your house.”

Here Panky gave his friend a significant look, as much as to say that he
had said enough.

This set Hanky on at once. “Strange to say, the ranger was wearing the
old Erewhonian dress. It did me good to see it again after all these
years. It seems your son lets his men wear what few of the old clothes
they may still have, so long as they keep well away from the town. But
fancy how carefully these poor fellows husband them; why, it must be
seventeen years since the dress was forbidden!”

We all of us have skeletons, large or small, in some cupboard of our
lives, but a well regulated skeleton that will stay in its cupboard
quietly does not much matter. There are skeletons, however, which can
never be quite trusted not to open the cupboard door at some awkward
moment, go down stairs, ring the hall-door bell, with grinning face
announce themselves as the skeleton, and ask whether the master or
mistress is at home. This kind of skeleton, though no bigger than a
rabbit, will sometimes loom large as that of a dinotherium. My father
was Yram’s skeleton. True, he was a mere skeleton of a skeleton, for the
chances were thousands to one that he and my mother had perished long
years ago; and even though he rang at the bell, there was no harm that he
either could or would now do to her or hers; still, so long as she did
not certainly know that he was dead, or otherwise precluded from
returning, she could not be sure that he would not one day come back by
the way that he would alone know, and she had rather he should not do so.

Hence, on hearing from Professor Hanky that a man had been seen between
the statues and Sunch’ston wearing the old Erewhonian dress, she was
disquieted and perplexed. The excuse he had evidently made to the
Professors aggravated her uneasiness, for it was an obvious attempt to
escape from an unexpected difficulty. There could be no truth in it. Her
son would as soon think of wearing the old dress himself as of letting
his men do so; and as for having old clothes still to wear out after
seventeen years, no one but a Bridgeford Professor would accept this. She
saw, therefore, that she must keep her wits about her, and lead her
guests on to tell her as much as they could be induced to do.

“My son,” she said innocently, “is always considerate to his men, and
that is why they are so devoted to him. I wonder which of them it was?
In what part of the preserves did you fall in with him?”

Hanky described the place, and gave the best idea he could of my father’s
appearance.

“Of course he was swarthy like the rest of us?”

“I saw nothing remarkable about him, except that his eyes were blue and
his eyelashes nearly white, which, as you know, is rare in Erewhon.
Indeed, I do not remember ever before to have seen a man with dark hair
and complexion but light eyelashes. Nature is always doing something
unusual.”

“I have no doubt,” said Yram, “that he was the man they call Blacksheep,
but I never noticed this peculiarity in him. If he was Blacksheep, I am
afraid you must have found him none too civil; he is a rough diamond, and
you would hardly be able to understand his uncouth Sunch’ston dialect.”

“On the contrary, he was most kind and thoughtful--even so far as to take
our permit from us, and thus save us the trouble of giving it up at your
son’s office. As for his dialect, his grammar was often at fault, but we
could quite understand him.”

“I am glad to hear he behaved better than I could have expected. Did he
say in what part of the preserves he had been?”

“He had been catching quails between the place where we saw him and the
statues; he was to deliver three dozen to your son this afternoon for the
Mayor’s banquet on Sunday.”

This was worse and worse. She had urged her son to provide her with a
supply of quails for Sunday’s banquet, but he had begged her not to
insist on having them. There was no close time for them in Erewhon, but
he set his face against their being seen at table in spring and summer.
During the winter, when any great occasion arose, he had allowed a few
brace to be provided.

“I asked my son to let me have some,” said Yram, who was now on full
scent. She laughed genially as she added, “Can you throw any light upon
the question whether I am likely to get my three dozen? I have had no
news as yet.”

“The man had taken a good many; we saw them but did not count them. He
started about midnight for the ranger’s shelter, where he said he should
sleep till daybreak, so as to make up his full tale betimes.”

Yram had heard her son complain that there were no shelters on the
preserves, and state his intention of having some built before the
winter. Here too, then, the man’s story must be false. She changed the
conversation for the moment, but quietly told a servant to send high and
low in search of her son, and if he could be found, to bid him come to
her at once. She then returned to her previous subject.

“And did not this heartless wretch, knowing how hungry you must both be,
let you have a quail or two as an act of pardonable charity?”

“My dear Mayoress, how can you ask such a question? We knew you would
want all you could get; moreover, our permit threatened us with all sorts
of horrors if we so much as ate a single quail. I assure you we never
even allowed a thought of eating one of them to cross our minds.”

“Then,” said Yram to herself, “they gorged upon them.” What could she
think? A man who wore the old dress, and therefore who had almost
certainly been in Erewhon, but had been many years away from it; who
spoke the language well, but whose grammar was defective--hence, again,
one who had spent some time in Erewhon; who knew nothing of the
afforesting law now long since enacted, for how else would he have dared
to light a fire and be seen with quails in his possession; an adroit
liar, who on gleaning information from the Professors had hazarded an
excuse for immediately retracing his steps; a man, too, with blue eyes
and light eyelashes. What did it matter about his hair being dark and
his complexion swarthy--Higgs was far too clever to attempt a second
visit to Erewhon without dyeing his hair and staining his face and hands.
And he had got their permit out of the Professors before he left them;
clearly, then, he meant coming back, and coming back at once before the
permit had expired. How could she doubt? My father, she felt sure, must
by this time be in Sunch’ston. He would go back to change his clothes,
which would not be very far down on the other side the pass, for he would
not put on his old Erewhonian dress till he was on the point of entering
Erewhon; and he would hide his English dress rather than throw it away,
for he would want it when he went back again. It would be quite
possible, then, for him to get through the forest before the permit was
void, and he would be sure to go on to Sunch’ston for the night.

She chatted unconcernedly, now with one guest now with another, while
they in their turn chatted unconcernedly with one another.

Miss La Frime to Mrs. Humdrum: “You know how he got his professorship?
No? I thought every one knew that. The question the candidates had to
answer was, whether it was wiser during a long stay at a hotel to tip the
servants pretty early, or to wait till the stay was ended. All the other
candidates took one side or the other, and argued their case in full.
Hanky sent in three lines to the effect that the proper thing to do would
be to promise at the beginning, and go away without giving. The King,
with whom the appointment rested, was so much pleased with this answer
that he gave Hanky the professorship without so much as looking . . . ”

Professor Gabb to Mrs. Humdrum: “Oh no, I can assure you there is no
truth in it. What happened was this. There was the usual crowd, and the
people cheered Professor after Professor, as he stood before them in the
great Bridgeford theatre and satisfied them that a lump of butter which
had been put into his mouth would not melt in it. When Hanky’s turn came
he was taken suddenly unwell, and had to leave the theatre, on which
there was a report in the house that the butter had melted; this was at
once stopped by the return of the Professor. Another piece of butter was
put into his mouth, and on being taken out after the usual time, was
found to shew no signs of having . . . ”

Miss Bawl to Mr. Principal Crank: . . . “The Manager was so tall, you
know, and then there was that little mite of an assistant manager--it
_was_ so funny. For the assistant manager’s voice was ever so much
louder than the . . . ”

Mrs. Bawl to Professor Gabb: . . . “Live for art! If I had to choose
whether I would lose either art or science, I have not the smallest
hesitation in saying that I would lose . . . ”

The Mayor and Dr. Downie: . . . “That you are to be canonised at the
close of the year along with Professors Hanky and Panky?”

“I believe it is his Majesty’s intention that the Professors and myself
are to head the list of the Sunchild’s Saints, but we have all of us got
to . . . ”

And so on, and so on, buzz, buzz, buzz, over the whole table. Presently
Yram turned to Hanky and said--

“By the way, Professor, you must have found it very cold up at the
statues, did you not? But I suppose the snow is all gone by this time?”

“Yes, it was cold, and though the winter’s snow is melted, there had been
a recent fall. Strange to say, we saw fresh footprints in it, as of some
one who had come up from the other side. But thereon hangs a tale, about
which I believe I should say nothing.”

“Then say nothing, my dear Professor,” said Yram with a frank smile.
“Above all,” she added quietly and gravely, “say nothing to the Mayor,
nor to my son, till after Sunday. Even a whisper of some one coming over
from the other side disquiets them, and they have enough on hand for the
moment.”

Panky, who had been growing more and more restive at his friend’s
outspokenness, but who had encouraged it more than once by vainly trying
to check it, was relieved at hearing his hostess do for him what he could
not do for himself. As for Yram, she had got enough out of the Professor
to be now fully dissatisfied, and mentally informed them that they might
leave the witness-box. During the rest of dinner she let the subject of
their adventure severely alone.

It seemed to her as though dinner was never going to end; but in the
course of time it did so, and presently the ladies withdrew. As they
were entering the drawing-room a servant told her that her son had been
found more easily than was expected, and was now in his own room
dressing.

“Tell him,” she said, “to stay there till I come, which I will do
directly.”

She remained for a few minutes with her guests, and then, excusing
herself quietly to Mrs. Humdrum, she stepped out and hastened to her
son’s room. She told him that Professors Hanky and Panky were staying in
the house, and that during dinner they had told her something he ought to
know, but which there was no time to tell him until her guests were gone.
“I had rather,” she said, “tell you about it before you see the
Professors, for if you see them the whole thing will be reopened, and you
are sure to let them see how much more there is in it than they suspect.
I want everything hushed up for the moment; do not, therefore, join us.
Have dinner sent to you in your father’s study. I will come to you about
midnight.”

“But, my dear mother,” said George, “I have seen Panky already. I walked
down with him a good long way this afternoon.”

Yram had not expected this, but she kept her countenance. “How did you
know,” said she, “that he was Professor Panky? Did he tell you so?”

“Certainly he did. He showed me his permit, which was made out in favour
of Professors Hanky and Panky, or either of them. He said Hanky had been
unable to come with him, and that he was himself Professor Panky.”

Yram again smiled very sweetly. “Then, my dear boy,” she said, “I am all
the more anxious that you should not see him now. See nobody but the
servants and your brothers, and wait till I can enlighten you. I must
not stay another moment; but tell me this much, have you seen any signs
of poachers lately?”

“Yes; there were three last night.”

“In what part of the preserves?”

Her son described the place.

“You are sure they had been killing quails?”

“Yes, and eating them--two on one side of a fire they had lit, and one on
the other; this last man had done all the plucking.”

“Good!”

She kissed him with more than even her usual tenderness, and returned to
the drawing-room.

During the rest of the evening she was engaged in earnest conversation
with Mrs. Humdrum, leaving her other guests to her daughters and to
themselves. Mrs. Humdrum had been her closest friend for many years, and
carried more weight than any one else in Sunch’ston, except, perhaps,
Yram herself. “Tell him everything,” she said to Yram at the close of
their conversation; “we all dote upon him; trust him frankly, as you
trusted your husband before you let him marry you. No lies, no reserve,
no tears, and all will come right. As for me, command me,” and the good
old lady rose to take her leave with as kind a look on her face as ever
irradiated saint or angel. “I go early,” she added, “for the others will
go when they see me do so, and the sooner you are alone the better.”

By half an hour before midnight her guests had gone. Hanky and Panky
were given to understand that they must still be tired, and had better go
to bed. So was the Mayor; so were her sons and daughters, except of
course George, who was waiting for her with some anxiety, for he had seen
that she had something serious to tell him. Then she went down into the
study. Her son embraced her as she entered, and moved an easy chair for
her, but she would not have it.

“No; I will have an upright one.” Then, sitting composedly down on the
one her son placed for her, she said--

“And now to business. But let me first tell you that the Mayor was told,
twenty years ago, all the more important part of what you will now hear.
He does not yet know what has happened within the last few hours, but
either you or I will tell him to-morrow.”




CHAPTER IX: INTERVIEW BETWEEN YRAM AND HER SON


“What did you think of Panky?”

“I could not make him out. If he had not been a Bridgeford Professor I
might have liked him; but you know how we all of us distrust those
people.”

“Where did you meet him?”

“About two hours lower down than the statues.”

“At what o’clock?”

“It might be between two and half-past.”

“I suppose he did not say that at that hour he was in bed at his hotel in
Sunch’ston. Hardly! Tell me what passed between you.”

“He had his permit open before we were within speaking distance. I think
he feared I should attack him without making sure whether he was a
foreign devil or no. I have told you he said he was Professor Panky.”

“I suppose he had a dark complexion and black hair like the rest of us?”

“Dark complexion and hair purplish rather than black. I was surprised to
see that his eyelashes were as light as my own, and his eyes were blue
like mine--but you will have noticed this at dinner.”

“No, my dear, I did not, and I think I should have done so if it had been
there to notice.”

“Oh, but it was so indeed.”

“Perhaps. Was there anything strange about his way of talking?”

“A little about his grammar, but these Bridgeford Professors have often
risen from the ranks. His pronunciation was nearly like yours and mine.”

“Was his manner friendly?”

“Very; more so than I could understand at first. I had not, however,
been with him long before I saw tears in his eyes, and when I asked him
whether he was in distress, he said I reminded him of a son whom he had
lost and had found after many years, only to lose him almost immediately
for ever. Hence his cordiality towards me.”

“Then,” said Yram half hysterically to herself, “he knew who you were.
Now, how, I wonder, did he find that out?” All vestige of doubt as to
who the man might be had now left her.

“Certainly he knew who I was. He spoke about you more than once, and
wished us every kind of prosperity, baring his head reverently as he
spoke.”

“Poor fellow! Did he say anything about Higgs?”

“A good deal, and I was surprised to find he thought about it all much as
we do. But when I said that if I could go down into the hell of which
Higgs used to talk to you while he was in prison, I should expect to find
him in its hottest fires, he did not like it.”

“Possibly not, my dear. Did you tell him how the other boys, when you
were at school, used sometimes to say you were son to this man Higgs, and
that the people of Sunch’ston used to say so also, till the Mayor
trounced two or three people so roundly that they held their tongues for
the future?”

“Not all that, but I said that silly people had believed me to be the
Sunchild’s son, and what a disgrace I should hold it to be son to such an
impostor.”

“What did he say to this?”

“He asked whether I should feel the disgrace less if Higgs were to undo
the mischief he had caused by coming back and shewing himself to the
people for what he was. But he said it would be no use for him to do so,
inasmuch as people would kill him but would not believe him.”

“And you said?”

“Let him come back, speak out, and chance what might befall him. In that
case, I should honour him, father or no father.”

“And he?”

“He asked if that would be a bargain; and when I said it would, he
grasped me warmly by the hand on Higgs’s behalf--though what it could
matter to him passes my comprehension.”

“But he saw that even though Higgs were to shew himself and say who he
was, it would mean death to himself and no good to any one else?”

“Perfectly.”

“Then he can have meant nothing by shaking hands with you. It was an
idle jest. And now for your poachers. You do not know who they were? I
will tell you. The two who sat on the one side the fire were Professors
Hanky and Panky from the City of the People who are above Suspicion.”

“No,” said George vehemently. “Impossible.”

“Yes, my dear boy, quite possible, and whether possible or impossible,
assuredly true.”

“And the third man?”

“The third man was dressed in the old costume. He was in possession of
several brace of birds. The Professors vowed they had not eaten any--”

“Oh yes, but they had,” blurted out George.

“Of course they had, my dear; and a good thing too. Let us return to the
man in the old costume.”

“That is puzzling. Who did he say he was?”

“He said he was one of your men; that you had instructed him to provide
you with three dozen quails for Sunday; and that you let your men wear
the old costume if they had any of it left, provided--”

This was too much for George; he started to his feet. “What, my dearest
mother, does all this mean? You have been playing with me all through.
What is coming?”

“A very little more, and you shall hear. This man staid with the
Professors till nearly midnight, and then left them on the plea that he
would finish the night in the Ranger’s shelter--”

“Ranger’s shelter, indeed! Why--”

“Hush, my darling boy, be patient with me. He said he must be up
betimes, to run down the rest of the quails you had ordered him to bring
you. But before leaving the Professors he beguiled them into giving him
up their permit.”

“Then,” said George, striding about the room with his face flushed and
his eyes flashing, “he was the man with whom I walked down this
afternoon.”

“Exactly so.”

“And he must have changed his dress?”

“Exactly so.”

“But where and how?”

“At some place not very far down on the other side the range, where he
had hidden his old clothes.”

“And who, in the name of all that we hold most sacred, do you take him to
have been--for I see you know more than you have yet told me?”

“My son, he was Higgs the Sunchild, father to that boy whom I love next
to my husband more dearly than any one in the whole world.”

She folded her arms about him for a second, without kissing him, and left
him. “And now,” she said, the moment she had closed the door--“and now I
may cry.”

* * * * *

She did not cry for long, and having removed all trace of tears as far as
might be, she returned to her son outwardly composed and cheerful. “Shall
I say more now,” she said, seeing how grave he looked, “or shall I leave
you, and talk further with you to-morrow?”

“Now--now--now!”

“Good! A little before Higgs came here, the Mayor, as he now is, poor,
handsome, generous to a fault so far as he had the wherewithal, was
adored by all the women of his own rank in Sunch’ston. Report said that
he had adored many of them in return, but after having known me for a
very few days, he asked me to marry him, protesting that he was a changed
man. I liked him, as every one else did, but I was not in love with him,
and said so; he said he would give me as much time as I chose, if I would
not point-blank refuse him; and so the matter was left.

“Within a week or so Higgs was brought to the prison, and he had not been
there long before I found, or thought I found, that I liked him better
than I liked Strong. I was a fool--but there! As for Higgs, he liked,
but did not love me. If I had let him alone he would have done the like
by me; and let each other alone we did, till the day before he was taken
down to the capital. On that day, whether through his fault or mine I
know not--we neither of us meant it--it was as though Nature, my dear,
was determined that you should not slip through her fingers--well, on
that day we took it into our heads that we were broken-hearted lovers--the
rest followed. And how, my dearest boy, as I look upon you, can I feign
repentance?

“My husband, who never saw Higgs, and knew nothing about him except the
too little that I told him, pressed his suit, and about a month after
Higgs had gone, having recovered my passing infatuation for him, I took
kindly to the Mayor and accepted him, without telling him what I ought to
have told him--but the words stuck in my throat. I had not been engaged
to him many days before I found that there was something which I should
not be able to hide much longer.

“You know, my dear, that my mother had been long dead, and I never had a
sister or any near kinswoman. At my wits’ end who I should consult,
instinct drew me to Mrs. Humdrum, then a woman of about five-and-forty.
She was a grand lady, while I was about the rank of one of my own
housemaids. I had no claim on her; I went to her as a lost dog looks
into the faces of people on a road, and singles out the one who will most
surely help him. I had had a good look at her once as she was putting on
her gloves, and I liked the way she did it. I marvel at my own boldness.
At any rate, I asked to see her, and told her my story exactly as I have
now told it to you.

“‘You have no mother?’ she said, when she had heard all.

“‘No.’

“‘Then, my dear, I will mother you myself. Higgs is out of the question,
so Strong must marry you at once. We will tell him everything, and I, on
your behalf, will insist upon it that the engagement is at an end. I
hear good reports of him, and if we are fair towards him he will be
generous towards us. Besides, I believe he is so much in love with you
that he would sell his soul to get you. Send him to me. I can deal with
him better than you can.’”

“And what,” said George, “did my father, as I shall always call him, say
to all this?

“Truth bred chivalry in him at once. ‘I will marry her,’ he said, with
hardly a moment’s hesitation, ‘but it will be better that I should not be
put on any lower footing than Higgs was. I ought not to be denied
anything that has been allowed to him. If I am trusted, I can trust
myself to trust and think no evil either of Higgs or her. They were
pestered beyond endurance, as I have been ere now. If I am held at arm’s
length till I am fast bound, I shall marry Yram just the same, but I
doubt whether she and I shall ever be quite happy.’

“‘Come to my house this evening,’ said Mrs. Humdrum, ‘and you will find
Yram there.’ He came, he found me, and within a fortnight we were man
and wife.”

“How much does not all this explain,” said George, smiling but very
gravely. “And you are going to ask me to forgive you for robbing me of
such a father.”

“He has forgiven me, my dear, for robbing him of such a son. He never
reproached me. From that day to this he has never given me a harsh word
or even syllable. When you were born he took to you at once, as, indeed,
who could help doing? for you were the sweetest child both in looks and
temper that it is possible to conceive. Your having light hair and eyes
made things more difficult; for this, and your being born, almost to the
day, nine months after Higgs had left us, made people talk--but your
father kept their tongues within bounds. They talk still, but they liked
what little they saw of Higgs, they like the Mayor and me, and they like
you the best of all; so they please themselves by having the thing both
ways. Though, therefore, you are son to the Mayor, Higgs cast some
miraculous spell upon me before he left, whereby my son should be in some
measure his as well as the Mayor’s. It was this miraculous spell that
caused you to be born two months too soon, and we called you by Higgs’s
first name as though to show that we took that view of the matter
ourselves.

“Mrs. Humdrum, however, was very positive that there was no spell at all.
She had repeatedly heard her father say that the Mayor’s grandfather was
light-haired and blue-eyed, and that every third generation in that
family a light-haired son was born. The people believe this too. Nobody
disbelieves Mrs. Humdrum, but they like the miracle best, so that is how
it has been settled.

“I never knew whether Mrs. Humdrum told her husband, but I think she
must; for a place was found almost immediately for my husband in Mr.
Humdrum’s business. He made himself useful; after a few years he was
taken into partnership, and on Mr. Humdrum’s death became head of the
firm. Between ourselves, he says laughingly that all his success in life
was due to Higgs and me.”

“I shall give Mrs. Humdrum a double dose of kissing,” said George
thoughtfully, “next time I see her.”

“Oh, do, do; she will so like it. And now, my darling boy, tell your
poor mother whether or no you can forgive her.”

He clasped her in his arms, and kissed her again and again, but for a
time he could find no utterance. Presently he smiled, and said, “Of
course I do, but it is you who should forgive me, for was it not all my
fault?”

When Yram, too, had become more calm, she said, “It is late, and we have
no time to lose. Higgs’s coming at this time is mere accident; if he had
had news from Erewhon he would have known much that he did not know. I
cannot guess why he has come--probably through mere curiosity, but he
will hear or have heard--yes, you and he talked about it--of the temple;
being here, he will want to see the dedication. From what you have told
me I feel sure that he will not make a fool of himself by saying who he
is, but in spite of his disguise he may be recognised. I do not doubt
that he is now in Sunch’ston; therefore, to-morrow morning scour the town
to find him. Tell him he is discovered, tell him you know from me that
he is your father, and that I wish to see him with all good-will towards
him. He will come. We will then talk to him, and show him that he must
go back at once. You can escort him to the statues; after passing them
he will be safe. He will give you no trouble, but if he does, arrest him
on a charge of poaching, and take him to the gaol, where we must do the
best we can with him--but he will give you none. We need say nothing to
the Professors. No one but ourselves will know of his having been here.”

On this she again embraced her son and left him. If two photographs
could have been taken of her, one as she opened the door and looked
fondly back on George, and the other as she closed it behind her, the
second portrait would have seemed taken ten years later than the first.

As for George, he went gravely but not unhappily to his own room. “So
that ready, plausible fellow,” he muttered to himself, “was my own
father. At any rate, I am not son to a fool--and he liked me.”




CHAPTER X: MY FATHER, FEARING RECOGNITION AT SUNCH’STON, BETAKES HIMSELF
TO THE NEIGHBOURING TOWN OF FAIRMEAD


I will now return to my father. Whether from fatigue or over-excitement,
he slept only by fits and starts, and when awake he could not rid himself
of the idea that, in spite of his disguise, he might be recognised,
either at his inn or in the town, by some one of the many who had seen
him when he was in prison. In this case there was no knowing what might
happen, but at best, discovery would probably prevent his seeing the
temple dedicated to himself, and hearing Professor Hanky’s sermon, which
he was particularly anxious to do.

So strongly did he feel the real or fancied danger he should incur by
spending Saturday in Sunch’ston, that he rose as soon as he heard any one
stirring, and having paid his bill, walked quietly out of the house,
without saying where he was going.

There was a town about ten miles off, not so important as Sunch’ston, but
having some 10,000 inhabitants; he resolved to find accommodation there
for the day and night, and to walk over to Sunch’ston in time for the
dedication ceremony, which he had found on inquiry, would begin at eleven
o’clock.

The country between Sunch’ston and Fairmead, as the town just referred to
was named, was still mountainous, and being well wooded as well as well
watered, abounded in views of singular beauty; but I have no time to
dwell on the enthusiasm with which my father described them to me. The
road took him at right angles to the main road down the valley from
Sunch’ston to the capital, and this was one reason why he had chosen
Fairmead rather than Clearwater, which was the next town lower down on
the main road. He did not, indeed, anticipate that any one would want to
find him, but whoever might so want would be more likely to go straight
down the valley than to turn aside towards Fairmead.

On reaching this place, he found it pretty full of people, for Saturday
was market-day. There was a considerable open space in the middle of the
town, with an arcade running round three sides of it, while the fourth
was completely taken up by the venerable Musical Bank of the city, a
building which had weathered the storms of more than five centuries. On
the outside of the wall, abutting on the market-place, were three wooden
_sedilia_, in which the Mayor and two coadjutors sate weekly on market-
days to give advice, redress grievances, and, if necessary (which it very
seldom was) to administer correction.

My father was much interested in watching the proceedings in a case which
he found on inquiry to be not infrequent. A man was complaining to the
Mayor that his daughter, a lovely child of eight years old, had none of
the faults common to children of her age, and, in fact, seemed absolutely
deficient in immoral sense. She never told lies, had never stolen so
much as a lollipop, never showed any recalcitrancy about saying her
prayers, and by her incessant obedience had filled her poor father and
mother with the gravest anxiety as regards her future well-being. He
feared it would be necessary to send her to a deformatory.

“I have generally found,” said the Mayor, gravely but kindly, “that the
fault in these distressing cases lies rather with the parent than the
children. Does the child never break anything by accident?”

“Yes,” said the father.

“And you have duly punished her for it?”

“Alas! sir, I fear I only told her she was a naughty girl, and must not
do it again.”

“Then how can you expect your child to learn those petty arts of
deception without which she must fall an easy prey to any one who wishes
to deceive her? How can she detect lying in other people unless she has
had some experience of it in her own practice? How, again, can she learn
when it will be well for her to lie, and when to refrain from doing so,
unless she has made many a mistake on a small scale while at an age when
mistakes do not greatly matter? The Sunchild (and here he reverently
raised his hat), as you may read in chapter thirty-one of his Sayings,
has left us a touching tale of a little boy, who, having cut down an
apple tree in his father’s garden, lamented his inability to tell a lie.
Some commentators, indeed, have held that the evidence was so strongly
against the boy that no lie would have been of any use to him, and that
his perception of this fact was all that he intended to convey; but the
best authorities take his simple words, ‘I cannot tell a lie,’ in their
most natural sense, as being his expression of regret at the way in which
his education had been neglected. If that case had come before me, I
should have punished the boy’s father, unless he could show that the best
authorities are mistaken (as indeed they too generally are), and that
under more favourable circumstances the boy would have been able to lie,
and would have lied accordingly.

“There is no occasion for you to send your child to a deformatory. I am
always averse to extreme measures when I can avoid them. Moreover, in a
deformatory she would be almost certain to fall in with characters as
intractable as her own. Take her home and whip her next time she so much
as pulls about the salt. If you will do this whenever you get a chance,
I have every hope that you will have no occasion to come to me again.”

“Very well, sir,” said the father, “I will do my best, but the child is
so instinctively truthful that I am afraid whipping will be of little
use.”

There were other cases, none of them serious, which in the old days would
have been treated by a straightener. My father had already surmised that
the straightener had become extinct as a class, having been superseded by
the Managers and Cashiers of the Musical Banks, but this became more
apparent as he listened to the cases that next came on. These were dealt
with quite reasonably, except that the magistrate always ordered an
emetic and a strong purge in addition to the rest of his sentence, as
holding that all diseases of the moral sense spring from impurities
within the body, which must be cleansed before there could be any hope of
spiritual improvement. If any devils were found in what passed from the
prisoner’s body, he was to be brought up again; for in this case the rest
of the sentence might very possibly be remitted.

When the Mayor and his coadjutors had done sitting, my father strolled
round the Musical Bank and entered it by the main entrance, which was on
the top of a flight of steps that went down on to the principal street of
the town. How strange it is that, no matter how gross a superstition may
have polluted it, a holy place, if hallowed by long veneration, remains
always holy. Look at Delphi. What a fraud it was, and yet how hallowed
it must ever remain. But letting this pass, Musical Banks, especially
when of great age, always fascinated my father, and being now tired with
his walk, he sat down on one of the many rush-bottomed seats, and (for
there was no service at this hour) gave free rein to meditation.

How peaceful it all was with its droning old-world smell of ancestor, dry
rot, and stale incense. As the clouds came and went, the grey-green,
cobweb-chastened, light ebbed and flowed over the walls and ceiling; to
watch the fitfulness of its streams was a sufficient occupation. A hen
laid an egg outside and began to cackle--it was an event of magnitude; a
peasant sharpening his scythe, a blacksmith hammering at his anvil, the
clack of a wooden shoe upon the pavement, the boom of a bumble-bee, the
dripping of the fountain, all these things, with such concert as they
kept, invited the dewy-feathered sleep that visited him, and held him for
the best part of an hour.

My father has said that the Erewhonians never put up monuments or write
epitaphs for their dead, and this he believed to be still true; but it
was not so always, and on waking his eye was caught by a monument of
great beauty, which bore a date of about 1550 of our era. It was to an
old lady, who must have been very loveable if the sweet smiling face of
her recumbent figure was as faithful to the original as its strongly
marked individuality suggested. I need not give the earlier part of her
epitaph, which was conventional enough, but my father was so struck with
the concluding lines, that he copied them into the note-book which he
always carried in his pocket. They ran:-

   I fall asleep in the full and certain hope
   That my slumber shall not be broken;
   And that though I be all-forgetting,
   Yet shall I not be all-forgotten,
   But continue that life in the thoughts and deeds
   Of those I loved,
   Into which, while the power to strive was yet vouchsafed me,
   I fondly strove to enter.

My father deplored his inability to do justice to the subtle tenderness
of the original, but the above was the nearest he could get to it.

How different this from the opinions concerning a future state which he
had tried to set before the Erewhonians some twenty years earlier. It
all came back to him, as the storks had done, now that he was again in an
Erewhonian environment, and he particularly remembered how one youth had
inveighed against our European notions of heaven and hell with a
contemptuous flippancy that nothing but youth and ignorance could even
palliate.

“Sir,” he had said to my father, “your heaven will not attract me unless
I can take my clothes and my luggage. Yes; and I must lose my luggage
and find it again. On arriving, I must be told that it has unfortunately
been taken to a wrong circle, and that there may be some difficulty in
recovering it--or it shall have been sent up to mansion number five
hundred thousand millions nine hundred thousand forty six thousand eight
hundred and eleven, whereas it should have gone to four hundred thousand
millions, &c., &c.; and am I sure that I addressed it rightly? Then,
when I am just getting cross enough to run some risk of being turned out,
the luggage shall make its appearance, hat-box, umbrella, rug,
golf-sticks, bicycle, and everything else all quite correct, and in my
delight I shall tip the angel double and realise that I am enjoying
myself.

“Or I must have asked what I could have for breakfast, and be told I
could have boiled eggs, or eggs and bacon, or filleted plaice. ‘Filleted
plaice,’ I shall exclaim, ‘no! not that. Have you any red mullets?’ And
the angel will say, ‘Why no, sir, the gulf has been so rough that there
has hardly any fish come in this three days, and there has been such a
run on it that we have nothing left but plaice.’

“‘Well, well,’ I shall say, ‘have you any kidneys?’

“‘You can have one kidney, sir’, will be the answer.

“‘One kidney, indeed, and you call this heaven! At any rate you will
have sausages?’

“Then the angel will say, ‘We shall have some after Sunday, sir, but we
are quite out of them at present.’

“And I shall say, somewhat sulkily, ‘Then I suppose I must have eggs and
bacon.’

“But in the morning there will come up a red mullet, beautifully cooked,
a couple of kidneys and three sausages browned to a turn, and seasoned
with just so much sage and thyme as will savour without overwhelming
them; and I shall eat everything. It shall then transpire that the angel
knew about the luggage, and what I was to have for breakfast, all the
time, but wanted to give me the pleasure of finding things turn out
better than I had expected. Heaven would be a dull place without such
occasional petty false alarms as these.”

I have no business to leave my father’s story, but the mouth of the ox
that treadeth out the corn should not be so closely muzzled that he
cannot sometimes filch a mouthful for himself; and when I had copied out
the foregoing somewhat irreverent paragraphs, which I took down (with no
important addition or alteration) from my father’s lips, I could not
refrain from making a few reflections of my own, which I will ask the
reader’s forbearance if I lay before him.

Let heaven and hell alone, but think of Hades, with Tantalus, Sisyphus,
Tityus, and all the rest of them. How futile were the attempts of the
old Greeks and Romans to lay before us any plausible conception of
eternal torture. What were the Danaids doing but that which each one of
us has to do during his or her whole life? What are our bodies if not
sieves that we are for ever trying to fill, but which we must refill
continually without hope of being able to keep them full for long
together? Do we mind this? Not so long as we can get the wherewithal to
fill them; and the Danaids never seem to have run short of water. They
would probably ere long take to clearing out any obstruction in their
sieves if they found them getting choked. What could it matter to them
whether the sieves got full or no? They were not paid for filling them.

Sisyphus, again! Can any one believe that he would go on rolling that
stone year after year and seeing it roll down again unless he liked
seeing it? We are not told that there was a dragon which attacked him
whenever he tried to shirk. If he had greatly cared about getting his
load over the last pinch, experience would have shown him some way of
doing so. The probability is that he got to enjoy the downward rush of
his stone, and very likely amused himself by so timing it as to cause the
greatest scare to the greatest number of the shades that were below.

What though Tantalus found the water shun him and the fruits fly from him
when he tried to seize them? The writer of the “Odyssey” gives us no
hint that he was dying of thirst or hunger. The pores of his skin would
absorb enough water to prevent the first, and we may be sure that he got
fruit enough, one way or another, to keep him going.

Tityus, as an effort after the conception of an eternity of torture, is
not successful. What could an eagle matter on the liver of a man whose
body covered nine acres? Before long he would find it an agreeable
stimulant. If, then, the greatest minds of antiquity could invent
nothing that should carry better conviction of eternal torture, is it
likely that the conviction can be carried at all?

Methought I saw Jove sitting on the topmost ridges of Olympus and
confessing failure to Minerva. “I see, my dear,” he said, “that there is
no use in trying to make people very happy or very miserable for long
together. Pain, if it does not soon kill, consists not so much in
present suffering as in the still recent memory of a time when there was
less, and in the fear that there will soon be more; and so happiness lies
less in immediate pleasure than in lively recollection of a worse time
and lively hope of better.”

As for the young gentleman above referred to, my father met him with the
assurance that there had been several cases in which living people had
been caught up into heaven or carried down into hell, and been allowed to
return to earth and report what they had seen; while to others visions
had been vouchsafed so clearly that thousands of authentic pictures had
been painted of both states. All incentive to good conduct, he had then
alleged, was found to be at once removed from those who doubted the
fidelity of these pictures.

This at least was what he had then said, but I hardly think he would have
said it at the time of which I am now writing. As he continued to sit in
the Musical Bank, he took from his valise the pamphlet on “The Physics of
Vicarious Existence,” by Dr. Gurgoyle, which he had bought on the
preceding evening, doubtless being led to choose this particular work by
the tenor of the old lady’s epitaph.

The second title he found to run, “Being Strictures on Certain Heresies
concerning a Future State that have been Engrafted on the Sunchild’s
Teaching.”

My father shuddered as he read this title. “How long,” he said to
himself, “will it be before they are at one another’s throats?”

On reading the pamphlet, he found it added little to what the epitaph had
already conveyed; but it interested him, as showing that, however
cataclysmic a change of national opinions may appear to be, people will
find means of bringing the new into more or less conformity with the old.

Here it is a mere truism to say that many continue to live a vicarious
life long after they have ceased to be aware of living. This view is as
old as the _non omnis moriar_ of Horace, and we may be sure some
thousands of years older. It is only, therefore, with much diffidence
that I have decided to give a _résumé_ of opinions many of which those
whom I alone wish to please will have laid to heart from their youth
upwards. In brief, Dr. Gurgoyle’s contention comes to little more than
saying that the quick are more dead, and the dead more quick, than we
commonly think. To be alive, according to him, is only to be unable to
understand how dead one is, and to be dead is only to be invincibly
ignorant concerning our own livingness--for the dead would be as living
as the living if we could only get them to believe it.




CHAPTER XI: PRESIDENT GURGOYLE’S PAMPHLET “ON THE PHYSICS OF VICARIOUS
EXISTENCE”


Belief, like any other moving body, follows the path of least resistance,
and this path had led Dr. Gurgoyle to the conviction, real or feigned,
that my father was son to the sun, probably by the moon, and that his
ascent into the sky with an earthly bride was due to the sun’s
interference with the laws of nature. Nevertheless he was looked upon as
more or less of a survival, and was deemed lukewarm, if not heretical, by
those who seemed to be the pillars of the new system.

My father soon found that not even Panky could manipulate his teaching
more freely than the Doctor had done. My father had taught that when a
man was dead there was an end of him, until he should rise again in the
flesh at the last day, to enter into eternity either of happiness or
misery. He had, indeed, often talked of the immortality which some
achieve even in this world; but he had cheapened this, declaring it to be
an unsubstantial mockery, that could give no such comfort in the hour of
death as was unquestionably given by belief in heaven and hell.

Dr. Gurgoyle, however, had an equal horror, on the one hand, of anything
involving resumption of life by the body when it was once dead, and on
the other, of the view that life ended with the change which we call
death. He did not, indeed, pretend that he could do much to take away
the sting from death, nor would he do this if he could, for if men did
not fear death unduly, they would often court it unduly. Death can only
be belauded at the cost of belittling life; but he held that a reasonable
assurance of fair fame after death is a truer consolation to the dying, a
truer comfort to surviving friends, and a more real incentive to good
conduct in this life, than any of the consolations or incentives falsely
fathered upon the Sunchild.

He began by setting aside every saying ascribed, however truly, to my
father, if it made against his views, and by putting his own glosses on
all that he could gloze into an appearance of being in his favour. I
will pass over his attempt to combat the rapidly spreading belief in a
heaven and hell such as we accept, and will only summarise his contention
that, of our two lives--namely, the one we live in our own persons, and
that other life which we live in other people both before our reputed
death and after it--the second is as essential a factor of our complete
life as the first is, and sometimes more so.

Life, he urged, lies not in bodily organs, but in the power to use them,
and in the use that is made of them--that is to say, in the work they do.
As the essence of a factory is not in the building wherein the work is
done, nor yet in the implements used in turning it out, but in the will-
power of the master and in the goods he makes; so the true life of a man
is in his will and work, not in his body. “Those,” he argued, “who make
the life of a man reside within his body, are like one who should mistake
the carpenter’s tool-box for the carpenter.”

He maintained that this had been my father’s teaching, for which my
father heartily trusts that he may be forgiven.

He went on to say that our will-power is not wholly limited to the
working of its own special system of organs, but under certain conditions
can work and be worked upon by other will-powers like itself: so that if,
for example, A’s will-power has got such hold on B’s as to be able,
through B, to work B’s mechanism, what seems to have been B’s action will
in reality have been more A’s than B’s, and this in the same real sense
as though the physical action had been effected through A’s own
mechanical system--A, in fact, will have been living in B. The
universally admitted maxim that he who does this or that by the hand of
an agent does it himself, shews that the foregoing view is only a
roundabout way of stating what common sense treats as a matter of course.

Hence, though A’s individual will-power must be held to cease when the
tools it works with are destroyed or out of gear, yet, so long as any
survivors were so possessed by it while it was still efficient, or,
again, become so impressed by its operation on them through work that he
has left, as to act in obedience to his will-power rather than their own,
A has a certain amount of _bonâ fide_ life still remaining. His
vicarious life is not affected by the dissolution of his body; and in
many cases the sum total of a man’s vicarious action and of its outcome
exceeds to an almost infinite extent the sum total of those actions and
works that were effected through the mechanism of his own physical
organs. In these cases his vicarious life is more truly his life than
any that he lived in his own person.

“True,” continued the Doctor, “while living in his own person, a man
knows, or thinks he knows, what he is doing, whereas we have no reason to
suppose such knowledge on the part of one whose body is already dust; but
the consciousness of the doer has less to do with the livingness of the
deed than people generally admit. We know nothing of the power that sets
our heart beating, nor yet of the beating itself so long as it is normal.
We know nothing of our breathing or of our digestion, of the
all-important work we achieved as embryos, nor of our growth from infancy
to manhood. No one will say that these were not actions of a living
agent, but the more normal, the healthier, and thus the more truly
living, the agent is, the less he will know or have known of his own
action. The part of our bodily life that enters into our consciousness
is very small as compared with that of which we have no consciousness.
What completer proof can we have that livingness consists in deed rather
than in consciousness of deed?

“The foregoing remarks are not intended to apply so much to vicarious
action in virtue, we will say, of a settlement, or testamentary
disposition that cannot be set aside. Such action is apt to be too
unintelligent, too far from variation and quick change to rank as true
vicarious action; indeed it is not rarely found to effect the very
opposite of what the person who made the settlement or will desired. They
are meant to apply to that more intelligent and versatile action
engendered by affectionate remembrance. Nevertheless, even the
compulsory vicarious action taken in consequence of a will, and indeed
the very name “will” itself, shews that though we cannot take either
flesh or money with us, we can leave our will-power behind us in very
efficient operation.

“This vicarious life (on which I have insisted, I fear at unnecessary
length, for it is so obvious that none can have failed to realise it) is
lived by every one of us before death as well as after it, and is little
less important to us than that of which we are to some extent conscious
in our own persons. A man, we will say, has written a book which
delights or displeases thousands of whom he knows nothing, and who know
nothing of him. The book, we will suppose, has considerable, or at any
rate some influence on the action of these people. Let us suppose the
writer fast asleep while others are enjoying his work, and acting in
consequence of it, perhaps at long distances from him. Which is his
truest life--the one he is leading in them, or that equally unconscious
life residing in his own sleeping body? Can there be a doubt that the
vicarious life is the more efficient?

“Or when we are waking, how powerfully does not the life we are living in
others pain or delight us, according as others think ill or well of us?
How truly do we not recognise it as part of our own existence, and how
great an influence does not the fear of a present hell in men’s bad
thoughts, and the hope of a present heaven in their good ones, influence
our own conduct? Have we not here a true heaven and a true hell, as
compared with the efficiency of which these gross material ones so
falsely engrafted on to the Sunchild’s teaching are but as the flint
implements of a prehistoric race? ‘If a man,’ said the Sunchild, ‘fear
not man, whom he hath seen, neither will he fear God, whom he hath not
seen.’”

My father again assures me that he never said this. Returning to Dr.
Gurgoyle, he continued:--“It may be urged that on a man’s death one of
the great factors of his life is so annihilated that no kind of true life
can be any further conceded to him. For to live is to be influenced, as
well as to influence; and when a man is dead how can he be influenced? He
can haunt, but he cannot any more be haunted. He can come to us, but we
cannot go to him. On ceasing, therefore, to be impressionable, so great
a part of that wherein his life consisted is removed, that no true life
can be conceded to him.

“I do not pretend that a man is as fully alive after his so-called death
as before it. He is not. All I contend for is, that a considerable
amount of efficient life still remains to some of us, and that a little
life remains to all of us, after what we commonly regard as the complete
cessation of life. In answer, then, to those who have just urged that
the destruction of one of the two great factors of life destroys life
altogether, I reply that the same must hold good as regards death.

“If to live is to be influenced and to influence, and if a man cannot be
held as living when he can no longer be influenced, surely to die is to
be no longer able either to influence or be influenced, and a man cannot
be held dead until both these two factors of death are present. If
failure of the power to be influenced vitiates life, presence of the
power to influence vitiates death. And no one will deny that a man can
influence for many a long year after he is vulgarly reputed as dead.

“It seems, then, that there is no such thing as either absolute life
without any alloy of death, nor absolute death without any alloy of life,
until, that is to say, all posthumous power to influence has faded away.
And this, perhaps, is what the Sunchild meant by saying that in the midst
of life we are in death, and so also that in the midst of death we are in
life.

“And there is this, too. No man can influence fully until he can no more
be influenced--that is to say, till after his so-called death. Till
then, his ‘he’ is still unsettled. We know not what other influences may
not be brought to bear upon him that may change the character of the
influence he will exert on ourselves. Therefore, he is not fully living
till he is no longer living. He is an incomplete work, which cannot have
full effect till finished. And as for his vicarious life--which we have
seen to be very real--this can be, and is, influenced by just
appreciation, undue praise or calumny, and is subject, it may be, to
secular vicissitudes of good and evil fortune.

“If this is not true, let us have no more talk about the immortality of
great men and women. The Sunchild was never weary of talking to us (as
we then sometimes thought, a little tediously) about a great poet of that
nation to which it pleased him to feign that he belonged. How plainly
can we not now see that his words were spoken for our learning--for the
enforcement of that true view of heaven and hell on which I am feebly
trying to insist? The poet’s name, he said, was Shakespeare. Whilst he
was alive, very few people understood his greatness; whereas now, after
some three hundred years, he is deemed the greatest poet that the world
has ever known. ‘Can this man,’ he asked, ‘be said to have been truly
born till many a long year after he had been reputed as truly dead? While
he was in the flesh, was he more than a mere embryo growing towards birth
into that life of the world to come in which he now shines so gloriously?
What a small thing was that flesh and blood life, of which he was alone
conscious, as compared with that fleshless life which he lives but knows
not in the lives of millions, and which, had it ever been fully revealed
even to his imagination, we may be sure that he could not have reached?’

“These were the Sunchild’s words, as repeated to me by one of his chosen
friends while he was yet amongst us. Which, then, of this man’s two
lives should we deem best worth having, if we could choose one or other,
but not both? The felt or the unfelt? Who would not go cheerfully to
block or stake if he knew that by doing so he could win such life as this
poet lives, though he also knew that on having won it he could know no
more about it? Does not this prove that in our heart of hearts we deem
an unfelt life, in the heaven of men’s loving thoughts, to be better
worth having than any we can reasonably hope for and still feel?

“And the converse of this is true; many a man has unhesitatingly laid
down his felt life to escape unfelt infamy in the hell of men’s hatred
and contempt. As body is the sacrament, or outward and visible sign, of
mind; so is posterity the sacrament of those who live after death. Each
is the mechanism through which the other becomes effective.

“I grant that many live but a short time when the breath is out of them.
Few seeds germinate as compared with those that rot or are eaten, and
most of this world’s denizens are little more than still-born as regards
the larger life, while none are immortal to the end of time. But the end
of time is not worth considering; not a few live as many centuries as
either they or we need think about, and surely the world, so far as we
can guess its object, was made rather to be enjoyed than to last. ‘Come
and go’ pervades all things of which we have knowledge, and if there was
any provision made, it seems to have been for a short life and a merry
one, with enough chance of extension beyond the grave to be worth trying
for, rather than for the perpetuity even of the best and noblest.

“Granted, again, that few live after death as long or as fully as they
had hoped to do, while many, when quick, can have had none but the
faintest idea of the immortality that awaited them; it is nevertheless
true that none are so still-born on death as not to enter into a life of
some sort, however short and humble. A short life or a long one can no
more be bargained for in the unseen world than in the seen; as, however,
care on the part of parents can do much for the longer life and greater
well-being of their offspring in this world, so the conduct of that
offspring in this world does much both to secure for itself longer tenure
of life in the next, and to determine whether that life shall be one of
reward or punishment.

“‘Reward or punishment,’ some reader will perhaps exclaim; ‘what mockery,
when the essence of reward and punishment lies in their being felt by
those who have earned them.’ I can do nothing with those who either cry
for the moon, or deny that it has two sides, on the ground that we can
see but one. Here comes in faith, of which the Sunchild said, that
though we can do little with it, we can do nothing without it. Faith
does not consist, as some have falsely urged, in believing things on
insufficient evidence; this is not faith, but faithlessness to all that
we should hold most faithfully. Faith consists in holding that the
instincts of the best men and women are in themselves an evidence which
may not be set aside lightly; and the best men and women have ever held
that death is better than dishonour, and desirable if honour is to be won
thereby.

“It follows, then, that though our conscious flesh and blood life is the
only one that we can fully apprehend, yet we do also indeed move, even
here, in an unseen world, wherein, when our palpable life is ended, we
shall continue to live for a shorter or longer time--reaping roughly,
though not infallibly, much as we have sown. Of this unseen world the
best men and women will be almost as heedless while in the flesh as they
will be when their life in flesh is over; for, as the Sunchild often
said, ‘The Kingdom of Heaven cometh not by observation.’ It will be all
in all to them, and at the same time nothing, for the better people they
are, the less they will think of anything but this present life.

“What an ineffable contradiction in terms have we not here. What a
reversal, is it not, of all this world’s canons, that we should hold even
the best of all that we can know or feel in this life to be a poor thing
as compared with hopes the fulfilment of which we can never either feel
or know. Yet we all hold this, however little we may admit it to
ourselves. For the world at heart despises its own canons.”

I cannot quote further from Dr. Gurgoyle’s pamphlet; suffice it that he
presently dealt with those who say that it is not right of any man to aim
at thrusting himself in among the living when he has had his day. “Let
him die,” say they, “and let die as his fathers before him.” He argued
that as we had a right to pester people till we got ourselves born, so
also we have a right to pester them for extension of life beyond the
grave. Life, whether before the grave or afterwards, is like love--all
reason is against it, and all healthy instinct for it. Instinct on such
matters is the older and safer guide; no one, therefore, should seek to
efface himself as regards the next world more than as regards this. If
he is to be effaced, let others efface him; do not let him commit
suicide. Freely we have received; freely, therefore, let us take as much
more as we can get, and let it be a stand-up fight between ourselves and
posterity to see whether it can get rid of us or no. If it can, let it;
if it cannot, it must put up with us. It can better care for itself than
we can for ourselves when the breath is out of us.

Not the least important duty, he continued, of posterity towards itself
lies in passing righteous judgement on the forbears who stand up before
it. They should be allowed the benefit of a doubt, and peccadilloes
should be ignored; but when no doubt exists that a man was engrainedly
mean and cowardly, his reputation must remain in the Purgatory of Time
for a term varying from, say, a hundred to two thousand years. After a
hundred years it may generally come down, though it will still be under a
cloud. After two thousand years it may be mentioned in any society
without holding up of hands in horror. Our sense of moral guilt varies
inversely as the squares of its distance in time and space from
ourselves.

Not so with heroism; this loses no lustre through time and distance. Good
is gold; it is rare, but it will not tarnish. Evil is like dirty
water--plentiful and foul, but it will run itself clear of taint.

The Doctor having thus expatiated on his own opinions concerning heaven
and hell, concluded by tilting at those which all right-minded people
hold among ourselves. I shall adhere to my determination not to
reproduce his arguments; suffice it that though less flippant than those
of the young student whom I have already referred to, they were more
plausible; and though I could easily demolish them, the reader will
probably prefer that I should not set them up for the mere pleasure of
knocking them down. Here, then, I take my leave of good Dr. Gurgoyle and
his pamphlet; neither can I interrupt my story further by saying anything
about the other two pamphlets purchased by my father.




CHAPTER XII: GEORGE FAILS TO FIND MY FATHER, WHEREON YRAM CAUTIONS THE
PROFESSORS


On the morning after the interview with her son described in a foregoing
chapter, Yram told her husband what she had gathered from the Professors,
and said that she was expecting Higgs every moment, inasmuch as she was
confident that George would soon find him.

“Do what you like, my dear,” said the Mayor. “I shall keep out of the
way, for you will manage him better without me. You know what I think of
you.”

He then went unconcernedly to his breakfast, at which the Professors
found him somewhat taciturn. Indeed they set him down as one of the
dullest and most uninteresting people they had ever met.

When George returned and told his mother that though he had at last found
the inn at which my father had slept, my father had left and could not be
traced, she was disconcerted, but after a few minutes she said--

“He will come back here for the dedication, but there will be such crowds
that we may not see him till he is inside the temple, and it will save
trouble if we can lay hold on him sooner. Therefore, ride either to
Clearwater or Fairmead, and see if you can find him. Try Fairmead first;
it is more out of the way. If you cannot hear of him there, come back,
get another horse, and try Clearwater. If you fail here too, we must
give him up, and look out for him in the temple to-morrow morning.”

“Are you going to say anything to the Professors?”

“Not if you can bring Higgs here before night-fall. If you cannot do
this I must talk it over with my husband; I shall have some hours in
which to make up my mind. Now go--the sooner the better.”

It was nearly eleven, and in a few minutes George was on his way. By
noon he was at Fairmead, where he tried all the inns in vain for news of
a person answering the description of my father--for not knowing what
name my father might choose to give, he could trust only to description.
He concluded that since my father could not be heard of in Fairmead by
one o’clock (as it nearly was by the time he had been round all the inns)
he must have gone somewhere else; he therefore rode back to Sunch’ston,
made a hasty lunch, got a fresh horse, and rode to Clearwater, where he
met with no better success. At all the inns both at Fairmead and
Clearwater he left word that if the person he had described came later in
the day, he was to be told that the Mayoress particularly begged him to
return at once to Sunch’ston, and come to the Mayor’s house.

Now all the time that George was at Fairmead my father was inside the
Musical Bank, which he had entered before going to any inn. Here he had
been sitting for nearly a couple of hours, resting, dreaming, and reading
Bishop Gurgoyle’s pamphlet. If he had left the Bank five minutes
earlier, he would probably have been seen by George in the main street of
Fairmead--as he found out on reaching the inn which he selected and
ordering dinner.

He had hardly got inside the house before the waiter told him that young
Mr. Strong, the Ranger from Sunch’ston, had been enquiring for him and
had left a message for him, which was duly delivered.

My father, though in reality somewhat disquieted, showed no uneasiness,
and said how sorry he was to have missed seeing Mr. Strong. “But,” he
added, “it does not much matter; I need not go back this afternoon, for I
shall be at Sunch’ston to-morrow morning and will go straight to the
Mayor’s.”

He had no suspicion that he was discovered, but he was a good deal
puzzled. Presently he inclined to the opinion that George, still
believing him to be Professor Panky, had wanted to invite him to the
banquet on the following day--for he had no idea that Hanky and Panky
were staying with the Mayor and Mayoress. Or perhaps the Mayor and his
wife did not like so distinguished a man’s having been unable to find a
lodging in Sunch’ston, and wanted him to stay with them. Ill satisfied
as he was with any theory he could form, he nevertheless reflected that
he could not do better than stay where he was for the night, inasmuch as
no one would be likely to look for him a second time at Fairmead. He
therefore ordered his room at once.

It was nearly seven before George got back to Sunch’ston. In the
meantime Yram and the Mayor had considered the question whether anything
was to be said to the Professors or no. They were confident that my
father would not commit himself--why, indeed, should he have dyed his
hair and otherwise disguised himself, if he had not intended to remain
undiscovered? Oh no; the probability was that if nothing was said to the
Professors now, nothing need ever be said, for my father might be
escorted back to the statues by George on the Sunday evening and be told
that he was not to return. Moreover, even though something untoward were
to happen after all, the Professors would have no reason for thinking
that their hostess had known of the Sunchild’s being in Sunch’ston.

On the other hand, they were her guests, and it would not be handsome to
keep Hanky, at any rate, in the dark, when the knowledge that the
Sunchild was listening to every word he said might make him modify his
sermon not a little. It might or it might not, but that was a matter for
him, not her. The only question for her

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