Initial commit

10 files changed, 34836 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d7b82bc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+*.txt text eol=lf
+*.htm text eol=lf
+*.html text eol=lf
+*.md text eol=lf
diff --git a/1971-0.txt b/1971-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..846de36
--- /dev/null
+++ b/1971-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,8646 @@
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1971 ***
+
+
+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 was whether or no it would be
+sharp practice to know what she knew and say nothing about it. Her
+husband hated _finesse_ as much as she did, and they settled it that
+though the question was a nice one, the more proper thing to do would be
+to tell the Professors what it might so possibly concern one or both of
+them to know.
+
+On George’s return without news of my father, they found he thought just
+as they did; so it was arranged that they should let the Professors dine
+in peace, but tell them about the Sunchild’s being again in Erewhon as
+soon as dinner was over.
+
+“Happily,” said George, “they will do no harm. They will wish Higgs’s
+presence to remain unknown as much as we do, and they will be glad that
+he should be got out of the country immediately.”
+
+“Not so, my dear,” said Yram. “‘Out of the country’ will not do for
+those people. Nothing short of ‘out of the world’ will satisfy them.”
+
+“That,” said George promptly, “must not be.”
+
+“Certainly not, my dear, but that is what they will want. I do not like
+having to tell them, but I am afraid we must.”
+
+“Never mind,” said the Mayor, laughing. “Tell them, and let us see what
+happens.”
+
+They then dressed for dinner, where Hanky and Panky were the only guests.
+When dinner was over Yram sent away her other children, George alone
+remaining. He sat opposite the Professors, while the Mayor and Yram were
+at the two ends of the table.
+
+“I am afraid, dear Professor Hanky,” said Yram, “that I was not quite
+open with you last night, but I wanted time to think things over, and I
+know you will forgive me when you remember what a number of guests I had
+to attend to.” She then referred to what Hanky had told her about the
+supposed ranger, and shewed him how obvious it was that this man was a
+foreigner, who had been for some time in Erewhon more than seventeen
+years ago, but had had no communication with it since then. Having
+pointed sufficiently, as she thought, to the Sunchild, she said, “You see
+who I believe this man to have been. Have I said enough, or shall I say
+more?”
+
+“I understand you,” said Hanky, “and I agree with you that the Sunchild
+will be in the temple to-morrow. It is a serious business, but I shall
+not alter my sermon. He must listen to what I may choose to say, and I
+wish I could tell him what a fool he was for coming here. If he behaves
+himself, well and good: your son will arrest him quietly after service,
+and by night he will be in the Blue Pool. Your son is bound to throw him
+there as a foreign devil, without the formality of a trial. It would be
+a most painful duty to me, but unless I am satisfied that that man has
+been thrown into the Blue Pool, I shall have no option but to report the
+matter at headquarters. If, on the other hand, the poor wretch makes a
+disturbance, I can set the crowd on to tear him in pieces.”
+
+George was furious, but he remained quite calm, and left everything to
+his mother.
+
+“I have nothing to do with the Blue Pool,” said Yram drily. “My son, I
+doubt not, will know how to do his duty; but if you let the people kill
+this man, his body will remain, and an inquest must be held, for the
+matter will have been too notorious to be hushed up. All Higgs’s
+measurements and all marks on his body were recorded, and these alone
+would identify him. My father, too, who is still master of the gaol, and
+many another, could swear to him. Should the body prove, as no doubt it
+would, to be that of the Sunchild, what is to become of Sunchildism?”
+
+Hanky smiled. “It would not be proved. The measurements of a man of
+twenty or thereabouts would not correspond with this man’s. All we
+Professors should attend the inquest, and half Bridgeford is now in
+Sunch’ston. No matter though nine-tenths of the marks and measurements
+corresponded, so long as there is a tenth that does not do so, we should
+not be flesh and blood if we did not ignore the nine points and insist
+only on the tenth. After twenty years we shall find enough to serve our
+turn. Think of what all the learning of the country is committed to;
+think of the change in all our ideas and institutions; think of the King
+and of Court influence. I need not enlarge. We shall not permit the
+body to be the Sunchild’s. No matter what evidence you may produce, we
+shall sneer it down, and say we must have more before you can expect us
+to take you seriously; if you bring more, we shall pay no attention; and
+the more you bring the more we shall laugh at you. No doubt those among
+us who are by way of being candid will admit that your arguments ought to
+be considered, but you must not expect that it will be any part of their
+duty to consider them.
+
+“And even though we admitted that the body had been proved up to the hilt
+to be the Sunchild’s, do you think that such a trifle as that could
+affect Sunchildism? Hardly. Sunch’ston is no match for Bridgeford and
+the King; our only difficulty would lie in settling which was the most
+plausible way of the many plausible ways in which the death could be
+explained. We should hatch up twenty theories in less than twenty hours,
+and the last state of Sunchildism would be stronger than the first. For
+the people want it, and so long as they want it they will have it. At
+the same time the supposed identification of the body, even by some few
+ignorant people here, might lead to a local heresy that is as well
+avoided, and it will be better that your son should arrest the man before
+the dedication, if he can be found, and throw him into the Blue Pool
+without any one but ourselves knowing that he has been here at all.”
+
+I need not dwell on the deep disgust with which this speech was listened
+to, but the Mayor, and Yram, and George said not a word.
+
+“But, Mayoress,” said Panky, who had not opened his lips so far, “are you
+sure that you are not too hasty in believing this stranger to be the
+Sunchild? People are continually thinking that such and such another is
+the Sunchild come down again from the sun’s palace and going to and fro
+among us. How many such stories, sometimes very plausibly told, have we
+not had during the last twenty years? They never take root, and die out
+of themselves as suddenly as they spring up. That the man is a poacher
+can hardly be doubted; I thought so the moment I saw him; but I think I
+can also prove to you that he is not a foreigner, and, therefore, that he
+is not the Sunchild. He quoted the Sunchild’s prayer with a corruption
+that can have only reached him from an Erewhonian source--”
+
+Here Hanky interrupted him somewhat brusquely. “The man, Panky,” said
+he, “was the Sunchild; and he was not a poacher, for he had no idea that
+he was breaking the law; nevertheless, as you say, Sunchildism on the
+brain has been a common form of mania for several years. Several persons
+have even believed themselves to be the Sunchild. We must not forget
+this, if it should get about that Higgs has been here.”
+
+Then, turning to Yram, he said sternly, “But come what may, your son must
+take him to the Blue Pool at nightfall.”
+
+“Sir,” said George, with perfect suavity, “you have spoken as though you
+doubted my readiness to do my duty. Let me assure you very solemnly that
+when the time comes for me to act, I shall act as duty may direct.”
+
+“I will answer for him,” said Yram, with even more than her usual quick,
+frank smile, “that he will fulfil his instructions to the letter,
+unless,” she added, “some black and white horses come down from heaven
+and snatch poor Higgs out of his grasp. Such things have happened before
+now.”
+
+“I should advise your son to shoot them if they do,” said Hanky drily and
+sub-defiantly.
+
+Here the conversation closed; but it was useless trying to talk of
+anything else, so the Professors asked Yram to excuse them if they
+retired early, in view of the fact that they had a fatiguing day before
+them. This excuse their hostess readily accepted.
+
+“Do not let us talk any more now,” said Yram as soon as they had left the
+room. “It will be quite time enough when the dedication is over. But I
+rather think the black and white horses will come.”
+
+“I think so too, my dear,” said the Mayor laughing.
+
+“They shall come,” said George gravely; “but we have not yet got enough
+to make sure of bringing them. Higgs will perhaps be able to help me to-
+morrow.”
+
+* * * * *
+
+“Now what,” said Panky as they went upstairs, “does that woman mean--for
+she means something? Black and white horses indeed!”
+
+“I do not know what she means to do,” said the other, “but I know that
+she thinks she can best us.”
+
+“I wish we had not eaten those quails.”
+
+“Nonsense, Panky; no one saw us but Higgs, and the evidence of a foreign
+devil, in such straits as his, could not stand for a moment. We did not
+eat them. No, no; she has something that she thinks better than that.
+Besides, it is absolutely impossible that she should have heard what
+happened. What I do not understand is, why she should have told us about
+the Sunchild’s being here at all. Why not have left us to find it out or
+to know nothing about it? I do not understand it.”
+
+So true is it, as Euclid long since observed, that the less cannot
+comprehend that which is the greater. True, however, as this is, it is
+also sometimes true that the greater cannot comprehend the less. Hanky
+went musing to his own room and threw himself into an easy chair to think
+the position over. After a few minutes he went to a table on which he
+saw pen, ink, and paper, and wrote a short letter; then he rang the bell.
+
+When the servant came he said, “I want to send this note to the manager
+of the new temple, and it is important that he should have it to-night.
+Be pleased, therefore, to take it to him and deliver it into his own
+hands; but I had rather you said nothing about it to the Mayor or
+Mayoress, nor to any of your fellow-servants. Slip out unperceived if
+you can. When you have delivered the note, ask for an answer at once,
+and bring it to me.”
+
+So saying, he slipped a sum equal to about five shillings into the man’s
+hand.
+
+The servant returned in about twenty minutes, for the temple was quite
+near, and gave a note to Hanky, which ran, “Your wishes shall be attended
+to without fail.”
+
+“Good!” said Hanky to the man. “No one in the house knows of your having
+run this errand for me?”
+
+“No one, sir.”
+
+“Thank you! I wish you a very good night.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII: A VISIT TO THE PROVINCIAL DEFORMATORY AT FAIRMEAD
+
+
+Having finished his early dinner, and not fearing that he should be
+either recognised at Fairmead or again enquired after from Sunch’ston, my
+father went out for a stroll round the town, to see what else he could
+find that should be new and strange to him. He had not gone far before
+he saw a large building with an inscription saying that it was the
+Provincial Deformatory for Boys. Underneath the larger inscription there
+was a smaller one--one of those corrupt versions of my father’s sayings,
+which, on dipping into the Sayings of the Sunchild, he had found to be so
+vexatiously common. The inscription ran:-
+
+   “When the righteous man turneth away from the righteousness that he
+   hath committed, and doeth that which is a little naughty and wrong, he
+   will generally be found to have gained in amiability what he has lost
+   in righteousness.” Sunchild Sayings, chap. xxii. v. 15.
+
+The case of the little girl that he had watched earlier in the day had
+filled him with a great desire to see the working of one of these curious
+institutions; he therefore resolved to call on the headmaster (whose name
+he found to be Turvey), and enquire about terms, alleging that he had a
+boy whose incorrigible rectitude was giving him much anxiety. The
+information he had gained in the forenoon would be enough to save him
+from appearing to know nothing of the system. On having rung the bell,
+he announced himself to the servant as a Mr. Senoj, and asked if he could
+see the Principal.
+
+Almost immediately he was ushered into the presence of a beaming, dapper-
+looking, little old gentleman, quick of speech and movement, in spite of
+some little portliness.
+
+“Ts, ts, ts,” he said, when my father had enquired about terms and asked
+whether he might see the system at work. “How unfortunate that you
+should have called on a Saturday afternoon. We always have a
+half-holiday. But stay--yes--that will do very nicely; I will send for
+them into school as a means of stimulating their refractory system.”
+
+He called his servant and told him to ring the boys into school. Then,
+turning to my father he said, “Stand here, sir, by the window; you will
+see them all come trooping in. H’m, h’m, I am sorry to see them still
+come back as soon as they hear the bell. I suppose I shall ding some
+recalcitrancy into them some day, but it is uphill work. Do you see the
+head-boy--the third of those that are coming up the path? I shall have
+to get rid of him. Do you see him? he is going back to whip up the
+laggers--and now he has boxed a boy’s ears: that boy is one of the most
+hopeful under my care. I feel sure he has been using improper language,
+and my head-boy has checked him instead of encouraging him.” And so on
+till the boys were all in school.
+
+“You see, my dear sir,” he said to my father, “we are in an impossible
+position. We have to obey instructions from the Grand Council of
+Education at Bridgeford, and they have established these institutions in
+consequence of the Sunchild’s having said that we should aim at promoting
+the greatest happiness of the greatest number. This, no doubt, is a
+sound principle, and the greatest number are by nature somewhat dull,
+conceited, and unscrupulous. They do not like those who are quick,
+unassuming, and sincere; how, then, consistently with the first
+principles either of morality or political economy as revealed to us by
+the Sunchild, can we encourage such people if we can bring sincerity and
+modesty fairly home to them? We cannot do so. And we must correct the
+young as far as possible from forming habits which, unless indulged in
+with the greatest moderation, are sure to ruin them.
+
+“I cannot pretend to consider myself very successful. I do my best, but
+I can only aim at making my school a reflection of the outside world. In
+the outside world we have to tolerate much that is prejudicial to the
+greatest happiness of the greatest number, partly because we cannot
+always discover in time who may be let alone as being genuinely
+insincere, and who are in reality masking sincerity under a garb of
+flippancy, and partly also because we wish to err on the side of letting
+the guilty escape, rather than of punishing the innocent. Thus many
+people who are perfectly well known to belong to the straightforward
+classes are allowed to remain at large, and may be even seen hobnobbing
+with the guardians of public immorality. Indeed it is not in the public
+interest that straightforwardness should be extirpated root and branch,
+for the presence of a small modicum of sincerity acts as a wholesome
+irritant to the academicism of the greatest number, stimulating it to
+consciousness of its own happy state, and giving it something to look
+down upon. Moreover, we hold it useful to have a certain number of
+melancholy examples, whose notorious failure shall serve as a warning to
+those who neglect cultivating that power of immoral self-control which
+shall prevent them from saying, or even thinking, anything that shall not
+immediately and palpably minister to the happiness, and hence meet the
+approval, of the greatest number.”
+
+By this time the boys were all in school. “There is not one prig in the
+whole lot,” said the headmaster sadly. “I wish there was, but only those
+boys come here who are notoriously too good to become current coin in the
+world unless they are hardened with an alloy of vice. I should have
+liked to show you our gambling, book-making, and speculation class, but
+the assistant-master who attends to this branch of our curriculum is gone
+to Sunch’ston this afternoon. He has friends who have asked him to see
+the dedication of the new temple, and he will not be back till Monday. I
+really do not know what I can do better for you than examine the boys in
+Counsels of Imperfection.”
+
+So saying, he went into the schoolroom, over the fireplace of which my
+father’s eye caught an inscription, “Resist good, and it will fly from
+you. Sunchild’s Sayings, xvii. 2.” Then, taking down a copy of the work
+just named from a shelf above his desk, he ran his eye over a few of its
+pages.
+
+He called up a class of about twenty boys.
+
+“Now, my boys,” he said, “Why is it so necessary to avoid extremes of
+truthfulness?”
+
+“It is not necessary, sir,” said one youngster, “and the man who says
+that it is so is a scoundrel.”
+
+“Come here, my boy, and hold out your hand.” When he had done so, Mr.
+Turvey gave him two sharp cuts with a cane. “There now, go down to the
+bottom of the class and try not to be so extremely truthful in future.”
+Then, turning to my father, he said, “I hate caning them, but it is the
+only way to teach them. I really do believe that boy will know better
+than to say what he thinks another time.”
+
+He repeated his question to the class, and the head-boy answered,
+“Because, sir, extremes meet, and extreme truth will be mixed with
+extreme falsehood.”
+
+“Quite right, my boy. Truth is like religion; it has only two
+enemies--the too much and the too little. Your answer is more
+satisfactory than some of your recent conduct had led me to expect.”
+
+“But, sir, you punished me only three weeks ago for telling you a lie.”
+
+“Oh yes; why, so I did; I had forgotten. But then you overdid it. Still
+it was a step in the right direction.”
+
+“And now, my boy,” he said to a very frank and ingenuous youth about half
+way up the class, “and how is truth best reached?”
+
+“Through the falling out of thieves, sir.”
+
+“Quite so. Then it will be necessary that the more earnest, careful,
+patient, self-sacrificing, enquirers after truth should have a good deal
+of the thief about them, though they are very honest people at the same
+time. Now what does the man” (who on enquiry my father found to be none
+other than Mr. Turvey himself) “say about honesty?”
+
+“He says, sir, that honesty does not consist in never stealing, but in
+knowing how and where it will be safe to do so.”
+
+“Remember,” said Mr. Turvey to my father, “how necessary it is that we
+should have a plentiful supply of thieves, if honest men are ever to come
+by their own.”
+
+He spoke with the utmost gravity, evidently quite easy in his mind that
+his scheme was the only one by which truth could be successfully
+attained.
+
+“But pray let me have any criticism you may feel inclined to make.”
+
+“I have none,” said my father. “Your system commends itself to common
+sense; it is the one adopted in the law courts, and it lies at the very
+foundation of party government. If your academic bodies can supply the
+country with a sufficient number of thieves--which I have no doubt they
+can--there seems no limit to the amount of truth that may be attained.
+If, however, I may suggest the only difficulty that occurs to me, it is
+that academic thieves shew no great alacrity in falling out, but incline
+rather to back each other up through thick and thin.”
+
+“Ah, yes,” said Mr. Turvey, “there is that difficulty; nevertheless
+circumstances from time to time arise to get them by the ears in spite of
+themselves. But from whatever point of view you may look at the
+question, it is obviously better to aim at imperfection than perfection;
+for if we aim steadily at imperfection, we shall probably get it within a
+reasonable time, whereas to the end of our days we should never reach
+perfection. Moreover, from a worldly point of view, there is no mistake
+so great as that of being always right.” He then turned to his class and
+said--
+
+“And now tell me what did the Sunchild tell us about God and Mammon?”
+
+The head-boy answered: “He said that we must serve both, for no man can
+serve God well and truly who does not serve Mammon a little also; and no
+man can serve Mammon effectually unless he serve God largely at the same
+time.”
+
+“What were his words?”
+
+“He said, ‘Cursed be they that say, “Thou shalt not serve God and Mammon,
+for it is the whole duty of man to know how to adjust the conflicting
+claims of these two deities.”’”
+
+Here my father interposed. “I knew the Sunchild; and I more than once
+heard him speak of God and Mammon. He never varied the form of the words
+he used, which were to the effect that a man must serve either God or
+Mammon, but that he could not serve both.”
+
+“Ah!” said Mr. Turvey, “that no doubt was his exoteric teaching, but
+Professors Hanky and Panky have assured me most solemnly that his
+esoteric teaching was as I have given it. By the way, these gentlemen
+are both, I understand, at Sunch’ston, and I think it quite likely that I
+shall have a visit from them this afternoon. If you do not know them I
+should have great pleasure in introducing you to them; I was at
+Bridgeford with both of them.”
+
+“I have had the pleasure of meeting them already,” said my father, “and
+as you are by no means certain that they will come, I will ask you to let
+me thank you for all that you have been good enough to shew me, and bid
+you good-afternoon. I have a rather pressing engagement--”
+
+“My dear sir, you must please give me five minutes more. I shall examine
+the boys in the Musical Bank Catechism.” He pointed to one of them and
+said, “Repeat your duty towards your neighbour.”
+
+“My duty towards my neighbour,” said the boy, “is to be quite sure that
+he is not likely to borrow money of me before I let him speak to me at
+all, and then to have as little to do with him as--”
+
+At this point there was a loud ring at the door bell. “Hanky and Panky
+come to see me, no doubt,” said Mr. Turvey. “I do hope it is so. You
+must stay and see them.”
+
+“My dear sir,” said my father, putting his handkerchief up to his face,
+“I am taken suddenly unwell and must positively leave you.” He said this
+in so peremptory a tone that Mr. Turvey had to yield. My father held his
+handkerchief to his face as he went through the passage and hall, but
+when the servant opened the door he took it down, for there was no Hanky
+or Panky--no one, in fact, but a poor, wizened old man who had come, as
+he did every other Saturday afternoon, to wind up the Deformatory clocks.
+
+Nevertheless, he had been scared, and was in a very wicked-fleeth-when-no-
+man-pursueth frame of mind. He went to his inn, and shut himself up in
+his room for some time, taking notes of all that had happened to him in
+the last three days. But even at his inn he no longer felt safe. How
+did he know but that Hanky and Panky might have driven over from
+Sunch’ston to see Mr. Turvey, and might put up at this very house? or
+they might even be going to spend the night here. He did not venture out
+of his room till after seven by which time he had made rough notes of as
+much of the foregoing chapters as had come to his knowledge so far. Much
+of what I have told as nearly as I could in the order in which it
+happened, he did not learn till later. After giving the merest outline
+of his interview with Mr. Turvey, he wrote a note as follows:--“I suppose
+I must have held forth about the greatest happiness of the greatest
+number, but I had quite forgotten it, though I remember repeatedly
+quoting my favourite proverb, ‘Every man for himself, and the devil take
+the hindmost.’ To this they have paid no attention.”
+
+By seven his panic about Hanky and Panky ended, for if they had not come
+by this time, they were not likely to do so. Not knowing that they were
+staying at the Mayor’s, he had rather settled it that they would now
+stroll up to the place where they had left their hoard and bring it down
+as soon as night had fallen. And it is quite possible that they might
+have found some excuse for doing this, when dinner was over, if their
+hostess had not undesignedly hindered them by telling them about the
+Sunchild. When the conversation recorded in the preceding chapter was
+over, it was too late for them to make any plausible excuse for leaving
+the house; we may be sure, therefore, that much more had been said than
+Yram and George were able to remember and report to my father.
+
+After another stroll about Fairmead, during which he saw nothing but what
+on a larger scale he had already seen at Sunch’ston, he returned to his
+inn at about half-past eight, and ordered supper in a public room that
+corresponded with the coffee-room of an English hotel.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV: MY FATHER MAKES THE ACQUAINTANCE OF MR. BALMY, AND WALKS WITH
+HIM NEXT DAY TO SUNCH’STON
+
+
+Up to this point, though he had seen enough to shew him the main drift of
+the great changes that had taken place in Erewhonian opinions, my father
+had not been able to glean much about the history of the transformation.
+He could see that it had all grown out of the supposed miracle of his
+balloon ascent, and he could understand that the ignorant masses had been
+so astounded by an event so contrary to all their experience, that their
+faith in experience was utterly routed and demoralised. If a man and a
+woman might rise from the earth and disappear into the sky, what else
+might not happen? If they had been wrong in thinking such a thing
+impossible, in how much else might they not be mistaken also? The ground
+was shaken under their very feet.
+
+It was not as though the thing had been done in a corner. Hundreds of
+people had seen the ascent; and even if only a small number had been
+present, the disappearance of the balloon, of my mother, and of my father
+himself, would have confirmed their story. My father, then, could
+understand that a single incontrovertible miracle of the first magnitude
+should uproot the hedges of caution in the minds of the common people,
+but he could not understand how such men as Hanky and Panky, who
+evidently did not believe that there had been any miracle at all, had
+been led to throw themselves so energetically into a movement so
+subversive of all their traditions, when, as it seemed to him, if they
+had held out they might have pricked the balloon bubble easily enough,
+and maintained everything _in statu quo_.
+
+How, again, had they converted the King--if they had converted him? The
+Queen had had full knowledge of all the preparations for the ascent. The
+King had had everything explained to him. The workmen and workwomen who
+had made the balloon and the gas could testify that none but natural
+means had been made use of--means which, if again employed any number of
+times, would effect a like result. How could it be that when the means
+of resistance were so ample and so easy, the movement should nevertheless
+have been irresistible? For had it not been irresistible, was it to be
+believed that astute men like Hanky and Panky would have let themselves
+be drawn into it?
+
+What then had been its inner history? My father had so fully determined
+to make his way back on the following evening, that he saw no chance of
+getting to know the facts--unless, indeed, he should be able to learn
+something from Hanky’s sermon; he was therefore not sorry to find an
+elderly gentleman of grave but kindly aspect seated opposite to him when
+he sat down to supper.
+
+The expression on this man’s face was much like that of the early
+Christians as shewn in the S. Giovanni Laterano bas-reliefs at Rome, and
+again, though less aggressively self-confident, like that on the faces of
+those who have joined the Salvation Army. If he had been in England, my
+father would have set him down as a Swedenborgian; this being impossible,
+he could only note that the stranger bowed his head, evidently saying a
+short grace before he began to eat, as my father had always done when he
+was in Erewhon before. I will not say that my father had never omitted
+to say grace during the whole of the last twenty years, but he said it
+now, and unfortunately forgetting himself, he said it in the English
+language, not loud, but nevertheless audibly.
+
+My father was alarmed at what he had done, but there was no need, for the
+stranger immediately said, “I hear, sir, that you have the gift of
+tongues. The Sunchild often mentioned it to us, as having been
+vouchsafed long since to certain of the people, to whom, for our
+learning, he saw fit to feign that he belonged. He thus foreshadowed
+prophetically its manifestation also among ourselves. All which,
+however, you must know as well as I do. Can you interpret?”
+
+My father was much shocked, but he remembered having frequently spoken of
+the power of speaking in unknown tongues which was possessed by many of
+the early Christians, and he also remembered that in times of high
+religious enthusiasm this power had repeatedly been imparted, or supposed
+to be imparted, to devout believers in the middle ages. It grated upon
+him to deceive one who was so obviously sincere, but to avoid immediate
+discomfiture he fell in with what the stranger had said.
+
+“Alas! sir,” said he, “that rarer and more precious gift has been
+withheld from me; nor can I speak in an unknown tongue, unless as it is
+borne in upon me at the moment. I could not even repeat the words that
+have just fallen from me.”
+
+“That,” replied the stranger, “is almost invariably the case. These
+illuminations of the spirit are beyond human control. You spoke in so
+low a tone that I cannot interpret what you have just said, but should
+you receive a second inspiration later, I shall doubtless be able to
+interpret it for you. I have been singularly gifted in this respect--more
+so, perhaps, than any other interpreter in Erewhon.”
+
+My father mentally vowed that no second inspiration should be vouchsafed
+to him, but presently remembering how anxious he was for information on
+the points touched upon at the beginning of this chapter, and seeing that
+fortune had sent him the kind of man who would be able to enlighten him,
+he changed his mind; nothing, he reflected, would be more likely to make
+the stranger talk freely with him, than the affording him an opportunity
+for showing off his skill as an interpreter.
+
+Something, therefore, he would say, but what? No one could talk more
+freely when the train of his thoughts, or the conversation of others,
+gave him his cue, but when told to say an unattached “something,” he
+could not even think of “How do you do this morning? it is a very fine
+day;” and the more he cudgelled his brains for “something,” the more they
+gave no response. He could not even converse further with the stranger
+beyond plain “yes” and “no”; so he went on with his supper, and in
+thinking of what he was eating and drinking for the moment forgot to
+ransack his brain. No sooner had he left off ransacking it, than it
+suggested something--not, indeed, a very brilliant something, but still
+something. On having grasped it, he laid down his knife and fork, and
+with the air of one distraught he said--
+
+   “My name is Norval, on the Grampian Hills
+   My father feeds his flock--a frugal swain.”
+
+“I heard you,” exclaimed the stranger, “and I can interpret every word of
+what you have said, but it would not become me to do so, for you have
+conveyed to me a message more comforting than I can bring myself to
+repeat even to him who has conveyed it.”
+
+Having said this he bowed his head, and remained for some time wrapped in
+meditation. My father kept a respectful silence, but after a little time
+he ventured to say in a low tone, how glad he was to have been the medium
+through whom a comforting assurance had been conveyed. Presently, on
+finding himself encouraged to renew the conversation, he threw out a
+deferential feeler as to the causes that might have induced Mr. Balmy to
+come to Fairmead. “Perhaps,” he said, “you, like myself, have come to
+these parts in order to see the dedication of the new temple; I could not
+get a lodging in Sunch’ston, so I walked down here this morning.”
+
+This, it seemed, had been Mr. Balmy’s own case, except that he had not
+yet been to Sunch’ston. Having heard that it was full to overflowing, he
+had determined to pass the night at Fairmead, and walk over in the
+morning--starting soon after seven, so as to arrive in good time for the
+dedication ceremony. When my father heard this, he proposed that they
+should walk together, to which Mr. Balmy gladly consented; it was
+therefore arranged that they should go to bed early, breakfast soon after
+six, and then walk to Sunch’ston. My father then went to his own room,
+where he again smoked a surreptitious pipe up the chimney.
+
+Next morning the two men breakfasted together, and set out as the clock
+was striking seven. The day was lovely beyond the power of words, and
+still fresh--for Fairmead was some 2500 feet above the sea, and the sun
+did not get above the mountains that overhung it on the east side, till
+after eight o’clock. Many persons were also starting for Sunch’ston, and
+there was a procession got up by the Musical Bank Managers of the town,
+who walked in it, robed in rich dresses of scarlet and white embroidered
+with much gold thread. There was a banner displaying an open chariot in
+which the Sunchild and his bride were seated, beaming with smiles, and in
+attitudes suggesting that they were bowing to people who were below them.
+The chariot was, of course, drawn by the four black and white horses of
+which the reader has already heard, and the balloon had been ignored.
+Readers of my father’s book will perhaps remember that my mother was not
+seen at all--she was smuggled into the car of the balloon along with
+sundry rugs, under which she lay concealed till the balloon had left the
+earth. All this went for nothing. It has been said that though God
+cannot alter the past, historians can; it is perhaps because they can be
+useful to Him in this respect that He tolerates their existence.
+Painters, my father now realised, can do all that historians can, with
+even greater effect.
+
+Women headed the procession--the younger ones dressed in white, with
+veils and chaplets of roses, blue cornflower, and pheasant’s eye
+Narcissus, while the older women were more soberly attired. The Bank
+Managers and the banner headed the men, who were mostly peasants, but
+among them were a few who seemed to be of higher rank, and these, for the
+most part, though by no means all of them, wore their clothes reversed--as
+I have forgotten to say was done also by Mr. Balmy. Both men and women
+joined in singing a litany the words of which my father could not catch;
+the tune was one he had been used to play on his apology for a flute when
+he was in prison, being, in fact, none other than “Home, Sweet Home.”
+There was no harmony; they never got beyond the first four bars, but
+these they must have repeated, my father thought, at least a hundred
+times between Fairmead and Sunch’ston. “Well,” said he to himself,
+“however little else I may have taught them, I at any rate gave them the
+diatonic scale.”
+
+He now set himself to exploit his fellow-traveller, for they soon got
+past the procession.
+
+“The greatest miracle,” said he, “in connection with this whole matter,
+has been--so at least it seems to me--not the ascent of the Sunchild with
+his bride, but the readiness with which the people generally acknowledged
+its miraculous character. I was one of those that witnessed the ascent,
+but I saw no signs that the crowd appreciated its significance. They
+were astounded, but they did not fall down and worship.”
+
+“Ah,” said the other, “but you forget the long drought and the rain that
+the Sunchild immediately prevailed on the air-god to send us. He had
+announced himself as about to procure it for us; it was on this ground
+that the King assented to the preparation of those material means that
+were necessary before the horses of the sun could attach themselves to
+the chariot into which the balloon was immediately transformed. Those
+horses might not be defiled by contact with this gross earth. I too
+witnessed the ascent; at the moment, I grant you, I saw neither chariot
+nor horses, and almost all those present shared my own temporary
+blindness; the whole action from the moment when the balloon left the
+earth, moved so rapidly, that we were flustered, and hardly knew what it
+was that we were really seeing. It was not till two or three years later
+that I found the scene presenting itself to my soul’s imaginary sight in
+the full splendour which was no doubt witnessed, but not apprehended, by
+my bodily vision.”
+
+“There,” said my father, “you confirm an opinion that I have long
+held.--Nothing is so misleading as the testimony of eye-witnesses.”
+
+“A spiritual enlightenment from within,” returned Mr. Balmy, “is more to
+be relied on than any merely physical affluence from external objects.
+Now, when I shut my eyes, I see the balloon ascend a little way, but
+almost immediately the heavens open, the horses descend, the balloon is
+transformed, and the glorious pageant careers onward till it vanishes
+into the heaven of heavens. Hundreds with whom I have conversed assure
+me that their experience has been the same as mine. Has yours been
+different?”
+
+“Oh no, not at all; but I always see some storks circling round the
+balloon before I see any horses.”
+
+“How strange! I have heard others also say that they saw the storks you
+mention; but let me do my utmost I cannot force them into my mental image
+of the scene. This shows, as you were saying just now, how incomplete
+the testimony of an eye-witness often is. It is quite possible that the
+storks were there, but the horses and the chariot have impressed
+themselves more vividly on my mind than anything else has.”
+
+“Quite so; and I am not without hope that even at this late hour some
+further details may yet be revealed to us.”
+
+“It is possible, but we should be as cautious in accepting any fresh
+details as in rejecting them. Should some heresy obtain wide acceptance,
+visions will perhaps be granted to us that may be useful in refuting it,
+but otherwise I expect nothing more.”
+
+“Neither do I, but I have heard people say that inasmuch as the Sunchild
+said he was going to interview the air-god in order to send us rain, he
+was more probably son to the air-god than to the sun. Now here is a
+heresy which--”
+
+“But, my dear sir,” said Mr. Balmy, interrupting him with great warmth,
+“he spoke of his father in heaven as endowed with attributes far
+exceeding any that can be conceivably ascribed to the air-god. The power
+of the air-god does not extend beyond our own atmosphere.”
+
+“Pray believe me,” said my father, who saw by the ecstatic gleam in his
+companion’s eye that there was nothing to be done but to agree with him,
+“that I accept--”
+
+“Hear me to the end,” replied Mr. Balmy. “Who ever heard the Sunchild
+claim relationship with the air-god? He could command the air-god, and
+evidently did so, halting no doubt for this beneficent purpose on his
+journey towards his ultimate destination. Can we suppose that the air-
+god, who had evidently intended withholding the rain from us for an
+indefinite period, should have so immediately relinquished his designs
+against us at the intervention of any less exalted personage than the
+sun’s own offspring? Impossible!”
+
+“I quite agree with you,” exclaimed my father, “it is out of the--”
+
+“Let me finish what I have to say. When the rain came so copiously for
+days, even those who had not seen the miraculous ascent found its
+consequences come so directly home to them, that they had no difficulty
+in accepting the report of others. There was not a farmer or cottager in
+the land but heaved a sigh of relief at rescue from impending ruin, and
+they all knew it was the Sunchild who had promised the King that he would
+make the air-god send it. So abundantly, you will remember, did it come,
+that we had to pray to him to stop it, which in his own good time he was
+pleased to do.”
+
+“I remember,” said my father, who was at last able to edge in a word,
+“that it nearly flooded me out of house and home. And yet, in spite of
+all this, I hear that there are many at Bridgeford who are still hardened
+unbelievers.”
+
+“Alas! you speak too truly. Bridgeford and the Musical Banks for the
+first three years fought tooth and nail to blind those whom it was their
+first duty to enlighten. I was a Professor of the hypothetical language,
+and you may perhaps remember how I was driven from my chair on account of
+the fearlessness with which I expounded the deeper mysteries of
+Sunchildism.”
+
+“Yes, I remember well how cruelly--” but my father was not allowed to get
+beyond “cruelly.”
+
+“It was I who explained why the Sunchild had represented himself as
+belonging to a people in many respects analogous to our own, when no such
+people can have existed. It was I who detected that the supposed nation
+spoken of by the Sunchild was an invention designed in order to give us
+instruction by the light of which we might more easily remodel our
+institutions. I have sometimes thought that my gift of interpretation
+was vouchsafed to me in recognition of the humble services that I was
+hereby allowed to render. By the way, you have received no illumination
+this morning, have you?”
+
+“I never do, sir, when I am in the company of one whose conversation I
+find supremely interesting. But you were telling me about Bridgeford: I
+live hundreds of miles from Bridgeford, and have never understood the
+suddenness, and completeness, with which men like Professors Hanky and
+Panky and Dr. Downie changed front. Do they believe as you and I do, or
+did they merely go with the times? I spent a couple of hours with Hanky
+and Panky only two evenings ago, and was not so much impressed as I could
+have wished with the depth of their religious fervour.”
+
+“They are sincere now--more especially Hanky--but I cannot think I am
+judging them harshly, if I say that they were not so at first. Even now,
+I fear, that they are more carnally than spiritually minded. See how
+they have fought for the aggrandisement of their own order. It is mainly
+their doing that the Musical Banks have usurped the spiritual authority
+formerly exercised by the straighteners.”
+
+“But the straighteners,” said my father, “could not co-exist with
+Sunchildism, and it is hard to see how the claims of the Banks can be
+reasonably gainsaid.”
+
+“Perhaps; and after all the Banks are our main bulwark against the evils
+that I fear will follow from the repeal of the laws against machinery.
+This has already led to the development of a materialism which minimizes
+the miraculous element in the Sunchild’s ascent, as our own people
+minimize the material means that were the necessary prologue to the
+miraculous.”
+
+Thus did they converse; but I will not pursue their conversation further.
+It will be enough to say that in further floods of talk Mr. Balmy
+confirmed what George had said about the Banks having lost their hold
+upon the masses. That hold was weak even in the time of my father’s
+first visit; but when the people saw the hostility of the Banks to a
+movement which far the greater number of them accepted, it seemed as
+though both Bridgeford and the Banks were doomed, for Bridgeford was
+heart and soul with the Banks. Hanky, it appeared, though under thirty,
+and not yet a Professor, grasped the situation, and saw that Bridgeford
+must either move with the times, or go. He consulted some of the most
+sagacious Heads of Houses and Professors, with the result that a
+committee of enquiry was appointed, which in due course reported that the
+evidence for the Sunchild’s having been the only child of the sun was
+conclusive. It was about this time--that is to say some three years
+after his ascent--that “Higgsism,” as it had been hitherto called, became
+“Sunchildism,” and “Higgs” the “Sunchild.”
+
+My father also learned the King’s fury at his escape (for he would call
+it nothing else) with my mother. This was so great that though he had
+hitherto been, and had ever since proved himself to be, a humane ruler,
+he ordered the instant execution of all who had been concerned in making
+either the gas or the balloon; and his cruel orders were carried out
+within a couple of hours. At the same time he ordered the destruction by
+fire of the Queen’s workshops, and of all remnants of any materials used
+in making the balloon. It is said the Queen was so much grieved and
+outraged (for it was her doing that the material ground-work, so to
+speak, had been provided for the miracle) that she wept night and day
+without ceasing three whole months, and never again allowed her husband
+to embrace her, till he had also embraced Sunchildism.
+
+When the rain came, public indignation at the King’s action was raised
+almost to revolution pitch, and the King was frightened at once by the
+arrival of the promised downfall and the displeasure of his subjects. But
+he still held out, and it was only after concessions on the part of the
+Bridgeford committee, that he at last consented to the absorption of
+Sunchildism into the Musical Bank system, and to its establishment as the
+religion of the country. The far-reaching changes in Erewhonian
+institutions with which the reader is already acquainted followed as a
+matter of course.
+
+“I know the difficulty,” said my father presently, “with which the King
+was persuaded to allow the way in which the Sunchild’s dress should be
+worn to be a matter of opinion, not dogma. I see we have adopted
+different fashions. Have you any decided opinions upon the subject?”
+
+“I have; but I will ask you not to press me for them. Let this matter
+remain as the King has left it.”
+
+My father thought that he might now venture on a shot. So he said, “I
+have always understood, too, that the King forced the repeal of the laws
+against machinery on the Bridgeford committee, as another condition of
+his assent?”
+
+“Certainly. He insisted on this, partly to gratify the Queen, who had
+not yet forgiven him, and who had set her heart on having a watch, and
+partly because he expected that a development of the country’s resources,
+in consequence of a freer use of machinery, would bring more money into
+his exchequer. Bridgeford fought hard and wisely here, but they had
+gained so much by the Musical Bank Managers being recognised as the
+authorised exponents of Sunchildism, that they thought it wise to
+yield--apparently with a good grace--and thus gild the pill which his
+Majesty was about to swallow. But even then they feared the consequences
+that are already beginning to appear, all which, if I mistake not, will
+assume far more serious proportions in the future.”
+
+“See,” said my father suddenly, “we are coming to another procession, and
+they have got some banners, let us walk a little quicker and overtake
+it.”
+
+“Horrible!” replied Mr. Balmy fiercely. “You must be short-sighted, or
+you could never have called my attention to it. Let us get it behind us
+as fast as possible, and not so much as look at it.”
+
+“Oh yes, yes,” said my father, “it is indeed horrible, I had not seen
+what it was.”
+
+He had not the faintest idea what the matter was, but he let Mr. Balmy
+walk a little ahead of him, so that he could see the banners, the most
+important of which he found to display a balloon pure and simple, with
+one figure in the car. True, at the top of the banner there was a smudge
+which might be taken for a little chariot, and some very little horses,
+but the balloon was the only thing insisted on. As for the procession,
+it consisted entirely of men, whom a smaller banner announced to be
+workmen from the Fairmead iron and steel works. There was a third
+banner, which said, “Science as well as Sunchildism.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV: THE TEMPLE IS DEDICATED TO MY FATHER, AND CERTAIN EXTRACTS
+ARE READ FROM HIS SUPPOSED SAYINGS
+
+
+“It is enough to break one’s heart,” said Mr. Balmy when he had
+outstripped the procession, and my father was again beside him. “‘As
+well as,’ indeed! We know what that means. Wherever there is a factory
+there is a hot-bed of unbelief. ‘As well as’! Why it is a defiance.”
+
+“What, I wonder,” said my father innocently, “must the Sunchild’s
+feelings be, as he looks down on this procession. For there can be
+little doubt that he is doing so.”
+
+“There can be no doubt at all,” replied Mr. Balmy, “that he is taking
+note of it, and of all else that is happening this day in Erewhon. Heaven
+grant that he be not so angered as to chastise the innocent as well as
+the guilty.”
+
+“I doubt,” said my father, “his being so angry even with this procession,
+as you think he is.”
+
+Here, fearing an outburst of indignation, he found an excuse for rapidly
+changing the conversation. Moreover he was angry with himself for
+playing upon this poor good creature. He had not done so of malice
+prepense; he had begun to deceive him, because he believed himself to be
+in danger if he spoke the truth; and though he knew the part to be an
+unworthy one, he could not escape from continuing to play it, if he was
+to discover things that he was not likely to discover otherwise.
+
+Often, however, he had checked himself. It had been on the tip of his
+tongue to be illuminated with the words,
+
+   Sukoh and Sukop were two pretty men,
+   They lay in bed till the clock struck ten,
+
+and to follow it up with,
+
+   Now with the drops of this most Yknarc time
+   My love looks fresh,
+
+in order to see how Mr. Balmy would interpret the assertion here made
+about the Professors, and what statement he would connect with his own
+Erewhonian name; but he had restrained himself.
+
+The more he saw, and the more he heard, the more shocked he was at the
+mischief he had done. See how he had unsettled the little mind this
+poor, dear, good gentleman had ever had, till he was now a mere slave to
+preconception. And how many more had he not in like manner brought to
+the verge of idiocy? How many again had he not made more corrupt than
+they were before, even though he had not deceived them--as for example,
+Hanky and Panky. And the young? how could such a lie as that a chariot
+and four horses came down out of the clouds enter seriously into the life
+of any one, without distorting his mental vision, if not ruining it?
+
+And yet, the more he reflected, the more he also saw that he could do no
+good by saying who he was. Matters had gone so far that though he spoke
+with the tongues of men and angels he would not be listened to; and even
+if he were, it might easily prove that he had added harm to that which he
+had done already. No. As soon as he had heard Hanky’s sermon, he would
+begin to work his way back, and if the Professors had not yet removed
+their purchase, he would recover it; but he would pin a bag containing
+about five pounds worth of nuggets on to the tree in which they had
+hidden it, and, if possible, he would find some way of sending the rest
+to George.
+
+He let Mr. Balmy continue talking, glad that this gentleman required
+little more than monosyllabic answers, and still more glad, in spite of
+some agitation, to see that they were now nearing Sunch’ston, towards
+which a great concourse of people was hurrying from Clearwater, and more
+distant towns on the main road. Many whole families were coming,--the
+fathers and mothers carrying the smaller children, and also their own
+shoes and stockings, which they would put on when nearing the town. Most
+of the pilgrims brought provisions with them. All wore European
+costumes, but only a few of them wore it reversed, and these were almost
+invariably of higher social status than the great body of the people, who
+were mainly peasants.
+
+When they reached the town, my father was relieved at finding that Mr.
+Balmy had friends on whom he wished to call before going to the temple.
+He asked my father to come with him, but my father said that he too had
+friends, and would leave him for the present, while hoping to meet him
+again later in the day. The two, therefore, shook hands with great
+effusion, and went their several ways. My father’s way took him first
+into a confectioner’s shop, where he bought a couple of Sunchild buns,
+which he put into his pocket, and refreshed himself with a bottle of
+Sunchild cordial and water. All shops except those dealing in
+refreshments were closed, and the town was gaily decorated with flags and
+flowers, often festooned into words or emblems proper for the occasion.
+
+My father, it being now a quarter to eleven, made his way towards the
+temple, and his heart was clouded with care as he walked along. Not only
+was his heart clouded, but his brain also was oppressed, and he reeled so
+much on leaving the confectioner’s shop, that he had to catch hold of
+some railings till the faintness and giddiness left him. He knew the
+feeling to be the same as what he had felt on the Friday evening, but he
+had no idea of the cause, and as soon as the giddiness left him he
+thought there was nothing the matter with him.
+
+Turning down a side street that led into the main square of the town, he
+found himself opposite the south end of the temple, with its two lofty
+towers that flanked the richly decorated main entrance. I will not
+attempt to describe the architecture, for my father could give me little
+information on this point. He only saw the south front for two or three
+minutes, and was not impressed by it, save in so far as it was richly
+ornamented--evidently at great expense--and very large. Even if he had
+had a longer look, I doubt whether I should have got more out of him, for
+he knew nothing of architecture, and I fear his test whether a building
+was good or bad, was whether it looked old and weather-beaten or no. No
+matter what a building was, if it was three or four hundred years old he
+liked it, whereas, if it was new, he would look to nothing but whether it
+kept the rain out. Indeed I have heard him say that the mediaeval
+sculpture on some of our great cathedrals often only pleases us because
+time and weather have set their seals upon it, and that if we could see
+it as it was when it left the mason’s hands, we should find it no better
+than much that is now turned out in the Euston Road.
+
+The ground plan here given will help the reader to understand the few
+following pages more easily.
+
+                +--------------------+
+  N / a \
+ W+E / b \------------+
+  S / G H \ |
+            | C | N |
++-----------+---------------------------+-----------+------+
+| ------------------- I |
+| ------------------- |
+| ------------------- |
+| o’ o’ |
+| |
+| E ||||||||||||||| ||||||||||||||||| F |
+| ||||||||||||||| ||||||||||||||||| |
+| |
+| e A o’ B C o’ D | f
+| --- --- --- --- |
+| --- --- --- --- |
+| --- --- --- --- |
+| --- o’ --- --- o’ --- |
+| --- --- --- --- |
+| --- --- --- --- |
+| --- --- --- --- |
+| --- o’ --- --- o’ --- |
+| |
+| |
+| |
+| o’ o’ |
+| |
+| |
+| g | h
+| o’ o’ |
++-----------+--------------------------------+-------------+
+| |--------------------------------| |
+| |-------------M------------------| |
+| K |--------------------------------| L |
+| |--------------------------------| |
+| |--------------------------------| |
+| | | |
++-----------+ +-------------+
+
+a. Table with cashier’s seat on either side, and alms-box in front. The
+picture is exhibited on a scaffolding behind it.
+
+b. The reliquary.
+
+c. The President’s chair.
+
+d. Pulpit and lectern.
+
+e. }
+f. } Side doors.
+g. }
+h. }
+
+i. Yram’s seat.
+
+k. Seats of George and the Sunchild.
+
+o’ Pillars.
+
+A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, blocks of seats.
+
+I. Steps leading from the apse to the nave.
+
+K and L. Towers.
+
+M. Steps and main entrance.
+
+N. Robing-room.
+
+The building was led up to by a flight of steps (M), and on entering it
+my father found it to consist of a spacious nave, with two aisles and an
+apse which was raised some three feet above the nave and aisles. There
+were no transepts. In the apse there was the table (a), with the two
+bowls of Musical Bank money mentioned on an earlier page, as also the
+alms-box in front of it.
+
+At some little distance in front of the table stood the President’s chair
+(c), or I might almost call it throne. It was so placed that his back
+would be turned towards the table, which fact again shews that the table
+was not regarded as having any greater sanctity than the rest of the
+temple.
+
+Behind the table, the picture already spoken of was raised aloft. There
+was no balloon; some clouds that hung about the lower part of the chariot
+served to conceal the fact that the painter was uncertain whether it
+ought to have wheels or no. The horses were without driver, and my
+father thought that some one ought to have had them in hand, for they
+were in far too excited a state to be left safely to themselves. They
+had hardly any harness, but what little there was was enriched with gold
+bosses. My mother was in Erewhonian costume, my father in European, but
+he wore his clothes reversed. Both he and my mother seemed to be bowing
+graciously to an unseen crowd beneath them, and in the distance, near the
+bottom of the picture, was a fairly accurate representation of the
+Sunch’ston new temple. High up, on the right hand, was a disc, raised
+and gilt, to represent the sun; on it, in low relief, there was an
+indication of a gorgeous palace, in which, no doubt, the sun was supposed
+to live; though how they made it all out my father could not conceive.
+
+On the right of the table there was a reliquary (b) of glass, much
+adorned with gold, or more probably gilding, for gold was so scarce in
+Erewhon that gilding would be as expensive as a thin plate of gold would
+be in Europe: but there is no knowing. The reliquary was attached to a
+portable stand some five feet high, and inside it was the relic already
+referred to. The crowd was so great that my father could not get near
+enough to see what it contained, but I may say here, that when, two days
+later, circumstances compelled him to have a close look at it, he saw
+that it consisted of about a dozen fine coprolites, deposited by some
+antediluvian creature or creatures, which, whatever else they may have
+been, were certainly not horses.
+
+In the apse there were a few cross benches (G and H) on either side, with
+an open space between them, which was partly occupied by the President’s
+seat already mentioned. Those on the right, as one looked towards the
+apse, were for the Managers and Cashiers of the Bank, while those on the
+left were for their wives and daughters.
+
+In the centre of the nave, only a few feet in front of the steps leading
+to the apse, was a handsome pulpit and lectern (d). The pulpit was
+raised some feet above the ground, and was so roomy that the preacher
+could walk about in it. On either side of it there were cross benches
+with backs (E and F); those on the right were reserved for the Mayor,
+civic functionaries, and distinguished visitors, while those on the left
+were for their wives and daughters.
+
+Benches with backs (A, B, C, D) were placed about half-way down both nave
+and aisles--those in the nave being divided so as to allow a free passage
+between them. The rest of the temple was open space, about which people
+might walk at their will. There were side doors (_e_, _j_, and _f_, _h_)
+at the upper and lower end of each aisle. Over the main entrance was a
+gallery in which singers were placed.
+
+As my father was worming his way among the crowd, which was now very
+dense, he was startled at finding himself tapped lightly on the shoulder,
+and turning round in alarm was confronted by the beaming face of George.
+
+“How do you do, Professor Panky?” said the youth--who had decided thus to
+address him. “What are you doing here among the common people? Why have
+you not taken your place in one of the seats reserved for our
+distinguished visitors? I am afraid they must be all full by this time,
+but I will see what I can do for you. Come with me.”
+
+“Thank you,” said my father. His heart beat so fast that this was all he
+could say, and he followed meek as a lamb.
+
+With some difficulty the two made their way to the right-hand corner
+seats of block C, for every seat in the reserved block was taken. The
+places which George wanted for my father and for himself were already
+occupied by two young men of about eighteen and nineteen, both of them
+well-grown, and of prepossessing appearance. My father saw by the
+truncheons they carried that they were special constables, but he took no
+notice of this, for there were many others scattered about the crowd.
+George whispered a few words to one of them, and to my father’s surprise
+they both gave up their seats, which appear on the plan as (_k_).
+
+It afterwards transpired that these two young men were George’s brothers,
+who by his desire had taken the seats some hours ago, for it was here
+that George had determined to place himself and my father if he could
+find him. He chose these places because they would be near enough to let
+his mother (who was at i, in the middle of the front row of block E, to
+the left of the pulpit) see my father without being so near as to
+embarrass him; he could also see and be seen by Hanky, and hear every
+word of his sermon; but perhaps his chief reason had been the fact that
+they were not far from the side-door at the upper end of the right-hand
+aisle, while there was no barrier to interrupt rapid egress should this
+prove necessary.
+
+It was now high time that they should sit down, which they accordingly
+did. George sat at the end of the bench, and thus had my father on his
+left. My father was rather uncomfortable at seeing the young men whom
+they had turned out, standing against a column close by, but George said
+that this was how it was to be, and there was nothing to be done but to
+submit. The young men seemed quite happy, which puzzled my father, who
+of course had no idea that their action was preconcerted.
+
+Panky was in the first row of block F, so that my father could not see
+his face except sometimes when he turned round. He was sitting on the
+Mayor’s right hand, while Dr. Downie was on his left; he looked at my
+father once or twice in a puzzled way, as though he ought to have known
+him, but my father did not think he recognised him. Hanky was still with
+President Gurgoyle and others in the robing-room, N; Yram had already
+taken her seat: my father knew her in a moment, though he pretended not
+to do so when George pointed her out to him. Their eyes met for a
+second; Yram turned hers quickly away, and my father could not see a
+trace of recognition in her face. At no time during the whole ceremony
+did he catch her looking at him again.
+
+“Why, you stupid man,” she said to him later on in the day with a quick,
+kindly smile, “I was looking at you all the time. As soon as the
+President or Hanky began to talk about you I knew you would stare at him,
+and then I could look. As soon as they left off talking about you I knew
+you would be looking at me, unless you went to sleep--and as I did not
+know which you might be doing, I waited till they began to talk about you
+again.”
+
+My father had hardly taken note of his surroundings when the choir began
+singing, accompanied by a few feeble flutes and lutes, or whatever the
+name of the instrument should be, but with no violins, for he knew
+nothing of the violin, and had not been able to teach the Erewhonians
+anything about it. The voices were all in unison, and the tune they sang
+was one which my father had taught Yram to sing; but he could not catch
+the words.
+
+As soon as the singing began, a procession, headed by the venerable Dr.
+Gurgoyle, President of the Musical Banks of the province, began to issue
+from the robing-room, and move towards the middle of the apse. The
+President was sumptuously dressed, but he wore no mitre, nor anything to
+suggest an English or European Bishop. The Vice-President, Head Manager,
+Vice-Manager, and some Cashiers of the Bank, now ranged themselves on
+either side of him, and formed an impressive group as they stood,
+gorgeously arrayed, at the top of the steps leading from the apse to the
+nave. Here they waited till the singers left off singing.
+
+When the litany, or hymn, or whatever it should be called, was over, the
+Head Manager left the President’s side and came down to the lectern in
+the nave, where he announced himself as about to read some passages from
+the Sunchild’s Sayings. Perhaps because it was the first day of the year
+according to their new calendar, the reading began with the first
+chapter, the whole of which was read. My father told me that he quite
+well remembered having said the last verse, which he still held as true;
+hardly a word of the rest was ever spoken by him, though he recognised
+his own influence in almost all of it. The reader paused, with good
+effect, for about five seconds between each paragraph, and read slowly
+and very clearly. The chapter was as follows:-
+
+   These are the words of the Sunchild about God and man. He said--
+
+   1. God is the baseless basis of all thoughts, things, and deeds.
+
+   2. So that those who say that there is a God, lie, unless they also
+   mean that there is no God; and those who say that there is no God,
+   lie, unless they also mean that there is a God.
+
+   3. It is very true to say that man is made after the likeness of God;
+   and yet it is very untrue to say this.
+
+   4. God lives and moves in every atom throughout the universe.
+   Therefore it is wrong to think of Him as ‘Him’ and ‘He,’ save as by
+   the clutching of a drowning man at a straw.
+
+   5. God is God to us only so long as we cannot see Him. When we are
+   near to seeing Him He vanishes, and we behold Nature in His stead.
+
+   6. We approach Him most nearly when we think of Him as our expression
+   for Man’s highest conception, of goodness, wisdom, and power. But we
+   cannot rise to Him above the level of our own highest selves.
+
+   7. We remove ourselves most far from Him when we invest Him with
+   human form and attributes.
+
+   8. My father the sun, the earth, the moon, and all planets that roll
+   round my father, are to God but as a single cell in our bodies to
+   ourselves.
+
+   9. He is as much above my father, as my father is above men and
+   women.
+
+   10. The universe is instinct with the mind of God. The mind of God
+   is in all that has mind throughout all worlds. There is no God but
+   the Universe, and man, in this world is His prophet.
+
+   11. God’s conscious life, nascent, so far as this world is concerned,
+   in the infusoria, adolescent in the higher mammals, approaches
+   maturity on this earth in man. All these living beings are members
+   one of another, and of God.
+
+   12. Therefore, as man cannot live without God in the world, so
+   neither can God live in this world without mankind.
+
+   13. If we speak ill of God in our ignorance it may be forgiven us;
+   but if we speak ill of His Holy Spirit indwelling in good men and
+   women it may not be forgiven us.
+
+The Head Manager now resumed his place by President Gurgoyle’s side, and
+the President in the name of his Majesty the King declared the temple to
+be hereby dedicated to the contemplation of the Sunchild and the better
+exposition of his teaching. This was all that was said. The reliquary
+was then brought forward and placed at the top of the steps leading from
+the apse to the nave; but the original intention of carrying it round the
+temple was abandoned for fear of accidents through the pressure round it
+of the enormous multitudes who were assembled. More singing followed of
+a simple but impressive kind; during this I am afraid I must own that my
+father, tired with his walk, dropped off into a refreshing slumber, from
+which he did not wake till George nudged him and told him not to snore,
+just as the Vice-Manager was going towards the lectern to read another
+chapter of the Sunchild’s Sayings--which was as follows:-
+
+   The Sunchild also spoke to us a parable about the unwisdom of the
+   children yet unborn, who though they know so much, yet do not know as
+   much as they think they do.
+
+   He said:-
+
+   “The unborn have knowledge of one another so long as they are unborn,
+   and this without impediment from walls or material obstacles. The
+   unborn children in any city form a population apart, who talk with one
+   another and tell each other about their developmental progress.
+
+   “They have no knowledge, and cannot even conceive the existence of
+   anything that is not such as they are themselves. Those who have been
+   born are to them what the dead are to us. They can see no life in
+   them, and know no more about them than they do of any stage in their
+   own past development other than the one through which they are passing
+   at the moment. They do not even know that their mothers are
+   alive--much less that their mothers were once as they now are. To an
+   embryo, its mother is simply the environment, and is looked upon much
+   as our inorganic surroundings are by ourselves.
+
+   “The great terror of their lives is the fear of birth,--that they
+   shall have to leave the only thing that they can think of as life, and
+   enter upon a dark unknown which is to them tantamount to annihilation.
+
+   “Some, indeed, among them have maintained that birth is not the death
+   which they commonly deem it, but that there is a life beyond the womb
+   of which they as yet know nothing, and which is a million fold more
+   truly life than anything they have yet been able even to imagine. But
+   the greater number shake their yet unfashioned heads and say they have
+   no evidence for this that will stand a moment’s examination.
+
+   “‘Nay,’ answer the others, ‘so much work, so elaborate, so wondrous as
+   that whereon we are now so busily engaged must have a purpose, though
+   the purpose is beyond our grasp.’
+
+   “‘Never,’ reply the first speakers; ‘our pleasure in the work is
+   sufficient justification for it. Who has ever partaken of this life
+   you speak of, and re-entered into the womb to tell us of it? Granted
+   that some few have pretended to have done this, but how completely
+   have their stories broken down when subjected to the tests of sober
+   criticism. No. When we are born we are born, and there is an end of
+   us.’
+
+   “But in the hour of birth, when they can no longer re-enter the womb
+   and tell the others, Behold! they find that it is not so.”
+
+Here the reader again closed his book and resumed his place in the apse.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI: PROFESSOR HANKY PREACHES A SERMON, IN THE COURSE OF WHICH MY
+FATHER DECLARES HIMSELF TO BE THE SUNCHILD
+
+
+Professor Hanky then went up into the pulpit, richly but soberly robed in
+vestments the exact nature of which I cannot determine. His carriage was
+dignified, and the harsh lines on his face gave it a strong
+individuality, which, though it did not attract, conveyed an impression
+of power that could not fail to interest. As soon as he had given
+attention time to fix itself upon him, he began his sermon without text
+or preliminary matter of any kind, and apparently without notes.
+
+He spoke clearly and very quietly, especially at the beginning; he used
+action whenever it could point his meaning, or give it life and colour,
+but there was no approach to staginess or even oratorical display. In
+fact, he spoke as one who meant what he was saying, and desired that his
+hearers should accept his meaning, fully confident in his good faith. His
+use of pause was effective. After the word “mistake,” at the end of the
+opening sentence, he held up his half-bent hand and paused for full three
+seconds, looking intently at his audience as he did so. Every one felt
+the idea to be here enounced that was to dominate the sermon.
+
+The sermon--so much of it as I can find room for--was as follows:-
+
+“My friends, let there be no mistake. At such a time, as this, it is
+well we should look back upon the path by which we have travelled, and
+forward to the goal towards which we are tending. As it was necessary
+that the material foundations of this building should be so sure that
+there shall be no subsidence in the superstructure, so is it not less
+necessary to ensure that there shall be no subsidence in the immaterial
+structure that we have raised in consequence of the Sunchild’s sojourn
+among us. Therefore, my friends, I again say, ‘Let there be no mistake.’
+Each stone that goes towards the uprearing of this visible fane, each
+human soul that does its part in building the invisible temple of our
+national faith, is bearing witness to, and lending its support to, that
+which is either the truth of truths, or the baseless fabric of a dream.
+
+“My friends, this is the only possible alternative. He in whose name we
+are here assembled, is either worthy of more reverential honour than we
+can ever pay him, or he is worthy of no more honour than any other
+honourable man among ourselves. There can be no halting between these
+two opinions. The question of questions is, was he the child of the
+tutelary god of this world--the sun, and is it to the palace of the sun
+that he returned when he left us, or was he, as some amongst us still do
+not hesitate to maintain, a mere man, escaping by unusual but strictly
+natural means to some part of this earth with which we are unacquainted.
+My friends, either we are on a right path or on a very wrong one, and in
+a matter of such supreme importance--there must be no mistake.
+
+“I need not remind those of you whose privilege it is to live in
+Sunch’ston, of the charm attendant on the Sunchild’s personal presence
+and conversation, nor of his quick sympathy, his keen intellect, his
+readiness to adapt himself to the capacities of all those who came to see
+him while he was in prison. He adored children, and it was on them that
+some of his most conspicuous miracles were performed. Many a time when a
+child had fallen and hurt itself, was he known to make the place well by
+simply kissing it. Nor need I recall to your minds the spotless purity
+of his life--so spotless that not one breath of slander has ever dared to
+visit it. I was one of the not very many who had the privilege of being
+admitted to the inner circle of his friends during the later weeks that
+he was amongst us. I loved him dearly, and it will ever be the proudest
+recollection of my life that he deigned to return me no small measure of
+affection.”
+
+My father, furious as he was at finding himself dragged into complicity
+with this man’s imposture, could not resist a smile at the effrontery
+with which he lowered his tone here, and appeared unwilling to dwell on
+an incident which he could not recall without being affected almost to
+tears, and mere allusion to which, had involved an apparent self-display
+that was above all things repugnant to him. What a difference between
+the Hanky of Thursday evening with its “never set eyes on him and hope I
+never shall,” and the Hanky of Sunday morning, who now looked as modest
+as Cleopatra might have done had she been standing godmother to a little
+blue-eyed girl--Bellerophon’s first-born baby.
+
+Having recovered from his natural, but promptly repressed, emotion, the
+Professor continued:-
+
+“I need not remind you of the purpose for which so many of us, from so
+many parts of our kingdom, are here assembled. We know what we have come
+hither to do: we are come each one of us to sign and seal by his presence
+the bond of his assent to those momentous changes, which have found their
+first great material expression in the temple that you see around you.
+
+“You all know how, in accordance with the expressed will of the Sunchild,
+the Presidents and Vice-Presidents of the Musical Banks began as soon as
+he had left us to examine, patiently, carefully, earnestly, and without
+bias of any kind, firstly the evidences in support of the Sunchild’s
+claim to be the son of the tutelar deity of this world, and secondly the
+precise nature of his instructions as regards the future position and
+authority of the Musical Banks.
+
+“My friends, it is easy to understand why the Sunchild should have given
+us these instructions. With that foresight which is the special
+characteristic of divine, as compared with human, wisdom, he desired that
+the evidences in support of his superhuman character should be collected,
+sifted, and placed on record, before anything was either lost through the
+death of those who could alone substantiate it, or unduly supplied
+through the enthusiasm of over-zealous visionaries. The greater any true
+miracle has been, the more certainly will false ones accrete round it;
+here, then, we find the explanation of the command the Sunchild gave to
+us to gather, verify, and record, the facts of his sojourn here in
+Erewhon. For above all things he held it necessary to ensure that there
+should be neither mistake, nor even possibility of mistake.
+
+“Consider for a moment what differences of opinion would infallibly have
+arisen, if the evidences for the miraculous character of the Sunchild’s
+mission had been conflicting--if they had rested on versions each
+claiming to be equally authoritative, but each hopelessly irreconcilable
+on vital points with every single other. What would future generations
+have said in answer to those who bade them fling all human experience to
+the winds, on the strength of records written they knew not certainly by
+whom, nor how long after the marvels that they recorded, and of which all
+that could be certainly said was that no two of them told the same story?
+
+“Who that believes either in God or man--who with any self-respect, or
+respect for the gift of reason with which God had endowed him, either
+would, or could, believe that a chariot and four horses had come down
+from heaven, and gone back again with human or quasi-human occupants,
+unless the evidences for the fact left no loophole for escape? If a
+single loophole were left him, he would be unpardonable, not for
+disbelieving the story, but for believing it. The sin against God would
+lie not in want of faith, but in faith.
+
+“My friends, there are two sins in matters of belief. There is that of
+believing on too little evidence, and that of requiring too much before
+we are convinced. The guilt of the latter is incurred, alas! by not a
+few amongst us at the present day, but if the testimony to the truth of
+the wondrous event so faithfully depicted on the picture that confronts
+you had been less contemporaneous, less authoritative, less unanimous,
+future generations--and it is for them that we should now provide--would
+be guilty of the first-named, and not less heinous sin if they believed
+at all.
+
+“Small wonder, then, that the Sunchild, having come amongst us for our
+advantage, not his own, would not permit his beneficent designs to be
+endangered by the discrepancies, mythical developments, idiosyncracies,
+and a hundred other defects inevitably attendant on amateur and
+irresponsible recording. Small wonder, then, that he should have chosen
+the officials of the Musical Banks, from the Presidents and
+Vice-Presidents downwards to be the authoritative exponents of his
+teaching, the depositaries of his traditions, and his representatives
+here on earth till he shall again see fit to visit us. For he will come.
+Nay it is even possible that he may be here amongst us at this very
+moment, disguised so that none may know him, and intent only on watching
+our devotion towards him. If this be so, let me implore him, in the name
+of the sun his father, to reveal himself.”
+
+Now Hanky had already given my father more than one look that had made
+him uneasy. He had evidently recognised him as the supposed ranger of
+last Thursday evening. Twice he had run his eye like a searchlight over
+the front benches opposite to him, and when the beam had reached my
+father there had been no more searching. It was beginning to dawn upon
+my father that George might have discovered that he was not Professor
+Panky; was it for this reason that these two young special constables,
+though they gave up their places, still kept so close to him? Was George
+only waiting his opportunity to arrest him--not of course even suspecting
+who he was--but as a foreign devil who had tried to pass himself off as
+Professor Panky? Had this been the meaning of his having followed him to
+Fairmead? And should he have to be thrown into the Blue Pool by George
+after all? “It would serve me,” said he to himself, “richly right.”
+
+These fears which had been taking shape for some few minutes were turned
+almost to certainties by the half-contemptuous glance Hanky threw towards
+him as he uttered what was obviously intended as a challenge. He saw
+that all was over, and was starting to his feet to declare himself, and
+thus fall into the trap that Hanky was laying for him, when George
+gripped him tightly by the knee and whispered, “Don’t--you are in great
+danger.” And he smiled kindly as he spoke.
+
+My father sank back dumbfounded. “You know me?” he whispered in reply.
+
+“Perfectly. So does Hanky, so does my mother; say no more,” and he again
+smiled.
+
+George, as my father afterwards learned, had hoped that he would reveal
+himself, and had determined in spite of his mother’s instructions, to
+give him an opportunity of doing so. It was for this reason that he had
+not arrested him quietly, as he could very well have done, before the
+service began. He wished to discover what manner of man his father was,
+and was quite happy as soon as he saw that he would have spoken out if he
+had not been checked. He had not yet caught Hanky’s motive in trying to
+goad my father, but on seeing that he was trying to do this, he knew that
+a trap was being laid, and that my father must not be allowed to speak.
+
+Almost immediately, however, he perceived that while his eyes had been
+turned on Hanky, two burly vergers had wormed their way through the crowd
+and taken their stand close to his two brothers. Then he understood, and
+understood also how to frustrate.
+
+As for my father, George’s ascendancy over him--quite felt by George--was
+so absolute that he could think of nothing now but the exceeding great
+joy of finding his fears groundless, and of delivering himself up to his
+son’s guidance in the assurance that the void in his heart was filled,
+and that his wager not only would be held as won, but was being already
+paid. How they had found out, why he was not to speak as he would
+assuredly have done--for he was in a white heat of fury--what did it all
+matter now that he had found that which he had feared he should fail to
+find? He gave George a puzzled smile, and composed himself as best he
+could to hear the continuation of Hanky’s sermon, which was as follows:-
+
+“Who could the Sunchild have chosen, even though he had been gifted with
+no more than human sagacity, but the body of men whom he selected? It
+becomes me but ill to speak so warmly in favour of that body of whom I am
+the least worthy member, but what other is there in Erewhon so above all
+suspicion of slovenliness, self-seeking, preconceived bias, or bad faith?
+If there was one set of qualities more essential than another for the
+conduct of the investigations entrusted to us by the Sunchild, it was
+those that turn on meekness and freedom from all spiritual pride. I
+believe I can say quite truly that these are the qualities for which
+Bridgeford is more especially renowned. The readiness of her Professors
+to learn even from those who at first sight may seem least able to
+instruct them--the gentleness with which they correct an opponent if they
+feel it incumbent upon them to do so, the promptitude with which they
+acknowledge error when it is pointed out to them and quit a position no
+matter how deeply they have been committed to it, at the first moment in
+which they see that they cannot hold it righteously, their delicate sense
+of honour, their utter immunity from what the Sunchild used to call log-
+rolling or intrigue, the scorn with which they regard anything like
+hitting below the belt--these I believe I may truly say are the virtues
+for which Bridgeford is pre-eminently renowned.”
+
+The Professor went on to say a great deal more about the fitness of
+Bridgeford and the Musical Bank managers for the task imposed on them by
+the Sunchild, but here my father’s attention flagged--nor, on looking at
+the verbatim report of the sermon that appeared next morning in the
+leading Sunch’ston journal, do I see reason to reproduce Hanky’s words on
+this head. It was all to shew that there had been no possibility of
+mistake.
+
+Meanwhile George was writing on a scrap of paper as though he was taking
+notes of the sermon. Presently he slipped this into my father’s hand. It
+ran:-
+
+“You see those vergers standing near my brothers, who gave up their seats
+to us. Hanky tried to goad you into speaking that they might arrest you,
+and get you into the Bank prisons. If you fall into their hands you are
+lost. I must arrest you instantly on a charge of poaching on the King’s
+preserves, and make you my prisoner. Let those vergers catch sight of
+the warrant which I shall now give you. Read it and return it to me.
+Come with me quietly after service. I think you had better not reveal
+yourself at all.”
+
+As soon as he had given my father time to read the foregoing, George took
+a warrant out of his pocket. My father pretended to read it and returned
+it. George then laid his hand on his shoulder, and in an undertone
+arrested him. He then wrote on another scrap of paper and passed it on
+to the elder of his two brothers. It was to the effect that he had now
+arrested my father, and that if the vergers attempted in any way to
+interfere between him and his prisoner, his brothers were to arrest both
+of them, which, as special constables, they had power to do.
+
+Yram had noted Hanky’s attempt to goad my father, and had not been
+prepared for his stealing a march upon her by trying to get my father
+arrested by Musical Bank officials, rather than by her son. On the
+preceding evening this last plan had been arranged on; and she knew
+nothing of the note that Hanky had sent an hour or two later to the
+Manager of the temple--the substance of which the reader can sufficiently
+guess. When she had heard Hanky’s words and saw the vergers, she was for
+a few minutes seriously alarmed, but she was reassured when she saw
+George give my father the warrant, and her two sons evidently explaining
+the position to the vergers.
+
+Hanky had by this time changed his theme, and was warning his hearers of
+the dangers that would follow on the legalization of the medical
+profession, and the repeal of the edicts against machines. Space forbids
+me to give his picture of the horrible tortures that future generations
+would be put to by medical men, if these were not duly kept in check by
+the influence of the Musical Banks; the horrors of the inquisition in the
+middle ages are nothing to what he depicted as certain to ensue if
+medical men were ever to have much money at their command. The only
+people in whose hands money might be trusted safely were those who
+presided over the Musical Banks. This tirade was followed by one not
+less alarming about the growth of materialistic tendencies among the
+artisans employed in the production of mechanical inventions. My father,
+though his eyes had been somewhat opened by the second of the two
+processions he had seen on his way to Sunch’ston, was not prepared to
+find that in spite of the superficially almost universal acceptance of
+the new faith, there was a powerful, and it would seem growing,
+undercurrent of scepticism, with a desire to reduce his escape with my
+mother to a purely natural occurence.
+
+“It is not enough,” said Hanky, “that the Sunchild should have ensured
+the preparation of authoritative evidence of his supernatural character.
+The evidences happily exist in overwhelming strength, but they must be
+brought home to minds that as yet have stubbornly refused to receive
+them. During the last five years there has been an enormous increase in
+the number of those whose occupation in the manufacture of machines
+inclines them to a materialistic explanation even of the most obviously
+miraculous events, and the growth of this class in our midst constituted,
+and still constitutes, a grave danger to the state.
+
+“It was to meet this that the society was formed on behalf of which I
+appeal fearlessly to your generosity. It is called, as most of you
+doubtless know, the Sunchild Evidence Society; and his Majesty the King
+graciously consented to become its Patron. This society not only
+collects additional evidences--indeed it is entirely due to its labours
+that the precious relic now in this temple was discovered--but it is its
+beneficent purpose to lay those that have been authoritatively
+investigated before men who, if left to themselves, would either neglect
+them altogether, or worse still reject them.
+
+“For the first year or two the efforts of the society met with but little
+success among those for whose benefit they were more particularly
+intended, but during the present year the working classes in some cities
+and towns (stimulated very much by the lectures of my illustrious friend
+Professor Panky) have shewn a most remarkable and zealous interest in
+Sunchild evidences, and have formed themselves into local branches for
+the study and defence of Sunchild truth.
+
+“Yet in spite of all this need--of all this patient labour and really
+very gratifying success--the subscriptions to the society no longer
+furnish it with its former very modest income--an income which is
+deplorably insufficient if the organization is to be kept effective, and
+the work adequately performed. In spite of the most rigid economy, the
+committee have been compelled to part with a considerable portion of
+their small reserve fund (provided by a legacy) to tide over
+difficulties. But this method of balancing expenditure and income is
+very unsatisfactory, and cannot be long continued.
+
+“I am led to plead for the society with especial insistence at the
+present time, inasmuch as more than one of those whose unblemished life
+has made them fitting recipients of such a signal favour, have recently
+had visions informing them that the Sunchild will again shortly visit us.
+We know not when he will come, but when he comes, my friends, let him not
+find us unmindful of, nor ungrateful for, the inestimable services he has
+rendered us. For come he surely will. Either in winter, what time
+icicles hang by the wall and milk comes frozen home in the pail--or in
+summer when days are at their longest and the mowing grass is about--there
+will be an hour, either at morn, or eve, or in the middle day, when he
+will again surely come. May it be mine to be among those who are then
+present to receive him.”
+
+Here he again glared at my father, whose blood was boiling. George had
+not positively forbidden him to speak out; he therefore sprang to his
+feet, “You lying hound,” he cried, “I am the Sunchild, and you know it.”
+
+George, who knew that he had my father in his own hands, made no attempt
+to stop him, and was delighted that he should have declared himself
+though he had felt it his duty to tell him not to do so. Yram turned
+pale. Hanky roared out, “Tear him in pieces--leave not a single limb on
+his body. Take him out and burn him alive.” The vergers made a dash for
+him--but George’s brothers seized them. The crowd seemed for a moment
+inclined to do as Hanky bade them, but Yram rose from her place, and held
+up her hand as one who claimed attention. She advanced towards George
+and my father as unconcernedly as though she were merely walking out of
+church, but she still held her hand uplifted. All eyes were turned on
+her, as well as on George and my father, and the icy calm of her self-
+possession chilled those who were inclined for the moment to take Hanky’s
+words literally. There was not a trace of fluster in her gait, action,
+or words, as she said--
+
+“My friends, this temple, and this day, must not be profaned with blood.
+My son will take this poor madman to the prison. Let him be judged and
+punished according to law. Make room, that he and my son may pass.”
+
+Then, turning to my father, she said, “Go quietly with the Ranger.”
+
+Having so spoken, she returned to her seat as unconcernedly as she had
+left it.
+
+Hanky for a time continued to foam at the mouth and roar out, “Tear him
+to pieces! burn him alive!” but when he saw that there was no further
+hope of getting the people to obey him, he collapsed on to a seat in his
+pulpit, mopped his bald head, and consoled himself with a great pinch of
+a powder which corresponds very closely to our own snuff.
+
+George led my father out by the side door at the north end of the western
+aisle; the people eyed him intently, but made way for him without
+demonstration. One voice alone was heard to cry out, “Yes, he is the
+Sunchild!” My father glanced at the speaker, and saw that he was the
+interpreter who had taught him the Erewhonian language when he was in
+prison.
+
+George, seeing a special constable close by, told him to bid his brothers
+release the vergers, and let them arrest the interpreter--this the
+vergers, foiled as they had been in the matter of my father’s arrest,
+were very glad to do. So the poor interpreter, to his dismay, was lodged
+at once in one of the Bank prison-cells, where he could do no further
+harm.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII: GEORGE TAKES HIS FATHER TO PRISON, AND THERE OBTAINS SOME
+USEFUL INFORMATION
+
+
+By this time George had got my father into the open square, where he was
+surprised to find that a large bonfire had been made and lighted. There
+had been nothing of the kind an hour before; the wood, therefore, must
+have been piled and lighted while people had been in church. He had no
+time at the moment to enquire why this had been done, but later on he
+discovered that on the Sunday morning the Manager of the new temple had
+obtained leave from the Mayor to have the wood piled in the square,
+representing that this was Professor Hanky’s contribution to the
+festivities of the day. There had, it seemed, been no intention of
+lighting it until nightfall; but it had accidentally caught fire through
+the carelessness of a workman, much about the time when Hanky began to
+preach. No one for a moment believed that there had been any sinister
+intention, or that Professor Hanky when he urged the crowd to burn my
+father alive, even knew that there was a pile of wood in the square at
+all--much less that it had been lighted--for he could hardly have
+supposed that the wood had been got together so soon. Nevertheless both
+George and my father, when they knew all that had passed, congratulated
+themselves on the fact that my father had not fallen into the hands of
+the vergers, who would probably have tried to utilise the accidental
+fire, though in no case is it likely they would have succeeded.
+
+As soon as they were inside the gaol, the old Master recognised my
+father. “Bless my heart--what? You here, again, Mr. Higgs? Why, I
+thought you were in the palace of the sun your father.”
+
+“I wish I was,” answered my father, shaking hands with him, but he could
+say no more.
+
+“You are as safe here as if you were,” said George laughing, “and safer.”
+Then turning to his grandfather, he said, “You have the record of Mr.
+Higgs’s marks and measurements? I know you have: take him to his old
+cell; it is the best in the prison; and then please bring me the record.”
+
+The old man took George and my father to the cell which he had occupied
+twenty years earlier--but I cannot stay to describe his feelings on
+finding himself again within it. The moment his grandfather’s back was
+turned, George said to my father, “And now shake hands also with your
+son.”
+
+As he spoke he took my father’s hand and pressed it warmly between both
+his own.
+
+“Then you know you are my son,” said my father as steadily as the strong
+emotion that mastered him would permit.
+
+“Certainly.”
+
+“But you did not know this when I was walking with you on Friday?”
+
+“Of course not. I thought you were Professor Panky; if I had not taken
+you for one of the two persons named in your permit, I should have
+questioned you closely, and probably ended by throwing you into the Blue
+Pool.” He shuddered as he said this.
+
+“But you knew who I was when you called me Panky in the temple?”
+
+“Quite so. My mother told me everything on Friday evening.”
+
+“And that is why you tried to find me at Fairmead?”
+
+“Yes, but where in the world were you?”
+
+“I was inside the Musical Bank of the town, resting and reading.”
+
+George laughed, and said, “On purpose to hide?”
+
+“Oh no; pure chance. But on Friday evening? How could your mother have
+found out by that time that I was in Erewhon? Am I on my head or my
+heels?”
+
+“On your heels, my father, which shall take you back to your own country
+as soon as we can get you out of this.”
+
+“What have I done to deserve so much goodwill? I have done you nothing
+but harm?” Again he was quite overcome.
+
+George patted him gently on the hand, and said, “You made a bet and you
+won it. During the very short time that we can be together, you shall be
+paid in full, and may heaven protect us both.”
+
+As soon as my father could speak he said, “But how did your mother find
+out that I was in Erewhon?”
+
+“Hanky and Panky were dining with her, and they told her some things that
+she thought strange. She cross-questioned them, put two and two
+together, learned that you had got their permit out of them, saw that you
+intended to return on Friday, and concluded that you would be sleeping in
+Sunch’ston. She sent for me, told me all, bade me scour Sunch’ston to
+find you, intending that you should be at once escorted safely over the
+preserves by me. I found your inn, but you had given us the slip. I
+tried first Fairmead and then Clearwater, but did not find you till this
+morning. For reasons too long to repeat, my mother warned Hanky and
+Panky that you would be in the temple; whereon Hanky tried to get you
+into his clutches. Happily he failed, but if I had known what he was
+doing I should have arrested you before the service. I ought to have
+done this, but I wanted you to win your wager, and I shall get you safely
+away in spite of them. My mother will not like my having let you hear
+Hanky’s sermon and declare yourself.”
+
+“You half told me not to say who I was.”
+
+“Yes, but I was delighted when you disobeyed me.”
+
+“I did it very badly. I never rise to great occasions, I always fall to
+them, but these things must come as they come.”
+
+“You did it as well as it could be done, and good will come of it.”
+
+“And now,” he continued, “describe exactly all that passed between you
+and the Professors. On which side of Panky did Hanky sit, and did they
+sit north and south or east and west? How did you get--oh yes, I know
+that--you told them it would be of no further use to them. Tell me all
+else you can.”
+
+My father said that the Professors were sitting pretty well east and
+west, so that Hanky, who was on the east side, nearest the mountains, had
+Panky, who was on the Sunch’ston side, on his right hand. George made a
+note of this. My father then told what the reader already knows, but
+when he came to the measurement of the boots, George said, “Take your
+boots off,” and began taking off his own. “Foot for foot,” said he, “we
+are not father and son, but brothers. Yours will fit me; they are less
+worn than mine, but I daresay you will not mind that.”
+
+On this George _ex abundanti cautelâ_ knocked a nail out of the right
+boot that he had been wearing and changed boots with my father; but he
+thought it more plausible not to knock out exactly the same nail that was
+missing on my father’s boot. When the change was made, each found--or
+said he found--the other’s boots quite comfortable.
+
+My father all the time felt as though he were a basket given to a dog.
+The dog had got him, was proud of him, and no one must try to take him
+away. The promptitude with which George took to him, the obvious
+pleasure he had in “running” him, his quick judgement, verging as it
+should towards rashness, his confidence that my father trusted him
+without reserve, the conviction of perfect openness that was conveyed by
+the way in which his eyes never budged from my father’s when he spoke to
+him, his genial, kindly, manner, perfect physical health, and the air he
+had of being on the best possible terms with himself and every one
+else--the combination of all this so overmastered my poor father (who
+indeed had been sufficiently mastered before he had been five minutes in
+George’s company) that he resigned himself as gratefully to being a
+basket, as George had cheerfully undertaken the task of carrying him.
+
+In passing I may say that George could never get his own boots back
+again, though he tried more than once to do so. My father always made
+some excuse. They were the only memento of George that he brought home
+with him; I wonder that he did not ask for a lock of his hair, but he did
+not. He had the boots put against a wall in his bedroom, where he could
+see them from his bed, and during his illness, while consciousness yet
+remained with him, I saw his eyes continually turn towards them. George,
+in fact, dominated him as long as anything in this world could do so. Nor
+do I wonder; on the contrary, I love his memory the better; for I too, as
+will appear later, have seen George, and whatever little jealousy I may
+have felt, vanished on my finding him almost instantaneously gain the
+same ascendancy over me his brother, that he had gained over his and my
+father. But of this no more at present. Let me return to the gaol in
+Sunch’ston.
+
+“Tell me more,” said George, “about the Professors.”
+
+My father told him about the nuggets, the sale of his kit, the receipt he
+had given for the money, and how he had got the nuggets back from a tree,
+the position of which he described.
+
+“I know the tree; have you got the nuggets here?”
+
+“Here they are, with the receipt, and the pocket handkerchief marked with
+Hanky’s name. The pocket handkerchief was found wrapped round some dried
+leaves that we call tea, but I have not got these with me.” As he spoke
+he gave everything to George, who showed the utmost delight in getting
+possession of them.
+
+“I suppose the blanket and the rest of the kit are still in the tree?”
+
+“Unless Hanky and Panky have got them away, or some one has found them.”
+
+“This is not likely. I will now go to my office, but I will come back
+very shortly. My grandfather shall bring you something to eat at once. I
+will tell him to send enough for two”--which he accordingly did.
+
+On reaching the office, he told his next brother (whom he had made an
+under-ranger) to go to the tree he described, and bring back the bundle
+he should find concealed therein. “You can go there and back,” he said,
+“in an hour and a half, and I shall want the bundle by that time.”
+
+The brother, whose name I never rightly caught, set out at once. As soon
+as he was gone, George took from a drawer the feathers and bones of
+quails, that he had shown my father on the morning when he met him. He
+divided them in half, and made them into two bundles, one of which he
+docketed, “Bones of quails eaten, XIX. xii. 29, by Professor Hanky,
+P.O.W.W., &c.” And he labelled Panky’s quail bones in like fashion.
+
+Having done this, he returned to the gaol, but on his way he looked in at
+the Mayor’s, and left a note saying that he should be at the gaol, where
+any message would reach him, but that he did not wish to meet Professors
+Hanky and Panky for another couple of hours. It was now about half-past
+twelve, and he caught sight of a crowd coming quietly out of the temple,
+whereby he knew that Hanky would soon be at the Mayor’s house.
+
+Dinner was brought in almost at the moment when George returned to the
+gaol. As soon as it was over George said:-
+
+“Are you quite sure you have made no mistake about the way in which you
+got the permit out of the Professors?”
+
+“Quite sure. I told them they would not want it, and said I could save
+them trouble if they gave it me. They never suspected why I wanted it.
+Where do you think I may be mistaken?”
+
+“You sold your nuggets for rather less than a twentieth part of their
+value, and you threw in some curiosities, that would have fetched about
+half as much as you got for the nuggets. You say you did this because
+you wanted money to keep you going till you could sell some of your
+nuggets. This sounds well at first, but the sacrifice is too great to be
+plausible when considered. It looks more like a case of good honest
+manly straightforward corruption.”
+
+“But surely you believe me?”
+
+“Of course I do. I believe every syllable that comes from your mouth,
+but I shall not be able to make out that the story was as it was not,
+unless I am quite certain what it really was.”
+
+“It was exactly as I have told you.”
+
+“That is enough. And now, may I tell my mother that you will put
+yourself in her, and the Mayor’s, and my, hands, and will do whatever we
+tell you?”
+
+“I will be obedience itself--but you will not ask me to do anything that
+will make your mother or you think less well of me?”
+
+“If we tell you what you are to do, we shall not think any the worse of
+you for doing it. Then I may say to my mother that you will be good and
+give no trouble--not even though we bid you shake hands with Hanky and
+Panky?”
+
+“I will embrace them and kiss them on both cheeks, if you and she tell me
+to do so. But what about the Mayor?”
+
+“He has known everything, and condoned everything, these last twenty
+years. He will leave everything to my mother and me.”
+
+“Shall I have to see him?”
+
+“Certainly. You must be brought up before him to-morrow morning.”
+
+“How can I look him in the face?”
+
+“As you would me, or any one else. It is understood among us that
+nothing happened. Things may have looked as though they had happened,
+but they did not happen.”
+
+“And you are not yet quite twenty?”
+
+“No, but I am son to my mother--and,” he added, “to one who can stretch a
+point or two in the way of honesty as well as other people.”
+
+Having said this with a laugh, he again took my father’s hand between
+both his, and went back to his office--where he set himself to think out
+the course he intended to take when dealing with the Professors.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII: YRAM INVITES DR. DOWNIE AND MRS. HUMDRUM TO LUNCHEON--A
+PASSAGE AT ARMS BETWEEN HER AND HANKY IS AMICABLY ARRANGED
+
+
+The disturbance caused by my father’s outbreak was quickly suppressed,
+for George got him out of the temple almost immediately; it was bruited
+about, however, that the Sunchild had come down from the palace of the
+sun, but had disappeared as soon as any one had tried to touch him. In
+vain did Hanky try to put fresh life into his sermon; its back had been
+broken, and large numbers left the church to see what they could hear
+outside, or failing information, to discourse more freely with one
+another.
+
+Hanky did his best to quiet his hearers when he found that he could not
+infuriate them,--
+
+“This poor man,” he said, “is already known to me, as one of those who
+have deluded themselves into believing that they are the Sunchild. I
+have known of his so declaring himself, more than once, in the
+neighbourhood of Bridgeford, and others have not infrequently done the
+same; I did not at first recognize him, and regret that the shock of
+horror his words occasioned me should have prompted me to suggest
+violence against him. Let this unfortunate affair pass from your minds,
+and let me again urge upon you the claims of the Sunchild Evidence
+Society.”
+
+The audience on hearing that they were to be told more about the Sunchild
+Evidence Society melted away even more rapidly than before, and the
+sermon fizzled out to an ignominious end quite unworthy of its occasion.
+
+About half-past twelve, the service ended, and Hanky went to the robing-
+room to take off his vestments. Yram, the Mayor, and Panky, waited for
+him at the door opposite to that through which my father had been taken;
+while waiting, Yram scribbled off two notes in pencil, one to Dr. Downie,
+and another to Mrs. Humdrum, begging them to come to lunch at once--for
+it would be one o’clock before they could reach the Mayor’s. She gave
+these notes to the Mayor, and bade him bring both the invited guests
+along with him.
+
+The Mayor left just as Hanky was coming towards her. “This, Mayoress,”
+he said with some asperity, “is a very serious business. It has ruined
+my collection. Half the people left the temple without giving anything
+at all. You seem,” he added in a tone the significance of which could
+not be mistaken, “to be very fond, Mayoress, of this Mr. Higgs.”
+
+“Yes,” said Yram, “I am; I always liked him, and I am sorry for him; but
+he is not the person I am most sorry for at this moment--he, poor man, is
+not going to be horsewhipped within the next twenty minutes.” And she
+spoke the “he” in italics.
+
+“I do not understand you, Mayoress.”
+
+“My husband will explain, as soon as I have seen him.”
+
+“Hanky,” said Panky, “you must withdraw, and apologise at once.”
+
+Hanky was not slow to do this, and when he had disavowed everything,
+withdrawn everything, apologised for everything, and eaten humble pie to
+Yram’s satisfaction, she smiled graciously, and held out her hand, which
+Hanky was obliged to take.
+
+“And now, Professor,” she said, “let me return to your remark that this
+is a very serious business, and let me also claim a woman’s privilege of
+being listened to whenever she chooses to speak. I propose, then, that
+we say nothing further about this matter till after luncheon. I have
+asked Dr. Downie and Mrs. Humdrum to join us--”
+
+“Why Mrs. Humdrum?” interrupted Hanky none too pleasantly, for he was
+still furious about the duel that had just taken place between himself
+and his hostess.
+
+“My dear Professor,” said Yram good-humouredly, “pray say all you have to
+say and I will continue.”
+
+Hanky was silent.
+
+“I have asked,” resumed Yram, “Dr. Downie and Mrs. Humdrum to join, us,
+and after luncheon we can discuss the situation or no as you may think
+proper. Till then let us say no more. Luncheon will be over by two
+o’clock or soon after, and the banquet will not begin till seven, so we
+shall have plenty of time.”
+
+Hanky looked black and said nothing. As for Panky he was morally in a
+state of collapse, and did not count.
+
+Hardly had they reached the Mayor’s house when the Mayor also arrived
+with Dr. Downie and Mrs. Humdrum, both of whom had seen and recognised my
+father in spite of his having dyed his hair. Dr. Downie had met him at
+supper in Mr. Thims’s rooms when he had visited Bridgeford, and naturally
+enough had observed him closely. Mrs. Humdrum, as I have already said,
+had seen him more than once when he was in prison. She and Dr. Downie
+were talking earnestly over the strange reappearance of one whom they had
+believed long since dead, but Yram imposed on them the same silence that
+she had already imposed on the Professors.
+
+“Professor Hanky,” said she to Mrs. Humdrum, in Hanky’s hearing, “is a
+little alarmed at my having asked you to join our secret conclave. He is
+not married, and does not know how well a woman can hold her tongue when
+she chooses. I should have told you all that passed, for I mean to
+follow your advice, so I thought you had better hear everything
+yourself.”
+
+Hanky still looked black, but he said nothing. Luncheon was promptly
+served, and done justice to in spite of much preoccupation; for if there
+is one thing that gives a better appetite than another, it is a Sunday
+morning’s service with a charity sermon to follow. As the guests might
+not talk on the subject they wanted to talk about, and were in no humour
+to speak of anything else, they gave their whole attention to the good
+things that were before them, without so much as a thought about
+reserving themselves for the evening’s banquet. Nevertheless, when
+luncheon was over, the Professors were in no more genial, manageable,
+state of mind than they had been when it began.
+
+When the servants had left the room, Yram said to Hanky, “You saw the
+prisoner, and he was the man you met on Thursday night?”
+
+“Certainly, he was wearing the forbidden dress and he had many quails in
+his possession. There is no doubt also that he was a foreign devil.”
+
+At this point, it being now nearly half-past two, George came in, and
+took a seat next to Mrs. Humdrum--between her and his mother--who of
+course sat at the head of the table with the Mayor opposite to her. On
+one side of the table sat the Professors, and on the other Dr. Downie,
+Mrs. Humdrum, and George, who had heard the last few words that Hanky had
+spoken.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX: A COUNCIL IS HELD AT THE MAYOR’S, IN THE COURSE OF WHICH
+GEORGE TURNS THE TABLES ON THE PROFESSORS
+
+
+“Now who,” said Yram, “is this unfortunate creature to be, when he is
+brought up to-morrow morning, on the charge of poaching?”
+
+“It is not necessary,” said Hanky severely, “that he should be brought up
+for poaching. He is a foreign devil, and as such your son is bound to
+fling him without trial into the Blue Pool. Why bring a smaller charge
+when you must inflict the death penalty on a more serious one? I have
+already told you that I shall feel it my duty to report the matter at
+headquarters, unless I am satisfied that the death penalty has been
+inflicted.”
+
+“Of course,” said George, “we must all of us do our duty, and I shall not
+shrink from mine--but I have arrested this man on a charge of poaching,
+and must give my reasons; the case cannot be dropped, and it must be
+heard in public. Am I, or am I not, to have the sworn depositions of
+both you gentlemen to the fact that the prisoner is the man you saw with
+quails in his possession? If you can depose to this he will be
+convicted, for there can be no doubt he killed the birds himself. The
+least penalty my father can inflict is twelve months’ imprisonment with
+hard labour; and he must undergo this sentence before I can Blue-Pool
+him.
+
+“Then comes the question whether or no he is a foreign devil. I may
+decide this in private, but I must have depositions on oath before I do
+so, and at present I have nothing but hearsay. Perhaps you gentlemen can
+give me the evidence I shall require, but the case is one of such
+importance that were the prisoner proved never so clearly to be a foreign
+devil, I should not Blue-Pool him till I had taken the King’s pleasure
+concerning him. I shall rejoice, therefore, if you gentlemen can help me
+to sustain the charge of poaching, and thus give me legal standing-ground
+for deferring action which the King might regret, and which once taken
+cannot be recalled.”
+
+Here Yram interposed. “These points,” she said, “are details. Should we
+not first settle, not what, but who, we shall allow the prisoner to be,
+when he is brought up to-morrow morning? Settle this, and the rest will
+settle itself. He has declared himself to be the Sunchild, and will
+probably do so again. I am prepared to identify him, so is Dr. Downie,
+so is Mrs. Humdrum, the interpreter, and doubtless my father. Others of
+known respectability will also do so, and his marks and measurements are
+sure to correspond quite sufficiently. The question is, whether all this
+is to be allowed to appear on evidence, or whether it is to be
+established, as it easily may, if we give our minds to it, that he is not
+the Sunchild.”
+
+“Whatever else he is,” said Hanky, “he must not be the Sunchild. He
+must, if the charge of poaching cannot be dropped, be a poacher and a
+foreign devil. I was doubtless too hasty when I said that I believed I
+recognized the man as one who had more than once declared himself to be
+the Sunchild--”
+
+“But, Hanky,” interrupted Panky, “are you sure that you can swear to this
+man’s being the man we met on Thursday night? We only saw him by
+firelight, and I doubt whether I should feel justified in swearing to
+him.”
+
+“Well, well: on second thoughts I am not sure, Panky, but what you may be
+right after all; it is possible that he may be what I said he was in my
+sermon.”
+
+“I rejoice to hear you say so,” said George, “for in this case the charge
+of poaching will fall through. There will be no evidence against the
+prisoner. And I rejoice also to think that I shall have nothing to
+warrant me in believing him to be a foreign devil. For if he is not to
+be the Sunchild, and not to be your poacher, he becomes a mere
+monomaniac. If he apologises for having made a disturbance in the
+temple, and promises not to offend again, a fine, and a few days’
+imprisonment, will meet the case, and he may be discharged.”
+
+“I see, I see,” said Hanky very angrily. “You are determined to get this
+man off if you can.”
+
+“I shall act,” said George, “in accordance with sworn evidence, and not
+otherwise. Choose whether you will have the prisoner to be your poacher
+or no: give me your sworn depositions one way or the other, and I shall
+know how to act. If you depose on oath to the identity of the prisoner
+and your poacher, he will be convicted and imprisoned. As to his being a
+foreign devil, if he is the Sunchild, of course he is one; but otherwise
+I cannot Blue-Pool him even when his sentence is expired, without
+testimony deposed to me on oath in private, though no open trial is
+required. A case for suspicion was made out in my hearing last night,
+but I must have depositions on oath to all the leading facts before I can
+decide what my duty is. What will you swear to?”
+
+“All this,” said Hanky, in a voice husky with passion, “shall be reported
+to the King.”
+
+“I intend to report every word of it; but that is not the point: the
+question is what you gentlemen will swear to?”
+
+“Very well. I will settle it thus. We will swear that the prisoner is
+the poacher we met on Thursday night, and that he is also a foreign
+devil: his wearing the forbidden dress; his foreign accent; the
+foot-tracks we found in the snow, as of one coming over from the other
+side; his obvious ignorance of the Afforesting Act, as shown by his
+having lit a fire and making no effort to conceal his quails till our
+permit shewed him his blunder; the cock-and-bull story he told us about
+your orders, and that other story about his having killed a foreign
+devil--if these facts do not satisfy you, they will satisfy the King that
+the prisoner is a foreign devil as well as a poacher.”
+
+“Some of these facts,” answered George, “are new to me. How do you know
+that the foot-tracks were made by the prisoner?”
+
+Panky brought out his note-book and read the details he had noted.
+
+“Did you examine the man’s boots?”
+
+“One of them, the right foot; this, with the measurements, was quite
+enough.”
+
+“Hardly. Please to look at both soles of my own boots; you will find
+that those tracks were mine. I will have the prisoner’s boots examined;
+in the meantime let me tell you that I was up at the statues on Thursday
+morning, walked three or four hundred yards beyond them, over ground
+where there was less snow, returned over the snow, and went two or three
+times round them, as it is the Ranger’s duty to do once a year in order
+to see that none of them are beginning to lean.”
+
+He showed the soles of his boots, and the Professors were obliged to
+admit that the tracks were his. He cautioned them as to the rest of the
+points on which they relied. Might they not be as mistaken, as they had
+just proved to be about the tracks? He could not, however, stir them
+from sticking to it that there was enough evidence to prove my father to
+be a foreign devil, and declaring their readiness to depose to the facts
+on oath. In the end Hanky again fiercely accused him of trying to shield
+the prisoner.
+
+“You are quite right,” said George, “and you will see my reasons
+shortly.”
+
+“I have no doubt,” said Hanky significantly, “that they are such as would
+weigh with any man of ordinary feeling.”
+
+“I understand, then,” said George, appearing to take no notice of Hanky’s
+innuendo, “that you will swear to the facts as you have above stated
+them?”
+
+“Certainly.”
+
+“Then kindly wait while I write them on the form that I have brought with
+me; the Mayor can administer the oath and sign your depositions. I shall
+then be able to leave you, and proceed with getting up the case against
+the prisoner.”
+
+So saying, he went to a writing-table in another part of the room, and
+made out the depositions.
+
+Meanwhile the Mayor, Mrs. Humdrum, and Dr. Downie (who had each of them
+more than once vainly tried to take part in the above discussion)
+conversed eagerly in an undertone among themselves. Hanky was blind with
+rage, for he had a sense that he was going to be outwitted; the Mayor,
+Yram, and Mrs. Humdrum had already seen that George thought he had all
+the trumps in his own hand, but they did not know more. Dr. Downie was
+frightened, and Panky so muddled as to be _hors de combat_.
+
+George now rejoined the Professors, and read the depositions: the Mayor
+administered the oath according to Erewhonian custom; the Professors
+signed without a word, and George then handed the document to his father
+to countersign.
+
+The Mayor examined it, and almost immediately said, “My dear George, you
+have made a mistake; these depositions are on a form reserved for
+deponents who are on the point of death.”
+
+“Alas!” answered George, “there is no help for it. I did my utmost to
+prevent their signing. I knew that those depositions were their own
+death warrant,--and that is why, though I was satisfied that the prisoner
+is a foreign devil, I had hoped to be able to shut my eyes. I can now no
+longer do so, and as the inevitable consequence, I must Blue-Pool both
+the Professors before midnight. What man of ordinary feeling would not
+under these circumstances have tried to dissuade them from deposing as
+they have done?”
+
+By this time the Professors had started to their feet, and there was a
+look of horrified astonishment on the faces of all present, save that of
+George, who seemed quite happy.
+
+“What monstrous absurdity is this?” shouted Hanky; “do you mean to murder
+us?”
+
+“Certainly not. But you have insisted that I should do my duty, and I
+mean to do it. You gentlemen have now been proved to my satisfaction to
+have had traffic with a foreign devil; and under section 37 of the
+Afforesting Act, I must at once Blue-Pool any such persons without public
+trial.”
+
+“Nonsense, nonsense, there was nothing of the kind on our permit, and as
+for trafficking with this foreign devil, we spoke to him, but we neither
+bought nor sold. Where is the Act?”
+
+“Here. On your permit you were referred to certain other clauses not set
+out therein, which might be seen at the Mayor’s office. Clause 37 is as
+follows:-
+
+   “It is furthermore enacted that should any of his Majesty’s subjects
+   be found, after examination by the Head Ranger, to have had traffic of
+   any kind by way of sale or barter with any foreign devil, the said
+   Ranger, on being satisfied that such traffic has taken place, shall
+   forthwith, with or without the assistance of his under-rangers, convey
+   such subjects of his Majesty to the Blue Pool, bind them, weight them,
+   and fling them into it, without the formality of a trial, and shall
+   report the circumstances of the case to his Majesty.”
+
+“But we never bought anything from the prisoner. What evidence can you
+have of this but the word of a foreign devil in such straits that he
+would swear to anything?”
+
+“The prisoner has nothing to do with it. I am convinced by this receipt
+in Professor Panky’s handwriting which states that he and you jointly
+purchased his kit from the prisoner, and also this bag of gold nuggets
+worth about £100 in silver, for the absurdly small sum of £4, 10s. in
+silver. I am further convinced by this handkerchief marked with
+Professor Hanky’s name, in which was found a broken packet of dried
+leaves that are now at my office with the rest of the prisoner’s kit.”
+
+“Then we were watched and dogged,” said Hanky, “on Thursday evening.”
+
+“That, sir,” replied George, “is my business, not yours.”
+
+Here Panky laid his arms on the table, buried his head in them, and burst
+into tears. Every one seemed aghast, but the Mayor, Yram, and Mrs.
+Humdrum saw that George was enjoying it all far too keenly to be serious.
+Dr. Downie was still frightened (for George’s surface manner was
+Rhadamanthine) and did his utmost to console Panky. George pounded away
+ruthlessly at his case.
+
+“I say nothing about your having bought quails from the prisoner and
+eaten them. As you justly remarked just now, there is no object in
+preferring a smaller charge when one must inflict the death penalty on a
+more serious one. Still, Professor Hanky, these are bones of the quails
+you ate as you sate opposite the prisoner on the side of the fire nearest
+Sunch’ston; these are Professor Panky’s bones, with which I need not
+disturb him. This is your permit, which was found upon the prisoner, and
+which there can be no doubt you sold him, having been bribed by the offer
+of the nuggets for--”
+
+“Monstrous, monstrous! Infamous falsehood! Who will believe such a
+childish trumped up story!”
+
+“Who, sir, will believe anything else? You will hardly contend that you
+did not know the nuggets were gold, and no one will believe you mean
+enough to have tried to get this poor man’s property out of him for a
+song--you knowing its value, and he not knowing the same. No one will
+believe that you did not know the man to be a foreign devil, or that he
+could hoodwink two such learned Professors so cleverly as to get their
+permit out of them. Obviously he seduced you into selling him your
+permit, and--I presume because he wanted a little of our money--he made
+you pay him for his kit. I am satisfied that you have not only had
+traffic with a foreign devil, but traffic of a singularly atrocious kind,
+and this being so, I shall Blue-Pool both of you as soon as I can get you
+up to the Pool itself. The sooner we start the better. I shall gag you,
+and drive you up in a close carriage as far as the road goes; from that
+point you can walk up, or be dragged up as you may prefer, but you will
+probably find walking more comfortable.”
+
+“But,” said Hanky, “come what may, I must be at the banquet. I am set
+down to speak.”
+
+“The Mayor will explain that you have been taken somewhat suddenly
+unwell.”
+
+Here Yram, who had been talking quietly with her husband, Dr. Downie, and
+Mrs. Humdrum, motioned her son to silence.
+
+“I feared,” she said, “that difficulties might arise, though I did not
+foresee how seriously they would affect my guests. Let Mrs. Humdrum on
+our side, and Dr. Downie on that of the Professors, go into the next room
+and talk the matter quietly over; let us then see whether we cannot agree
+to be bound by their decision. I do not doubt but they will find some
+means of averting any catastrophe more serious--No, Professor Hanky, the
+doors are locked--than a little perjury in which we shall all share and
+share alike.”
+
+“Do what you like,” said Hanky, looking for all the world like a rat
+caught in a trap. As he spoke he seized a knife from the table, whereon
+George pulled a pair of handcuffs from his pocket and slipped them on to
+his wrists before he well knew what was being done to him.
+
+“George,” said the Mayor, “this is going too far. Do you mean to Blue-
+Pool the Professors or no?”
+
+“Not if they will compromise. If they will be reasonable, they will not
+be Blue-Pooled; if they think they can have everything their own way, the
+eels will be at them before morning.”
+
+A voice was heard from the head of Panky which he had buried in his arms
+upon the table. “Co-co-co-compromise,” it said; and the effect was so
+comic that every one except Hanky smiled. Meanwhile Yram had conducted
+Dr. Downie and Mrs. Humdrum into an adjoining room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX: MRS. HUMDRUM AND DR. DOWNIE PROPOSE A COMPROMISE, WHICH,
+AFTER AN AMENDMENT BY GEORGE, IS CARRIED NEM. CON.
+
+
+They returned in about ten minutes, and Dr. Downie asked Mrs. Humdrum to
+say what they had agreed to recommend.
+
+“We think,” said she very demurely, “that the strict course would be to
+drop the charge of poaching, and Blue-Pool both the Professors and the
+prisoner without delay.
+
+“We also think that the proper thing would be to place on record that the
+prisoner is the Sunchild--about which neither Dr. Downie nor I have a
+shadow of doubt.
+
+“These measures we hold to be the only legal ones, but at the same time
+we do not recommend them. We think it would offend the public conscience
+if it came to be known, as it certainly would, that the Sunchild was
+violently killed, on the very day that had seen us dedicate a temple in
+his honour, and perhaps at the very hour when laudatory speeches were
+being made about him at the Mayor’s banquet; we think also that we should
+strain a good many points rather than Blue-Pool the Professors.
+
+“Nothing is perfect, and Truth makes her mistakes like other people; when
+she goes wrong and reduces herself to such an absurdity as she has here
+done, those who love her must save her from herself, correct her, and
+rehabilitate her.
+
+“Our conclusion, therefore, is this:-
+
+“The prisoner must recant on oath his statement that he is the Sunchild.
+The interpreter must be squared, or convinced of his mistake. The
+Mayoress, Dr. Downie, I, and the gaoler (with the interpreter if we can
+manage him), must depose on oath that the prisoner is not Higgs. This
+must be our contribution to the rehabilitation of Truth.
+
+“The Professors must contribute as follows: They must swear that the
+prisoner is not the man they met with quails in his possession on
+Thursday night. They must further swear that they have one or both of
+them known him, off and on, for many years past, as a monomaniac with
+Sunchildism on the brain but otherwise harmless. If they will do this,
+no proceedings are to be taken against them.
+
+“The Mayor’s contribution shall be to reprimand the prisoner, and order
+him to repeat his recantation in the new temple before the Manager and
+Head Cashier, and to confirm his statement on oath by kissing the
+reliquary containing the newly found relic.
+
+“The Ranger and the Master of the Gaol must contribute that the
+prisoner’s measurements, and the marks found on his body, negative all
+possibility of his identity with the Sunchild, and that all the hair on
+the covered as well as the uncovered parts of his body was found to be
+jet black.
+
+“We advise further that the prisoner should have his nuggets and his kit
+returned to him, and that the receipt given by the Professors together
+with Professor Hanky’s handkerchief be given back to the Professors.
+
+“Furthermore, seeing that we should all of us like to have a quiet
+evening with the prisoner, we should petition the Mayor and Mayoress to
+ask him to meet all here present at dinner to-morrow evening, after his
+discharge, on the plea that Professors Hanky and Panky and Dr. Downie may
+give him counsel, convince him of his folly, and if possible free him
+henceforth from the monomania under which he now suffers.
+
+“The prisoner shall give his word of honour, never to return to Erewhon,
+nor to encourage any of his countrymen to do so. After the dinner to
+which we hope the Mayoress will invite us, the Ranger, if the night is
+fair, shall escort the prisoner as far as the statues, whence he will
+find his own way home.
+
+“Those who are in favour of this compromise hold up their hands.”
+
+The Mayor and Yram held up theirs. “Will you hold up yours, Professor
+Hanky,” said George, “if I release you?”
+
+“Yes,” said Hanky with a gruff laugh, whereon George released him and he
+held up both his hands.
+
+Panky did not hold up his, whereon Hanky said, “Hold up your hands,
+Panky, can’t you? We are really very well out of it.”
+
+Panky, hardly lifting his head, sobbed out, “I think we ought to have our
+f-f-fo-fo-four pounds ten returned to us.”
+
+“I am afraid, sir,” said George, “that the prisoner must have spent the
+greater part of this money.”
+
+Every one smiled, indeed it was all George could do to prevent himself
+from laughing outright. The Mayor brought out his purse, counted the
+money, and handed it good-humouredly to Panky, who gratefully received
+it, and said he would divide it with Hanky. He then held up his hands,
+“But,” he added, turning to his brother Professor, “so long as I live,
+Hanky, I will never go out anywhere again with you.”
+
+George then turned to Hanky and said, “I am afraid I must now trouble you
+and Professor Panky to depose on oath to the facts which Mrs. Humdrum and
+Dr. Downie propose you should swear to in open court to-morrow. I knew
+you would do so, and have brought an ordinary form, duly filled up, which
+declares that the prisoner is not the poacher you met on Thursday; and
+also, that he has been long known to both of you as a harmless
+monomaniac.”
+
+As he spoke he brought out depositions to the above effect which he had
+just written in his office; he shewed the Professors that the form was
+this time an innocent one, whereon they made no demur to signing and
+swearing in the presence of the Mayor, who attested.
+
+“The former depositions,” said Hanky, “had better be destroyed at once.”
+
+“That,” said George, “may hardly be, but so long as you stick to what you
+have just sworn to, they will not be used against you.”
+
+Hanky scowled, but knew that he was powerless and said no more.
+
+* * * * *
+
+The knowledge of what ensued did not reach me from my father. George and
+his mother, seeing how ill he looked, and what a shock the events of the
+last few days had given him, resolved that he should not know of the risk
+that George was about to run; they therefore said nothing to him about
+it. What I shall now tell, I learned on the occasion already referred to
+when I had the happiness to meet George. I am in some doubt whether it
+is more fitly told here, or when I come to the interview between him and
+me; on the whole, however, I suppose chronological order is least
+outraged by dealing with it here.
+
+As soon as the Professors had signed the second depositions, George said,
+“I have not yet held up my hands, but I will hold them up if Mrs. Humdrum
+and Dr. Downie will approve of what I propose. Their compromise does not
+go far enough, for swear as we may, it is sure to get noised abroad, with
+the usual exaggerations, that the Sunchild has been here, and that he has
+been spirited away either by us, or by the sun his father. For one
+person whom we know of as having identified him, there will be five, of
+whom we know nothing, and whom we cannot square. Reports will reach the
+King sooner or later, and I shall be sent for. Meanwhile the Professors
+will be living in fear of intrigue on my part, and I, however
+unreasonably, shall fear the like on theirs. This should not be. I
+mean, therefore, on the day following my return from escorting the
+prisoner, to set out for the capital, see the King, and make a clean
+breast of the whole matter. To this end I must have the nuggets, the
+prisoner’s kit, his receipt, Professor Hanky’s handkerchief, and, of
+course, the two depositions just sworn to by the Professors. I hope and
+think that the King will pardon us all round; but whatever he may do I
+shall tell him everything.”
+
+Hanky was up in arms at once. “Sheer madness,” he exclaimed. Yram and
+the Mayor looked anxious; Dr. Downie eyed George as though he were some
+curious creature, which he heard of but had never seen, and was rather
+disposed to like. Mrs. Humdrum nodded her head approvingly.
+
+“Quite right, George,” said she, “tell his Majesty everything.”
+
+Dr. Downie then said, “Your son, Mayoress, is a very sensible fellow. I
+will go with him, and with the Professors--for they had better come too:
+each will hear what the other says, and we will tell the truth, the whole
+truth, and nothing but the truth. I am, as you know, a _persona grata_
+at Court; I will say that I advised your son’s action. The King has
+liked him ever since he was a boy, and I am not much afraid about what he
+will do. In public, no doubt we had better hush things up, but in
+private the King must be told.”
+
+Hanky fought hard for some time, but George told him that it did not
+matter whether he agreed or no. “You can come,” he said, “or stop away,
+just as you please. If you come, you can hear and speak; if you do not,
+you will not hear, but these two depositions will speak for you. Please
+yourself.”
+
+“Very well,” he said at last, “I suppose we had better go.”
+
+Every one having now understood what his or her part was to be, Yram said
+they had better shake hands all round and take a couple of hours’ rest
+before getting ready for the banquet. George said that the Professors
+did not shake hands with him very cordially, but the farce was gone
+through. When the hand-shaking was over, Dr. Downie and Mrs. Humdrum
+left the house, and the Professors retired grumpily to their own room.
+
+I will say here that no harm happened either to George or the Professors
+in consequence of his having told the King, but will reserve particulars
+for my concluding chapter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI: YRAM, ON GETTING RID OF HER GUESTS, GOES TO THE PRISON TO
+SEE MY FATHER
+
+
+Yram did not take the advice she had given her guests, but set about
+preparing a basket of the best cold dainties she could find, including a
+bottle of choice wine that she knew my father would like; thus loaded she
+went to the gaol, which she entered by her father’s private entrance.
+
+It was now about half-past four, so that much more must have been said
+and done after luncheon at the Mayor’s than ever reached my father. The
+wonder is that he was able to collect so much. He, poor man, as soon as
+George left him, flung himself on to the bed that was in his cell and lay
+there wakeful, but not unquiet, till near the time when Yram reached the
+gaol.
+
+The old gaoler came to tell him that she had come and would be glad to
+see him; much as he dreaded the meeting there was no avoiding it, and in
+a few minutes Yram stood before him.
+
+Both were agitated, but Yram betrayed less of what she felt than my
+father. He could only bow his head and cover his face with his hands.
+Yram said, “We are old friends; take your hands from your face and let me
+see you. There! That is well.”
+
+She took his right hand between both hers, looked at him with eyes full
+of kindness, and said softly--
+
+“You are not much changed, but you look haggard, worn, and ill; I am
+uneasy about you. Remember, you are among friends, who will see that no
+harm befalls you. There is a look in your eyes that frightens me.”
+
+As she spoke she took the wine out of her basket, and poured him out a
+glass, but rather to give him some little thing to distract his
+attention, than because she expected him to drink it--which he could not
+do.
+
+She never asked him whether he found her altered, or turned the
+conversation ever such a little on to herself; all was for him; to soothe
+and comfort him, not in words alone, but in look, manner, and voice. My
+father knew that he could thank her best by controlling himself, and
+letting himself be soothed and comforted--at any rate so far as he could
+seem to be.
+
+Up to this time they had been standing, but now Yram, seeing my father
+calmer, said, “Enough, let us sit down.”
+
+So saying she seated herself at one end of the small table that was in
+the cell, and motioned my father to sit opposite to her. “The light
+hurts you?” she said, for the sun was coming into the room. “Change
+places with me, I am a sun worshipper. No, we can move the table, and we
+can then see each other better.”
+
+This done, she said, still very softly, “And now tell me what it is all
+about. Why have you come here?”
+
+“Tell me first,” said my father, “what befell you after I had been taken
+away. Why did you not send me word when you found what had happened? or
+come after me? You know I should have married you at once, unless they
+bound me in fetters.”
+
+“I know you would; but you remember Mrs. Humdrum? Yes, I see you do. I
+told her everything; it was she who saved me. We thought of you, but she
+saw that it would not do. As I was to marry Mr. Strong, the more you
+were lost sight of the better, but with George ever with me I have not
+been able to forget you. I might have been very happy with you, but I
+could not have been happier than I have been ever since that short
+dreadful time was over. George must tell you the rest. I cannot do so.
+All is well. I love my husband with my whole heart and soul, and he
+loves me with his. As between him and me, he knows everything; George is
+his son, not yours; we have settled it so, though we both know otherwise;
+as between you and me, for this one hour, here, there is no use in
+pretending that you are not George’s father. I have said all I need say.
+Now, tell me what I asked you--Why are you here?”
+
+“I fear,” said my father, set at rest by the sweetness of Yram’s voice
+and manner--he told me he had never seen any one to compare with her
+except my mother--“I fear, to do as much harm now as I did before, and
+with as little wish to do any harm at all.”
+
+He then told her all that the reader knows, and explained how he had
+thought he could have gone about the country as a peasant, and seen how
+she herself had fared, without her, or any one, even suspecting that he
+was in the country.
+
+“You say your wife is dead, and that she left you with a son--is he like
+George?”
+
+“In mind and disposition, wonderfully; in appearance, no; he is dark and
+takes after his mother, and though he is handsome, he is not so
+good-looking as George.”
+
+“No one,” said George’s mother, “ever was, or ever will be, and he is as
+good as he looks.”
+
+“I should not have believed you if you had said he was not.”
+
+“That is right. I am glad you are proud of him. He irradiates the lives
+of every one of us.”
+
+“And the mere knowledge that he exists will irradiate the rest of mine.”
+
+“Long may it do so. Let us now talk about this morning--did you mean to
+declare yourself?”
+
+“I do not know what I meant; what I most cared about was the doing what I
+thought George would wish to see his father do.”
+
+“You did that; but he says he told you not to say who you were.”
+
+“So he did, but I knew what he would think right. He was uppermost in my
+thoughts all the time.”
+
+Yram smiled, and said, “George is a dangerous person; you were both of
+you very foolish; one as bad as the other.”
+
+“I do not know. I do not know anything. It is beyond me; but I am at
+peace about it, and hope I shall do the like again to-morrow before the
+Mayor.”
+
+“I heartily hope you will do nothing of the kind. George tells me you
+have promised him to be good and to do as we bid you.”
+
+“So I will; but he will not tell me to say that I am not what I am.”
+
+“Yes, he will, and I will tell you why. If we permit you to be Higgs the
+Sunchild, he must either throw his own father into the Blue Pool--which
+he will not do--or run great risk of being thrown into it himself, for
+not having Blue-Pooled a foreigner. I am afraid we shall have to make
+you do a good deal that neither you nor we shall like.”
+
+She then told him briefly of what had passed after luncheon at her house,
+and what it had been settled to do, leaving George to tell the details
+while escorting him towards the statues on the following evening. She
+said that every one would be so completely in every one else’s power that
+there was no fear of any one’s turning traitor. But she said nothing
+about George’s intention of setting out for the capital on Wednesday
+morning to tell the whole story to the King.
+
+“Now,” she said, when she had told him as much as was necessary, “be
+good, and do as you said you would.”
+
+“I will. I will deny myself, not once, nor twice, but as often as is
+necessary. I will kiss the reliquary, and when I meet Hanky and Panky at
+your table, I will be sworn brother to them--so long, that is, as George
+is out of hearing; for I cannot lie well to them when he is listening.”
+
+“Oh yes, you can. He will understand all about it; he enjoys falsehood
+as well as we all do, and has the nicest sense of when to lie and when
+not to do so.”
+
+“What gift can be more invaluable?”
+
+My father, knowing that he might not have another chance of seeing Yram
+alone, now changed the conversation.
+
+“I have something,” he said, “for George, but he must know nothing about
+it till after I am gone.”
+
+As he spoke, he took from his pockets the nine small bags of nuggets that
+remained to him.
+
+“But this,” said Yram, “being gold, is a large sum: can you indeed spare
+it, and do you really wish George to have it all?”
+
+“I shall be very unhappy if he does not, but he must know nothing about
+it till I am out of Erewhon.”
+
+My father then explained to her that he was now very rich, and would have
+brought ten times as much, if he had known of George’s existence. “Then,”
+said Yram, musing, “if you are rich, I accept and thank you heartily on
+his behalf. I can see a reason for his not knowing what you are giving
+him at present, but it is too long to tell.”
+
+The reason was, that if George knew of this gold before he saw the King,
+he would be sure to tell him of it, and the King might claim it, for
+George would never explain that it was a gift from father to son; whereas
+if the King had once pardoned him, he would not be so squeamish as to
+open up the whole thing again with a postscript to his confession. But
+of this she said not a word.
+
+My father then told her of the box of sovereigns that he had left in his
+saddle-bags. “They are coined,” he said, “and George will have to melt
+them down, but he will find some way of doing this. They will be worth
+rather more than these nine bags of nuggets.”
+
+“The difficulty will be to get him to go down and fetch them, for it is
+against his oath to go far beyond the statues. If you could be taken
+faint and say you wanted help, he would see you to your camping ground
+without a word, but he would be angry if he found he had been tricked
+into breaking his oath in order that money might be given him. It would
+never do. Besides, there would not be time, for he must be back here on
+Tuesday night. No; if he breaks his oath he must do it with his eyes
+open--and he will do it later on--or I will go and fetch the money for
+him myself. He is in love with a grand-daughter of Mrs. Humdrum’s, and
+this sum, together with what you are now leaving with me, will make him a
+well-to-do man. I have always been unhappy about his having any of the
+Mayor’s money, and his salary was not quite enough for him to marry on.
+What can I say to thank you?”
+
+“Tell me, please, about Mrs. Humdrum’s grand-daughter. You like her as a
+wife for George?”
+
+“Absolutely. She is just such another as her grandmother must have been.
+She and George have been sworn lovers ever since he was ten, and she
+eight. The only drawback is that her mother, Mrs. Humdrum’s second
+daughter, married for love, and there are many children, so that there
+will be no money with her; but what you are leaving will make everything
+quite easy, for he will sell the gold at once. I am so glad about it.”
+
+“Can you ask Mrs. Humdrum to bring her grand-daughter with her to-morrow
+evening?”
+
+“I am afraid not, for we shall want to talk freely at dinner, and she
+must not know that you are the Sunchild; she shall come to my house in
+the afternoon and you can see her then. You will be quite happy about
+her, but of course she must not know that you are her father-in-law that
+is to be.”
+
+“One thing more. As George must know nothing about the sovereigns, I
+must tell you how I will hide them. They are in a silver box, which I
+will bind to the bough of some tree close to my camp; or if I can find a
+tree with a hole in it I will drop the box into the hole. He cannot miss
+my camp; he has only to follow the stream that runs down from the pass
+till it gets near a large river, and on a small triangular patch of flat
+ground, he will see the ashes of my camp fire, a few yards away from the
+stream on his right hand as he descends. In whatever tree I may hide the
+box, I will strew wood ashes for some yards in a straight line towards
+it. I will then light another fire underneath, and blaze the tree with a
+knife that I have left at my camping ground. He is sure to find it.”
+
+Yram again thanked him, and then my father, to change the conversation,
+asked whether she thought that George really would have Blue-Pooled the
+Professors.
+
+“There is no knowing,” said Yram. “He is the gentlest creature living
+till some great provocation rouses him, and I never saw him hate and
+despise any one as he does the Professors. Much of what he said was
+merely put on, for he knew the Professors must yield. I do not like his
+ever having to throw any one into that horrid place, no more does he, but
+the Rangership is exactly the sort of thing to suit him, and the opening
+was too good to lose. I must now leave you, and get ready for the
+Mayor’s banquet. We shall meet again to-morrow evening. Try and eat
+what I have brought you in this basket. I hope you will like the wine.”
+She put out her hand, which my father took, and in another moment she was
+gone, for she saw a look in his face as though he would fain have asked
+her to let him once more press his lips to hers. Had he done this,
+without thinking about it, it is likely enough she would not have been
+ill pleased. But who can say?
+
+For the rest of the evening my father was left very much to his own not
+too comfortable reflections. He spent part of it in posting up the notes
+from which, as well as from his own mouth, my story is in great part
+taken. The good things that Yram had left with him, and his pipe, which
+she had told him he might smoke quite freely, occupied another part, and
+by ten o’clock he went to bed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII: MAINLY OCCUPIED WITH A VERACIOUS EXTRACT FROM A
+SUNCH’STONIAN JOURNAL
+
+
+While my father was thus wiling away the hours in his cell, the whole
+town was being illuminated in his honour, and not more than a couple of
+hundred yards off, at the Mayor’s banquet, he was being extolled as a
+superhuman being.
+
+The banquet, which was at the town hall, was indeed a very brilliant
+affair, but the little space that is left me forbids my saying more than
+that Hanky made what was considered the speech of the evening, and
+betrayed no sign of ill effects from the bad quarter of an hour which he
+had spent so recently. Not a trace was to be seen of any desire on his
+part to change his tone as regards Sunchildism--as, for example, to
+minimize the importance of the relic, or to remind his hearers that
+though the chariot and horses had undoubtedly come down from the sky and
+carried away my father and mother, yet that the earlier stage of the
+ascent had been made in a balloon. It almost seemed, so George told my
+father, as though he had resolved that he would speak lies, all lies, and
+nothing but lies.
+
+Panky, who was also to have spoken, was excused by the Mayor on the
+ground that the great heat and the excitement of the day’s proceedings
+had quite robbed him of his voice.
+
+Dr. Downie had a jumping cat before his mental vision. He spoke quietly
+and sensibly, dwelling chiefly on the benefits that had already accrued
+to the kingdom through the abolition of the edicts against machinery, and
+the great developments which he foresaw as probable in the near future.
+He held up the Sunchild’s example, and his ethical teaching, to the
+imitation and admiration of his hearers, but he said nothing about the
+miraculous element in my father’s career, on which he declared that his
+friend Professor Hanky had already so eloquently enlarged as to make
+further allusion to it superfluous.
+
+The reader knows what was to happen on the following morning. The
+programme concerted at the Mayor’s was strictly adhered to. The
+following account, however, which appeared in the Sunch’ston bi-weekly
+newspaper two days after my father had left, was given me by George a
+year later, on the occasion of that interview to which I have already
+more than once referred. There were other accounts in other papers, but
+the one I am giving departs the least widely from the facts. It ran:-
+
+“_The close of a disagreeable incident_.--Our readers will remember that
+on Sunday last during the solemn inauguration of the temple now dedicated
+to the Sunchild, an individual on the front bench of those set apart for
+the public suddenly interrupted Professor Hanky’s eloquent sermon by
+declaring himself to be the Sunchild, and saying that he had come down
+from the sun to sanctify by his presence the glorious fane which the
+piety of our fellow-citizens and others has erected in his honour.
+
+“Wild rumours obtained credence throughout the congregation to the effect
+that this person was none other than the Sunchild himself, and in spite
+of the fact that his complexion and the colour of his hair showed this to
+be impossible, more than one person was carried away by the excitement of
+the moment, and by some few points of resemblance between the stranger
+and the Sunchild. Under the influence of this belief, they were
+preparing to give him the honour which they supposed justly due to him,
+when to the surprise of every one he was taken into custody by the
+deservedly popular Ranger of the King’s preserves, and in the course of
+the afternoon it became generally known that he had been arrested on the
+charge of being one of a gang of poachers who have been known for some
+time past to be making much havoc among the quails on the preserves.
+
+“This offence, at all times deplored by those who desire that his Majesty
+should enjoy good sport when he honours us with a visit, is doubly
+deplorable during the season when, on the higher parts of the preserves,
+the young birds are not yet able to shift for themselves; the Ranger,
+therefore, is indefatigable in his efforts to break up the gang, and with
+this end in view, for the last fortnight has been out night and day on
+the remoter sections of the forest--little suspecting that the marauders
+would venture so near Sunch’ston as it now seems they have done. It is
+to his extreme anxiety to detect and punish these miscreants that we must
+ascribe the arrest of a man, who, however foolish, and indeed guilty, he
+is in other respects, is innocent of the particular crime imputed to him.
+The circumstances that led to his arrest have reached us from an
+exceptionally well-informed source, and are as follows:-
+
+“Our distinguished guests, Professors Hanky and Panky, both of them
+justly celebrated archaeologists, had availed themselves of the
+opportunity afforded them by their visit to Sunch’ston, to inspect the
+mysterious statues at the head of the stream that comes down near this
+city, and which have hitherto baffled all those who have tried to
+ascertain their date and purpose.
+
+“On their descent after a fatiguing day the Professors were benighted,
+and lost their way. Seeing the light of a small fire among some trees
+near them, they made towards it, hoping to be directed rightly, and found
+a man, respectably dressed, sitting by the fire with several brace of
+quails beside him, some of them plucked. Believing that in spite of his
+appearance, which would not have led them to suppose that he was a
+poacher, he must unquestionably be one, they hurriedly enquired their
+way, intending to leave him as soon as they had got their answer; he,
+however, attacked them, or made as though he would do so, and said he
+would show them a way which they should be in no fear of losing, whereon
+Professor Hanky, with a well-directed blow, felled him to the ground. The
+two Professors, fearing that other poachers might come to his assistance,
+made off as nearly as they could guess in the direction of Sunch’ston.
+When they had gone a mile or two onward at haphazard, they sat down under
+a large tree, and waited till day began to break; they then resumed their
+journey, and before long struck a path which led them to a spot from
+which they could see the towers of the new temple.
+
+“Fatigued though they were, they waited before taking the rest of which
+they stood much in need, till they had reported their adventure at the
+Ranger’s office. The Ranger was still out on the preserves, but
+immediately on his return on Saturday morning he read the description of
+the poacher’s appearance and dress, about which last, however, the only
+remarkable feature was that it was better than a poacher might be
+expected to possess, and gave an air of respectability to the wearer that
+might easily disarm suspicion.
+
+“The Ranger made enquiries at all the inns in Sunch’ston, and at length
+succeeded in hearing of a stranger who appeared to correspond with the
+poacher whom the Professors had seen; but the man had already left, and
+though the Ranger did his best to trace him he did not succeed. On
+Sunday morning, however, he observed the prisoner, and found that he
+answered the description given by the Professors; he therefore arrested
+him quietly in the temple, but told him that he should not take him to
+prison till the service was over. The man said he would come quietly
+inasmuch as he should easily be able to prove his innocence. In the
+meantime, however, he professed the utmost anxiety to hear Professor
+Hanky’s sermon, which he said he believed would concern him nearly. The
+Ranger paid no attention to this, and was as much astounded as the rest
+of the congregation were, when immediately after one of Professor Hanky’s
+most eloquent passages, the man started up and declared himself to be the
+Sunchild. On this the Ranger took him away at once, and for the man’s
+own protection hurried him off to prison.
+
+“Professor Hanky was so much shocked at such outrageous conduct, that for
+the moment he failed to recognise the offender; after a few seconds,
+however, he grasped the situation, and knew him to be one who on previous
+occasions, near Bridgeford, had done what he was now doing. It seems
+that he is notorious in the neighbourhood of Bridgeford, as a monomaniac
+who is so deeply impressed with the beauty of the Sunchild’s
+character--and we presume also of his own--as to believe that he is
+himself the Sunchild.
+
+“Recovering almost instantly from the shock the interruption had given
+him, the learned Professor calmed his hearers by acquainting them with
+the facts of the case, and continued his sermon to the delight of all who
+heard it. We should say, however, that the gentleman who twenty years
+ago instructed the Sunchild in the Erewhonian language, was so struck
+with some few points of resemblance between the stranger, and his former
+pupil, that he acclaimed him, and was removed forcibly by the vergers.
+
+“On Monday morning the prisoner was brought up before the Mayor. We
+cannot say whether it was the sobering effect of prison walls, or whether
+he had been drinking before he entered the temple, and had now had time
+enough to recover himself--at any rate for some reason or other he was
+abjectly penitent when his case came on for hearing. The charge of
+poaching was first gone into, but was immediately disposed of by the
+evidence of the two Professors, who stated that the prisoner bore no
+resemblance to the poacher they had seen, save that he was about the same
+height and age, and was respectably dressed.
+
+“The charge of disturbing the congregation by declaring himself the
+Sunchild was then proceeded with, and unnecessary as it may appear to be,
+it was thought advisable to prevent all possibility of the man’s
+assertion being accepted by the ignorant as true, at some later date,
+when those who could prove its falsehood were no longer living. The
+prisoner, therefore, was removed to his cell, and there measured by the
+Master of the Gaol, and the Ranger in the presence of the Mayor, who
+attested the accuracy of the measurements. Not one single one of them
+corresponded with those recorded of the Sunchild himself, and a few marks
+such as moles, and permanent scars on the Sunchild’s body were not found
+on the prisoner’s. Furthermore the prisoner was shaggy-breasted, with
+much coarse jet black hair on the fore-arms and from the knees downwards,
+whereas the Sunchild had little hair save on his head, and what little
+there was, was fine, and very light in colour.
+
+“Confronted with these discrepancies, the gentleman who had taught the
+Sunchild our language was convinced of his mistake, though he still
+maintained that there was some superficial likeness between his former
+pupil and the prisoner. Here he was confirmed by the Master of the Gaol,
+the Mayoress, Mrs. Humdrum, and Professors Hanky and Panky, who all of
+them could see what the interpreter meant, but denied that the prisoner
+could be mistaken for the Sunchild for more than a few seconds. No doubt
+the prisoner’s unhappy delusion has been fostered, if not entirely
+caused, by his having been repeatedly told that he was like the Sunchild.
+The celebrated Dr. Downie, who well remembers the Sunchild, was also
+examined, and gave his evidence with so much convincing detail as to make
+it unnecessary to call further witnesses.
+
+“It having been thus once for all officially and authoritatively placed
+on record that the prisoner was not the Sunchild, Professors Hanky and
+Panky then identified him as a well known monomaniac on the subject of
+Sunchildism, who in other respects was harmless. We withhold his name
+and place of abode, out of consideration for the well known and highly
+respectable family to which he belongs. The prisoner admitted with much
+contrition that he had made a disturbance in the temple, but pleaded that
+he had been carried away by the eloquence of Professor Hanky; he promised
+to avoid all like offence in future, and threw himself on the mercy of
+the court.
+
+“The Mayor, unwilling that Sunday’s memorable ceremony should be the
+occasion of a serious punishment to any of those who took part in it,
+reprimanded the prisoner in a few severe but not unkindly words,
+inflicted a fine of forty shillings, and ordered that the prisoner should
+be taken directly to the temple, where he should confess his folly to the
+Manager and Head Cashier, and confirm his words by kissing the reliquary
+in which the newly found relic has been placed. The prisoner being
+unable to pay the fine, some of the ladies and gentlemen in court kindly
+raised the amount amongst them, in pity for the poor creature’s obvious
+contrition, rather than see him sent to prison for a month in default of
+payment.
+
+“The prisoner was then conducted to the temple, followed by a
+considerable number of people. Strange to say, in spite of the
+overwhelming evidence that they had just heard, some few among the
+followers, whose love of the marvellous overpowered their reason, still
+maintained that the prisoner was the Sunchild. Nothing could be more
+decorous than the prisoner’s behaviour when, after hearing the
+recantation that was read out to him by the Manager, he signed the
+document with his name and address, which we again withhold, and kissed
+the reliquary in confirmation of his words.
+
+“The Mayor then declared the prisoner to be at liberty. When he had done
+so he said, ‘I strongly urge you to place yourself under my protection
+for the present, that you may be freed from the impertinent folly and
+curiosity of some whose infatuation might lead you from that better mind
+to which I believe you are now happily restored. I wish you to remain
+for some few hours secluded in the privacy of my own study, where Dr.
+Downie and the two excellent Professors will administer that ghostly
+counsel to you, which will be likely to protect you from any return of
+your unhappy delusion.’
+
+“The man humbly bowed assent, and was taken by the Mayor’s younger sons
+to the Mayor’s own house, where he was duly cared for. About midnight,
+when all was quiet, he was conducted to the outskirts of the town towards
+Clearwater, and furnished with enough money to provide for his more
+pressing necessities till he could reach some relatives who reside three
+or four days’ walk down on the road towards the capital. He desired the
+man who accompanied him to repeat to the Mayor his heartfelt thanks for
+the forbearance and generosity with which he had been treated. The
+remembrance of this, he said, should be ever present with him, and he was
+confident would protect him if his unhappy monomania shewed any signs of
+returning.
+
+“Let us now, however, remind our readers that the poacher who threatened
+Professors Hanky and Panky’s life on Thursday evening last is still at
+large. He is evidently a man of desperate character, and it is to be
+hoped that our fellow-citizens will give immediate information at the
+Ranger’s office if they see any stranger in the neighbourhood of the
+preserves whom they may have reasonable grounds for suspecting.
+
+“P.S.--As we are on the point of going to press we learn that a dangerous
+lunatic, who has been for some years confined in the Clearwater asylum,
+succeeded in escaping on the night of Wednesday last, and it is surmised
+with much probability, that this was the man who threatened the two
+Professors on Thursday evening. His being alone, his having dared to
+light a fire, probably to cook quails which he had been driven to kill
+from stress of hunger, the respectability of his dress, and the fury with
+which he would have attacked the two Professors single-handed, but for
+Professor Hanky’s presence of mind in giving him a knock-down blow, all
+point in the direction of thinking that he was no true poacher, but, what
+is even more dangerous--a madman at large. We have not received any
+particulars as to the man’s appearance, nor the clothes he was wearing,
+but we have little doubt that these will confirm the surmise to which we
+now give publicity. If it is correct it becomes doubly incumbent on all
+our fellow-citizens to be both on the watch, and on their guard.
+
+“We may add that the man was fully believed to have taken the direction
+towards the capital; hence no attempts were made to look for him in the
+neighbourhood of Sunch’ston, until news of the threatened attack on the
+Professors led the keeper of the asylum to feel confident that he had
+hitherto been on a wrong scent.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII: MY FATHER IS ESCORTED TO THE MAYOR’S HOUSE, AND IS
+INTRODUCED TO A FUTURE DAUGHTER-IN-LAW
+
+
+My father said he was followed to the Mayor’s house by a good many
+people, whom the Mayor’s sons in vain tried to get rid of. One or two of
+these still persisted in saying he was the Sunchild--whereon another
+said, “But his hair is black.”
+
+“Yes,” was the answer, “but a man can dye his hair, can he not? look at
+his blue eyes and his eyelashes?”
+
+My father was doubting whether he ought not to again deny his identity
+out of loyalty to the Mayor and Yram, when George’s next brother said,
+“Pay no attention to them, but step out as fast as you can.” This
+settled the matter, and in a few minutes they were at the Mayor’s, where
+the young men took him into the study; the elder said with a smile, “We
+should like to stay and talk to you, but my mother said we were not to do
+so.” Whereon they left him much to his regret, but he gathered rightly
+that they had not been officially told who he was, and were to be left to
+think what they liked, at any rate for the present.
+
+In a few minutes the Mayor entered, and going straight up to my father
+shook him cordially by the hand.
+
+“I have brought you this morning’s paper,” said he. “You will find a
+full report of Professor Hanky’s sermon, and of the speeches at last
+night’s banquet. You see they pass over your little interruption with
+hardly a word, but I dare say they will have made up their minds about it
+all by Thursday’s issue.”
+
+He laughed as he produced the paper--which my father brought home with
+him, and without which I should not have been able to report Hanky’s
+sermon as fully as I have done. But my father could not let things pass
+over thus lightly.
+
+“I thank you,” he said, “but I have much more to thank you for, and know
+not how to do it.”
+
+“Can you not trust me to take everything as said?”
+
+“Yes, but I cannot trust myself not to be haunted if I do not say--or at
+any rate try to say--some part of what I ought to say.”
+
+“Very well; then I will say something myself. I have a small joke, the
+only one I ever made, which I inflict periodically upon my wife. You,
+and I suppose George, are the only two other people in the world to whom
+it can ever be told; let me see, then, if I cannot break the ice with it.
+It is this. Some men have twin sons; George in this topsy turvey world
+of ours has twin fathers--you by luck, and me by cunning. I see you
+smile; give me your hand.”
+
+My father took the Mayor’s hand between both his own. “Had I been in
+your place,” he said, “I should be glad to hope that I might have done as
+you did.”
+
+“And I,” said the Mayor, more readily than might have been expected of
+him, “fear that if I had been in yours--I should have made it the proper
+thing for you to do. There! The ice is well broken, and now for
+business. You will lunch with us, and dine in the evening. I have given
+it out that you are of good family, so there is nothing odd in this. At
+lunch you will not be the Sunchild, for my younger children will be
+there; at dinner all present will know who you are, so we shall be free
+as soon as the servants are out of the room.
+
+“I am sorry, but I must send you away with George as soon as the streets
+are empty--say at midnight--for the excitement is too great to allow of
+your staying longer. We must keep your rug and the things you cook with,
+but my wife will find you what will serve your turn. There is no moon,
+so you and George will camp out as soon as you get well on to the
+preserves; the weather is hot, and you will neither of you take any harm.
+To-morrow by mid-day you will be at the statues, where George must bid
+you good-bye, for he must be at Sunch’ston to-morrow night. You will
+doubtless get safely home; I wish with all my heart that I could hear of
+your having done so, but this, I fear, may not be.”
+
+“So be it,” replied my father, “but there is something I should yet say.
+The Mayoress has no doubt told you of some gold, coined and uncoined,
+that I am leaving for George. She will also have told you that I am
+rich; this being so, I should have brought him much more, if I had known
+that there was any such person. You have other children; if you leave
+him anything, you will be taking it away from your own flesh and blood;
+if you leave him nothing, it will be a slur upon him. I must therefore
+send you enough gold, to provide for George as your other children will
+be provided for; you can settle it upon him at once, and make it clear
+that the settlement is instead of provision for him by will. The
+difficulty is in the getting the gold into Erewhon, and until it is
+actually here, he must know nothing about it.”
+
+I have no space for the discussion that followed. In the end it was
+settled that George was to have £2000 in gold, which the Mayor declared
+to be too much, and my father too little. Both, however, were agreed
+that Erewhon would before long be compelled to enter into relations
+with foreign countries, in which case the value of gold would decline
+so much as to make £2000 worth little more than it would be in England.
+The Mayor proposed to buy land with it, which he would hand over to
+George as a gift from himself, and this my father at once acceded to.
+All sorts of questions such as will occur to the reader were raised and
+settled, but I must beg him to be content with knowing that everything
+was arranged with the good sense that two such men were sure to bring
+to bear upon it.
+
+The getting the gold into Erewhon was to be managed thus. George was to
+know nothing, but a promise was to be got from him that at noon on the
+following New Year’s day, or whatever day might be agreed upon, he
+would be at the statues, where either my father or myself would meet
+him, spend a couple of hours with him, and then return. Whoever met
+George was to bring the gold as though it were for the Mayor, and
+George could be trusted to be human enough to bring it down, when he
+saw that it would be left where it was if he did not do so.
+
+“He will kick a good deal,” said the Mayor, “at first, but he will come
+round in the end.”
+
+Luncheon was now announced. My father was feeling faint and ill; more
+than once during the forenoon he had had a return of the strange
+giddiness and momentary loss of memory which had already twice attacked
+him, but he had recovered in each case so quickly that no one had seen
+he was unwell. He, poor man, did not yet know what serious brain
+exhaustion these attacks betokened, and finding himself in his usual
+health as soon as they passed away, set them down as simply effects of
+fatigue and undue excitement.
+
+George did not lunch with the others. Yram explained that he had to draw
+up a report which would occupy him till dinner time. Her three other
+sons, and her three lovely daughters, were there. My father was
+delighted with all of them, for they made friends with him at once. He
+had feared that he would have been disgraced in their eyes, by his having
+just come from prison, but whatever they may have thought, no trace of
+anything but a little engaging timidity on the girls’ part was to be
+seen. The two elder boys--or rather young men, for they seemed fully
+grown, though, like George, not yet bearded--treated him as already an
+old acquaintance, while the youngest, a lad of fourteen, walked straight
+up to him, put out his hand, and said, “How do you do, sir?” with a
+pretty blush that went straight to my father’s heart.
+
+“These boys,” he said to Yram aside, “who have nothing to blush for--see
+how the blood mantles into their young cheeks, while I, who should blush
+at being spoken to by them, cannot do so.”
+
+“Do not talk nonsense,” said Yram, with mock severity.
+
+But it was no nonsense to my poor father. He was awed at the goodness
+and beauty with which he found himself surrounded. His thoughts were too
+full of what had been, what was, and what was yet to be, to let him
+devote himself to these young people as he would dearly have liked to do.
+He could only look at them, wonder at them, fall in love with them, and
+thank heaven that George had been brought up in such a household.
+
+When luncheon was over, Yram said, “I will now send you to a room where
+you can lie down and go to sleep for a few hours. You will be out late
+to-night, and had better rest while you can. Do you remember the drink
+you taught us to make of corn parched and ground? You used to say you
+liked it. A cup shall be brought to your room at about five, for you
+must try and sleep till then. If you notice a little box on the dressing-
+table of your room, you will open it or no as you like. About half-past
+five there will be a visitor, whose name you can guess, but I shall not
+let her stay long with you. Here comes the servant to take you to your
+room.” On this she smiled, and turned somewhat hurriedly away.
+
+My father on reaching his room went to the dressing-table, where he saw a
+small unpretending box, which he immediately opened. On the top was a
+paper with the words, “Look--say nothing--forget.” Beneath this was some
+cotton wool, and then--the two buttons and the lock of his own hair, that
+he had given Yram when he said good-bye to her.
+
+The ghost of the lock that Yram had then given him, rose from the dead,
+and smote him as with a whip across the face. On what dust-heap had it
+not been thrown how many long years ago? Then she had never forgotten
+him? to have been remembered all these years by such a woman as that, and
+never to have heeded it--never to have found out what she was though he
+had seen her day after day for months. Ah! but she was then still
+budding. That was no excuse. If a loveable woman--aye, or any woman--has
+loved a man, even though he cannot marry her, or even wish to do so, at
+any rate let him not forget her--and he had forgotten Yram as completely
+until the last few days, as though he had never seen her. He took her
+little missive, and under “Look,” he wrote, “I have;” under “Say
+nothing,” “I will;” under “forget,” “never.” “And I never shall,” he
+said to himself, as he replaced the box upon the table. He then lay down
+to rest upon the bed, but he could get no sleep.
+
+When the servant brought him his imitation coffee--an imitation so
+successful that Yram made him a packet of it to replace the tea that he
+must leave behind him--he rose and presently came downstairs into the
+drawing-room, where he found Yram and Mrs. Humdrum’s grand-daughter, of
+whom I will say nothing, for I have never seen her, and know nothing
+about her, except that my father found her a sweet-looking girl, of
+graceful figure and very attractive expression. He was quite happy about
+her, but she was too young and shy to make it possible for him to do more
+than admire her appearance, and take Yram’s word for it that she was as
+good as she looked.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV: AFTER DINNER, DR. DOWNIE AND THE PROFESSORS WOULD BE GLAD
+TO KNOW WHAT IS TO BE DONE ABOUT SUNCHILDISM
+
+
+It was about six when George’s _fiancée_ left the house, and as soon as
+she had done so, Yram began to see about the rug and the best substitutes
+she could find for the billy and pannikin. She had a basket packed with
+all that my father and George would want to eat and drink while on the
+preserves, and enough of everything, except meat, to keep my father going
+till he could reach the shepherd’s hut of which I have already spoken.
+Meat would not keep, and my father could get plenty of flappers--i.e.
+ducks that cannot yet fly--when he was on the river-bed down below.
+
+The above preparations had not been made very long, before Mrs. Humdrum
+arrived, followed presently by Dr. Downie and in due course by the
+Professors, who were still staying in the house. My father remembered
+Mrs. Humdrum’s good honest face, but could not bring Dr. Downie to his
+recollection till the Doctor told him when and where they had met, and
+then he could only very uncertainly recall him, though he vowed that he
+could now do so perfectly well.
+
+“At any rate,” said Hanky, advancing towards him with his best Bridgeford
+manner, “you will not have forgotten meeting my brother Professor and
+myself.”
+
+“It has been rather a forgetting sort of a morning,” said my father
+demurely, “but I can remember that much, and am delighted to renew my
+acquaintance with both of you.”
+
+As he spoke he shook hands with both Professors.
+
+George was a little late, but when he came, dinner was announced. My
+father sat on Yram’s right-hand, Dr. Downie on her left. George was next
+my father, with Mrs. Humdrum opposite to him. The Professors sat one on
+either side of the Mayor. During dinner the conversation turned almost
+entirely on my father’s flight, his narrow escape from drowning, and his
+adventures on his return to England; about these last my father was very
+reticent, for he said nothing about his book, and antedated his accession
+of wealth by some fifteen years, but as he walked up towards the statues
+with George he told him everything.
+
+My father repeatedly tried to turn the conversation from himself, but
+Mrs. Humdrum and Yram wanted to know about Nna Haras, as they persisted
+in calling my mother--how she endured her terrible experiences in the
+balloon, when she and my father were married, all about my unworthy self,
+and England generally. No matter how often he began to ask questions
+about the Nosnibors and other old acquaintances, both the ladies soon
+went back to his own adventures. He succeeded, however, in learning that
+Mr. Nosnibor was dead, and Zulora, an old maid of the most unattractive
+kind, who had persistently refused to accept Sunchildism, while Mrs.
+Nosnibor was the recipient of honours hardly inferior to those conferred
+by the people at large on my father and mother, with whom, indeed, she
+believed herself to have frequent interviews by way of visionary
+revelations. So intolerable were these revelations to Zulora, that a
+separate establishment had been provided for her. George said to my
+father quietly--“Do you know I begin to think that Zulora must be rather
+a nice person.”
+
+“Perhaps,” said my father grimly, “but my wife and I did not find it
+out.”
+
+When the ladies left the room, Dr. Downie took Yram’s seat, and Hanky Dr.
+Downie’s; the Mayor took Mrs. Humdrum’s, leaving my father, George, and
+Panky, in their old places. Almost immediately, Dr. Downie said, “And
+now, Mr, Higgs, tell us, as a man of the world, what we are to do about
+Sunchildism?”
+
+My father smiled at this. “You know, my dear sir, as well as I do, that
+the proper thing would be to put me back in prison, and keep me there
+till you can send me down to the capital. You should eat your oaths of
+this morning, as I would eat mine; tell every one here who I am; let them
+see that my hair has been dyed; get all who knew me when I was here
+before to come and see me; appoint an unimpeachable committee to examine
+the record of my marks and measurements, and compare it with those of my
+own body. You should let me be seen in every town at which I lodged on
+my way down, and tell people that you had made a mistake. When you get
+to the capital, hand me over to the King’s tender mercies and say that
+our oaths were only taken this morning to prevent a ferment in the town.
+I will play my part very willingly. The King can only kill me, and I
+should die like a gentleman.”
+
+“They will not do it,” said George quietly to my father, “and I am glad
+of it.”
+
+He was right. “This,” said Dr. Downie, “is a counsel of perfection.
+Things have gone too far, and we are flesh and blood. What would those
+who in your country come nearest to us Musical Bank Managers do, if they
+found they had made such a mistake as we have, and dared not own it?”
+
+“Do not ask me,” said my father; “the story is too long, and too
+terrible.”
+
+“At any rate, then, tell us what you would have us do that is within our
+reach.”
+
+“I have done you harm enough, and if I preach, as likely as not I shall
+do more.”
+
+Seeing, however, that Dr. Downie was anxious to hear what he thought, my
+father said--
+
+“Then I must tell you. Our religion sets before us an ideal which we all
+cordially accept, but it also tells us of marvels like your chariot and
+horses, which we most of us reject. Our best teachers insist on the
+ideal, and keep the marvels in the background. If they could say
+outright that our age has outgrown them, they would say so, but this they
+may not do; nevertheless they contrive to let their opinions be
+sufficiently well known, and their hearers are content with this.
+
+“We have others who take a very different course, but of these I will not
+speak. Roughly, then, if you cannot abolish me altogether, make me a peg
+on which to hang all your own best ethical and spiritual conceptions. If
+you will do this, and wriggle out of that wretched relic, with that not
+less wretched picture--if you will make me out to be much better and
+abler than I was, or ever shall be, Sunchildism may serve your turn for
+many a long year to come. Otherwise it will tumble about your heads
+before you think it will.
+
+“Am I to go on or stop?”
+
+“Go on,” said George softly. That was enough for my father, so on he
+went.
+
+“You are already doing part of what I wish. I was delighted with the two
+passages I heard on Sunday, from what you call the Sunchild’s Sayings. I
+never said a word of either passage; I wish I had; I wish I could say
+anything half so good. And I have read a pamphlet by President Gurgoyle,
+which I liked extremely; but I never said what he says I did. Again, I
+wish I had. Keep to this sort of thing, and I will be as good a
+Sunchildist as any of you. But you must bribe some thief to steal that
+relic, and break it up to mend the roads with; and--for I believe that
+here as elsewhere fires sometimes get lighted through the carelessness of
+a workman--set the most careless workman you can find to do a plumbing
+job near that picture.”
+
+Hanky looked black at this, and George trod lightly on my father’s toe,
+but he told me that my father’s face was innocence itself.
+
+“These are hard sayings,” said Dr. Downie.
+
+“I know they are,” replied my father, “and I do not like saying them, but
+there is no royal road to unlearning, and you have much to unlearn.
+Still, you Musical Bank people bear witness to the fact that beyond the
+kingdoms of this world there is another, within which the writs of this
+world’s kingdoms do not run. This is the great service which our church
+does for us in England, and hence many of us uphold it, though we have no
+sympathy with the party now dominant within it. ‘Better,’ we think, ‘a
+corrupt church than none at all.’ Moreover, those who in my country
+would step into the church’s shoes are as corrupt as the church, and more
+exacting. They are also more dangerous, for the masses distrust the
+church, and are on their guard against aggression, whereas they do not
+suspect the doctrinaires and faddists, who, if they could, would
+interfere in every concern of our lives.
+
+“Let me return to yourselves. You Musical Bank Managers are very much
+such a body of men as your country needs--but when I was here before you
+had no figurehead; I have unwittingly supplied you with one, and it is
+perhaps because you saw this, that you good people of Bridgeford took up
+with me. Sunchildism is still young and plastic; if you will let the
+cock-and-bull stories about me tacitly drop, and invent no new ones,
+beyond saying what a delightful person I was, I really cannot see why I
+should not do for you as well as any one else.
+
+“There. What I have said is nine-tenths of it rotten and wrong, but it
+is the most practicable rotten and wrong that I can suggest, seeing into
+what a rotten and wrong state of things you have drifted. And now, Mr.
+Mayor, do you not think we may join the Mayoress and Mrs. Humdrum?”
+
+“As you please, Mr. Higgs,” answered the Mayor.
+
+“Then let us go, for I have said too much already, and your son George
+tells me that we must be starting shortly.”
+
+As they were leaving the room Panky sidled up to my father and said,
+“There is a point, Mr. Higgs, which you can settle for me, though I feel
+pretty certain how you will settle it. I think that a corruption has
+crept into the text of the very beautiful--”
+
+At this moment, as my father, who saw what was coming, was wondering what
+in the world he could say, George came up to him and said, “Mr. Higgs, my
+mother wishes me to take you down into the store-room, to make sure that
+she has put everything for you as you would like it.” On this my father
+said he would return directly and answer what he knew would be Panky’s
+question.
+
+When Yram had shewn what she had prepared--all of it, of course,
+faultless--she said, “And now, Mr. Higgs, about our leave-taking. Of
+course we shall both of us feel much. I shall; I know you will; George
+will have a few more hours with you than the rest of us, but his time to
+say good-bye will come, and it will be painful to both of you. I am glad
+you came--I am glad you have seen George, and George you, and that you
+took to one another. I am glad my husband has seen you; he has spoken to
+me about you very warmly, for he has taken to you much as George did. I
+am very, very glad to have seen you myself, and to have learned what
+became of you--and of your wife. I know you wish well to all of us; be
+sure that we all of us wish most heartily well to you and yours. I sent
+for you and George, because I could not say all this unless we were
+alone; it is all I can do,” she said, with a smile, “to say it now.”
+
+Indeed it was, for the tears were in her eyes all the time, as they were
+also in my father’s.
+
+“Let this,” continued Yram, “be our leave-taking--for we must have
+nothing like a scene upstairs. Just shake hands with us all, say the
+usual conventional things, and make it as short as you can; but I could
+not bear to send you away without a few warmer words than I could have
+said when others were in the room.”
+
+“May heaven bless you and yours,” said my father, “for ever and ever.”
+
+“That will do,” said George gently. “Now, both of you shake hands, and
+come upstairs with me.”
+
+* * * * *
+
+When all three of them had got calm, for George had been moved almost as
+much as his father and mother, they went upstairs, and Panky came for his
+answer. “You are very possibly right,” said my father--“the version you
+hold to be corrupt is the one in common use amongst ourselves, but it is
+only a translation, and very possibly only a translation of a
+translation, so that it may perhaps have been corrupted before it reached
+us.”
+
+“That,” said Panky, “will explain everything,” and he went contentedly
+away.
+
+My father talked a little aside with Mrs. Humdrum about her
+grand-daughter and George, for Yram had told him that she knew all about
+the attachment, and then George, who saw that my father found the
+greatest difficulty in maintaining an outward calm, said, “Mr. Higgs, the
+streets are empty; we had better go.”
+
+My father did as Yram had told him; shook hands with every one, said all
+that was usual and proper as briefly as he could, and followed George out
+of the room. The Mayor saw them to the door, and saved my father from
+embarrassment by saying, “Mr. Higgs, you and I understand one another too
+well to make it necessary for us to say so. Good-bye to you, and may no
+ill befall you ere you get home.”
+
+My father grasped his hand in both his own. “Again,” he said, “I can say
+no more than that I thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
+
+As he spoke he bowed his head, and went out with George into the night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV: GEORGE ESCORTS MY FATHER TO THE STATUES; THE TWO THEN PART
+
+
+The streets were quite deserted as George had said they would be, and
+very dark, save for an occasional oil lamp.
+
+“As soon as we can get within the preserves,” said George, “we had better
+wait till morning. I have a rug for myself as well as for you.”
+
+“I saw you had two,” answered my father; “you must let me carry them
+both; the provisions are much the heavier load.”
+
+George fought as hard as a dog would do, till my father said that they
+must not quarrel during the very short time they had to be together. On
+this George gave up one rug meekly enough, and my father yielded about
+the basket, and the other rug.
+
+It was about half-past eleven when they started, and it was after one
+before they reached the preserves. For the first mile from the town they
+were not much hindered by the darkness, and my father told George about
+his book and many another matter; he also promised George to say nothing
+about this second visit. Then the road became more rough, and when it
+dwindled away to be a mere lane--becoming presently only a foot
+track--they had to mind their footsteps, and got on but slowly. The
+night was starlit, and warm, considering that they were more than three
+thousand feet above the sea, but it was very dark, so that my father was
+well enough pleased when George showed him the white stones that marked
+the boundary, and said they had better soon make themselves as
+comfortable as they could till morning.
+
+“We can stay here,” he said, “till half-past three, there will be a
+little daylight then; we will rest half an hour for breakfast at about
+five, and by noon we shall be at the statues, where we will dine.”
+
+This being settled, George rolled himself up in his rug, and in a few
+minutes went comfortably off to sleep. Not so my poor father. He wound
+up his watch, wrapped his rug round him, and lay down; but he could get
+no sleep. After such a day, and such an evening, how could any one have
+slept?
+
+About three the first signs of dawn began to show, and half an hour later
+my father could see the sleeping face of his son--whom it went to his
+heart to wake. Nevertheless he woke him, and in a few minutes the two
+were on their way--George as fresh as a lark--my poor father intent on
+nothing so much as on hiding from George how ill and unsound in body and
+mind he was feeling.
+
+They walked on, saying but little, till at five by my father’s watch
+George proposed a halt for breakfast. The spot he chose was a grassy
+oasis among the trees, carpeted with subalpine flowers, now in their
+fullest beauty, and close to a small stream that here came down from a
+side valley. The freshness of the morning air, the extreme beauty of the
+place, the lovely birds that flitted from tree to tree, the exquisite
+shapes and colours of the flowers, still dew-bespangled, and above all,
+the tenderness with which George treated him, soothed my father, and when
+he and George had lit a fire and made some hot corn-coffee--with a view
+to which Yram had put up a bottle of milk--he felt so much restored as to
+look forward to the rest of his journey without alarm. Moreover he had
+nothing to carry, for George had left his own rug at the place where they
+had slept, knowing that he should find it on his return; he had therefore
+insisted on carrying my father’s. My father fought as long as he could,
+but he had to give in.
+
+“Now tell me,” said George, glad to change the subject, “what will those
+three men do about what you said to them last night? Will they pay any
+attention to it?”
+
+My father laughed. “My dear George, what a question--I do not know them
+well enough.”
+
+“Oh yes, you do. At any rate say what you think most likely.”
+
+“Very well. I think Dr. Downie will do much as I said. He will not
+throw the whole thing over, through fear of schism, loyalty to a party
+from which he cannot well detach himself, and because he does not think
+that the public is quite tired enough of its toy. He will neither preach
+nor write against it, but he will live lukewarmly against it, and this is
+what the Hankys hate. They can stand either hot or cold, but they are
+afraid of lukewarm. In England Dr. Downie would be a Broad Churchman.”
+
+“Do you think we shall ever get rid of Sunchildism altogether?”
+
+“If they stick to the cock-and-bull stories they are telling now, and rub
+them in, as Hanky did on Sunday, it may go, and go soon. It has taken
+root too quickly and easily; and its top is too heavy for its roots;
+still there are so many chances in its favour that it may last a long
+time.”
+
+“And how about Hanky?”
+
+“He will brazen it out, relic, chariot, and all: and he will welcome more
+relics and more cock-and-bull stories; his single eye will be upon his
+own aggrandisement and that of his order. Plausible, unscrupulous,
+heartless scoundrel that he is, he will play for the queen and the women
+of the court, as Dr. Downie will play for the king and the men. He and
+his party will sleep neither night nor day, but they will have one
+redeeming feature--whoever they may deceive, they will not deceive
+themselves. They believe every one else to be as bad as they are, and
+see no reason why they should not push their own wares in the way of
+business. Hanky is everything that we in England rightly or wrongly
+believe a typical Jesuit to be.”
+
+“And Panky--what about him?”
+
+“Panky must persuade himself of his own lies, before he is quite
+comfortable about telling them to other people. Hanky keeps Hanky well
+out of it; Panky must have a base of operations in Panky. Hanky will
+lead him by the nose, bit by bit, for his is the master spirit. In
+England Panky would be what we call an extreme ritualist.”
+
+“Then the real battle will be between Hanky and Dr. Downie. Which will
+carry the day?”
+
+“For the present, probably Hanky. He is the more vigilant, and
+energetic; in this case Sunchildism will have to go, and I am afraid your
+whole Musical Bank system will be swept away along with it.”
+
+“And why not?”
+
+“Because, my dear boy, though false in the letter, if good counsels
+prevail, it may be made true enough in spirit. If it were to go, its
+place would be soon filled by men who would be as false in letter as the
+others were, and much more false in spirit. You want a heart to check
+your head, and a head to check your heart. As in our English body
+politic there are two parties opposed to one another, neither of which
+can thrive if the other is unduly weakened, so in our spiritual and
+intellectual world two parties more or less antagonistic are equally
+necessary. Those who are at the head of science provide us with the one
+party; those whom we call our churchmen are the other. Both are corrupt,
+but we can spare neither, for each checks as far as it can the
+corruptions of the other.”
+
+“Then you would have us uphold Sunchildism, knowing it to be untrue?”
+
+“Do what you will, you will not get perfect truth. And if you can follow
+the lead which I believe Dr. Downie will give you, that is to say, get
+rid of cock-and-bull stories, idealise my unworthy self, and, as I said
+last night, make me a peg on which to hang your own best
+thoughts--Sunchildism will be as near truth as anything you are likely to
+get. But if Hankyism triumphs, come what may you must get rid of it, for
+he and his school will tamper with the one sure and everlasting word of
+God revealed to us by human experience. He who plays fast and loose with
+this is as one who would forge God’s signature to a cheque drawn on God’s
+own bank.”
+
+“Are we to foster the belief that it was indeed the Sunchild who
+interrupted Hanky’s sermon?”
+
+“Yes, where you safely can, but not otherwise; and commit the facts to
+writing as soon as you can find time. Do nothing to jeopardise your own
+safety; you can do more by perfunctory acquiescence than by open dissent.
+And tell those friends whom you can trust, what these my parting words to
+you have been. But above all I charge you solemnly, do nothing to
+jeopardise your own safety; you cannot play into Hanky’s hands more
+certainly than by risking this. Think how he and Panky would rejoice,
+and how Dr. Downie would grieve. Be wise and wary; bide your time; do
+what you prudently can, and you will find you can do much; try to do
+more, and you will do nothing. Be guided by the Mayor, by your
+mother--and by that dear old lady whose grandson you will--”
+
+“Then they have told you,” interrupted the youth blushing scarlet.
+
+“My dearest boy, of course they have, and I have seen her, and am head
+over ears in love with her myself.”
+
+He was all smiles and blushes, and vowed for a few minutes that it was a
+shame of them to tell me, but presently he said--
+
+“Then you like her.”
+
+“Rather!” said my father vehemently, and shaking George by the hand. But
+he said nothing about the nuggets and the sovereigns, knowing that Yram
+did not wish him to do so. Neither did George say anything about his
+determination to start for the capital in the morning, and make a clean
+breast of everything to the King. So soon does it become necessary even
+for those who are most cordially attached to hide things from one
+another. My father, however, was made comfortable by receiving a promise
+from the youth that he would take no step of which the persons he had
+named would disapprove.
+
+When once Mrs. Humdrum’s grand-daughter had been introduced there was no
+more talking about Hanky and Panky; for George began to bubble over with
+the subject that was nearest his heart, and how much he feared that it
+would be some time yet before he could be married. Many a story did he
+tell of his early attachment and of its course for the last ten years,
+but my space will not allow me to inflict one of them on the reader. My
+father saw that the more he listened and sympathised and encouraged, the
+fonder George became of him, and this was all he cared about.
+
+Thus did they converse hour after hour. They passed the Blue Pool,
+without seeing it or even talking about it for more than a minute. George
+kept an eye on the quails and declared them fairly plentiful and strong
+on the wing, but nothing now could keep him from pouring out his whole
+heart about Mrs. Humdrum’s grand-daughter, until towards noon they caught
+sight of the statues, and a halt was made which gave my father the first
+pang he had felt that morning, for he knew that the statues would be the
+beginning of the end.
+
+There was no need to light a fire, for Yram had packed for them two
+bottles of a delicious white wine, something like White Capri, which went
+admirably with the many more solid good things that she had provided for
+them. As soon as they had finished a hearty meal my father said to
+George, “You must have my watch for a keepsake; I see you are not wearing
+my boots. I fear you did not find them comfortable, but I am glad you
+have not got them on, for I have set my heart on keeping yours.”
+
+“Let us settle about the boots first. I rather fancied that that was why
+you put me off when I wanted to get my own back again; and then I thought
+I should like yours for a keepsake, so I put on another pair last night,
+and they are nothing like so comfortable as yours were.”
+
+“Now I wonder,” said my father to me, “whether this was true, or whether
+it was only that dear fellow’s pretty invention; but true or false I was
+as delighted as he meant me to be.”
+
+I asked George about this when I saw him, and he confessed with an
+ingenuous blush that my father’s boots had hurt him, and that he had
+never thought of making a keepsake of them, till my father’s words
+stimulated his invention.
+
+As for the watch, which was only a silver one, but of the best make,
+George protested for a time, but when he had yielded, my father could see
+that he was overjoyed at getting it; for watches, though now permitted,
+were expensive and not in common use.
+
+Having thus bribed him, my father broached the possibility of his meeting
+him at the statues on that day twelvemonth, but of course saying nothing
+about why he was so anxious that he should come.
+
+“I will come,” said my father, “not a yard farther than the statues, and
+if I cannot come I will send your brother. And I will come at noon; but
+it is possible that the river down below may be in fresh, and I may not
+be able to hit off the day, though I will move heaven and earth to do so.
+Therefore if I do not meet you on the day appointed, do your best to come
+also at noon on the following day. I know how inconvenient this will be
+for you, and will come true to the day if it is possible.”
+
+To my father’s surprise, George did not raise so many difficulties as he
+had expected. He said it might be done, if neither he nor my father were
+to go beyond the statues. “And difficult as it will be for you,” said
+George, “you had better come a second day if necessary, as I will, for
+who can tell what might happen to make the first day impossible?”
+
+“Then,” said my father, “we shall be spared that horrible feeling that we
+are parting without hope of seeing each other again. I find it hard
+enough to say good-bye even now, but I do not know how I could have faced
+it if you had not agreed to our meeting again.”
+
+“The day fixed upon will be our XXI. i. 3, and the hour noon as near as
+may be?”
+
+“So. Let me write it down: ‘XXI. i. 3, _i.e_. our December 9, 1891, I am
+to meet George at the statues, at twelve o’clock, and if he does not
+come, I am to be there again on the following day.’”
+
+In like manner, George wrote down what he was to do: “XXI. i. 3, or
+failing this XXI. i. 4. Statues. Noon.”
+
+“This,” he said, “is a solemn covenant, is it not?”
+
+“Yes,” said my father, “and may all good omens attend it!”
+
+The words were not out of his mouth before a mountain bird, something
+like our jackdaw, but smaller and of a bluer black, flew out of the
+hollow mouth of one of the statues, and with a hearty chuckle perched on
+the ground at his feet, attracted doubtless by the scraps of food that
+were lying about. With the fearlessness of birds in that country, it
+looked up at him and George, gave another hearty chuckle, and flew back
+to its statue with the largest fragment it could find.
+
+They settled that this was an omen so propitious that they could part in
+good hope. “Let us finish the wine,” said my father, “and then, do what
+must be done!”
+
+They finished the wine to each other’s good health; George drank also to
+mine, and said he hoped my father would bring me with him, while my
+father drank to Yram, the Mayor, their children, Mrs. Humdrum, and above
+all to Mrs. Humdrum’s grand-daughter. They then re-packed all that could
+be taken away; my father rolled his rug to his liking, slung it over his
+shoulder, gripped George’s hand, and said, “My dearest boy, when we have
+each turned our backs upon one another, let us walk our several ways as
+fast as we can, and try not to look behind us.”
+
+So saying he loosed his grip of George’s hand, bared his head, lowered
+it, and turned away.
+
+George burst into tears, and followed him after he had gone two paces; he
+threw his arms round him, hugged him, kissed him on his lips, cheeks, and
+forehead, and then turning round, strode full speed towards Sunch’ston.
+My father never took his eyes off him till he was out of sight, but the
+boy did not look round. When he could see him no more, my father with
+faltering gait, and feeling as though a prop had suddenly been taken from
+under him, began to follow the stream down towards his old camp.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI: MY FATHER REACHES HOME, AND DIES NOT LONG AFTERWARDS
+
+
+My father could walk but slowly, for George’s boots had blistered his
+feet, and it seemed to him that the river-bed, of which he caught
+glimpses now and again, never got any nearer; but all things come to an
+end, and by seven o’clock on the night of Tuesday, he was on the spot
+which he had left on the preceding Friday morning. Three entire days had
+intervened, but he felt that something, he knew not what, had seized him,
+and that whereas before these three days life had been one thing, what
+little might follow them, would be another--and a very different one.
+
+He soon caught sight of his horse which had strayed a mile lower down the
+river-bed, and in spite of his hobbles had crossed one ugly stream that
+my father dared not ford on foot. Tired though he was, he went after
+him, bridle in hand, and when the friendly creature saw him, it recrossed
+the stream, and came to him of its own accord--either tired of his own
+company, or tempted by some bread my father held out towards him. My
+father took off the hobbles, and rode him bare-backed to the camping
+ground, where he rewarded him with more bread and biscuit, and then
+hobbled him again for the night.
+
+“It was here,” he said to me on one of the first days after his return,
+“that I first knew myself to be a broken man. As for meeting George
+again, I felt sure that it would be all I could do to meet his brother;
+and though George was always in my thoughts, it was for you and not him
+that I was now yearning. When I gave George my watch, how glad I was
+that I had left my gold one at home, for that is yours, and I could not
+have brought myself to give it him.”
+
+“Never mind that, my dear father,” said I, “but tell me how you got down
+the river, and thence home again.”
+
+“My very dear boy,” he said, “I can hardly remember, and I had no energy
+to make any more notes. I remember putting a scrap of paper into the box
+of sovereigns, merely sending George my love along with the money; I
+remember also dropping the box into a hole in a tree, which I blazed, and
+towards which I drew a line of wood-ashes. I seem to see a poor unhinged
+creature gazing moodily for hours into a fire which he heaps up now and
+again with wood. There is not a breath of air; Nature sleeps so calmly
+that she dares not even breathe for fear of waking; the very river has
+hushed his flow. Without, the starlit calm of a summer’s night in a
+great wilderness; within, a hurricane of wild and incoherent thoughts
+battling with one another in their fury to fall upon him and rend him--and
+on the other side the great wall of mountain, thousands of children
+praying at their mother’s knee to this poor dazed thing. I suppose this
+half delirious wretch must have been myself. But I must have been more
+ill when I left England than I thought I was, or Erewhon would not have
+broken me down as it did.”
+
+No doubt he was right. Indeed it was because Mr. Cathie and his doctor
+saw that he was out of health and in urgent need of change, that they
+left off opposing his wish to travel. There is no use, however, in
+talking about this now.
+
+I never got from him how he managed to reach the shepherd’s hut, but I
+learned some little from the shepherd, when I stayed with him both on
+going towards Erewhon, and on returning.
+
+“He did not seem to have drink in him,” said the shepherd, “when he first
+came here; but he must have been pretty full of it, or he must have had
+some bottles in his saddle-bags; for he was awful when he came back. He
+had got them worse than any man I ever saw, only that he was not awkward.
+He said there was a bird flying out of a giant’s mouth and laughing at
+him, and he kept muttering about a blue pool, and hanky-panky of all
+sorts, and he said he knew it was all hanky-panky, at least I thought he
+said so, but it was no use trying to follow him, for it was all nothing
+but horrors. He said I was to stop the people from trying to worship
+him. Then he said the sky opened and he could see the angels going about
+and singing ‘Hallelujah.’”
+
+“How long did he stay with you?” I asked.
+
+“About ten days, but the last three he was himself again, only too weak
+to move. He thought he was cured except for weakness.”
+
+“Do you know how he had been spending the last two days or so before he
+got down to your hut?”
+
+I said two days, because this was the time I supposed he would take to
+descend the river.
+
+“I should say drinking all the time. He said he had fallen off his horse
+two or three times, till he took to leading him. If he had had any other
+horse than old Doctor he would have been a dead man. Bless you, I have
+known that horse ever since he was foaled, and I never saw one like him
+for sense. He would pick fords better than that gentleman could, I know,
+and if the gentleman fell off him he would just stay stock still. He was
+badly bruised, poor man, when he got here. I saw him through the gorge
+when he left me, and he gave me a sovereign; he said he had only one
+other left to take him down to the port, or he would have made it more.”
+
+“He was my father,” said I, “and he is dead, but before he died he told
+me to give you five pounds which I have brought you. I think you are
+wrong in saying that he had been drinking.”
+
+“That is what they all say; but I take it very kind of him to have
+thought of me.”
+
+My father’s illness for the first three weeks after his return played
+with him as a cat plays with a mouse; now and again it would let him have
+a day or two’s run, during which he was so cheerful and unclouded that
+his doctor was quite hopeful about him. At various times on these
+occasions I got from him that when he left the shepherd’s hut, he thought
+his illness had run itself out, and that he should now reach the port
+from which he was to sail for S. Francisco without misadventure. This he
+did, and he was able to do all he had to do at the port, though
+frequently attacked with passing fits of giddiness. I need not dwell
+upon his voyage to S. Francisco, and thence home; it is enough to say
+that he was able to travel by himself in spite of gradually, but
+continually, increasing failure.
+
+“When,” he said, “I reached the port, I telegraphed as you know, for
+more money. How puzzled you must have been. I sold my horse to the man
+from whom I bought it, at a loss of only about £10, and I left with him
+my saddle, saddle-bags, small hatchet, my hobbles, and in fact
+everything that I had taken with me, except what they had impounded in
+Erewhon. Yram’s rug I dropped into the river when I knew that I should
+no longer need it--as also her substitutes for my billy and pannikin;
+and I burned her basket. The shepherd would have asked me questions.
+You will find an order to deliver everything up to bearer. You need
+therefore take nothing from England.”
+
+At another time he said, “When you go, for it is plain I cannot, and go
+one or other of us must, try and get the horse I had: he will be nine
+years old, and he knows all about the rivers: if you leave everything
+to him, you may shut your eyes, but do not interfere with him. Give the
+shepherd what I said and he will attend to you, but go a day or two too
+soon, for the margin of one day was not enough to allow in case of a
+fresh in the river; if the water is discoloured you must not cross
+it--not even with Doctor. I could not ask George to come up three days
+running from Sunch’ston to the statues and back.”
+
+Here he became exhausted. Almost the last coherent string of sentences
+I got from him was as follows:-
+
+“About George’s money if I send him £2000 you will still have nearly
+£150,000  left, and Mr. Cathie will not let you try to make it more. I
+know you would give him four or five thousand, but the Mayor and I
+talked it over, and settled that £2000 in gold would make him a rich
+man. Consult our good friend Alfred” (meaning, of course, Mr. Cathie)
+“about the best way of taking the money. I am afraid there is nothing
+for it but gold, and this will be a great weight for you to
+carry--about, I believe 36 lbs. Can you do this? I really think that if
+you lead your horse you . . . no--there will be the getting him down
+again--”
+
+“Don’t worry about it, my dear father,” said I, “I can do it easily if I
+stow the load rightly, and I will see to this. I shall have nothing else
+to carry, for I shall camp down below both morning and evening. But
+would you not like to send some present to the Mayor, Yram, their other
+children, and Mrs. Humdrum’s grand-daughter?”
+
+“Do what you can,” said my father. And these were the last instructions
+he gave me about those adventures with which alone this work is
+concerned.
+
+The day before he died, he had a little flicker of intelligence, but all
+of a sudden his face became clouded as with great anxiety; he seemed to
+see some horrible chasm in front of him which he had to cross, or which
+he feared that I must cross, for he gasped out words, which, as near as I
+could catch them, were, “Look out! John! Leap! Leap! Le....” but
+he could not say all that he was trying to say and closed his eyes,
+having, as I then deemed, seen that he was on the brink of that gulf
+which lies between life and death; I took it that in reality he died at
+that moment; for there was neither struggle, nor hardly movement of any
+kind afterwards--nothing but a pulse which for the next several hours
+grew fainter and fainter so gradually, that it was not till some time
+after it had ceased to beat that we were certain of its having done so.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII: I MEET MY BROTHER GEORGE AT THE STATUES, ON THE TOP OF THE
+PASS INTO EREWHON
+
+
+This book has already become longer than I intended, but I will ask the
+reader to have patience while I tell him briefly of my own visit to the
+threshold of that strange country of which I fear that he may be already
+beginning to tire.
+
+The winding-up of my father’s estate was a very simple matter, and by the
+beginning of September 1891 I should have been free to start; but about
+that time I became engaged, and naturally enough I did not want to be
+longer away than was necessary. I should not have gone at all if I could
+have helped it. I left, however, a fortnight later than my father had
+done.
+
+Before starting I bought a handsome gold repeater for the Mayor, and a
+brooch for Yram, of pearls and diamonds set in gold, for which I paid
+£200. For Yram’s three daughters and for Mrs. Humdrum’s grand-daughter
+I took four brooches each of which cost about £15, 15s., and for the
+boys I got three ten-guinea silver watches. For George I only took a
+strong English knife of the best make, and the two thousand pounds
+worth of uncoined gold, which for convenience’ sake I had had made into
+small bars. I also had a knapsack made that would hold these and
+nothing else--each bar being strongly sewn into its place, so that none
+of them could shift. Whenever I went on board ship, or went on shore, I
+put this on my back, so that no one handled it except myself--and I can
+assure the reader that I did not find it a light weight to handle. I
+ought to have taken something for old Mrs. Humdrum, but I am ashamed to
+say that I forgot her.
+
+I went as directly as I could to the port of which my father had told
+me, and reached it on November 27, one day later than he had done in
+the preceding year.
+
+On the following day, which was a Saturday, I went to the livery
+stables from which my father had bought his horse, and found to my
+great delight that Doctor could be at my disposal, for, as it seemed to
+me, the very reasonable price of fifteen shillings a day. I shewed the
+owner of the stables my father’s order, and all the articles he had
+left were immediately delivered to me. I was still wearing crape round
+one arm, and the horse-dealer, whose name was Baker, said he was afraid
+the other gentleman might be dead.
+
+“Indeed, he is so,” said I, “and a great grief it is to me; he was my
+father.”
+
+“Dear, dear,” answered Mr. Baker, “that is a very serious thing for the
+poor gentleman. He seemed quite unfit to travel alone, and I feared he
+was not long for this world, but he was bent on going.”
+
+I had nothing now to do but to buy a blanket, pannikin, and billy, with
+some tea, tobacco, two bottles of brandy, some ship’s biscuits, and
+whatever other few items were down on the list of requisites which my
+father had dictated to me. Mr. Baker, seeing that I was what he called a
+new chum, shewed me how to pack my horse, but I kept my knapsack full of
+gold on my back, and though I could see that it puzzled him, he asked no
+questions. There was no reason why I should not set out at once for the
+principal town of the colony, which was some ten miles inland; I,
+therefore, arranged at my hotel that the greater part of my luggage
+should await my return, and set out to climb the high hills that back the
+port. From the top of these I had a magnificent view of the plains that
+I should have to cross, and of the long range of distant mountains which
+bounded them north and south as far as the eye could reach. On some of
+the mountains I could still see streaks of snow, but my father had
+explained to me that the ranges I should here see, were not those
+dividing the English colony from Erewhon. I also saw, some nine miles or
+so out upon the plains, the more prominent buildings of a large town
+which seemed to be embosomed in trees, and this I reached in about an
+hour and a half; for I had to descend at a foot’s pace, and Doctor’s many
+virtues did not comprise a willingness to go beyond an amble.
+
+At the town above referred to I spent the night, and began to strike
+across the plains on the following morning. I might have crossed these
+in three days at twenty-five miles a day, but I had too much time on my
+hands, and my load of gold was so uncomfortable that I was glad to stay
+at one accommodation house after another, averaging about eighteen miles
+a day. I have no doubt that if I had taken advice, I could have stowed
+my load more conveniently, but I could not unpack it, and made the best
+of it as it was.
+
+On the evening of Wednesday, December 2, I reached the river which I
+should have to follow up; it was here nearing the gorge through which it
+had to pass before the country opened out again at the back of the front
+range. I came upon it quite suddenly on reaching the brink of a great
+terrace, the bank of which sloped almost precipitously down towards it,
+but was covered with grass. The terrace was some three hundred feet
+above the river, and faced another similar one, which was from a mile and
+a half to two miles distant. At the bottom of this huge yawning chasm,
+rolled the mighty river, and I shuddered at the thought of having to
+cross and recross it. For it was angry, muddy, evidently in heavy fresh,
+and filled bank and bank for nearly a mile with a flood of seething
+waters.
+
+I followed along the northern edge of the terrace, till I reached the
+last accommodation house that could be said to be on the plains--which,
+by the way, were here some eight or nine hundred feet above sea level.
+When I reached this house, I was glad to learn that the river was not
+likely to remain high for more than a day or two, and that if what was
+called a Southerly Burster came up, as it might be expected to do at any
+moment, it would be quite low again before three days were over.
+
+At this house I stayed the night, and in the course of the evening a
+stray dog--a retriever, hardly full grown, and evidently very much down
+on his luck--took up with me; when I inquired about him, and asked if I
+might take him with me, the landlord said he wished I would, for he knew
+nothing about him and was trying to drive him from the house. Knowing
+what a boon the companionship of this poor beast would be to me when I
+was camping out alone, I encouraged him, and next morning he followed me
+as a matter of course.
+
+In the night the Southerly Burster which my host anticipated had come up,
+cold and blustering, but invigorating after the hot, dry, wind that had
+been blowing hard during the daytime as I had crossed the plains. A mile
+or two higher up I passed a large sheep-station, but did not stay there.
+One or two men looked at me with surprise, and asked me where I was
+going, whereon I said I was in search of rare plants and birds for the
+Museum of the town at which I had slept the night after my arrival. This
+satisfied their curiosity, and I ambled on accompanied by the dog. In
+passing I may say that I found Doctor not to excel at any pace except an
+amble, but for a long journey, especially for one who is carrying a
+heavy, awkward load, there is no pace so comfortable; and he ambled
+fairly fast.
+
+I followed the horse track which had been cut through the gorge, and in
+many places I disliked it extremely, for the river, still in fresh, was
+raging furiously; twice, for some few yards, where the gorge was wider
+and the stream less rapid, it covered the track, and I had no confidence
+that it might not have washed it away; on these occasions Doctor pricked
+his ears towards the water, and was evidently thinking exactly what his
+rider was. He decided, however, that all would be sound, and took to the
+water without any urging on my part. Seeing his opinion, I remembered my
+father’s advice, and let him do what he liked, but in one place for three
+or four yards the water came nearly up to his belly, and I was in great
+fear for the watches that were in my saddle-bags. As for the dog, I
+feared I had lost him, but after a time he rejoined me, though how he
+contrived to do so I cannot say.
+
+Nothing could be grander than the sight of this great river pent into a
+narrow compass, and occasionally becoming more like an immense waterfall
+than a river, but I was in continual fear of coming to more places where
+the water would be over the track, and perhaps of finding myself unable
+to get any farther. I therefore failed to enjoy what was really far the
+most impressive sight in its way that I had ever seen. “Give me,” I said
+to myself, “the Thames at Richmond,” and right thankful was I, when at
+about two o’clock I found that I was through the gorge and in a wide
+valley, the greater part of which, however, was still covered by the
+river. It was here that I heard for the first time the curious sound of
+boulders knocking against each other underneath the great body of water
+that kept rolling them round and round.
+
+I now halted, and lit a fire, for there was much dead scrub standing that
+had remained after the ground had been burned for the first time some
+years previously. I made myself some tea, and turned Doctor out for a
+couple of hours to feed. I did not hobble him, for my father had told me
+that he would always come for bread. When I had dined, and smoked, and
+slept for a couple of hours or so, I reloaded Doctor and resumed my
+journey towards the shepherd’s hut, which I caught sight of about a mile
+before I reached it. When nearly half a mile off it, I dismounted, and
+made a written note of the exact spot at which I did so. I then turned
+for a couple of hundred yards to my right, at right angles to the track,
+where some huge rocks were lying--fallen ages since from the mountain
+that flanked this side of the valley. Here I deposited my knapsack in a
+hollow underneath some of the rocks, and put a good sized stone in front
+of it, for I meant spending a couple of days with the shepherd to let the
+river go down. Moreover, as it was now only December 3, I had too much
+time on my hands, but I had not dared to cut things finer.
+
+I reached the hut at about six o’clock, and introduced myself to the
+shepherd, who was a nice, kind old man, commonly called Harris, but his
+real name he told me was Horace--Horace Taylor. I had the conversation
+with him of which I have already told the reader, adding that my father
+had been unable to give a coherent account of what he had seen, and that
+I had been sent to get the information he had failed to furnish.
+
+The old man said that I must certainly wait a couple of days before I
+went higher up the river. He had made himself a nice garden, in which he
+took the greatest pride, and which supplied him with plenty of
+vegetables. He was very glad to have company, and to receive the
+newspapers which I had taken care to bring him. He had a real genius for
+simple cookery, and fed me excellently. My father’s £5, and the
+ration of brandy which I nightly gave him, made me a welcome guest, and
+though I was longing to be at any rate as far as the foot of the pass
+into Erewhon, I amused myself very well in an abundance of ways with
+which I need not trouble the reader.
+
+One of the first things that Harris said to me was, “I wish I knew what
+your father did with the nice red blanket he had with him when he went up
+the river. He had none when he came down again; I have no horse here,
+but I borrowed one from a man who came up one day from down below, and
+rode to a place where I found what I am sure were the ashes of the last
+fire he made, but I could find neither the blanket nor the billy and
+pannikin he took away with him. He said he supposed he must have left
+the things there, but he could remember nothing about it.”
+
+“I am afraid,” said I, “that I cannot help you.”
+
+“At any rate,” continued the shepherd, “I did not have my ride for
+nothing, for as I was coming back I found this rug half covered with sand
+on the river-bed.”
+
+As he spoke he pointed to an excellent warm rug, on the spare bunk in his
+hut. “It is none of our make,” said he; “I suppose some foreign digger
+has come over from the next river down south and got drowned, for it had
+not been very long where I found it, at least I think not, for it was not
+much fly-blown, and no one had passed here to go up the river since your
+father.”
+
+I knew what it was, but I held my tongue beyond saying that the rug was a
+very good one.
+
+The next day, December 4, was lovely, after a night that had been clear
+and cold, with frost towards early morning. When the shepherd had gone
+for some three hours in the forenoon to see his sheep (that were now
+lambing), I walked down to the place where I had left my knapsack, and
+carried it a good mile above the hut, where I again hid it. I could see
+the great range from one place, and the thick new fallen snow assured me
+that the river would be quite normal shortly. Indeed, by evening it was
+hardly at all discoloured, but I waited another day, and set out on the
+morning of Sunday, December 6. The river was now almost as low as in
+winter, and Harris assured me that if I used my eyes I could not miss
+finding a ford over one stream or another every half mile or so. I had
+the greatest difficulty in preventing him from accompanying me on foot
+for some little distance, but I got rid of him in the end; he came with
+me beyond the place where I had hidden my knapsack, but when he had left
+me long enough, I rode back and got it.
+
+I see I am dwelling too long upon my own small adventures. Suffice it
+that, accompanied by my dog, I followed the north bank of the river till
+I found I must cross one stream before I could get any farther. This
+place would not do, and I had to ride half a mile back before I found one
+that seemed as if it might be safe. I fancy my father must have done
+just the same thing, for Doctor seemed to know the ground, and took to
+the water the moment I brought him to it. It never reached his belly,
+but I confess I did not like it. By and by I had to recross, and so on,
+off and on, till at noon I camped for dinner. Here the dog found me a
+nest of young ducks, nearly fledged, from which the parent birds tried
+with great success to decoy me. I fully thought I was going to catch
+them, but the dog knew better and made straight for the nest, from which
+he returned immediately with a fine young duck in his mouth, which he
+laid at my feet, wagging his tail and barking. I took another from the
+nest and left two for the old birds.
+
+The afternoon was much as the morning and towards seven I reached a place
+which suggested itself as a good camping ground. I had hardly fixed on
+it and halted, before I saw a few pieces of charred wood, and felt sure
+that my father must have camped at this very place before me. I hobbled
+Doctor, unloaded, plucked and singed a duck, and gave the dog some of the
+meat with which Harris had furnished me; I made tea, laid my duck on the
+embers till it was cooked, smoked, gave myself a nightcap of brandy and
+water, and by and by rolled myself round in my blanket, with the dog
+curled up beside me. I will not dwell upon the strangeness of my
+feelings--nor the extreme beauty of the night. But for the dog, and
+Doctor, I should have been frightened, but I knew that there were no
+savage creatures or venomous snakes in the country, and both the dog and
+Doctor were such good companionable creatures, that I did not feel so
+much oppressed by the solitude as I had feared I should be. But the
+night was cold, and my blanket was not enough to keep me comfortably
+warm.
+
+The following day was delightfully warm as soon as the sun got to the
+bottom of the valley, and the fresh fallen snow disappeared so fast from
+the snowy range that I was afraid it would raise the river--which,
+indeed, rose in the afternoon and became slightly discoloured, but it
+cannot have been more than three or four inches deeper, for it never
+reached the bottom of my saddle-bags. I believe Doctor knew exactly
+where I was going, for he wanted no guidance. I halted again at midday,
+got two more ducks, crossed and recrossed the river, or some of its
+streams, several times, and at about six, caught sight, after a bend in
+the valley, of the glacier descending on to the river-bed. This I knew
+to be close to the point at which I was to camp for the night, and from
+which I was to ascend the mountain. After another hour’s slow progress
+over the increasing roughness of the river-bed, I saw the triangular
+delta of which my father had told me, and the stream that had formed it,
+bounding down the mountain side. Doctor went right up to the place where
+my father’s fire had been, and I again found many pieces of charred wood
+and ashes.
+
+As soon as I had unloaded Doctor and hobbled him, I went to a tree hard
+by, on which I could see the mark of a blaze, and towards which I thought
+I could see a line of wood ashes running. There I found a hole in which
+some bird had evidently been wont to build, and surmised correctly that
+it must be the one in which my father had hidden his box of sovereigns.
+There was no box in the hole now, and I began to feel that I was at last
+within measureable distance of Erewhon and the Erewhonians.
+
+I camped for the night here, and again found my single blanket
+insufficient. The next day, i.e. Tuesday, December 8, I had to pass as I
+best could, and it occurred to me that as I should find the gold a great
+weight, I had better take it some three hours up the mountain side and
+leave it there, so as to make the following day less fatiguing, and this
+I did, returning to my camp for dinner; but I was panic-stricken all the
+rest of the day lest I should not have hidden it safely, or lest I should
+be unable to find it next day--conjuring up a hundred absurd fancies as
+to what might befall it. And after all, heavy though it was, I could
+have carried it all the way. In the afternoon I saddled Doctor and rode
+him up to the glaciers, which were indeed magnificent, and then I made
+the few notes of my journey from which this chapter has been taken. I
+made excuses for turning in early, and at daybreak rekindled my fire and
+got my breakfast. All the time the companionship of the dog was an
+unspeakable comfort to me.
+
+It was now the day my father had fixed for my meeting with George, and my
+excitement (with which I have not yet troubled the reader, though it had
+been consuming me ever since I had left Harris’s hut) was beyond all
+bounds, so much so that I almost feared I was in a fever which would
+prevent my completing the little that remained of my task; in fact, I was
+in as great a panic as I had been about the gold that I had left. My
+hands trembled as I took the watches, and the brooches for Yram and her
+daughters from my saddle-bags, which I then hung, probably on the very
+bough on which my father had hung them. Needless to say, I also hung my
+saddle and bridle along with the saddle-bags.
+
+It was nearly seven before I started, and about ten before I reached the
+hiding-place of my knapsack. I found it, of course, quite easily,
+shouldered it, and toiled on towards the statues. At a quarter before
+twelve I reached them, and almost beside myself as I was, could not
+refrain from some disappointment at finding them a good deal smaller than
+I expected. My father, correcting the measurement he had given in his
+book, said he thought that they were about four or five times the size of
+life; but really I do not think they were more than twenty feet high, any
+one of them. In other respects my father’s description of them is quite
+accurate. There was no wind, and as a matter of course, therefore, they
+were not chanting. I wiled away the quarter of an hour before the time
+when George became due, with wondering at them, and in a way admiring
+them, hideous though they were; but all the time I kept looking towards
+the part from which George should come.
+
+At last my watch pointed to noon, but there was no George. A quarter
+past twelve, but no George. Half-past, still no George. One o’clock,
+and all the quarters till three o’clock, but still no George. I tried to
+eat some of the ship’s biscuits I had brought with me, but I could not.
+My disappointment was now as great as my excitement had been all the
+forenoon; at three o’clock I fairly cried, and for half an hour could
+only fling myself on the ground and give way to all the unreasonable
+spleen that extreme vexation could suggest. True, I kept telling myself
+that for aught I knew George might be dead, or down with a fever; but
+this would not do; for in this last case he should have sent one of his
+brothers to meet me, and it was not likely that he was dead. I am afraid
+I thought it most probable that he had been casual--of which unworthy
+suspicion I have long since been heartily ashamed.
+
+I put the brooches inside my knapsack, and hid it in a place where I was
+sure no one would find it; then, with a heavy heart, I trudged down again
+to my camp--broken in spirit, and hopeless for the morrow.
+
+I camped again, but it was some hours before I got a wink of sleep; and
+when sleep came it was accompanied by a strange dream. I dreamed that I
+was by my father’s bedside, watching his last flicker of intelligence,
+and vainly trying to catch the words that he was not less vainly trying
+to utter. All of a sudden the bed seemed to be at my camping ground, and
+the largest of the statues appeared, quite small, high up the mountain
+side, but striding down like a giant in seven league boots till it stood
+over me and my father, and shouted out “Leap, John, leap.” In the horror
+of this vision I woke with a loud cry that woke my dog also, and made him
+shew such evident signs of fear, that it seemed to me as though he too
+must have shared my dream.
+
+Shivering with cold I started up in a frenzy, but there was nothing, save
+a night of such singular beauty that I did not even try to go to sleep
+again. Naturally enough, on trying to keep awake I dropped asleep before
+many minutes were over.
+
+In the morning I again climbed up to the statues, without, to my
+surprise, being depressed with the idea that George would again fail to
+meet me. On the contrary, without rhyme or reason, I had a strong
+presentiment that he would come. And sure enough, as soon as I caught
+sight of the statues, which I did about a quarter to twelve, I saw a
+youth coming towards me, with a quick step, and a beaming face that had
+only to be seen to be fallen in love with.
+
+“You are my brother,” said he to me. “Is my father with you?”
+
+I pointed to the crape on my arm, and to the ground, but said nothing.
+
+He understood me, and bared his head. Then he flung his arms about me
+and kissed my forehead according to Erewhonian custom. I was a little
+surprised at his saying nothing to me about the way in which he had
+disappointed me on the preceding day; I resolved, however, to wait for
+the explanation that I felt sure he would give me presently.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII: GEORGE AND I SPEND A FEW HOURS TOGETHER AT THE STATUES,
+AND THEN PART--I REACH HOME--POSTSCRIPT
+
+
+I have said on an earlier page that George gained an immediate ascendancy
+over me, but ascendancy is not the word--he took me by storm; how, or
+why, I neither know nor want to know, but before I had been with him more
+than a few minutes I felt as though I had known and loved him all my
+life. And the dog fawned upon him as though he felt just as I did.
+
+“Come to the statues,” said he, as soon as he had somewhat recovered from
+the shock of the news I had given him. “We can sit down there on the
+very stone on which our father and I sat a year ago. I have brought a
+basket, which my mother packed for--for--him and me. Did he talk to you
+about me?”
+
+“He talked of nothing so much, and he thought of nothing so much. He had
+your boots put where he could see them from his bed until he died.”
+
+Then followed the explanation about these boots, of which the reader has
+already been told. This made us both laugh, and from that moment we were
+cheerful.
+
+I say nothing about our enjoyment of the luncheon with which Yram had
+provided us, and if I were to detail all that I told George about my
+father, and all the additional information that I got from him--(many a
+point did he clear up for me that I had not fully understood)--I should
+fill several chapters, whereas I have left myself only one. Luncheon
+being over I said--
+
+“And are you married?”
+
+“Yes” (with a blush), “and are you?”
+
+I could not blush. Why should I? And yet young people--especially the
+most ingenuous among them--are apt to flush up on being asked if they
+are, or are going, to be married. If I could have blushed, I would. As
+it was I could only say that I was engaged and should marry as soon as I
+got back.
+
+“Then you have come all this way for me, when you were wanting to get
+married?”
+
+“Of course I have. My father on his death-bed told me to do so, and to
+bring you something that I have brought you.”
+
+“What trouble I have given! How can I thank you?”
+
+“Shake hands with me.”
+
+Whereon he gave my hand a stronger grip than I had quite bargained for.
+
+“And now,” said I, “before I tell you what I have brought, you must
+promise me to accept it. Your father said I was not to leave you till
+you had done so, and I was to say that he sent it with his dying
+blessing.”
+
+After due demur George gave his promise, and I took him to the place
+where I had hidden my knapsack.
+
+“I brought it up yesterday,” said I.
+
+“Yesterday? but why?”
+
+“Because yesterday--was it not?--was the first of the two days agreed
+upon between you and our father?”
+
+“No--surely to-day is the first day--I was to come XXI. i. 3, which would
+be your December 9.”
+
+“But yesterday was December 9 with us--to-day is December 10.”
+
+“Strange! What day of the week do you make it?”
+
+“To-day is Thursday, December 10.”
+
+“This is still stranger--we make it Wednesday; yesterday was Tuesday.”
+
+Then I saw it. The year XX. had been a leap year with the Erewhonians,
+and 1891 in England had not. This, then, was what had crossed my
+father’s brain in his dying hours, and what he had vainly tried to tell
+me. It was also what my unconscious self had been struggling to tell my
+conscious one, during the past night, but which my conscious self had
+been too stupid to understand. And yet my conscious self had caught it
+in an imperfect sort of a way after all, for from the moment that my
+dream had left me I had been composed, and easy in my mind that all would
+be well. I wish some one would write a book about dreams and
+parthenogenesis--for that the two are part and parcel of the same story--a
+brood of folly without father bred--I cannot doubt.
+
+I did not trouble George with any of this rubbish, but only shewed him
+how the mistake had arisen. When we had laughed sufficiently over my
+mistake--for it was I who had come up on the wrong day, not he--I fished
+my knapsack out of its hiding-place.
+
+“Do not unpack it,” said I, “beyond taking out the brooches, or you will
+not be able to pack it so well; but you can see the ends of the bars of
+gold, and you can feel the weight; my father sent them for you. The
+pearl brooch is for your mother, the smaller brooches are for your
+sisters, and your wife.”
+
+I then told him how much gold there was, and from my pockets brought out
+the watches and the English knife.
+
+“This last,” I said, “is the only thing that I am giving you; the rest is
+all from our father. I have many many times as much gold myself, and
+this is legally your property as much as mine is mine.”
+
+George was aghast, but he was powerless alike to express his feelings, or
+to refuse the gold.
+
+“Do you mean to say that my father left me this by his will?”
+
+“Certainly he did,” said I, inventing a pious fraud.
+
+“It is all against my oath,” said he, looking grave.
+
+“Your oath be hanged,” said I. “You must give the gold to the Mayor, who
+knows that it was coming, and it will appear to the world, as though he
+were giving it you now instead of leaving you anything.”
+
+“But it is ever so much too much!”
+
+“It is not half enough. You and the Mayor must settle all that between
+you. He and our father talked it all over, and this was what they
+settled.”
+
+“And our father planned all this, without saying a word to me about it
+while we were on our way up here?”
+
+“Yes. There might have been some hitch in the gold’s coming. Besides
+the Mayor told him not to tell you.”
+
+“And he never said anything about the other money he left for me--which
+enabled me to marry at once? Why was this?”
+
+“Your mother said he was not to do so.”
+
+“Bless my heart, how they have duped me all round. But why would not my
+mother let your father tell me? Oh yes--she was afraid I should tell the
+King about it, as I certainly should, when I told him all the rest.”
+
+“Tell the King?” said I, “what have you been telling the King?”
+
+“Everything; except about the nuggets and the sovereigns, of which I knew
+nothing; and I have felt myself a blackguard ever since for not telling
+him about these when he came up here last autumn--but I let the Mayor and
+my mother talk me over, as I am afraid they will do again.”
+
+“When did you tell the King?”
+
+Then followed all the details that I have told in the latter part of
+Chapter XXI. When I asked how the King took the confession, George said--
+
+“He was so much flattered at being treated like a reasonable being, and
+Dr. Downie, who was chief spokesman, played his part so discreetly,
+without attempting to obscure even the most compromising issues, that
+though his Majesty made some show of displeasure at first, it was plain
+that he was heartily enjoying the whole story.
+
+“Dr. Downie shewed very well. He took on himself the onus of having
+advised our action, and he gave me all the credit of having proposed that
+we should make a clean breast of everything.
+
+“The King, too, behaved with truly royal politeness; he was on the point
+of asking why I had not taken our father to the Blue Pool at once, and
+flung him into it on the Sunday afternoon, when something seemed to
+strike him: he gave me a searching look, on which he said in an
+undertone, ‘Oh yes,’ and did not go on with his question. He never
+blamed me for anything, and when I begged him to accept my resignation of
+the Rangership, he said--
+
+“‘No. Stay where you are till I lose confidence in you, which will not,
+I think, be very soon. I will come and have a few days’ shooting about
+the middle of March, and if I have good sport I shall order your salary
+to be increased. If any more foreign devils come over, do not Blue-Pool
+them; send them down to me, and I will see what I think of them; I am
+much disposed to encourage a few of them to settle here.”
+
+“I am sure,” continued George, “that he said this because he knew I was
+half a foreign devil myself. Indeed he won my heart not only by the
+delicacy of his consideration, but by the obvious good will he bore me. I
+do not know what he did with the nuggets, but he gave orders that the
+blanket and the rest of my father’s kit should be put in the great
+Erewhonian Museum. As regards my father’s receipt, and the Professors’
+two depositions, he said he would have them carefully preserved in his
+secret archives. ‘A document,’ he said somewhat enigmatically, ‘is a
+document--but, Professor Hanky, you can have this’--and as he spoke he
+handed him back his pocket-handkerchief.
+
+“Hanky during the whole interview was furious, at having to play so
+undignified a part, but even more so, because the King while he paid
+marked attention to Dr. Downie, and even to myself, treated him with
+amused disdain. Nevertheless, angry though he was, he was impenitent,
+unabashed, and brazened it out at Bridgeford, that the King had received
+him with open arms, and had snubbed Dr. Downie and myself. But for his
+(Hanky’s) intercession, I should have been dismissed then and there from
+the Rangership. And so forth. Panky never opened his mouth.
+
+“Returning to the King, his Majesty said to Dr. Downie, ‘I am afraid I
+shall not be able to canonize any of you gentlemen just yet. We must let
+this affair blow over. Indeed I am in half a mind to have this Sunchild
+bubble pricked; I never liked it, and am getting tired of it; you Musical
+Bank gentlemen are overdoing it. I will talk it over with her Majesty.
+As for Professor Hanky, I do not see how I can keep one who has been so
+successfully hoodwinked, as my Professor of Worldly Wisdom; but I will
+consult her Majesty about this point also. Perhaps I can find another
+post for him. If I decide on having Sunchildism pricked, he shall apply
+the pin. You may go.’
+
+“And glad enough,” said George, “we all of us were to do so.”
+
+“But did he,” I asked, “try to prick the bubble of Sunchildism?”
+
+“Oh no. As soon as he said he would talk it over with her Majesty, I
+knew the whole thing would end in smoke, as indeed to all outward
+appearance it shortly did; for Dr. Downie advised him not to be in too
+great a hurry, and whatever he did to do it gradually. He therefore took
+no further action than to show marked favour to practical engineers and
+mechanicians. Moreover he started an aeronautical society, which made
+Bridgeford furious; but so far, I am afraid it has done us no good, for
+the first ascent was disastrous, involving the death of the poor fellow
+who made it, and since then no one has ventured to ascend. I am afraid
+we do not get on very fast.”
+
+“Did the King,” I asked, “increase your salary?”
+
+“Yes. He doubled it.”
+
+“And what do they say in Sunch’ston about our father’s second visit?”
+
+George laughed, and shewed me the newspaper extract which I have already
+given. I asked who wrote it.
+
+“I did,” said he, with a demure smile; “I wrote it at night after I
+returned home, and before starting for the capital next morning. I
+called myself ‘the deservedly popular Ranger,’ to avert suspicion. No
+one found me out; you can keep the extract, I brought it here on
+purpose.”
+
+“It does you great credit. Was there ever any lunatic, and was he
+found?”
+
+“Oh yes. That part was true, except that he had never been up our way.”
+
+“Then the poacher is still at large?”
+
+“It is to be feared so.”
+
+“And were Dr. Downie and the Professors canonized after all.”
+
+“Not yet; but the Professors will be next month--for Hanky is still
+Professor. Dr. Downie backed out of it. He said it was enough to be a
+Sunchildist without being a Sunchild Saint. He worships the jumping cat
+as much as the others, but he keeps his eye better on the cat, and sees
+sooner both when it will jump, and where it will jump to. Then, without
+disturbing any one, he insinuates himself into the place which will be
+best when the jump is over. Some say that the cat knows him and follows
+him; at all events when he makes a move the cat generally jumps towards
+him soon afterwards.”
+
+“You give him a very high character.”
+
+“Yes, but I have my doubts about his doing much in this matter; he is
+getting old, and Hanky burrows like a mole night and day. There is no
+knowing how it will all end.”
+
+“And the people at Sunch’ston? Has it got well about among them, in
+spite of your admirable article, that it was the Sunchild himself who
+interrupted Hanky?”
+
+“It has, and it has not. Many of us know the truth, but a story came
+down from Bridgeford that it was an evil spirit who had assumed the
+Sunchild’s form, intending to make people sceptical about Sunchildism;
+Hanky and Panky cowed this spirit, otherwise it would never have
+recanted. Many people swallow this.”
+
+“But Hanky and Panky swore that they knew the man.”
+
+“That does not matter.”
+
+“And now please, how long have you been married?”
+
+“About ten months.”
+
+“Any family?”
+
+“One boy about a fortnight old. Do come down to Sunch’ston and see
+him--he is your own nephew. You speak Erewhonian so perfectly that no
+human being would suspect you were a foreigner, and you look one of us
+from head to foot. I can smuggle you through quite easily, and my mother
+would so like to see you.”
+
+I should dearly have liked to have gone, but it was out of the question.
+I had nothing with me but the clothes I stood in; moreover I was longing
+to be back in England, and when once I was in Erewhon there was no
+knowing when I should be able to get away again; but George fought hard
+before he gave in.
+
+It was now nearing the time when this strange meeting between two
+brothers--as strange a one as the statues can ever have looked down
+upon--must come to an end. I shewed George what the repeater would do,
+and what it would expect of its possessor. I gave him six good
+photographs, of my father and myself--three of each. He had never seen a
+photograph, and could hardly believe his eyes as he looked at those I
+shewed him. I also gave him three envelopes addressed to myself, care of
+Alfred Emery Cathie, Esq., 15 Clifford’s Inn, London, and implored him to
+write to me if he could ever find means of getting a letter over the
+range as far as the shepherd’s hut. At this he shook his head, but he
+promised to write if he could. I also told him that I had written a full
+account of my father’s second visit to Erewhon, but that it should never
+be published till I heard from him--at which he again shook his head, but
+added, “And yet who can tell? For the King may have the country opened
+up to foreigners some day after all.”
+
+Then he thanked me a thousand times over, shouldered the knapsack,
+embraced me as he had my father, and caressed the dog, embraced me again,
+and made no attempt to hide the tears that ran down his cheeks.
+
+“There,” he said; “I shall wait here till you are out of sight.”
+
+I turned away, and did not look back till I reached the place at which I
+knew that I should lose the statues. I then turned round, waved my
+hand--as also did George, and went down the mountain side, full of sad
+thoughts, but thankful that my task had been so happily accomplished, and
+aware that my life henceforward had been enriched by something that I
+could never lose.
+
+For I had never seen, and felt as though I never could see, George’s
+equal. His absolute unconsciousness of self, the unhesitating way in
+which he took me to his heart, his fearless frankness, the happy genial
+expression that played on his face, and the extreme sweetness of his
+smile--these were the things that made me say to myself that the “blazon
+of beauty’s best” could tell me nothing better than what I had found and
+lost within the last three hours. How small, too, I felt by comparison!
+If for no other cause, yet for this, that I, who had wept so bitterly
+over my own disappointment the day before, could meet this dear fellow’s
+tears with no tear of my own.
+
+But let this pass. I got back to Harris’s hut without adventure. When
+there, in the course of the evening, I told Harris that I had a fancy for
+the rug he had found on the river-bed, and that if he would let me have
+it, I would give him my red one and ten shillings to boot. The exchange
+was so obviously to his advantage that he made no demur, and next morning
+I strapped Yram’s rug on to my horse, and took it gladly home to England,
+where I keep it on my own bed next to the counterpane, so that with care
+it may last me out my life. I wanted him to take the dog and make a home
+for him, but he had two collies already, and said that a retriever would
+be of no use to him. So I took the poor beast on with me to the port,
+where I was glad to find that Mr. Baker liked him and accepted him from
+me, though he was not mine to give. He had been such an unspeakable
+comfort to me when I was alone, that he would have haunted me unless I
+had been able to provide for him where I knew he would be well cared for.
+As for Doctor, I was sorry to leave him, but I knew he was in good hands.
+
+“I see you have not brought your knapsack back, sir,” said Mr. Baker.
+
+“No,” said I, “and very thankful was I when I had handed it over to those
+for whom it was intended.”
+
+“I have no doubt you were, sir, for I could see it was a desperate heavy
+load for you.”
+
+“Indeed it was.” But at this point I brought the discussion to a close.
+
+Two days later I sailed, and reached home early in February 1892. I was
+married three weeks later, and when the honeymoon was over, set about
+making the necessary, and some, I fear, unnecessary additions to this
+book--by far the greater part of which had been written, as I have
+already said, many months earlier. I now leave it, at any rate for the
+present, April 22, 1892.
+
+* * * * *
+
+Postscript.--On the last day of November 1900, I received a letter
+addressed in Mr. Alfred Cathie’s familiar handwriting, and on opening it
+found that it contained another, addressed to me in my own, and
+unstamped. For the moment I was puzzled, but immediately knew that it
+must be from George. I tore it open, and found eight closely written
+pages, which I devoured as I have seldom indeed devoured so long a
+letter. It was dated XXIX. vii. 1, and, as nearly as I can translate it
+was as follows;-
+
+“Twice, my dearest brother, have I written to you, and twice in
+successive days in successive years, have I been up to the statues on the
+chance that you could meet me, as I proposed in my letters. Do not think
+I went all the way back to Sunch’ston--there is a ranger’s shelter now
+only an hour and a half below the statues, and here I passed the night. I
+knew you had got neither of my letters, for if you had got them and could
+not come yourself, you would have sent some one whom you could trust with
+a letter. I know you would, though I do not know how you would have
+contrived to do it.
+
+“I sent both letters through Bishop Kahabuka (or, as his inferior clergy
+call him, ‘Chowbok’), head of the Christian Mission to Erëwhêmos, which,
+as your father has doubtless told you, is the country adjoining Erewhon,
+but inhabited by a coloured race having no affinity with our own. Bishop
+Kahabuka has penetrated at times into Erewhon, and the King, wishing to
+be on good terms with his neighbours, has permitted him to establish two
+or three mission stations in the western parts of Erewhon. Among the
+missionaries are some few of your own countrymen. None of us like them,
+but one of them is teaching me English, which I find quite easy.
+
+“As I wrote in the letters that have never reached you, I am no longer
+Ranger. The King, after some few years (in the course of which I told
+him of your visit, and what you had brought me), declared that I was the
+only one of his servants whom he could trust, and found high office for
+me, which kept me in close confidential communication with himself.
+
+“About three years ago, on the death of his Prime Minister, he appointed
+me to fill his place; and it was on this, that so many possibilities
+occurred to me concerning which I dearly longed for your opinion, that I
+wrote and asked you, if you could, to meet me personally or by proxy at
+the statues, which I could reach on the occasion of my annual visit to my
+mother--yes--and father--at Sunch’ston.
+
+“I sent both letters by way of Erewhemos, confiding them to Bishop
+Kahabuka, who is just such another as St. Hanky. He tells me that our
+father was a very old and dear friend of his--but of course I did not say
+anything about his being my own father. I only inquired about a Mr.
+Higgs, who was now worshipped in Erewhon as a supernatural being. The
+Bishop said it was, “Oh, so very dreadful,” and he felt it all the more
+keenly, for the reason that he had himself been the means of my father’s
+going to Erewhon, by giving him the information that enabled him to find
+the pass over the range that bounded the country.
+
+“I did not like the man, but I thought I could trust him with a letter,
+which it now seems I could not do. This third letter I have given him
+with a promise of a hundred pounds in silver for his new Cathedral, to be
+paid as soon as I get an answer from you.
+
+“We are all well at Sunch’ston; so are my wife and eight children--five
+sons and three daughters--but the country is at sixes and sevens. St.
+Panky is dead, but his son Pocus is worse. Dr. Downie has become very
+lethargic. I can do less against St. Hankyism than when I was a private
+man. A little indiscretion on my part would plunge the country in civil
+war. Our engineers and so-called men of science are sturdily begging for
+endowments, and steadily claiming to have a hand in every pie that is
+baked from one end of the country to the other. The missionaries are
+buying up all our silver, and a change in the relative values of gold and
+silver is in progress of which none of us foresee the end.
+
+“The King and I both think that annexation by England, or a British
+Protectorate, would be the saving of us, for we have no army worth the
+name, and if you do not take us over some one else soon will. The King
+has urged me to send for you. If you come (do! do! do!) you had better
+come by way of Erewhemos, which is now in monthly communication with
+Southampton. If you will write me that you are coming I will meet you at
+the port, and bring you with me to our own capital, where the King will
+be overjoyed to see you.”
+
+* * * * *
+
+The rest of the letter was filled with all sorts of news which interested
+me, but would require chapters of explanation before they could become
+interesting to the reader.
+
+The letter wound up:-
+
+   “You may publish now whatever you like, whenever you like.
+
+   “Write to me by way of Erewhemos, care of the Right Reverend the Lord
+   Bishop, and say which way you will come. If you prefer the old road,
+   we are bound to be in the neighbourhood of the statues by the
+   beginning of March. My next brother is now Ranger, and could meet you
+   at the statues with permit and luncheon, and more of that white wine
+   than ever you will be able to drink. Only let me know what you will
+   do.
+
+   “I should tell you that the old railway which used to run from
+   Clearwater to the capital, and which, as you know, was allowed to go
+   to ruin, has been reconstructed at an outlay far less than might have
+   been expected--for the bridges had been maintained for ordinary
+   carriage traffic. The journey, therefore, from Sunch’ston to the
+   capital can now be done in less than forty hours. On the whole,
+   however, I recommend you to come by way of Erewhemos. If you start,
+   as I think possible, without writing from England, Bishop Kahabuka’s
+   palace is only eight miles from the port, and he will give you every
+   information about your further journey--a distance of less than a
+   couple of hundred miles. But I should prefer to meet you myself.
+
+   “My dearest brother, I charge you by the memory of our common father,
+   and even more by that of those three hours that linked you to me for
+   ever, and which I would fain hope linked me also to yourself--come
+   over, if by any means you can do so--come over and help us.
+
+   “GEORGE STRONG.”
+
+“My dear,” said I to my wife who was at the other end of the breakfast
+table, “I shall have to translate this letter to you, and then you will
+have to help me to begin packing; for I have none too much time. I must
+see Alfred, and give him a power of attorney. He will arrange with some
+publisher about my book, and you can correct the press. Break the news
+gently to the children; and get along without me, my dear, for six months
+as well as you can.”
+
+* * * * *
+
+I write this at Southampton, from which port I sail to-morrow--i.e.
+November 15, 1900--for Erewhemos.
+
+
+
+
+Footnotes
+
+
+{1} See Chapter X.
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1971 ***
diff --git a/1971-h/1971-h.htm b/1971-h/1971-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..14c091b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/1971-h/1971-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,7630 @@
+<!DOCTYPE html>
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
+<head>
+    <meta charset="UTF-8">
+    <title>
+      Erewhon Revisited | Project Gutenberg
+    </title>
+    <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover">
+    <style>
+    P {  margin-top: .75em;
+         margin-bottom: .75em;
+         }
+    H1, H2 {
+         text-align: center;
+                margin-top: 2em;
+                margin-bottom: 2em;
+         }
+    H3, H4 {
+        text-align: left;
+        margin-top: 1em;
+        margin-bottom: 1em;
+        }
+    BODY{margin-left: 10%;
+         margin-right: 10%;
+        }
+
+hr.tb   {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;}
+
+    table {
+    margin-left: auto;
+    margin-right: auto;
+}
+table.autotable    { border-collapse: collapse; }
+table.autotable td,
+table.autotable th { padding: 0.25em; }
+    </style>
+</head>
+<body>
+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1971 ***</div>
+
+
+<h1>EREWHON REVISITED<br>
+TWENTY YEARS LATER<br>
+Both by the Original Discoverer of the Country and by his Son</h1>
+<p>I forget when, but not very long after I had published &ldquo;Erewhon&rdquo;
+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.&nbsp; 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&mdash;what would be the effect on the people generally?</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; It was not till the early winter
+of 1900, i.e. as nearly as may be thirty years after the date of Higgs&rsquo;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.</p>
+<p>I have concluded, I believe rightly, that the events described in
+Chapter XXIV. of &ldquo;Erewhon&rdquo; would give rise to such a cataclysmic
+change in the old Erewhonian opinions as would result in the development
+of a new religion.&nbsp; Now the development of all new religions follows
+much the same general course.&nbsp; In all cases the times are more
+or less out of joint&mdash;older faiths are losing their hold upon the
+masses.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; To chronicle
+the events that followed Higgs&rsquo;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.</p>
+<p>Analogy, however, between courses of events is one thing&mdash;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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp;
+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.</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; What those who belong to this
+wing believe, I believe.&nbsp; What they reject, I reject.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; I believe&mdash;and should be very sorry if I did not believe&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>SAMUEL BUTLER.<br>
+May 1, 1901.</p>
+<h2>CHAPTER I: UPS AND DOWNS OF FORTUNE&mdash;MY FATHER STARTS FOR EREWHON</h2>
+<p>Before telling the story of my father&rsquo;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.&nbsp;
+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.</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; <i>Omne ignotum pro magnifico</i>, and during its month of
+anonymity the book was a frequent topic of appreciative comment in good
+literary circles.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>The Geographical Society, which had for a few days received him with
+open arms, was among the first to turn upon him&mdash;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&mdash;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.&nbsp; This, at least, was my father&rsquo;s
+version of the matter, as I heard it from his own lips in the later
+years of his life.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I was still very young,&rdquo; he said to me, &ldquo;and my
+mind was more or less unhinged by the strangeness and peril of my adventures.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+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.</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; A
+few shepherds and cadets at up-country stations had, indeed, tried to
+follow in my father&rsquo;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.&nbsp; Some few,
+however, had not returned, and though search was made for them, their
+bodies had not been found.&nbsp; When he reached Erewhon on his second
+visit, my father learned that others had attempted to visit the country
+more recently&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; No more, therefore, being heard of Erewhon,
+my father&rsquo;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 &ldquo;6d. very readable.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Though there was no truth in the stories about my father&rsquo;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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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 &ldquo;two or three bottles of brandy&rdquo;
+with him, he had probably taken at least a dozen; and that if on the
+night before he reached the statues he had &ldquo;only four ounces of
+brandy&rdquo; left, he must have been drinking heavily for the preceding
+fortnight or three weeks.&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>It was Chowbok who, if he did not originate these calumnies, did
+much to disseminate and gain credence for them.&nbsp; He remained in
+England for some years, and never tired of doing what he could to disparage
+my father.&nbsp; The cunning creature had ingratiated himself with our
+leading religious societies, especially with the more evangelical among
+them.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; Chowbok saw that there was
+no room for him and for my father, and declared my poor father&rsquo;s
+story to be almost wholly false.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; At this point he would shrug his shoulders,
+look mysterious, and thus say &ldquo;alcoholic poisoning&rdquo; even
+more effectively than if he had uttered the words themselves.&nbsp;
+For a man&rsquo;s tongue lies often in his shoulders.</p>
+<p>Readers of my father&rsquo;s book will remember that Chowbok had
+given a very different version when he had returned to his employer&rsquo;s
+station; but Time and Distance afford cover under which falsehood can
+often do truth to death securely.</p>
+<p>I never understood why my father did not bring my mother forward
+to confirm his story.&nbsp; He may have done so while I was too young
+to know anything about it.&nbsp; But when people have made up their
+minds, they are impatient of further evidence; my mother, moreover,
+was of a very retiring disposition.&nbsp; The Italians say:-</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Chi lontano va ammogliare<br>
+Sar&agrave; ingannato, o vorr&agrave; ingannare.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>&ldquo;If a man goes far afield for a wife, he will be deceived&mdash;or
+means deceiving.&rdquo;&nbsp; The proverb is as true for women as for
+men, and my mother was never quite happy in her new surroundings.&nbsp;
+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&rsquo;s.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; In mind,
+if I may venture to say so, I believe I was more like my father.</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp;
+From what I have said above he will readily believe that my earliest
+experiences were somewhat squalid.&nbsp; Memories of childhood rush
+vividly upon me when I pass through a low London alley, and catch the
+faint sickly smell that pervades it&mdash;half paraffin, half black-currants,
+but wholly something very different.&nbsp; I have a fancy that we lived
+in Blackmoor Street, off Drury Lane.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; These three &ldquo;f&rsquo;s,&rdquo; he would say,
+were his three best friends, for they were easy to do and brought in
+halfpence freely.&nbsp; The return of the dove to the ark was his favourite
+subject.&nbsp; Such a little ark, on such a hazy morning, and such a
+little pigeon&mdash;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.&nbsp; He held it to be his masterpiece, but would
+add with some na&iuml;vet&eacute; that he considered himself a public
+benefactor for carrying it out in such perishable fashion.&nbsp; &ldquo;At
+any rate,&rdquo; he would say, &ldquo;no one can bequeath one of my
+many replicas to the nation.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp;
+I found him a patient, kindly instructor, while to my mother he was
+a model husband.&nbsp; Whatever others may have said about him, I can
+never think of him without very affectionate respect.</p>
+<p>Things went on quietly enough, as above indicated, till I was about
+fourteen, when by a freak of fortune my father became suddenly affluent.&nbsp;
+A brother of his father&rsquo;s had emigrated to Australia in 1851,
+and had amassed great wealth.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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&rsquo;s sisters had died young,
+and without leaving children.</p>
+<p>The solicitor through whom the news reached us was, happily, a man
+of the highest integrity, and also very sensible and kind.&nbsp; He
+was a Mr. Alfred Emery Cathie, of 15 Clifford&rsquo;s Inn, E.C., and
+my father placed himself unreservedly in his hands.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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&mdash;for
+which I have ever since held myself his debtor.</p>
+<p>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 <i>maladie du pays</i>.&nbsp;
+All along she had felt herself an exile, and though she had borne up
+wonderfully during my father&rsquo;s long struggle with adversity, she
+began to break as soon as prosperity had removed the necessity for exertion
+on her own part.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;as it seems to
+me very unjustly&mdash;of having done her, for it was neither his fault
+nor hers&mdash;it was At&egrave;.</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; &ldquo;He had better go,&rdquo; said Mr. Cathie to me, when
+I was at home for the Easter vacation, &ldquo;and get it over.&nbsp;
+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.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>This, however, was not said till it had become plain that in a few
+days my father would be on his way.&nbsp; He had made a new will, and
+left an ample power of attorney with Mr. Cathie&mdash;or, as we always
+called him, Alfred&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; My father, indeed, repeatedly urged me not to read it,
+for he said there was much in it&mdash;more especially in the earlier
+chapters, which I had alone found interesting&mdash;that he would gladly
+cancel if he could.&nbsp; &ldquo;But there!&rdquo; he had said with
+a laugh, &ldquo;what does it matter?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp;
+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,
+&ldquo;Coming home,&rdquo; we rather hoped that he had abandoned his
+intention of going there.</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; The Erewhonian coinage is entirely silver&mdash;which
+is abundant, and worth much what it is in England&mdash;or copper, which
+is also plentiful; but what we should call five pounds&rsquo; worth
+of silver money would not buy more than one of our half-sovereigns in
+gold.</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; He was not likely, therefore, to have been
+robbed.&nbsp; 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&mdash;for
+the nuggets would be immediately convertible in an English colony.&nbsp;
+There was nothing, however, to be done but to cable out the money and
+wait my father&rsquo;s arrival.</p>
+<p>Returning for a moment to my father&rsquo;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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; They were nearly new, and when
+he had had them softened and well greased, he found he could still wear
+them quite comfortably.</p>
+<p>But to return.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; &ldquo;What is the matter?&rdquo; said I, shocked
+at his appearance.&nbsp; &ldquo;Did you go to Erewhon, and were you
+ill-treated there?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I went to Erewhon,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and I was not ill-treated
+there, but I have been so shaken that I fear I shall quite lose my reason.&nbsp;
+Do not ask me more now.&nbsp; I will tell you about it all to-morrow.&nbsp;
+Let me have something to eat, and go to bed.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>When we met at breakfast next morning, he greeted me with all his
+usual warmth of affection, but he was still taciturn.&nbsp; &ldquo;I
+will begin to tell you about it,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;after breakfast.&nbsp;
+Where is your dear mother?&nbsp; How was it that I have . . . &rdquo;</p>
+<p>Then of a sudden his memory returned, and he burst into tears.</p>
+<p>I now saw, to my horror, that his mind was gone.&nbsp; When he recovered,
+he said: &ldquo;It has all come back again, but at times now I am a
+blank, and every week am more and more so.&nbsp; I daresay I shall be
+sensible now for several hours.&nbsp; We will go into the study after
+breakfast, and I will talk to you as long as I can do so.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Let the reader spare me, and let me spare the reader any description
+of what we both of us felt.</p>
+<p>When we were in the study, my father said, &ldquo;My dearest boy,
+get pen and paper and take notes of what I tell you.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; I cannot write a coherent page.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; But do not publish it yet; it might
+do harm to those dear good people.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>These instructions I have religiously obeyed.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; &ldquo;Remember,&rdquo;
+he said, &ldquo;that I thought I was quite well so long as I was in
+Erewhon, and do not let me appear as anything else.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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, <a name="citation1"></a><a href="#footnote1">{1}</a>
+and to have it inscribed on the very simple monument which he desired
+should alone mark his grave.</p>
+<hr class="tb">
+<p>The foregoing was written in the summer of 1891; what I now add should
+be dated December 3, 1900.&nbsp; 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&rsquo;s story
+without some involuntary misrepresentation both of facts and characters.&nbsp;
+They will, of course, see that &ldquo;Erewhon Revisited&rdquo; is written
+by one who has far less literary skill than the author of &ldquo;Erewhon;&rdquo;
+but again I would ask indulgence on the score of youth, and the fact
+that this is my first book.&nbsp; It was written nearly ten years ago,
+<i>i.e</i>. in the months from March to August 1891, but for reasons
+already given it could not then be made public.&nbsp; 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&rsquo;s diaries, and the notes I took down from his own mouth&mdash;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&rsquo; stay in Erewhon, and
+of the Postscript.</p>
+<h2>CHAPTER II: TO THE FOOT OF THE PASS INTO EREWHON</h2>
+<p>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.&nbsp; He had taken an English
+saddle with him, and a couple of roomy and strongly made saddle-bags.&nbsp;
+In these he packed his money, his nuggets, some tea, sugar, tobacco,
+salt, a flask of brandy, matches, and as many ship&rsquo;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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp;
+On to other D&rsquo;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.&nbsp; 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 &ldquo;<i>faire bouillir</i>.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+He also took with him a pair of hobbles and a small hatchet.</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp;
+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.&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>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&rsquo;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.</p>
+<p>He was hospitably entertained at the shepherd&rsquo;s hut just mentioned,
+which he reached on Monday, December 1.&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Be careful, sir,&rdquo; said the shepherd; &ldquo;the river
+is very dangerous; several people&mdash;one only about a year ago&mdash;have
+left this hut, and though their horses and their camps have been found,
+their bodies have not.&nbsp; When a great fresh comes down, it would
+carry a body out to sea in twenty-four hours.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He evidently had no idea that there was a pass through the ranges
+up the river, which might explain the disappearance of an explorer.</p>
+<p>Next day my father began to ascend the river.&nbsp; 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&mdash;and here there was a good deal of quicksand.&nbsp;
+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.&nbsp; The grass was beginning
+to seed, so that though it was none too plentiful, what there was of
+it made excellent feed.</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp;
+There was the clear starlit sky, the rushing river, and the stunted
+trees on the mountain-side; the woodhens cried, and the &ldquo;more-pork&rdquo;
+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&rsquo;s surroundings; the next,
+and the intervening twenty years&mdash;most of them grim ones&mdash;rose
+up mockingly before him, and the buoyancy of hope yielded to the despondency
+of admitted failure.&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>Next morning, <i>i.e</i>. 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.&nbsp;
+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&rsquo;s belly&mdash;for the river was of
+great volume.&nbsp; Fortunately, there had been a late fall of snow
+on the higher ranges, and the river was, for the summer season, low.</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; Little did he think that he should want him again
+so shortly.</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; 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?&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>In the morning, though the water was somewhat icy, he again bathed,
+and then put on his Erewhonian boots and dress.&nbsp; He stowed his
+European clothes, with some difficulty, into his saddle-bags.&nbsp;
+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&mdash;which he left for sundry hawks and parrots that were
+eyeing his proceedings apparently without fear of man.&nbsp; His nuggets
+he concealed in the secret pockets of which I have already spoken, keeping
+one bag alone accessible.</p>
+<p>He had had his hair and beard cut short on shipboard the day before
+he landed.&nbsp; These he now dyed with a dye that he had brought from
+England, and which in a few minutes turned them very nearly black.&nbsp;
+He also stained his face and hands deep brown.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp;
+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.&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>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&rsquo;s biscuits,
+and his billy and pannikin; matches and salt go without saying.&nbsp;
+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&rsquo;clock.&nbsp; Remembering what trouble it had got him into years
+before, he took down his saddle-bags, reopened them, and put the watch
+inside.&nbsp; He then set himself to climb the mountain side, towards
+the saddle on which he had seen the statues.</p>
+<h2>CHAPTER III: MY FATHER WHILE CAMPING IS ACCOSTED BY PROFESSORS HANKY
+AND PANKY</h2>
+<p>My father found the ascent more fatiguing than he remembered it to
+have been.&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;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.&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>He found the statues smaller than he had expected.&nbsp; He had said
+in his book&mdash;written many months after he had seen them&mdash;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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; In other
+respects he found them not less mysteriously impressive than at first.&nbsp;
+He walked two or three times all round them, and then went on.</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; He had quite forgotten this feature
+of the descent&mdash;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.&nbsp;
+The abundance of these quails surprised him, for he did not remember
+them as plentiful anywhere on the Erewhonian side of the mountains.</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; Moreover he could see no sheep or goat&rsquo;s
+dung; and this surprised him, for he thought he had found signs of pasturage
+much higher than this.&nbsp; Doubtless, he said to himself, when he
+wrote his book he had forgotten how long the descent had been.&nbsp;
+But it was odd, for the grass was good feed enough, and ought, he considered,
+to have been well stocked.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>What was he to say when people asked him, as they were sure to do,
+how he was living?&nbsp; 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?&nbsp; 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.&nbsp;
+He had nothing with him that he dared offer for sale, and though he
+had plenty of gold, was in reality penniless.</p>
+<p>When, therefore, he saw the quails, he again felt as though some
+friendly spirit was smoothing his way before him.&nbsp; 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?</p>
+<p>It took him between two and three hours to catch two dozen.&nbsp;
+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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>Here he resolved to pass the night.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;So far so good,&rdquo; 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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Thank goodness,&rdquo; said one of the speakers (of course
+in the Erewhonian language), &ldquo;we seem to be finding somebody at
+last.&nbsp; I hope it is not some poacher; we had better be careful.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nonsense!&rdquo; said the other.&nbsp; &ldquo;It must be one
+of the rangers.&nbsp; No one would dare to light a fire while poaching
+on the King&rsquo;s preserves.&nbsp; What o&rsquo;clock do you make
+it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Half after nine.&rdquo;&nbsp; And the watch was still in the
+speaker&rsquo;s hand as he emerged from darkness into the glowing light
+of the fire.&nbsp; My father glanced at it, and saw that it was exactly
+like the one he had worn on entering Erewhon nearly twenty years previously.</p>
+<p>The watch, however, was a very small matter; the dress of these two
+men (for there were only two) was far more disconcerting.&nbsp; They
+were not in the Erewhonian costume.&nbsp; 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 <i>vice verso</i>.&nbsp; The man&rsquo;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.</p>
+<p>What could it all mean?&nbsp; The men were about fifty years old.&nbsp;
+They were well-to-do people, well clad, well fed, and were felt instinctively
+by my father to belong to the academic classes.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; Both wore
+their clothes so easily&mdash;for he who wore them reversed had evidently
+been measured with a view to this absurd fashion&mdash;that it was plain
+their dress was habitual.</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; A first idea is
+like a strong seedling; it will grow if it can.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said he, going boldly up to this gentleman, &ldquo;I
+am one of the rangers, and it is my duty to ask you what you are doing
+here upon the King&rsquo;s preserves.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Quite so, my man,&rdquo; was the rejoinder.&nbsp; &ldquo;We
+have been to see the statues at the head of the pass, and have a permit
+from the Mayor of Sunch&rsquo;ston to enter upon the preserves.&nbsp;
+We lost ourselves in the thick fog, both going and coming back.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>My father inwardly blessed the fog.&nbsp; He did not catch the name
+of the town, but presently found that it was commonly pronounced as
+I have written it.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Be pleased to show it me,&rdquo; said my father in his politest
+manner.&nbsp; On this a document was handed to him.</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; Indeed I have just done so in the case of Sunch&rsquo;ston.&nbsp;
+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&mdash;names too cacophonous to be read with pleasure by the
+English public.&nbsp; I must ask the reader to believe that in all cases
+I am doing my best to give the spirit of the original name.</p>
+<p>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, &amp;c.&mdash;names which occur constantly in Erewhon&mdash;or
+else invariably invent a name, as he did whenever he considered the
+true name impossible.&nbsp; My poor mother&rsquo;s name, for example,
+was really Nna Haras, and Mahaina&rsquo;s Enaj Ysteb, which he dared
+not face.&nbsp; He, therefore, gave these characters the first names
+that euphony suggested, without any attempt at translation.&nbsp; Rightly
+or wrongly, I have determined to keep consistently to translation for
+all names not used in my father&rsquo;s book; and throughout, whether
+as regards names or conversations, I shall translate with the freedom
+without which no translation rises above construe level.</p>
+<p>Let me now return to the permit.&nbsp; The earlier part of the document
+was printed, and ran as follows:-</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;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.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Whereas it is expedient to prevent any of his Majesty&rsquo;s
+subjects from trying to cross over into unknown lands beyond the mountains,
+and in like manner to protect his Majesty&rsquo;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&rsquo;s private use.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;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.&nbsp;
+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.&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;As regards any of his Majesty&rsquo;s subjects who may be
+taken while trespassing on his Majesty&rsquo;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.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;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.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Then followed in MS.&nbsp; &ldquo;XIX.&nbsp; xii. 29.&nbsp; 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&rdquo; [here the MS. ended, the rest of the permit being in
+print] &ldquo;to pass freely during the space of forty-eight hours from
+the date hereof, over the King&rsquo;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&rsquo;s quails.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The signature was such a scrawl that my father could not read it,
+but underneath was printed, &ldquo;Mayor of Sunchildston, formerly called
+Coldharbour.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The year three,&rdquo; indeed; and XIX.&nbsp; xii. 29, in
+Roman and Arabic characters!&nbsp; There were no such characters when
+he was in Erewhon before.&nbsp; It flashed upon him that he had repeatedly
+shewn them to the Nosnibors, and had once even written them down.&nbsp;
+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.&nbsp; Again &ldquo;XIX.&rdquo; what was that? &ldquo;xii.&rdquo;
+might do for December, but it was now the 4th of December not the 29th.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Afforested&rdquo; too?&nbsp; Then that was why he had seen no
+sheep tracks.&nbsp; And how about the quails he had so innocently killed?&nbsp;
+What would have happened if he had tried to sell them in Coldharbour?&nbsp;
+What other like fatal error might he not ignorantly commit?&nbsp; And
+why had Coldharbour become Sunchildston?</p>
+<p>These thoughts raced through my poor father&rsquo;s brain as he slowly
+perused the paper handed to him by the Professors.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; Without
+changing a muscle he said&mdash;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Your permit, sir, is quite regular.&nbsp; You can either stay
+here the night or go on to Sunchildston as you think fit.&nbsp; May
+I ask which of you two gentlemen is Professor Hanky, and which Professor
+Panky?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My name is Panky,&rdquo; said the one who had the watch, who
+wore his clothes reversed, and who had thought my father might be a
+poacher.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And mine Hanky,&rdquo; said the other.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What do you think, Panky,&rdquo; he added, turning to his
+brother Professor, &ldquo;had we not better stay here till sunrise?&nbsp;
+We are both of us tired, and this fellow can make us a good fire.&nbsp;
+It is very dark, and there will be no moon this two hours.&nbsp; We
+are hungry, but we can hold out till we get to Sunchildston; it cannot
+be more than eight or nine miles further down.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Panky assented, but then, turning sharply to my father, he said,
+&ldquo;My man, what are you doing in the forbidden dress?&nbsp; Why
+are you not in ranger&rsquo;s uniform, and what is the meaning of all
+those quails?&rdquo;&nbsp; For his seedling idea that my father was
+in reality a poacher was doing its best to grow.</p>
+<p>Quick as thought my father answered, &ldquo;The Head Ranger sent
+me a message this morning to deliver him three dozen quails at Sunchildston
+by to-morrow afternoon.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp;
+My uniform is in the ranger&rsquo;s shelter an hour and a half higher
+up the valley.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;See what comes,&rdquo; said Panky, &ldquo;of having a whippersnapper
+not yet twenty years old in the responsible post of Head Ranger.&nbsp;
+As for this fellow, he may be speaking the truth, but I distrust him.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The man is all right, Panky,&rdquo; said Hanky, &ldquo;and
+seems to be a decent fellow enough.&rdquo;&nbsp; Then to my father,
+&ldquo;How many brace have you got?&rdquo;&nbsp; And he looked at them
+a little wistfully.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I have been at it all day, sir, and I have only got eight
+brace.&nbsp; I must run down ten more brace to-morrow.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I see, I see.&rdquo;&nbsp; Then, turning to Panky, he said,
+&ldquo;Of course, they are wanted for the Mayor&rsquo;s banquet on Sunday.&nbsp;
+By the way, we have not yet received our invitation; I suppose we shall
+find it when we get back to Sunchildston.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!&rdquo; groaned my father inwardly;
+but he changed not a muscle of his face, and said stolidly to Professor
+Hanky, &ldquo;I think you must be right, sir; but there was nothing
+said about it to me, I was only told to bring the birds.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Thus tenderly did he water the Professor&rsquo;s second seedling.&nbsp;
+But Panky had his seedling too, and, Cain-like, was jealous that Hanky&rsquo;s
+should flourish while his own was withering.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And what, pray, my man,&rdquo; he said somewhat peremptorily
+to my father, &ldquo;are those two plucked quails doing?&nbsp; Were
+you to deliver them plucked?&nbsp; And what bird did those bones belong
+to which I see lying by the fire with the flesh all eaten off them?&nbsp;
+Are the under-rangers allowed not only to wear the forbidden dress but
+to eat the King&rsquo;s quails as well?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The form in which the question was asked gave my father his cue.&nbsp;
+He laughed heartily, and said, &ldquo;Why, sir, those plucked birds
+are landrails, not quails, and those bones are landrail bones.&nbsp;
+Look at this thigh-bone; was there ever a quail with such a bone as
+that?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>I cannot say whether or no Professor Panky was really deceived by
+the sweet effrontery with which my father proffered him the bone.&nbsp;
+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.</p>
+<p>My father, when I suggested this to him, would not hear of it.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Oh no,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;the man knew well enough that I
+was lying.&rdquo;&nbsp; However this may be, the Professor&rsquo;s manner
+changed.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are right,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I thought they were
+landrail bones, but was not sure till I had one in my hand.&nbsp; I
+see, too, that the plucked birds are landrails, but there is little
+light, and I have not often seen them without their feathers.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I think,&rdquo; said my father to me, &ldquo;that Hanky knew
+what his friend meant, for he said, &lsquo;Panky, I am very hungry.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Hanky, Hanky,&rdquo; said the other, modulating his harsh
+voice till it was quite pleasant.&nbsp; &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t corrupt the
+poor man.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Panky, drop that; we are not at Bridgeford now; I am very
+hungry, and I believe half those birds are not quails but landrails.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>My father saw he was safe.&nbsp; He said, &ldquo;Perhaps some of
+them might prove to be so, sir, under certain circumstances.&nbsp; I
+am a poor man, sir.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Come, come,&rdquo; said Hanky; and he slipped a sum equal
+to about half-a-crown into my father&rsquo;s hand.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I do not know what you mean, sir,&rdquo; said my father, &ldquo;and
+if I did, half-a-crown would not be nearly enough.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Hanky,&rdquo; said Panky, &ldquo;you must get this fellow
+to give you lessons.&rdquo;</p>
+<h2>CHAPTER IV: MY FATHER OVERHEARS MORE OF HANKY AND PANKY&rsquo;S
+CONVERSATION</h2>
+<p>My father, schooled under adversity, knew that it was never well
+to press advantage too far.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; Moreover, he consented
+to take a shilling&rsquo;s worth of Musical Bank money, which (as he
+has explained in his book) has no appreciable value outside these banks.&nbsp;
+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.&nbsp; But the coins struck him as being much
+thinner and smaller than he had remembered them.</p>
+<p>It was Panky, not Hanky, who had given him the Musical Bank money.&nbsp;
+Panky was the greater humbug of the two, for he would humbug even himself&mdash;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&mdash;not
+for long.&nbsp; Hanky&rsquo;s occasional frankness put people off their
+guard.&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>Panky, on the other hand, was hardly human; he had thrown himself
+so earnestly into his work, that he had become a living lie.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp;
+Hanky would hardly have blacked himself behind the ears, and his Desdemona
+would have been quite safe.</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; The Professors had imagined my father to be a poacher
+and a ranger; they had imagined the quails to be wanted for Sunday&rsquo;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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp;
+Two had been plucked already, so he laid these at once upon the clear
+embers.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I do not know what we are to do with ourselves,&rdquo; said
+Hanky, &ldquo;till Sunday.&nbsp; To-day is Thursday&mdash;it is the
+twenty-ninth, is it not?&nbsp; Yes, of course it is&mdash;Sunday is
+the first.&nbsp; Besides, it is on our permit.&nbsp; To-morrow we can
+rest; what, I wonder, can we do on Saturday?&nbsp; But the others will
+be here then, and we can tell them about the statues.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, but mind you do not blurt out anything about the landrails.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I think we may tell Dr. Downie.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Tell nobody,&rdquo; said Panky.</p>
+<p>They then talked about the statues, concerning which it was plain
+that nothing was known.&nbsp; But my father soon broke in upon their
+conversation with the first instalment of quails, which a few minutes
+had sufficed to cook.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What a delicious bird a quail is,&rdquo; said Hanky.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Landrail, Hanky, landrail,&rdquo; said the other reproachfully.</p>
+<p>Having finished the first birds in a very few minutes they returned
+to the statues.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Old Mrs. Nosnibor,&rdquo; said Panky, &ldquo;says the Sunchild
+told her they were symbolic of ten tribes who had incurred the displeasure
+of the sun, his father.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>I make no comment on my father&rsquo;s feelings.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Of the sun! his fiddlesticks&rsquo; ends,&rdquo; retorted
+Hanky.&nbsp; &ldquo;He never called the sun his father.&nbsp; Besides,
+from all I have heard about him, I take it he was a precious idiot.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;O Hanky, Hanky! you will wreck the whole thing if you ever
+allow yourself to talk in that way.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are more likely to wreck it yourself, Panky, by never
+doing so.&nbsp; People like being deceived, but they like also to have
+an inkling of their own deception, and you never inkle them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The Queen,&rdquo; said Panky, returning to the statues, &ldquo;sticks
+to it that . . . &rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Here comes another bird,&rdquo; interrupted Hanky; &ldquo;never
+mind about the Queen.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The bird was soon eaten, whereon Panky again took up his parable
+about the Queen.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The Queen says they are connected with the cult of the ancient
+Goddess Kiss-me-quick.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What if they are?&nbsp; But the Queen sees Kiss-me-quick in
+everything.&nbsp; Another quail, if you please, Mr. Ranger.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>My father brought up another bird almost directly.&nbsp; Silence
+while it was being eaten.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Talking of the Sunchild,&rdquo; said Panky; &ldquo;did you
+ever see him?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Never set eyes on him, and hope I never shall.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And so on till the last bird was eaten.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Fellow,&rdquo; said Panky, &ldquo;fetch some more wood; the
+fire is nearly dead.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I can find no more, sir,&rdquo; 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.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Never mind,&rdquo; said Hanky, &ldquo;the moon will be up
+soon.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And now, Hanky,&rdquo; said Panky, &ldquo;tell me what you
+propose to say on Sunday.&nbsp; I suppose you have pretty well made
+up your mind about it by this time.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Pretty nearly.&nbsp; I shall keep it much on the usual lines.&nbsp;
+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.&nbsp;
+I shall talk about the immortal glory shed upon Sunch&rsquo;ston by
+the Sunchild&rsquo;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.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Temple! what temple?&rdquo; groaned my father inwardly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And what are you going to do about the four black and white
+horses?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Stick to them, of course&mdash;unless I make them six.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I really do not see why they might not have been horses.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I dare say you do not,&rdquo; returned the other drily, &ldquo;but
+they were black and white storks, and you know that as well as I do.&nbsp;
+Still, they have caught on, and they are in the altar-piece, prancing
+and curvetting magnificently, so I shall trot them out.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Altar-piece!&nbsp; Altar-piece!&rdquo; again groaned my father
+inwardly.</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; So, again, when Professor Hanky
+had spoken of canonries, he had none but the vaguest idea of what a
+canonry is.</p>
+<p>I may add further that as a boy my father had had his Bible well
+drilled into him, and never forgot it.&nbsp; Hence biblical passages
+and expressions had been often in his mouth, as the effect of mere unconscious
+cerebration.&nbsp; The Erewhonians had caught many of these, sometimes
+corrupting them so that they were hardly recognizable.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; &ldquo;I wonder,&rdquo; he
+said to me, &ldquo;that no one has ever hit on this as a punishment
+for the damned in Hades.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Let me now return to Professor Hanky, whom I fear that I have left
+too long.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And of course,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;I shall say all
+sorts of pretty things about the Mayoress&mdash;for I suppose we must
+not even think of her as Yram now.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The Mayoress,&rdquo; replied Panky, &ldquo;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.&nbsp;
+Besides, she is a sceptic at heart, and so is that precious son of hers.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She was quite right,&rdquo; said Hanky, with something of
+a snort.&nbsp; &ldquo;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.&nbsp; Besides, there are many living who saw
+him wear them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Perhaps,&rdquo; said Panky, &ldquo;but we should never have
+talked the King over if we had not humoured him on this point.&nbsp;
+Yram nearly wrecked us by her obstinacy.&nbsp; If we had not frightened
+her, and if your study, Hanky, had not happened to have been burned
+. . . &rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Come, come, Panky, no more of that.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;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&mdash;and Yram very nearly burned too&mdash;we should
+never have carried it through.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; What a pity it is that the clothes were
+not burned before the King&rsquo;s tailor had copied them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Hanky laughed heartily enough.&nbsp; &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said,
+&ldquo;it was touch and go.&nbsp; Why, I wonder, could not the Queen
+have put the clothes on a dummy that would show back from front?&nbsp;
+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.”</p>
+<p>Even Panky smiled.&nbsp; &ldquo;What could we do?&nbsp; The common
+people almost worship Yram; and so does her husband, though her fair-haired
+eldest son was born barely seven months after marriage.&nbsp; The people
+in these parts like to think that the Sunchild&rsquo;s blood is in the
+country, and yet they swear through thick and thin that he is the Mayor&rsquo;s
+duly begotten offspring&mdash;Faugh!&nbsp; Do you think they would have
+stood his being jobbed into the rangership by any one else but Yram?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>My father&rsquo;s feelings may be imagined, but I will not here interrupt
+the Professors.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, well,&rdquo; said Hanky; &ldquo;for men must rob and
+women must job so long as the world goes on.&nbsp; I did the best I
+could.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; One of his Royal Professors was to wear the clothes one
+way, and the other the other.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My way of wearing them,&rdquo; said Panky, &ldquo;is much
+the most convenient.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not a bit of it,&rdquo; said Hanky warmly.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; &ldquo;You know,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;there
+are a good many landrail bones lying about, and it might be awkward.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The Professors hushed at once.&nbsp; &ldquo;By the way,&rdquo; said
+Panky, after a pause, &ldquo;it is very strange about those footprints
+in the snow.&nbsp; 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.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It was one of the rangers,&rdquo; said Hanky impatiently,
+&ldquo;who had gone a little beyond the statues, and come back again.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then we should have seen his footprints as he went.&nbsp;
+I am glad I measured them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There is nothing in it; but what were your measurements?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Eleven inches by four and a half; nails on the soles; one
+nail missing on the right foot and two on the left.&rdquo;&nbsp; Then,
+turning to my father quickly, he said, &ldquo;My man, allow me to have
+a look at your boots.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nonsense, Panky, nonsense!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Certainly, sir,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;but I should tell you
+that they are not my boots.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He took off his right boot and handed it to Panky.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Exactly so!&nbsp; Eleven inches by four and a half, and one
+nail missing.&nbsp; And now, Mr. Ranger, will you be good enough to
+explain how you became possessed of that boot.&nbsp; You need not show
+me the other.&rdquo;&nbsp; And he spoke like an examiner who was confident
+that he could floor his examinee in <i>viv&acirc; voce</i>.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You know our orders,&rdquo; answered my father, &ldquo;you
+have seen them on your permit.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; You may be sure I should not
+have done so if I had known there was snow on the top of the pass.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He could not invent that,&rdquo; said Hanky; &ldquo;it is
+plain he has not been up to the statues.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Panky was staggered.&nbsp; &ldquo;And of course,&rdquo; said he ironically,
+&ldquo;you took nothing from this poor wretch except his boots.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; said my father, &ldquo;I will make a clean breast
+of everything.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; I thought I could sell
+the lot to some dealer in curiosities who would ask no questions.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And what, pray, have you done with all these things?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;They are here, sir.&rdquo;&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;This is very strange,&rdquo; said Hanky, who was beginning
+to be afraid of my father when he learned that he sometimes killed people.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>Presently Hanky said to my father quite civilly, &ldquo;And what,
+my good man, do you propose to do with all these things?&nbsp; 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.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I have had enough of them; to-morrow morning I shall take
+them with me to the Blue Pool, and drop them into it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It is a pity you should do that,&rdquo; said Hanky musingly:
+&ldquo;the things are interesting as curiosities, and&mdash;and&mdash;and&mdash;what
+will you take for them?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I could not do it, sir,&rdquo; answered my father.&nbsp; &ldquo;I
+would not do it, no, not for&mdash;&rdquo; and he named a sum equivalent
+to about five pounds of our money.&nbsp; For he wanted Erewhonian money,
+and thought it worth his while to sacrifice his ten pounds&rsquo; worth
+of nuggets in order to get a supply of current coin.</p>
+<p>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 &pound;4,
+10s. in silver, which, as I have already explained, would not be worth
+more than half a sovereign in gold.&nbsp; At this figure a bargain was
+struck, and the Professors paid up without offering him a single Musical
+Bank coin.&nbsp; They wanted to include the boots in the purchase, but
+here my father stood out.</p>
+<p>But he could not stand out as regards another matter, which caused
+him some anxiety.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp;
+Hanky argued that a receipt was useless, inasmuch as it would be ruin
+to my father ever to refer to the subject again.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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 &pound;4,
+10s.&nbsp; (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&rsquo;s preserves.&nbsp; This paper was dated, as
+the permit had been, XIX.&nbsp; xii. 29.</p>
+<p>My father, generally so ready, was at his wits&rsquo; end for a name,
+and could think of none but Mr. Nosnibor&rsquo;s.&nbsp; Happily, remembering
+that this gentleman had also been called Senoj&mdash;a name common enough
+in Erewhon&mdash;he signed himself &ldquo;Senoj, Under-ranger.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Panky was now satisfied.&nbsp; &ldquo;We will put it in the bag,&rdquo;
+he said, &ldquo;with the pieces of yellow ore.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Put it where you like,&rdquo; said Hanky contemptuously; and
+into the bag it was put.</p>
+<p>When all was now concluded, my father laughingly said, &ldquo;If
+you have dealt unfairly by me, I forgive you.&nbsp; My motto is, &lsquo;Forgive
+us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Repeat those last words,&rdquo; said Panky eagerly.&nbsp;
+My father was alarmed at his manner, but thought it safer to repeat
+them.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You hear that, Hanky?&nbsp; I am convinced; I have not another
+word to say.&nbsp; The man is a true Erewhonian; he has our corrupt
+reading of the Sunchild&rsquo;s prayer.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Please explain.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why, can you not see?&rdquo; said Panky, who was by way of
+being great at conjectural emendations.&nbsp; &ldquo;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?&nbsp; No man in his senses would dream of such
+a thing.&nbsp; It would be asking a supposed all-powerful being not
+to forgive his sins at all, or at best to forgive them imperfectly.&nbsp;
+No; Yram got it wrong.&nbsp; She mistook &lsquo;but do not&rsquo; for
+&lsquo;as we.&rsquo;&nbsp; The sound of the words is very much alike;
+the correct reading should obviously be, &lsquo;Forgive us our trespasses,
+but do not forgive them that trespass against us.&rsquo;&nbsp; This
+makes sense, and turns an impossible prayer into one that goes straight
+to the heart of every one of us.&rdquo;&nbsp; Then, turning to my father,
+he said, &ldquo;You can see this, my man, can you not, as soon as it
+is pointed out to you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>My father said that he saw it now, but had always heard the words
+as he had himself spoken them.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;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.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Hanky smiled,&mdash;snorted, and muttered in an undertone, &ldquo;I
+shall begin to think that this fellow is a foreign devil after all.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And now, gentlemen,&rdquo; said my father, &ldquo;the moon
+is risen.&nbsp; I must be after the quails at daybreak; I will therefore
+go to the ranger&rsquo;s shelter&rdquo; (a shelter, by the way, which
+existed only in my father&rsquo;s invention), &ldquo;and get a couple
+of hours&rsquo; sleep, so as to be both close to the quail-ground; and
+fresh for running.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; You will have to give it up to-morrow at
+the Ranger&rsquo;s office; it will save you trouble if I collect it
+now, and give it up when I deliver my quails.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;As regards the curiosities, hide them as you best can outside
+the limits.&nbsp; I recommend you to carry them at once out of the forest,
+and rest beyond the limits rather than here.&nbsp; You can then recover
+them whenever, and in whatever way, you may find convenient.&nbsp; But
+I hope you will say nothing about any foreign devil&rsquo;s having come
+over on to this side.&nbsp; Any whisper to this effect unsettles people&rsquo;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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; I shall, of course, report it to the Head Ranger.&nbsp;
+And now, if you think proper, you can give me up your permit.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>All this was so plausible that the Professors gave up their permit
+without a word but thanks.&nbsp; They bundled their curiosities hurriedly
+into &ldquo;the poor foreign devil&rsquo;s&rdquo; blanket, reserving
+a more careful packing till they were out of the preserves.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp;
+They then started off in the direction of Sunch&rsquo;ston.</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; He turned towards the mountains,
+but before he had gone a dozen yards he heard a voice, which he recognised
+as Panky&rsquo;s, shouting after him, and saying&mdash;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Mind you do not forget the true reading of the Sunchild&rsquo;s
+prayer.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are an old fool,&rdquo; shouted my father in English,
+knowing that he could hardly be heard, still less understood, and thankful
+to relieve his feelings.</p>
+<h2>CHAPTER V: MY FATHER MEETS A SON, OF WHOSE EXISTENCE HE WAS IGNORANT;
+AND STRIKES A BARGAIN WITH HIM</h2>
+<p>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.&nbsp; This was necessary, for he could not go any further in
+a costume that he now knew to be forbidden.&nbsp; 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&rsquo; permit had expired.&nbsp; If challenged,
+he must brazen it out that he was one or other of the persons therein
+named.</p>
+<p>Fatigued though he was, he reached the statues as near as he could
+guess, at about three in the morning.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; The statues looked
+very weird in the moonlight but they were not chanting.</p>
+<p>While ascending, he pieced together the information he had picked
+up from the Professors.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; Plainly, also, he was supposed to be
+of superhuman origin&mdash;his flight in the balloon having been not
+unnaturally believed to be miraculous.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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?</p>
+<p>He saw it all now.&nbsp; It was twenty years next Sunday since he
+and my mother had eloped.&nbsp; That was the meaning of XIX. xii. 29.&nbsp;
+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.&nbsp; The New Year, then, would date from Sunday,
+December 7, which would therefore become XX. i. 1.&nbsp; 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&rsquo; permit.</p>
+<p>I should like to explain here what will appear more clearly on a
+later page&mdash;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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp;
+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&rsquo;s book.&nbsp; They retain their
+old belief in the actual existence of these gods, but they now make
+them all subordinate to the sun.&nbsp; 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&mdash;the suns being to Him much as
+our planets and their denizens are to our own sun.&nbsp; They deny that
+He takes more interest in one sun and its system than in another.&nbsp;
+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.&nbsp; Hence they say that though we may pray to the
+air-god, &amp;c., and even to the sun, we must not pray to God.&nbsp;
+We may be thankful to Him for watching over the suns, but we must not
+go further.</p>
+<p>Going back to my father&rsquo;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.&nbsp; 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&mdash;which, however, Professor Hanky had
+positively affirmed to have been only storks.</p>
+<p>Here I interrupted my father.&nbsp; &ldquo;But were there,&rdquo;
+I said, &ldquo;any storks?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he answered.&nbsp; &ldquo;As soon as I heard Hanky&rsquo;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 a&euml;rial dances that so much delight them.&nbsp;
+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.&nbsp; 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&mdash;at any rate, they let us alone; but
+they kept with us till we were well away from the capital.&nbsp; Strange,
+how completely this incident had escaped me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>I return to my father&rsquo;s thoughts as he made his way back to
+his old camp.</p>
+<p>As for the reversed position of Professor Panky&rsquo;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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; But he must find
+out more about this.</p>
+<p>Then how about the watch?&nbsp; Had their views about machinery also
+changed?&nbsp; Or was there an exception made about any machine that
+he had himself carried?</p>
+<p>Yram too.&nbsp; She must have been married not long after she and
+he had parted.&nbsp; So she was now wife to the Mayor, and was evidently
+able to have things pretty much her own way in Sunch&rsquo;ston, as
+he supposed he must now call it.&nbsp; Thank heaven she was prosperous!&nbsp;
+It was interesting to know that she was at heart a sceptic, as was also
+her light-haired son, now Head Ranger.&nbsp; And that son?&nbsp; Just
+twenty years of age!&nbsp; Born seven months after marriage!&nbsp; Then
+the Mayor doubtless had light hair too; but why did not those wretches
+say in which month Yram was married?&nbsp; If she had married soon after
+he had left, this was why he had not been sent for or written to.&nbsp;
+Pray heaven it was so.&nbsp; As for current gossip, people would talk,
+and if the lad was well begotten, what could it matter to them whose
+son he was?&nbsp; &ldquo;But,&rdquo; thought my father, &ldquo;I am
+glad I did not meet him on my way down.&nbsp; I had rather have been
+killed by some one else.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Hanky and Panky again.&nbsp; 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 &ldquo;The city of the people
+who are above suspicion.&rdquo;&nbsp; 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 <i>pied &agrave; terre</i>.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; He reached his old camp soon after five&mdash;this,
+at any rate, was the hour at which he set his watch on finding that
+it had run down during his absence.&nbsp; There was now no reason why
+he should not take it with him, so he put it in his pocket.&nbsp; The
+parrots had attacked his saddle-bags, saddle, and bridle, as they were
+sure to do, but they had not got inside the bags.&nbsp; He took out
+his English clothes and put them on&mdash;stowing his bags of gold in
+various pockets, but keeping his Erewhonian money in the one that was
+most accessible.&nbsp; 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&rsquo;s
+very necessary rest.&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>He reached the statues about noon, for he allowed himself not a moment&rsquo;s
+rest.&nbsp; This time there was a stiffish wind, and they were chanting
+lustily.&nbsp; 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&rsquo;s, but which, strangely
+enough, seeing that he was in the King&rsquo;s employ, was not reversed.&nbsp;
+My father&rsquo;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.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I believe you are the Head Ranger,&rdquo; said my father,
+who saw that he was still smooth-faced and had light hair.&nbsp; &ldquo;I
+am Professor Panky, and here is my permit.&nbsp; My brother Professor
+has been prevented from coming with me, and, as you see, I am alone.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;knowing
+all he knew&mdash;to doubt whose son he was.&nbsp; He had the greatest
+difficulty in hiding his emotion, for the lad was indeed one of whom
+any father might be proud.&nbsp; He longed to be able to embrace him
+and claim him for what he was, but this, as he well knew, might not
+be.&nbsp; The tears again welled into his eyes when he told me of the
+struggle with himself that he had then had.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be jealous, my dearest boy,&rdquo; he said to
+me.&nbsp; &ldquo;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.&nbsp; 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.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; But
+let me return to my father&rsquo;s story.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I suppose,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you have come up, as so
+many are doing, from Bridgeford and all over the country, to the dedication
+on Sunday.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said my father.&nbsp; &ldquo;Bless me!&rdquo;
+he added, &ldquo;what a wind you have up here!&nbsp; How it makes one&rsquo;s
+eyes water, to be sure;&rdquo; but he spoke with a cluck in his throat
+which no wind that blows can cause.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Have you met any suspicious characters between here and the
+statues?&rdquo; asked the youth.&nbsp; &ldquo;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.&nbsp; Here are some of
+the bones and feathers, which I shall keep.&nbsp; They had not been
+gone more than a couple of hours, for the ashes were still warm; they
+are getting bolder and bolder&mdash;who would have thought they would
+dare to light a fire?&nbsp; I suppose you have not met any one; but
+if you have seen a single person, let me know.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>My father said quite truly that he had met no one.&nbsp; He then
+laughingly asked how the youth had been able to discover as much as
+he had.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There were three well-marked forms, and three separate lots
+of quail bones hidden in the ashes.&nbsp; One man had done all the plucking.&nbsp;
+This is strange, but I dare say I shall get at it later.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>After a little further conversation the Ranger said he was now going
+down to Sunch&rsquo;ston, and, though somewhat curtly, proposed that
+he and my father should walk together.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;By all means,&rdquo; answered my father.</p>
+<p>Before they had gone more than a few hundred yards his companion
+said, &ldquo;If you will come with me a little to the left, I can show
+you the Blue Pool.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;This,&rdquo; said the Ranger, &ldquo;is where our orders tell
+us to fling any foreign devil who comes over from the other side.&nbsp;
+I have only been Head Ranger about nine months, and have not yet had
+to face this horrid duty; but,&rdquo; and here he smiled, &ldquo;when
+I first caught sight of you I thought I should have to make a beginning.&nbsp;
+I was very glad when I saw you had a permit.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And how many skeletons do you suppose are lying at the bottom
+of this pool?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I believe not more than seven or eight in all.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; I have the full list, with dates, down in my
+office, but the rangers never let people in Sunch&rsquo;ston know when
+they have Blue-Pooled any one; it would unsettle men&rsquo;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.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>My father was glad to turn away from this most repulsive place.&nbsp;
+After a time he said, &ldquo;And what do you good people hereabouts
+think of next Sunday&rsquo;s grand doings?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Bearing in mind what he had gleaned from the Professors about the
+Ranger&rsquo;s opinions, my father gave a slightly ironical turn to
+his pronunciation of the words &ldquo;grand doings.&rdquo;&nbsp; The
+youth glanced at him with a quick penetrative look, and laughed as he
+said, &ldquo;The doings will be grand enough.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What a fine temple they have built,&rdquo; said my father.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;I have not yet seen the picture, but they say the four black
+and white horses are magnificently painted.&nbsp; I saw the Sunchild
+ascend, but I saw no horses in the sky, nor anything like horses.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The youth was much interested.&nbsp; &ldquo;Did you really see him
+ascend?&rdquo; he asked; &ldquo;and what, pray, do you think it all
+was?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Whatever it was, there were no horses.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;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.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I know,&rdquo; said my father, who, however, was learning
+the fact for the first time.&nbsp; &ldquo;I have not yet seen this precious
+relic, but I think they might have found something less unpleasant.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Perhaps they would if they could,&rdquo; replied the youth,
+laughing, &ldquo;but there was nothing else that the horses could leave.&nbsp;
+It is only a number of curiously rounded stones, and not at all like
+what they say it is.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, well,&rdquo; continued my father, &ldquo;but relic or
+no relic, there are many who, while they fully recognise the value of
+the Sunchild&rsquo;s teaching, dislike these cock and bull stories as
+blasphemy against God&rsquo;s most blessed gift of reason.&nbsp; There
+are many in Bridgeford who hate this story of the horses.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The youth was now quite reassured.&nbsp; &ldquo;So there are here,
+sir,&rdquo; he said warmly, &ldquo;and who hate the Sunchild too.&nbsp;
+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.&nbsp; See how he
+has turned us all upside down.&nbsp; But we dare not say what we think.&nbsp;
+There is no courage left in Erewhon.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Then waxing calmer he said, &ldquo;It is you Bridgeford people and
+your Musical Banks that have done it all.&nbsp; The Musical Bank Managers
+saw that the people were falling away from them.&nbsp; Finding that
+the vulgar believed this foreign devil Higgs&mdash;for he gave this
+name to my mother when he was in prison&mdash;finding that&mdash;But
+you know all this as well as I do.&nbsp; How can you Bridgeford Professors
+pretend to believe about these horses, and about the Sunchild&rsquo;s
+being son to the sun, when all the time you know there is no truth in
+it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My son&mdash;for considering the difference in our ages I
+may be allowed to call you so&mdash;we at Bridgeford are much like you
+at Sunch&rsquo;ston; we dare not always say what we think.&nbsp; Nor
+would it be wise to do so, when we should not be listened to.&nbsp;
+This fire must burn itself out, for it has got such hold that nothing
+can either stay or turn it.&nbsp; Even though Higgs himself were to
+return and tell it from the house-tops that he was a mortal&mdash;ay,
+and a very common one&mdash;he would be killed, but not believed.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Let him come; let him show himself, speak out and die, if
+the people choose to kill him.&nbsp; 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.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Would that be a bargain?&rdquo; said my father, smiling in
+spite of emotion so strong that he could hardly bring the words out
+of his mouth.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, it would,&rdquo; said the youth doggedly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then let me shake hands with you on his behalf, and let us
+change the conversation.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He took my father&rsquo;s hand, doubtfully and somewhat disdainfully,
+but he did not refuse it.</p>
+<h2>CHAPTER VI: FURTHER CONVERSATION BETWEEN FATHER AND SON&mdash;THE
+PROFESSORS&rsquo; HOARD</h2>
+<p>It is one thing to desire a conversation to be changed, and another
+to change it.&nbsp; After some little silence my father said, &ldquo;And
+may I ask what name your mother gave you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My name,&rdquo; he answered, laughing, &ldquo;is George, and
+I wish it were some other, for it is the first name of that arch-impostor
+Higgs.&nbsp; I hate it as I hate the man who owned it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>My father said nothing, but he hid his face in his hands.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; said the other, &ldquo;I fear you are in some
+distress.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You remind me,&rdquo; replied my father, &ldquo;of a son who
+was stolen from me when he was a child.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then, sir, had I not better leave you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;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.&nbsp; And now&mdash;for I shall show no more weakness&mdash;you
+say your mother knew the Sunchild, as I am used to call him.&nbsp; Tell
+me what kind of a man she found him.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She liked him well enough in spite of his being a little silly.&nbsp;
+She does not believe he ever called himself child of the sun.&nbsp;
+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.&nbsp; My mother does not believe he meant doing
+us any harm, but only that he wanted to get himself and Mrs. Nosnibor&rsquo;s
+younger daughter out of the country.&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;This is what she says amongst ourselves, but in public she
+confirms all that the Musical Bank Managers say about him.&nbsp; She
+is afraid of them.&nbsp; You know, perhaps, that Professor Hanky, whose
+name I see on your permit, tried to burn her alive?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Thank heaven!&rdquo; thought my father, &ldquo;that I am Panky;&rdquo;
+but aloud he said, &ldquo;Oh, horrible! horrible!&nbsp; I cannot believe
+this even of Hanky.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;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.&nbsp;
+He and she parted excellent friends, but I know what she thinks.&nbsp;
+I shall be sure to see him while he is in Sunch&rsquo;ston, I shall
+have to be civil to him but it makes me sick to think of it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;When shall you see him?&rdquo; said my father, who was alarmed
+at learning that Hanky and the Ranger were likely to meet.&nbsp; Who
+could tell but that he might see Panky too?</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I have been away from home a fortnight, and shall not be back
+till late on Saturday night.&nbsp; I do not suppose I shall see him
+before Sunday.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That will do,&rdquo; thought my father, who at that moment
+deemed that nothing would matter to him much when Sunday was over.&nbsp;
+Then, turning to the Ranger, he said, &ldquo;I gather, then, that your
+mother does not think so badly of the Sunchild after all?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She laughs at him sometimes, but if any of us boys and girls
+say a word against him we get snapped up directly.&nbsp; My mother turns
+every one round her finger.&nbsp; Her word is law in Sunch&rsquo;ston;
+every one obeys her; she has faced more than one mob, and quelled them
+when my father could not do so.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I can believe all you say of her.&nbsp; What other children
+has she besides yourself?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We are four sons, of whom the youngest is now fourteen, and
+three daughters.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;May all health and happiness attend her and you, and all of
+you, henceforth and for ever,&rdquo; and my father involuntarily bared
+his head as he spoke.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; said the youth, impressed by the fervency of my
+father&rsquo;s manner, &ldquo;I thank you, but you do not talk as Bridgeford
+Professors generally do, so far as I have seen or heard them.&nbsp;
+Why do you wish us all well so very heartily?&nbsp; Is it because you
+think I am like your son, or is there some other reason?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It is not my son alone that you resemble,&rdquo; said my father
+tremulously, for he knew he was going too far.&nbsp; He carried it off
+by adding, &ldquo;You resemble all who love truth and hate lies, as
+I do.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then, sir,&rdquo; said the youth gravely, &ldquo;you much
+belie your reputation.&nbsp; And now I must leave you for another part
+of the preserves, where I think it likely that last night&rsquo;s poachers
+may now be, and where I shall pass the night in watching for them.&nbsp;
+You may want your permit for a few miles further, so I will not take
+it.&nbsp; Neither need you give it up at Sunch&rsquo;ston.&nbsp; It
+is dated, and will be useless after this evening.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>With this he strode off into the forest, bowing politely but somewhat
+coldly, and without encouraging my father&rsquo;s half proffered hand.</p>
+<p>My father turned sad and unsatisfied away.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It serves me right,&rdquo; he said to himself; &ldquo;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.&nbsp; How cheerless everything looks now that he
+has left me.&rdquo;</p>
+<hr class="tb">
+<p>By this time it was three o&rsquo;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.&nbsp; It was only some eighteen
+hours since they had come upon him, and yet what an age it seemed!&nbsp;
+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&mdash;not
+to say, for the time being, sick of lies altogether.</p>
+<p>He trudged slowly on, without meeting a soul, until he came upon
+some stones that evidently marked the limits of the preserves.&nbsp;
+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&rsquo;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.&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>He determined, therefore, to rest here till hunger should wake him,
+and drive him into Sunch&rsquo;ston, which, however, he did not wish
+to reach till dusk if he could help it.&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>He slept till nearly six, and on waking gathered his thoughts together.&nbsp;
+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.&nbsp; How, he wondered, were they getting on, and what had
+they done with the things they had bought from him?</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How delightful it would be,&rdquo; he said to himself, &ldquo;if
+I could find where they have hidden their hoard, and hide it somewhere
+else.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>On reflection, he concluded that the hidden property was not likely
+to be far from the spot on which he now was.&nbsp; The Professors would
+wait till they had got some way down towards Sunch&rsquo;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.&nbsp;
+And they would take pretty well the first that came.&nbsp; &ldquo;Why,
+bless my heart,&rdquo; he exclaimed, &ldquo;this tree is hollow; I wonder
+whether&mdash;&rdquo; 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.&nbsp; The plant that makes this leaf
+is so like the ubiquitous New Zealand <i>Phormium tenax</i>, 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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; This was caused by the billy and
+the pannikin, which were wrapped inside the blanket.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;But,&rdquo; he said to himself with a laugh, &ldquo;I think one
+of them must have got on the other&rsquo;s back to reach that bough.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; thought he, &ldquo;they will have taken
+the nuggets with them.&rdquo;&nbsp; And yet he had seemed to hear a
+dumping as well as a clinkum-clankum.&nbsp; He undid the blanket, carefully
+untying every knot and keeping the flax.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp;
+The paper containing the tea having been torn, was wrapped up in a handkerchief
+marked with Hanky&rsquo;s name.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Down, conscience, down!&rdquo; he exclaimed as he transferred
+the nuggets, receipt, and handkerchief to his own pocket.&nbsp; &ldquo;Eye
+of my soul that you are! if you offend me I must pluck you out.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+His conscience feared him and said nothing.&nbsp; As for the tea, he
+left it in its torn paper.</p>
+<p>He then put the billy, pannikin, and tea, back again inside the blanket,
+which he tied neatly up, tie for tie with the Professor&rsquo;s own
+flax, leaving no sign of any disturbance.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; He did everything quite leisurely,
+for the Professors would be sure to wait till nightfall before coming
+to fetch their property away.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If I take nothing but the nuggets,&rdquo; he argued, &ldquo;each
+of the Professors will suspect the other of having conjured them into
+his own pocket while the bundle was being made up.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; Let them muddle it out their own way.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;At any rate,&rdquo; he said to himself, &ldquo;there will be
+a pretty quarrel when they find them gone.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Thus charitably did he brood over things that were not to happen.&nbsp;
+The discovery of the Professors&rsquo; hoard had refreshed him almost
+as much as his sleep had done, and it being now past seven, he lit his
+pipe&mdash;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&mdash;and walked briskly on towards Sunch&rsquo;ston.</p>
+<h2>CHAPTER VII: SIGNS OF THE NEW ORDER OF THINGS CATCH MY FATHER&rsquo;S
+EYE ON EVERY SIDE</h2>
+<p>He had not gone far before a turn in the path&mdash;now rapidly widening&mdash;showed
+him two high towers, seemingly some two miles off; these he felt sure
+must be at Sunch&rsquo;ston, he therefore stepped out, lest he should
+find the shops shut before he got there.</p>
+<p>On his former visit he had seen little of the town, for he was in
+prison during his whole stay.&nbsp; 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&mdash;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.&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>When he had passed through the suburbs he found himself in the main
+street.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp;
+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.&nbsp;
+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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp;
+Other temptations to irritability required the agency of living people,
+or at any rate living beings.&nbsp; Crying children, screaming parrots,
+a spiteful monkey, might be hired on ridiculously easy terms.&nbsp;
+He saw one advertisement, nicely framed, which ran as follows:-</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Mrs. Tantrums, Nagger, certificated by the College
+of Spiritual Athletics.&nbsp; Terms for ordinary nagging, two shillings
+and sixpence per hour.&nbsp; Hysterics extra.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Then followed a series of testimonials&mdash;for example:-</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Dear Mrs. Tantrums,&mdash;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.&nbsp; After taking a
+course of twelve sittings from you, I found my husband&rsquo;s temper
+comparatively angelic, and we have ever since lived together in complete
+harmony.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Another was from a husband:-</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;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.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>There were many others of a like purport, but time did not permit
+my father to do more than glance at them.&nbsp; He contented himself
+with the two following, of which the first ran:-</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;He did try it at last.&nbsp; A little correction
+of the right kind taken at the right moment is invaluable.&nbsp; No
+more swearing.&nbsp; No more bad language of any kind.&nbsp; A lamb-like
+temper ensured in about twenty minutes, by a single dose of one of our
+spiritual indigestion tabloids.&nbsp; 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,
+&amp;c., &amp;c., our spiritual indigestion tabloids will afford unfailing
+and immediate relief.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;<i>N.B</i>.&mdash;A bottle or two of our Sunchild Cordial
+will assist the operation of the tabloids.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>The second and last that I can give was as follows:-</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;All else is useless.&nbsp; If you wish to be a
+social success, make yourself a good listener.&nbsp; There is no short
+cut to this.&nbsp; A would-be listener must learn the rudiments of his
+art and go through the mill like other people.&nbsp; If he would develop
+a power of suffering fools gladly, he must begin by suffering them without
+the gladness.&nbsp; Professor Proser, ex-straightener, certificated
+bore, pragmatic or coruscating, with or without anecdotes, attends pupils
+at their own houses.&nbsp; Terms moderate.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;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.&nbsp; Mrs. P. keeps herself well up to date with all the
+latest scandals.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>&ldquo;Poor, poor, straighteners!&rdquo; said my father to himself.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Alas! that it should have been my fate to ruin you&mdash;for
+I suppose your occupation is gone.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>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&rsquo;s
+shop.&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>My father made his purchases just as the last shops were closing.&nbsp;
+He noticed that almost all of them were full of articles labelled &ldquo;Dedication.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+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.&nbsp; The chariot and the horses figured
+largely, and in the confectioners&rsquo; shops there were models of
+the newly discovered relic&mdash;made, so my father thought, with a
+little heap of cherries or strawberries, smothered in chocolate.&nbsp;
+Outside one tailor&rsquo;s shop he saw a flaring advertisement which
+can only be translated, &ldquo;Try our Dedication trousers, price ten
+shillings and sixpence.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What,&rdquo; he said to me, very coherently and quietly, &ldquo;was
+I to do?&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; True, they would not believe me.&nbsp; They would look
+at my hair and see it black, whereas it should be very light.&nbsp;
+On this they would look no further, but very likely tear me in pieces
+then and there.&nbsp; Suppose that the authorities held a <i>post-mortem</i>
+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?&nbsp; Not they.&nbsp;
+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&rsquo;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.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;On the other hand, what business have I with &lsquo;would
+be&rsquo; or &lsquo;would not be?&rsquo;&nbsp; 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?&nbsp; Though I could
+do but little, ought I not to do that little?&nbsp; What did that good
+fellow&rsquo;s instinct&mdash;so straight from heaven, so true, so healthy&mdash;tell
+him?&nbsp; What did my own instinct answer?&nbsp; What would the conscience
+of any honourable man answer?&nbsp; Who can doubt?</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And yet, is there not reason? and is it not God-given as much
+as instinct?&nbsp; I remember having heard an anthem in my young days,
+&lsquo;O where shall wisdom be found? the deep saith it is not in me.&rsquo;&nbsp;
+As the singers kept on repeating the question, I kept on saying sorrowfully
+to myself&mdash;&lsquo;Ah, where, where, where?&rsquo; and when the
+triumphant answer came, &lsquo;The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom,
+and to depart from evil is understanding,&rsquo; I shrunk ashamed into
+myself for not having foreseen it.&nbsp; 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, &lsquo;What is the fear
+of the Lord, and what is evil in this particular case?&rsquo;&nbsp;
+And my easy method with spiritual dilemmas proved to be but a case of
+<i>ignotum per ignotius</i>.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If Satan himself is at times transformed into an angel of
+light, are not angels of light sometimes transformed into the likeness
+of Satan?&nbsp; If the devil is not so black as he is painted, is God
+always so white?&nbsp; And is there not another place in which it is
+said, &lsquo;The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,&rsquo;
+as though it were not the last word upon the subject?&nbsp; 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?</p>
+<p>&ldquo;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&mdash;I
+prayed for guidance.&nbsp; &lsquo;Shew me Thy will, O Lord,&rsquo; I
+cried in great distress, &lsquo;and strengthen me to do it when Thou
+hast shewn it me.&rsquo;&nbsp; But there was no answer.&nbsp; Instinct
+tore me one way and reason another.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;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.&nbsp; Whether this be a token of mercy or no, my Father
+which is in heaven knows, but I know not.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>This, however, was too heroic a course.&nbsp; He was tired, and wanted
+a night&rsquo;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&rsquo;s sermon; there was also this further difficulty,
+he should have to take what he had sold the Professors without returning
+them their &pound;4, 10s., for he could not do without his blanket,
+&amp;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.&nbsp; He therefore compromised by concluding that he
+would sup and sleep in Sunch&rsquo;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.&nbsp; He would
+do nothing to disillusion the people&mdash;to do this would only be
+making bad worse.&nbsp; As soon as the service was over, he would set
+out towards the preserves, and, when it was well dark, make for the
+statues.&nbsp; He hoped that on such a great day the rangers might be
+many of them in Sunch&rsquo;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.</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; One of these was a bookstall, and, running his eye over some
+of the volumes, my father saw one entitled&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;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.&nbsp; This is the only version
+authorised by the Presidents and Vice-Presidents of the Musical Banks;
+all other versions being imperfect and inaccurate.&mdash;Bridgeford,
+XVIII., 150 pp. 8vo.&nbsp; Price 3s.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>The reader will understand that I am giving the prices as nearly
+as I can in their English equivalents.&nbsp; Another title was&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;The Sacrament of Divorce: an Occasional Sermon
+preached by Dr. Gurgoyle, President of the Musical Banks for the Province
+of Sunch&rsquo;ston.&nbsp; 8vo, 16 pp. 6d.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Other titles ran&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Counsels of Imperfection.&rdquo;&nbsp; 8vo, 20
+pp. 6d.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Hygiene; or, How to Diagnose your Doctor.&nbsp; 8vo, 10 pp.
+3d.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The Physics of Vicarious Existence,&rdquo; by Dr. Gurgoyle,
+President of the Musical Banks for the Province of Sunch&rsquo;ston.&nbsp;
+8vo, 20 pp. 6d.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; His purchases in all had now amounted to a little
+over &pound;1, 10s. (silver), leaving him about &pound;3 (silver), including
+the money for which he had sold the quails, to carry him on till Sunday
+afternoon.&nbsp; He intended to spend say &pound;2 (silver), and keep
+the rest of the money in order to give it to the British Museum.</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; Here, on importunity, he was given a servant&rsquo;s
+room at the top of the house, all others being engaged by visitors who
+had come for the dedication.&nbsp; He ordered a meal, of which he stood
+in great need, and having eaten it, he retired early for the night.&nbsp;
+But he smoked a pipe surreptitiously up the chimney before he got into
+bed.</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; Not to depart from chronological order I will deal
+with them in my next chapter.</p>
+<h2>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</h2>
+<p>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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; They rested all
+day, and transferred themselves and their belongings to the Mayor&rsquo;s
+house in time to dress for dinner.</p>
+<p>When they came down into the drawing-room they found a brilliant
+company assembled, chiefly Musical-Bankical like themselves.&nbsp; There
+was Dr. Downie, Professor of Logomachy, and perhaps the most subtle
+dialectician in Erewhon.&nbsp; He could say nothing in more words than
+any man of his generation.&nbsp; His text-book on the &ldquo;Art of
+Obscuring Issues&rdquo; had passed through ten or twelve editions, and
+was in the hands of all aspirants for academic distinction.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; There
+was Mr. Principal Crank, with his sister Mrs. Quack; Professors Gabb
+and Bawl, with their wives and two or three erudite daughters.</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; In society she
+was commonly known as Ydgrun, so perfectly did she correspond with the
+conception of this strange goddess formed by the Erewhonians.&nbsp;
+She was one of those who had visited my father when he was in prison
+twenty years earlier.&nbsp; When he told me that she was now called
+Ydgrun, he said, &ldquo;I am sure that the Erinyes were only Mrs. Humdrums,
+and that they were delightful people when you came to know them.&nbsp;
+I do not believe they did the awful things we say they did.&nbsp; 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 <i>mot d&rsquo;ordre</i> that he was
+not to be asked to any more afternoon teas.&nbsp; This, however, would
+be down-right torture to some people.&nbsp; At any rate,&rdquo; he continued,
+&ldquo;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.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp;
+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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp;
+It was alleged that no other ladies&rsquo; seminary in Erewhon could
+show such a brilliant record during all the years of Miss La Frime&rsquo;s
+presidency.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp;
+Panky, of course, wore his clothes reversed, as did Principal Crank
+and Professor Gabb; the others were dressed English fashion.</p>
+<p>Everything hung upon the hostess, for the host was little more than
+a still handsome figure-head.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp;
+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.</p>
+<p>Before dinner was announced there was the usual buzz of conversation,
+chiefly occupied with salutations, good wishes for Sunday&rsquo;s weather,
+and admiration for the extreme beauty of the Mayoress&rsquo;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.&nbsp;
+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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; He then added, appealing to Panky, who was
+on the Mayoress&rsquo;s left hand, &ldquo;but we had rather a strange
+adventure on our way down, had we not, Panky?&nbsp; We got lost, and
+were benighted in the forest.&nbsp; Happily we fell in with one of the
+rangers who had lit a fire.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do I understand, then,&rdquo; said Yram, as I suppose we may
+as well call her, &ldquo;that you were out all last night?&nbsp; How
+tired you must be!&nbsp; But I hope you had enough provisions with you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Indeed we were out all night.&nbsp; We staid by the ranger&rsquo;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.&nbsp; 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.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, you poor, poor people! how tired you must be.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;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.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Here Panky gave his friend a significant look, as much as to say
+that he had said enough.</p>
+<p>This set Hanky on at once.&nbsp; &ldquo;Strange to say, the ranger
+was wearing the old Erewhonian dress.&nbsp; It did me good to see it
+again after all these years.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; But fancy how carefully these poor fellows
+husband them; why, it must be seventeen years since the dress was forbidden!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; This kind of skeleton, though no bigger than a rabbit,
+will sometimes loom large as that of a dinotherium.&nbsp; My father
+was Yram&rsquo;s skeleton.&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>Hence, on hearing from Professor Hanky that a man had been seen between
+the statues and Sunch&rsquo;ston wearing the old Erewhonian dress, she
+was disquieted and perplexed.&nbsp; The excuse he had evidently made
+to the Professors aggravated her uneasiness, for it was an obvious attempt
+to escape from an unexpected difficulty.&nbsp; There could be no truth
+in it.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My son,&rdquo; she said innocently, &ldquo;is always considerate
+to his men, and that is why they are so devoted to him.&nbsp; I wonder
+which of them it was?&nbsp; In what part of the preserves did you fall
+in with him?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Hanky described the place, and gave the best idea he could of my
+father&rsquo;s appearance.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Of course he was swarthy like the rest of us?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;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.&nbsp; Indeed, I do not remember ever before to have seen a
+man with dark hair and complexion but light eyelashes.&nbsp; Nature
+is always doing something unusual.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I have no doubt,&rdquo; said Yram, &ldquo;that he was the
+man they call Blacksheep, but I never noticed this peculiarity in him.&nbsp;
+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&rsquo;ston dialect.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;On the contrary, he was most kind and thoughtful&mdash;even
+so far as to take our permit from us, and thus save us the trouble of
+giving it up at your son&rsquo;s office.&nbsp; As for his dialect, his
+grammar was often at fault, but we could quite understand him.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am glad to hear he behaved better than I could have expected.&nbsp;
+Did he say in what part of the preserves he had been?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;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&rsquo;s banquet on Sunday.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>This was worse and worse.&nbsp; She had urged her son to provide
+her with a supply of quails for Sunday&rsquo;s banquet, but he had begged
+her not to insist on having them.&nbsp; There was no close time for
+them in Erewhon, but he set his face against their being seen at table
+in spring and summer.&nbsp; During the winter, when any great occasion
+arose, he had allowed a few brace to be provided.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I asked my son to let me have some,&rdquo; said Yram, who
+was now on full scent.&nbsp; She laughed genially as she added, &ldquo;Can
+you throw any light upon the question whether I am likely to get my
+three dozen?&nbsp; I have had no news as yet.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The man had taken a good many; we saw them but did not count
+them.&nbsp; He started about midnight for the ranger&rsquo;s shelter,
+where he said he should sleep till daybreak, so as to make up his full
+tale betimes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp;
+Here too, then, the man&rsquo;s story must be false.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; She then returned to her previous subject.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;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?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My dear Mayoress, how can you ask such a question?&nbsp; 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.&nbsp;
+I assure you we never even allowed a thought of eating one of them to
+cross our minds.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then,&rdquo; said Yram to herself, &ldquo;they gorged upon
+them.&rdquo;&nbsp; What could she think?&nbsp; 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&mdash;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.&nbsp; What did
+it matter about his hair being dark and his complexion swarthy&mdash;Higgs
+was far too clever to attempt a second visit to Erewhon without dyeing
+his hair and staining his face and hands.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp;
+How could she doubt?&nbsp; My father, she felt sure, must by this time
+be in Sunch&rsquo;ston.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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&rsquo;ston for
+the night.</p>
+<p>She chatted unconcernedly, now with one guest now with another, while
+they in their turn chatted unconcernedly with one another.</p>
+<p>Miss La Frime to Mrs. Humdrum: &ldquo;You know how he got his professorship?&nbsp;
+No?&nbsp; I thought every one knew that.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp;
+All the other candidates took one side or the other, and argued their
+case in full.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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 . . . &rdquo;</p>
+<p>Professor Gabb to Mrs. Humdrum: &ldquo;Oh no, I can assure you there
+is no truth in it.&nbsp; What happened was this.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; When Hanky&rsquo;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.&nbsp; 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 . . . &rdquo;</p>
+<p>Miss Bawl to Mr. Principal Crank: . . . &ldquo;The Manager was so
+tall, you know, and then there was that little mite of an assistant
+manager&mdash;it <i>was</i> so funny.&nbsp; For the assistant manager&rsquo;s
+voice was ever so much louder than the . . . &rdquo;</p>
+<p>Mrs. Bawl to Professor Gabb: . . .&nbsp; &ldquo;Live for art!&nbsp;
+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 . . . &rdquo;</p>
+<p>The Mayor and Dr. Downie: . . . &ldquo;That you are to be canonised
+at the close of the year along with Professors Hanky and Panky?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I believe it is his Majesty&rsquo;s intention that the Professors
+and myself are to head the list of the Sunchild&rsquo;s Saints, but
+we have all of us got to . . . &rdquo;</p>
+<p>And so on, and so on, buzz, buzz, buzz, over the whole table.&nbsp;
+Presently Yram turned to Hanky and said&mdash;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;By the way, Professor, you must have found it very cold up
+at the statues, did you not?&nbsp; But I suppose the snow is all gone
+by this time?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, it was cold, and though the winter&rsquo;s snow is melted,
+there had been a recent fall.&nbsp; Strange to say, we saw fresh footprints
+in it, as of some one who had come up from the other side.&nbsp; But
+thereon hangs a tale, about which I believe I should say nothing.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then say nothing, my dear Professor,&rdquo; said Yram with
+a frank smile.&nbsp; &ldquo;Above all,&rdquo; she added quietly and
+gravely, &ldquo;say nothing to the Mayor, nor to my son, till after
+Sunday.&nbsp; Even a whisper of some one coming over from the other
+side disquiets them, and they have enough on hand for the moment.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Panky, who had been growing more and more restive at his friend&rsquo;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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; During the rest of
+dinner she let the subject of their adventure severely alone.</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp;
+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.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Tell him,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;to stay there till I come,
+which I will do directly.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>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&rsquo;s room.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; &ldquo;I had rather,&rdquo; she said,
+&ldquo;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.&nbsp; I want everything
+hushed up for the moment; do not, therefore, join us.&nbsp; Have dinner
+sent to you in your father&rsquo;s study.&nbsp; I will come to you about
+midnight.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But, my dear mother,&rdquo; said George, &ldquo;I have seen
+Panky already.&nbsp; I walked down with him a good long way this afternoon.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Yram had not expected this, but she kept her countenance.&nbsp; &ldquo;How
+did you know,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;that he was Professor Panky?&nbsp;
+Did he tell you so?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Certainly he did.&nbsp; He showed me his permit, which was
+made out in favour of Professors Hanky and Panky, or either of them.&nbsp;
+He said Hanky had been unable to come with him, and that he was himself
+Professor Panky.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Yram again smiled very sweetly.&nbsp; &ldquo;Then, my dear boy,&rdquo;
+she said, &ldquo;I am all the more anxious that you should not see him
+now.&nbsp; See nobody but the servants and your brothers, and wait till
+I can enlighten you.&nbsp; I must not stay another moment; but tell
+me this much, have you seen any signs of poachers lately?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes; there were three last night.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;In what part of the preserves?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Her son described the place.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are sure they had been killing quails?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, and eating them&mdash;two on one side of a fire they
+had lit, and one on the other; this last man had done all the plucking.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Good!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She kissed him with more than even her usual tenderness, and returned
+to the drawing-room.</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; Mrs. Humdrum had been her closest friend for many
+years, and carried more weight than any one else in Sunch&rsquo;ston,
+except, perhaps, Yram herself.&nbsp; &ldquo;Tell him everything,&rdquo;
+she said to Yram at the close of their conversation; &ldquo;we all dote
+upon him; trust him frankly, as you trusted your husband before you
+let him marry you.&nbsp; No lies, no reserve, no tears, and all will
+come right.&nbsp; As for me, command me,&rdquo; and the good old lady
+rose to take her leave with as kind a look on her face as ever irradiated
+saint or angel.&nbsp; &ldquo;I go early,&rdquo; she added, &ldquo;for
+the others will go when they see me do so, and the sooner you are alone
+the better.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>By half an hour before midnight her guests had gone.&nbsp; Hanky
+and Panky were given to understand that they must still be tired, and
+had better go to bed.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; Then
+she went down into the study.&nbsp; Her son embraced her as she entered,
+and moved an easy chair for her, but she would not have it.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No; I will have an upright one.&rdquo;&nbsp; Then, sitting
+composedly down on the one her son placed for her, she said&mdash;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And now to business.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; He does not yet know what has happened
+within the last few hours, but either you or I will tell him to-morrow.&rdquo;</p>
+<h2>CHAPTER IX: INTERVIEW BETWEEN YRAM AND HER SON</h2>
+<p>&ldquo;What did you think of Panky?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I could not make him out.&nbsp; If he had not been a Bridgeford
+Professor I might have liked him; but you know how we all of us distrust
+those people.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Where did you meet him?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;About two hours lower down than the statues.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;At what o&rsquo;clock?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It might be between two and half-past.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I suppose he did not say that at that hour he was in bed at
+his hotel in Sunch&rsquo;ston.&nbsp; Hardly!&nbsp; Tell me what passed
+between you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He had his permit open before we were within speaking distance.&nbsp;
+I think he feared I should attack him without making sure whether he
+was a foreign devil or no.&nbsp; I have told you he said he was Professor
+Panky.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I suppose he had a dark complexion and black hair like the
+rest of us?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Dark complexion and hair purplish rather than black.&nbsp;
+I was surprised to see that his eyelashes were as light as my own, and
+his eyes were blue like mine&mdash;but you will have noticed this at
+dinner.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, my dear, I did not, and I think I should have done so
+if it had been there to notice.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, but it was so indeed.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Perhaps.&nbsp; Was there anything strange about his way of
+talking?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A little about his grammar, but these Bridgeford Professors
+have often risen from the ranks.&nbsp; His pronunciation was nearly
+like yours and mine.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Was his manner friendly?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Very; more so than I could understand at first.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; Hence his cordiality towards
+me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then,&rdquo; said Yram half hysterically to herself, &ldquo;he
+knew who you were.&nbsp; Now, how, I wonder, did he find that out?&rdquo;&nbsp;
+All vestige of doubt as to who the man might be had now left her.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Certainly he knew who I was.&nbsp; He spoke about you more
+than once, and wished us every kind of prosperity, baring his head reverently
+as he spoke.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Poor fellow!&nbsp; Did he say anything about Higgs?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A good deal, and I was surprised to find he thought about
+it all much as we do.&nbsp; 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.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Possibly not, my dear.&nbsp; 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&rsquo;ston used to say
+so also, till the Mayor trounced two or three people so roundly that
+they held their tongues for the future?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not all that, but I said that silly people had believed me
+to be the Sunchild&rsquo;s son, and what a disgrace I should hold it
+to be son to such an impostor.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What did he say to this?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;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.&nbsp; But he said it would be no use
+for him to do so, inasmuch as people would kill him but would not believe
+him.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And you said?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Let him come back, speak out, and chance what might befall
+him.&nbsp; In that case, I should honour him, father or no father.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And he?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He asked if that would be a bargain; and when I said it would,
+he grasped me warmly by the hand on Higgs&rsquo;s behalf&mdash;though
+what it could matter to him passes my comprehension.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;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?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Perfectly.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then he can have meant nothing by shaking hands with you.&nbsp;
+It was an idle jest.&nbsp; And now for your poachers.&nbsp; You do not
+know who they were?&nbsp; I will tell you.&nbsp; 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.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said George vehemently.&nbsp; &ldquo;Impossible.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, my dear boy, quite possible, and whether possible or
+impossible, assuredly true.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And the third man?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The third man was dressed in the old costume.&nbsp; He was
+in possession of several brace of birds.&nbsp; The Professors vowed
+they had not eaten any&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh yes, but they had,&rdquo; blurted out George.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Of course they had, my dear; and a good thing too.&nbsp; Let
+us return to the man in the old costume.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That is puzzling.&nbsp; Who did he say he was?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;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&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>This was too much for George; he started to his feet.&nbsp; &ldquo;What,
+my dearest mother, does all this mean?&nbsp; You have been playing with
+me all through.&nbsp; What is coming?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A very little more, and you shall hear.&nbsp; 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&rsquo;s shelter&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ranger&rsquo;s shelter, indeed!&nbsp; Why&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Hush, my darling boy, be patient with me.&nbsp; He said he
+must be up betimes, to run down the rest of the quails you had ordered
+him to bring you.&nbsp; But before leaving the Professors he beguiled
+them into giving him up their permit.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then,&rdquo; said George, striding about the room with his
+face flushed and his eyes flashing, &ldquo;he was the man with whom
+I walked down this afternoon.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Exactly so.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And he must have changed his dress?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Exactly so.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But where and how?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;At some place not very far down on the other side the range,
+where he had hidden his old clothes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And who, in the name of all that we hold most sacred, do you
+take him to have been&mdash;for I see you know more than you have yet
+told me?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;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.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She folded her arms about him for a second, without kissing him,
+and left him.&nbsp; &ldquo;And now,&rdquo; she said, the moment she
+had closed the door&mdash;&ldquo;and now I may cry.&rdquo;</p>
+<hr class="tb">
+<p>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.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Shall I say more now,&rdquo; she said, seeing how grave he looked,
+&ldquo;or shall I leave you, and talk further with you to-morrow?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Now&mdash;now&mdash;now!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Good!&nbsp; 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&rsquo;ston.&nbsp;
+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.&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;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.&nbsp; I was a fool&mdash;but there!&nbsp;
+As for Higgs, he liked, but did not love me.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; On
+that day, whether through his fault or mine I know not&mdash;we neither
+of us meant it&mdash;it was as though Nature, my dear, was determined
+that you should not slip through her fingers&mdash;well, on that day
+we took it into our heads that we were broken-hearted lovers&mdash;the
+rest followed.&nbsp; And how, my dearest boy, as I look upon you, can
+I feign repentance?</p>
+<p>&ldquo;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&mdash;but the words stuck in my throat.&nbsp;
+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.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You know, my dear, that my mother had been long dead, and
+I never had a sister or any near kinswoman.&nbsp; At my wits&rsquo;
+end who I should consult, instinct drew me to Mrs. Humdrum, then a woman
+of about five-and-forty.&nbsp; She was a grand lady, while I was about
+the rank of one of my own housemaids.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; I had had
+a good look at her once as she was putting on her gloves, and I liked
+the way she did it.&nbsp; I marvel at my own boldness.&nbsp; At any
+rate, I asked to see her, and told her my story exactly as I have now
+told it to you.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;You have no mother?&rsquo; she said, when she had heard
+all.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;No.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;Then, my dear, I will mother you myself.&nbsp; Higgs
+is out of the question, so Strong must marry you at once.&nbsp; We will
+tell him everything, and I, on your behalf, will insist upon it that
+the engagement is at an end.&nbsp; I hear good reports of him, and if
+we are fair towards him he will be generous towards us.&nbsp; Besides,
+I believe he is so much in love with you that he would sell his soul
+to get you.&nbsp; Send him to me.&nbsp; I can deal with him better than
+you can.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And what,&rdquo; said George, &ldquo;did my father, as I shall
+always call him, say to all this?</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Truth bred chivalry in him at once.&nbsp; &lsquo;I will marry
+her,&rsquo; he said, with hardly a moment&rsquo;s hesitation, &lsquo;but
+it will be better that I should not be put on any lower footing than
+Higgs was.&nbsp; I ought not to be denied anything that has been allowed
+to him.&nbsp; If I am trusted, I can trust myself to trust and think
+no evil either of Higgs or her.&nbsp; They were pestered beyond endurance,
+as I have been ere now.&nbsp; If I am held at arm&rsquo;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.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;Come to my house this evening,&rsquo; said Mrs. Humdrum,
+&lsquo;and you will find Yram there.&rsquo;&nbsp; He came, he found
+me, and within a fortnight we were man and wife.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How much does not all this explain,&rdquo; said George, smiling
+but very gravely.&nbsp; &ldquo;And you are going to ask me to forgive
+you for robbing me of such a father.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He has forgiven me, my dear, for robbing him of such a son.&nbsp;
+He never reproached me.&nbsp; From that day to this he has never given
+me a harsh word or even syllable.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp;
+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&mdash;but your father kept their tongues within
+bounds.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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&rsquo;s.&nbsp; It was this miraculous spell that
+caused you to be born two months too soon, and we called you by Higgs&rsquo;s
+first name as though to show that we took that view of the matter ourselves.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Mrs. Humdrum, however, was very positive that there was no
+spell at all.&nbsp; She had repeatedly heard her father say that the
+Mayor&rsquo;s grandfather was light-haired and blue-eyed, and that every
+third generation in that family a light-haired son was born.&nbsp; The
+people believe this too.&nbsp; Nobody disbelieves Mrs. Humdrum, but
+they like the miracle best, so that is how it has been settled.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;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&rsquo;s business.&nbsp; He made himself useful; after
+a few years he was taken into partnership, and on Mr. Humdrum&rsquo;s
+death became head of the firm.&nbsp; Between ourselves, he says laughingly
+that all his success in life was due to Higgs and me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I shall give Mrs. Humdrum a double dose of kissing,&rdquo;
+said George thoughtfully, &ldquo;next time I see her.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, do, do; she will so like it.&nbsp; And now, my darling
+boy, tell your poor mother whether or no you can forgive her.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He clasped her in his arms, and kissed her again and again, but for
+a time he could find no utterance.&nbsp; Presently he smiled, and said,
+&ldquo;Of course I do, but it is you who should forgive me, for was
+it not all my fault?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>When Yram, too, had become more calm, she said, &ldquo;It is late,
+and we have no time to lose.&nbsp; Higgs&rsquo;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.&nbsp; I cannot guess why he has come&mdash;probably
+through mere curiosity, but he will hear or have heard&mdash;yes, you
+and he talked about it&mdash;of the temple; being here, he will want
+to see the dedication.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; I do not doubt that
+he is now in Sunch&rsquo;ston; therefore, to-morrow morning scour the
+town to find him.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; He will come.&nbsp; We will then talk to
+him, and show him that he must go back at once.&nbsp; You can escort
+him to the statues; after passing them he will be safe.&nbsp; 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&mdash;but
+he will give you none.&nbsp; We need say nothing to the Professors.&nbsp;
+No one but ourselves will know of his having been here.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>On this she again embraced her son and left him.&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>As for George, he went gravely but not unhappily to his own room.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;So that ready, plausible fellow,&rdquo; he muttered to himself,
+&ldquo;was my own father.&nbsp; At any rate, I am not son to a fool&mdash;and
+he liked me.&rdquo;</p>
+<h2>CHAPTER X: MY FATHER, FEARING RECOGNITION AT SUNCH&rsquo;STON,
+BETAKES HIMSELF TO THE NEIGHBOURING TOWN OF FAIRMEAD</h2>
+<p>I will now return to my father.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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&rsquo;s
+sermon, which he was particularly anxious to do.</p>
+<p>So strongly did he feel the real or fancied danger he should incur
+by spending Saturday in Sunch&rsquo;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.</p>
+<p>There was a town about ten miles off, not so important as Sunch&rsquo;ston,
+but having some 10,000 inhabitants; he resolved to find accommodation
+there for the day and night, and to walk over to Sunch&rsquo;ston in
+time for the dedication ceremony, which he had found on inquiry, would
+begin at eleven o&rsquo;clock.</p>
+<p>The country between Sunch&rsquo;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.&nbsp; The road took him at right angles to the main road
+down the valley from Sunch&rsquo;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.&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>On reaching this place, he found it pretty full of people, for Saturday
+was market-day.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp;
+On the outside of the wall, abutting on the market-place, were three
+wooden <i>sedilia</i>, 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.</p>
+<p>My father was much interested in watching the proceedings in a case
+which he found on inquiry to be not infrequent.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp;
+He feared it would be necessary to send her to a deformatory.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I have generally found,&rdquo; said the Mayor, gravely but
+kindly, &ldquo;that the fault in these distressing cases lies rather
+with the parent than the children.&nbsp; Does the child never break
+anything by accident?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said the father.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And you have duly punished her for it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Alas! sir, I fear I only told her she was a naughty girl,
+and must not do it again.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;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?&nbsp; How can she detect lying in other people
+unless she has had some experience of it in her own practice?&nbsp;
+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?&nbsp; 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&rsquo;s
+garden, lamented his inability to tell a lie.&nbsp; 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, &lsquo;I cannot tell a lie,&rsquo; in their most
+natural sense, as being his expression of regret at the way in which
+his education had been neglected.&nbsp; If that case had come before
+me, I should have punished the boy&rsquo;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.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There is no occasion for you to send your child to a deformatory.&nbsp;
+I am always averse to extreme measures when I can avoid them.&nbsp;
+Moreover, in a deformatory she would be almost certain to fall in with
+characters as intractable as her own.&nbsp; Take her home and whip her
+next time she so much as pulls about the salt.&nbsp; 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.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Very well, sir,&rdquo; said the father, &ldquo;I will do my
+best, but the child is so instinctively truthful that I am afraid whipping
+will be of little use.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>There were other cases, none of them serious, which in the old days
+would have been treated by a straightener.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; If any devils were
+found in what passed from the prisoner&rsquo;s body, he was to be brought
+up again; for in this case the rest of the sentence might very possibly
+be remitted.</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; Look at Delphi.&nbsp; What a fraud it was,
+and yet how hallowed it must ever remain.&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>How peaceful it all was with its droning old-world smell of ancestor,
+dry rot, and stale incense.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp;
+A hen laid an egg outside and began to cackle&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; They ran:-</p>
+<blockquote><p>I fall asleep in the full and certain hope<br>
+That my slumber shall not be broken;<br>
+And that though I be all-forgetting,<br>
+Yet shall I not be all-forgotten,<br>
+But continue that life in the thoughts and deeds<br>
+Of those I loved,<br>
+Into which, while the power to strive was yet vouchsafed me,<br>
+I fondly strove to enter.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>How different this from the opinions concerning a future state which
+he had tried to set before the Erewhonians some twenty years earlier.&nbsp;
+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.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; he had said to my father, &ldquo;your heaven will
+not attract me unless I can take my clothes and my luggage.&nbsp; Yes;
+and I must lose my luggage and find it again.&nbsp; 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&mdash;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, &amp;c., &amp;c.;
+and am I sure that I addressed it rightly?&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;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.&nbsp;
+&lsquo;Filleted plaice,&rsquo; I shall exclaim, &lsquo;no! not that.&nbsp;
+Have you any red mullets?&rsquo;&nbsp; And the angel will say, &lsquo;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.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;Well, well,&rsquo; I shall say, &lsquo;have you any
+kidneys?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;You can have one kidney, sir&rsquo;, will be the answer.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;One kidney, indeed, and you call this heaven!&nbsp;
+At any rate you will have sausages?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>“Then the angel will say, &lsquo;We shall have some
+after Sunday, sir, but we are quite out of them at present.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And I shall say, somewhat sulkily, &lsquo;Then I suppose I
+must have eggs and bacon.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; Heaven would be a dull place without
+such occasional petty false alarms as these.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>I have no business to leave my father&rsquo;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&rsquo;s
+lips, I could not refrain from making a few reflections of my own, which
+I will ask the reader&rsquo;s forbearance if I lay before him.</p>
+<p>Let heaven and hell alone, but think of Hades, with Tantalus, Sisyphus,
+Tityus, and all the rest of them.&nbsp; How futile were the attempts
+of the old Greeks and Romans to lay before us any plausible conception
+of eternal torture.&nbsp; What were the Danaids doing but that which
+each one of us has to do during his or her whole life?&nbsp; 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?&nbsp; Do we mind this?&nbsp; Not so long as we can
+get the wherewithal to fill them; and the Danaids never seem to have
+run short of water.&nbsp; They would probably ere long take to clearing
+out any obstruction in their sieves if they found them getting choked.&nbsp;
+What could it matter to them whether the sieves got full or no?&nbsp;
+They were not paid for filling them.</p>
+<p>Sisyphus, again!&nbsp; 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?&nbsp; We are not told that there was a dragon which attacked
+him whenever he tried to shirk.&nbsp; If he had greatly cared about
+getting his load over the last pinch, experience would have shown him
+some way of doing so.&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>What though Tantalus found the water shun him and the fruits fly
+from him when he tried to seize them?&nbsp; The writer of the &ldquo;Odyssey&rdquo;
+gives us no hint that he was dying of thirst or hunger.&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>Tityus, as an effort after the conception of an eternity of torture,
+is not successful.&nbsp; What could an eagle matter on the liver of
+a man whose body covered nine acres?&nbsp; Before long he would find
+it an agreeable stimulant.&nbsp; 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?</p>
+<p>Methought I saw Jove sitting on the topmost ridges of Olympus and
+confessing failure to Minerva.&nbsp; &ldquo;I see, my dear,&rdquo; he
+said, &ldquo;that there is no use in trying to make people very happy
+or very miserable for long together.&nbsp; 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.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; As he continued
+to sit in the Musical Bank, he took from his valise the pamphlet on
+&ldquo;The Physics of Vicarious Existence,&rdquo; 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&rsquo;s epitaph.</p>
+<p>The second title he found to run, &ldquo;Being Strictures on Certain
+Heresies concerning a Future State that have been Engrafted on the Sunchild&rsquo;s
+Teaching.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>My father shuddered as he read this title.&nbsp; &ldquo;How long,&rdquo;
+he said to himself, &ldquo;will it be before they are at one another&rsquo;s
+throats?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; This view
+is as old as the <i>non omnis moriar</i> of Horace, and we may be sure
+some thousands of years older.&nbsp; It is only, therefore, with much
+diffidence that I have decided to give a <i>r&eacute;sum&eacute;</i>
+of opinions many of which those whom I alone wish to please will have
+laid to heart from their youth upwards.&nbsp; In brief, Dr. Gurgoyle&rsquo;s
+contention comes to little more than saying that the quick are more
+dead, and the dead more quick, than we commonly think.&nbsp; 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&mdash;for the dead would be as living as the living if we
+could only get them to believe it.</p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XI: PRESIDENT GURGOYLE&rsquo;S PAMPHLET &ldquo;ON THE PHYSICS
+OF VICARIOUS EXISTENCE&rdquo;</h2>
+<p>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&rsquo;s
+interference with the laws of nature.&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>My father soon found that not even Panky could manipulate his teaching
+more freely than the Doctor had done.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp;
+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.</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp;
+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&mdash;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&mdash;the second is as essential
+a factor of our complete life as the first is, and sometimes more so.</p>
+<p>Life, he urged, lies not in bodily organs, but in the power to use
+them, and in the use that is made of them&mdash;that is to say, in the
+work they do.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Those,&rdquo; he argued, &ldquo;who make the life of a man reside
+within his body, are like one who should mistake the carpenter&rsquo;s
+tool-box for the carpenter.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He maintained that this had been my father&rsquo;s teaching, for
+which my father heartily trusts that he may be forgiven.</p>
+<p>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&rsquo;s will-power has got such hold on B&rsquo;s
+as to be able, through B, to work B&rsquo;s mechanism, what seems to
+have been B&rsquo;s action will in reality have been more A&rsquo;s
+than B&rsquo;s, and this in the same real sense as though the physical
+action had been effected through A&rsquo;s own mechanical system&mdash;A,
+in fact, will have been living in B.&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>Hence, though A&rsquo;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 <i>bon&acirc; fide</i> life still
+remaining.&nbsp; His vicarious life is not affected by the dissolution
+of his body; and in many cases the sum total of a man&rsquo;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.&nbsp; In these cases his vicarious life
+is more truly his life than any that he lived in his own person.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;True,&rdquo; continued the Doctor, &ldquo;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.&nbsp;
+We know nothing of the power that sets our heart beating, nor yet of
+the beating itself so long as it is normal.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; The part
+of our bodily life that enters into our consciousness is very small
+as compared with that of which we have no consciousness.&nbsp; What
+completer proof can we have that livingness consists in deed rather
+than in consciousness of deed?</p>
+<p>&ldquo;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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp;
+They are meant to apply to that more intelligent and versatile action
+engendered by affectionate remembrance.&nbsp; Nevertheless, even the
+compulsory vicarious action taken in consequence of a will, and indeed
+the very name &ldquo;will&rdquo; 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.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; The book, we will suppose, has considerable,
+or at any rate some influence on the action of these people.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp;
+Which is his truest life&mdash;the one he is leading in them, or that
+equally unconscious life residing in his own sleeping body?&nbsp; Can
+there be a doubt that the vicarious life is the more efficient?</p>
+<p>&ldquo;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?&nbsp; 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&rsquo;s bad thoughts, and the hope of a present heaven in
+their good ones, influence our own conduct?&nbsp; 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&rsquo;s
+teaching are but as the flint implements of a prehistoric race?&nbsp;
+&lsquo;If a man,&rsquo; said the Sunchild, &lsquo;fear not man, whom
+he hath seen, neither will he fear God, whom he hath not seen.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>My father again assures me that he never said this.&nbsp; Returning
+to Dr. Gurgoyle, he continued:&mdash;&ldquo;It may be urged that on
+a man&rsquo;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.&nbsp;
+For to live is to be influenced, as well as to influence; and when a
+man is dead how can he be influenced?&nbsp; He can haunt, but he cannot
+any more be haunted.&nbsp; He can come to us, but we cannot go to him.&nbsp;
+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.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I do not pretend that a man is as fully alive after his so-called
+death as before it.&nbsp; He is not.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;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.&nbsp; If failure of the power to be influenced vitiates
+life, presence of the power to influence vitiates death.&nbsp; And no
+one will deny that a man can influence for many a long year after he
+is vulgarly reputed as dead.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;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.&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And there is this, too.&nbsp; No man can influence fully until
+he can no more be influenced&mdash;that is to say, till after his so-called
+death.&nbsp; Till then, his &lsquo;he&rsquo; is still unsettled.&nbsp;
+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.&nbsp;
+Therefore, he is not fully living till he is no longer living.&nbsp;
+He is an incomplete work, which cannot have full effect till finished.&nbsp;
+And as for his vicarious life&mdash;which we have seen to be very real&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If this is not true, let us have no more talk about the immortality
+of great men and women.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp;
+How plainly can we not now see that his words were spoken for our learning&mdash;for
+the enforcement of that true view of heaven and hell on which I am feebly
+trying to insist?&nbsp; The poet&rsquo;s name, he said, was Shakespeare.&nbsp;
+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.&nbsp; &lsquo;Can this man,&rsquo; he
+asked, &lsquo;be said to have been truly born till many a long year
+after he had been reputed as truly dead?&nbsp; 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?&nbsp; 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?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;These were the Sunchild&rsquo;s words, as repeated to me by
+one of his chosen friends while he was yet amongst us.&nbsp; Which,
+then, of this man&rsquo;s two lives should we deem best worth having,
+if we could choose one or other, but not both?&nbsp; The felt or the
+unfelt?&nbsp; 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?&nbsp;
+Does not this prove that in our heart of hearts we deem an unfelt life,
+in the heaven of men&rsquo;s loving thoughts, to be better worth having
+than any we can reasonably hope for and still feel?</p>
+<p>&ldquo;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&rsquo;s
+hatred and contempt.&nbsp; As body is the sacrament, or outward and
+visible sign, of mind; so is posterity the sacrament of those who live
+after death.&nbsp; Each is the mechanism through which the other becomes
+effective.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I grant that many live but a short time when the breath is
+out of them.&nbsp; Few seeds germinate as compared with those that rot
+or are eaten, and most of this world&rsquo;s denizens are little more
+than still-born as regards the larger life, while none are immortal
+to the end of time.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; &lsquo;Come and go&rsquo; 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.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;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.&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;Reward or punishment,&rsquo; some reader will perhaps
+exclaim; &lsquo;what mockery, when the essence of reward and punishment
+lies in their being felt by those who have earned them.&rsquo;&nbsp;
+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.&nbsp; Here
+comes in faith, of which the Sunchild said, that though we can do little
+with it, we can do nothing without it.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;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&mdash;reaping
+roughly, though not infallibly, much as we have sown.&nbsp; 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, &lsquo;The Kingdom of Heaven cometh not
+by observation.&rsquo;&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What an ineffable contradiction in terms have we not here.&nbsp;
+What a reversal, is it not, of all this world&rsquo;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.&nbsp; Yet we all hold this, however little
+we may admit it to ourselves.&nbsp; For the world at heart despises
+its own canons.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>I cannot quote further from Dr. Gurgoyle&rsquo;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.&nbsp; &ldquo;Let him die,&rdquo; say they, &ldquo;and let
+die as his fathers before him.&rdquo;&nbsp; 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.&nbsp;
+Life, whether before the grave or afterwards, is like love&mdash;all
+reason is against it, and all healthy instinct for it.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; If he is to be effaced, let others efface him; do not let
+him commit suicide.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; If it can, let it; if it cannot, it must put up with us.&nbsp;
+It can better care for itself than we can for ourselves when the breath
+is out of us.</p>
+<p>Not the least important duty, he continued, of posterity towards
+itself lies in passing righteous judgement on the forbears who stand
+up before it.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; After a hundred years it may generally come down, though
+it will still be under a cloud.&nbsp; After two thousand years it may
+be mentioned in any society without holding up of hands in horror.&nbsp;
+Our sense of moral guilt varies inversely as the squares of its distance
+in time and space from ourselves.</p>
+<p>Not so with heroism; this loses no lustre through time and distance.&nbsp;
+Good is gold; it is rare, but it will not tarnish.&nbsp; Evil is like
+dirty water&mdash;plentiful and foul, but it will run itself clear of
+taint.</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.</p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XII: GEORGE FAILS TO FIND MY FATHER, WHEREON YRAM CAUTIONS
+THE PROFESSORS</h2>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do what you like, my dear,&rdquo; said the Mayor.&nbsp; &ldquo;I
+shall keep out of the way, for you will manage him better without me.&nbsp;
+You know what I think of you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He then went unconcernedly to his breakfast, at which the Professors
+found him somewhat taciturn.&nbsp; Indeed they set him down as one of
+the dullest and most uninteresting people they had ever met.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;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.&nbsp; Therefore,
+ride either to Clearwater or Fairmead, and see if you can find him.&nbsp;
+Try Fairmead first; it is more out of the way.&nbsp; If you cannot hear
+of him there, come back, get another horse, and try Clearwater.&nbsp;
+If you fail here too, we must give him up, and look out for him in the
+temple to-morrow morning.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Are you going to say anything to the Professors?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not if you can bring Higgs here before night-fall.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; Now go&mdash;the sooner
+the better.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>It was nearly eleven, and in a few minutes George was on his way.&nbsp;
+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&mdash;for not
+knowing what name my father might choose to give, he could trust only
+to description.&nbsp; He concluded that since my father could not be
+heard of in Fairmead by one o&rsquo;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&rsquo;ston, made a hasty lunch, got a fresh
+horse, and rode to Clearwater, where he met with no better success.&nbsp;
+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&rsquo;ston,
+and come to the Mayor&rsquo;s house.</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp;
+Here he had been sitting for nearly a couple of hours, resting, dreaming,
+and reading Bishop Gurgoyle&rsquo;s pamphlet.&nbsp; If he had left the
+Bank five minutes earlier, he would probably have been seen by George
+in the main street of Fairmead&mdash;as he found out on reaching the
+inn which he selected and ordering dinner.</p>
+<p>He had hardly got inside the house before the waiter told him that
+young Mr. Strong, the Ranger from Sunch&rsquo;ston, had been enquiring
+for him and had left a message for him, which was duly delivered.</p>
+<p>My father, though in reality somewhat disquieted, showed no uneasiness,
+and said how sorry he was to have missed seeing Mr. Strong.&nbsp; &ldquo;But,&rdquo;
+he added, &ldquo;it does not much matter; I need not go back this afternoon,
+for I shall be at Sunch&rsquo;ston to-morrow morning and will go straight
+to the Mayor&rsquo;s.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He had no suspicion that he was discovered, but he was a good deal
+puzzled.&nbsp; 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&mdash;for he had no idea that Hanky and
+Panky were staying with the Mayor and Mayoress.&nbsp; Or perhaps the
+Mayor and his wife did not like so distinguished a man&rsquo;s having
+been unable to find a lodging in Sunch&rsquo;ston, and wanted him to
+stay with them.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; He therefore ordered his room
+at once.</p>
+<p>It was nearly seven before George got back to Sunch&rsquo;ston.&nbsp;
+In the meantime Yram and the Mayor had considered the question whether
+anything was to be said to the Professors or no.&nbsp; They were confident
+that my father would not commit himself&mdash;why, indeed, should he
+have dyed his hair and otherwise disguised himself, if he had not intended
+to remain undiscovered?&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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&rsquo;s being
+in Sunch&rsquo;ston.</p>
+<p>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.&nbsp; It might or it might not, but that was a
+matter for him, not her.&nbsp; The only question for her was whether
+or no it would be sharp practice to know what she knew and say nothing
+about it.&nbsp; Her husband hated <i>finesse</i> as much as she did,
+and they settled it that though the question was a nice one, the more
+proper thing to do would be to tell the Professors what it might so
+possibly concern one or both of them to know.</p>
+<p>On George&rsquo;s return without news of my father, they found he
+thought just as they did; so it was arranged that they should let the
+Professors dine in peace, but tell them about the Sunchild&rsquo;s being
+again in Erewhon as soon as dinner was over.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Happily,&rdquo; said George, &ldquo;they will do no harm.&nbsp;
+They will wish Higgs&rsquo;s presence to remain unknown as much as we
+do, and they will be glad that he should be got out of the country immediately.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not so, my dear,&rdquo; said Yram.&nbsp; &ldquo;&lsquo;Out
+of the country&rsquo; will not do for those people.&nbsp; Nothing short
+of &lsquo;out of the world&rsquo; will satisfy them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That,&rdquo; said George promptly, &ldquo;must not be.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Certainly not, my dear, but that is what they will want.&nbsp;
+I do not like having to tell them, but I am afraid we must.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Never mind,&rdquo; said the Mayor, laughing.&nbsp; &ldquo;Tell
+them, and let us see what happens.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>They then dressed for dinner, where Hanky and Panky were the only
+guests.&nbsp; When dinner was over Yram sent away her other children,
+George alone remaining.&nbsp; He sat opposite the Professors, while
+the Mayor and Yram were at the two ends of the table.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am afraid, dear Professor Hanky,&rdquo; said Yram, &ldquo;that
+I was not quite open with you last night, but I wanted time to think
+things over, and I know you will forgive me when you remember what a
+number of guests I had to attend to.&rdquo;&nbsp; She then referred
+to what Hanky had told her about the supposed ranger, and shewed him
+how obvious it was that this man was a foreigner, who had been for some
+time in Erewhon more than seventeen years ago, but had had no communication
+with it since then.&nbsp; Having pointed sufficiently, as she thought,
+to the Sunchild, she said, &ldquo;You see who I believe this man to
+have been.&nbsp; Have I said enough, or shall I say more?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I understand you,&rdquo; said Hanky, &ldquo;and I agree with
+you that the Sunchild will be in the temple to-morrow.&nbsp; It is a
+serious business, but I shall not alter my sermon.&nbsp; He must listen
+to what I may choose to say, and I wish I could tell him what a fool
+he was for coming here.&nbsp; If he behaves himself, well and good:
+your son will arrest him quietly after service, and by night he will
+be in the Blue Pool.&nbsp; Your son is bound to throw him there as a
+foreign devil, without the formality of a trial.&nbsp; It would be a
+most painful duty to me, but unless I am satisfied that that man has
+been thrown into the Blue Pool, I shall have no option but to report
+the matter at headquarters.&nbsp; If, on the other hand, the poor wretch
+makes a disturbance, I can set the crowd on to tear him in pieces.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>George was furious, but he remained quite calm, and left everything
+to his mother.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I have nothing to do with the Blue Pool,&rdquo; said Yram
+drily.&nbsp; &ldquo;My son, I doubt not, will know how to do his duty;
+but if you let the people kill this man, his body will remain, and an
+inquest must be held, for the matter will have been too notorious to
+be hushed up.&nbsp; All Higgs&rsquo;s measurements and all marks on
+his body were recorded, and these alone would identify him.&nbsp; My
+father, too, who is still master of the gaol, and many another, could
+swear to him.&nbsp; Should the body prove, as no doubt it would, to
+be that of the Sunchild, what is to become of Sunchildism?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Hanky smiled.&nbsp; &ldquo;It would not be proved.&nbsp; The measurements
+of a man of twenty or thereabouts would not correspond with this man&rsquo;s.&nbsp;
+All we Professors should attend the inquest, and half Bridgeford is
+now in Sunch&rsquo;ston.&nbsp; No matter though nine-tenths of the marks
+and measurements corresponded, so long as there is a tenth that does
+not do so, we should not be flesh and blood if we did not ignore the
+nine points and insist only on the tenth.&nbsp; After twenty years we
+shall find enough to serve our turn.&nbsp; Think of what all the learning
+of the country is committed to; think of the change in all our ideas
+and institutions; think of the King and of Court influence.&nbsp; I
+need not enlarge.&nbsp; We shall not permit the body to be the Sunchild&rsquo;s.&nbsp;
+No matter what evidence you may produce, we shall sneer it down, and
+say we must have more before you can expect us to take you seriously;
+if you bring more, we shall pay no attention; and the more you bring
+the more we shall laugh at you.&nbsp; No doubt those among us who are
+by way of being candid will admit that your arguments ought to be considered,
+but you must not expect that it will be any part of their duty to consider
+them.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And even though we admitted that the body had been proved
+up to the hilt to be the Sunchild&rsquo;s, do you think that such a
+trifle as that could affect Sunchildism?&nbsp; Hardly.&nbsp; Sunch&rsquo;ston
+is no match for Bridgeford and the King; our only difficulty would lie
+in settling which was the most plausible way of the many plausible ways
+in which the death could be explained.&nbsp; We should hatch up twenty
+theories in less than twenty hours, and the last state of Sunchildism
+would be stronger than the first.&nbsp; For the people want it, and
+so long as they want it they will have it.&nbsp; At the same time the
+supposed identification of the body, even by some few ignorant people
+here, might lead to a local heresy that is as well avoided, and it will
+be better that your son should arrest the man before the dedication,
+if he can be found, and throw him into the Blue Pool without any one
+but ourselves knowing that he has been here at all.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>I need not dwell on the deep disgust with which this speech was listened
+to, but the Mayor, and Yram, and George said not a word.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But, Mayoress,&rdquo; said Panky, who had not opened his lips
+so far, &ldquo;are you sure that you are not too hasty in believing
+this stranger to be the Sunchild?&nbsp; People are continually thinking
+that such and such another is the Sunchild come down again from the
+sun&rsquo;s palace and going to and fro among us.&nbsp; How many such
+stories, sometimes very plausibly told, have we not had during the last
+twenty years?&nbsp; They never take root, and die out of themselves
+as suddenly as they spring up.&nbsp; That the man is a poacher can hardly
+be doubted; I thought so the moment I saw him; but I think I can also
+prove to you that he is not a foreigner, and, therefore, that he is
+not the Sunchild.&nbsp; He quoted the Sunchild&rsquo;s prayer with a
+corruption that can have only reached him from an Erewhonian source&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Here Hanky interrupted him somewhat brusquely.&nbsp; &ldquo;The man,
+Panky,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;was the Sunchild; and he was not a poacher,
+for he had no idea that he was breaking the law; nevertheless, as you
+say, Sunchildism on the brain has been a common form of mania for several
+years.&nbsp; Several persons have even believed themselves to be the
+Sunchild.&nbsp; We must not forget this, if it should get about that
+Higgs has been here.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Then, turning to Yram, he said sternly, &ldquo;But come what may,
+your son must take him to the Blue Pool at nightfall.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; said George, with perfect suavity, &ldquo;you
+have spoken as though you doubted my readiness to do my duty.&nbsp;
+Let me assure you very solemnly that when the time comes for me to act,
+I shall act as duty may direct.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I will answer for him,&rdquo; said Yram, with even more than
+her usual quick, frank smile, &ldquo;that he will fulfil his instructions
+to the letter, unless,&rdquo; she added, &ldquo;some black and white
+horses come down from heaven and snatch poor Higgs out of his grasp.&nbsp;
+Such things have happened before now.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I should advise your son to shoot them if they do,&rdquo;
+said Hanky drily and sub-defiantly.</p>
+<p>Here the conversation closed; but it was useless trying to talk of
+anything else, so the Professors asked Yram to excuse them if they retired
+early, in view of the fact that they had a fatiguing day before them.&nbsp;
+This excuse their hostess readily accepted.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do not let us talk any more now,&rdquo; said Yram as soon
+as they had left the room.&nbsp; &ldquo;It will be quite time enough
+when the dedication is over.&nbsp; But I rather think the black and
+white horses will come.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I think so too, my dear,&rdquo; said the Mayor laughing.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;They shall come,&rdquo; said George gravely; &ldquo;but we
+have not yet got enough to make sure of bringing them.&nbsp; Higgs will
+perhaps be able to help me to-morrow.&rdquo;</p>
+<hr class="tb">
+<p>&ldquo;Now what,&rdquo; said Panky as they went upstairs, &ldquo;does
+that woman mean&mdash;for she means something?&nbsp; Black and white
+horses indeed!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I do not know what she means to do,&rdquo; said the other,
+&ldquo;but I know that she thinks she can best us.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I wish we had not eaten those quails.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nonsense, Panky; no one saw us but Higgs, and the evidence
+of a foreign devil, in such straits as his, could not stand for a moment.&nbsp;
+We did not eat them.&nbsp; No, no; she has something that she thinks
+better than that.&nbsp; Besides, it is absolutely impossible that she
+should have heard what happened.&nbsp; What I do not understand is,
+why she should have told us about the Sunchild&rsquo;s being here at
+all.&nbsp; Why not have left us to find it out or to know nothing about
+it?&nbsp; I do not understand it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>So true is it, as Euclid long since observed, that the less cannot
+comprehend that which is the greater.&nbsp; True, however, as this is,
+it is also sometimes true that the greater cannot comprehend the less.&nbsp;
+Hanky went musing to his own room and threw himself into an easy chair
+to think the position over.&nbsp; After a few minutes he went to a table
+on which he saw pen, ink, and paper, and wrote a short letter; then
+he rang the bell.</p>
+<p>When the servant came he said, &ldquo;I want to send this note to
+the manager of the new temple, and it is important that he should have
+it to-night.&nbsp; Be pleased, therefore, to take it to him and deliver
+it into his own hands; but I had rather you said nothing about it to
+the Mayor or Mayoress, nor to any of your fellow-servants.&nbsp; Slip
+out unperceived if you can.&nbsp; When you have delivered the note,
+ask for an answer at once, and bring it to me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>So saying, he slipped a sum equal to about five shillings into the
+man&rsquo;s hand.</p>
+<p>The servant returned in about twenty minutes, for the temple was
+quite near, and gave a note to Hanky, which ran, &ldquo;Your wishes
+shall be attended to without fail.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Good!&rdquo; said Hanky to the man.&nbsp; &ldquo;No one in
+the house knows of your having run this errand for me?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No one, sir.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Thank you!&nbsp; I wish you a very good night.&rdquo;</p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIII: A VISIT TO THE PROVINCIAL DEFORMATORY AT FAIRMEAD</h2>
+<p>Having finished his early dinner, and not fearing that he should
+be either recognised at Fairmead or again enquired after from Sunch&rsquo;ston,
+my father went out for a stroll round the town, to see what else he
+could find that should be new and strange to him.&nbsp; He had not gone
+far before he saw a large building with an inscription saying that it
+was the Provincial Deformatory for Boys.&nbsp; Underneath the larger
+inscription there was a smaller one&mdash;one of those corrupt versions
+of my father&rsquo;s sayings, which, on dipping into the Sayings of
+the Sunchild, he had found to be so vexatiously common.&nbsp; The inscription
+ran:-</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;When the righteous man turneth away from the righteousness
+that he hath committed, and doeth that which is a little naughty and
+wrong, he will generally be found to have gained in amiability what
+he has lost in righteousness.&rdquo;&nbsp; Sunchild Sayings, chap. xxii.
+v. 15.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>The case of the little girl that he had watched earlier in the day
+had filled him with a great desire to see the working of one of these
+curious institutions; he therefore resolved to call on the headmaster
+(whose name he found to be Turvey), and enquire about terms, alleging
+that he had a boy whose incorrigible rectitude was giving him much anxiety.&nbsp;
+The information he had gained in the forenoon would be enough to save
+him from appearing to know nothing of the system.&nbsp; On having rung
+the bell, he announced himself to the servant as a Mr. Senoj, and asked
+if he could see the Principal.</p>
+<p>Almost immediately he was ushered into the presence of a beaming,
+dapper-looking, little old gentleman, quick of speech and movement,
+in spite of some little portliness.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ts, ts, ts,&rdquo; he said, when my father had enquired about
+terms and asked whether he might see the system at work.&nbsp; &ldquo;How
+unfortunate that you should have called on a Saturday afternoon.&nbsp;
+We always have a half-holiday.&nbsp; But stay&mdash;yes&mdash;that will
+do very nicely; I will send for them into school as a means of stimulating
+their refractory system.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He called his servant and told him to ring the boys into school.&nbsp;
+Then, turning to my father he said, &ldquo;Stand here, sir, by the window;
+you will see them all come trooping in.&nbsp; H&rsquo;m, h&rsquo;m,
+I am sorry to see them still come back as soon as they hear the bell.&nbsp;
+I suppose I shall ding some recalcitrancy into them some day, but it
+is uphill work.&nbsp; Do you see the head-boy&mdash;the third of those
+that are coming up the path?&nbsp; I shall have to get rid of him.&nbsp;
+Do you see him? he is going back to whip up the laggers&mdash;and now
+he has boxed a boy&rsquo;s ears: that boy is one of the most hopeful
+under my care.&nbsp; I feel sure he has been using improper language,
+and my head-boy has checked him instead of encouraging him.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+And so on till the boys were all in school.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You see, my dear sir,&rdquo; he said to my father, &ldquo;we
+are in an impossible position.&nbsp; We have to obey instructions from
+the Grand Council of Education at Bridgeford, and they have established
+these institutions in consequence of the Sunchild&rsquo;s having said
+that we should aim at promoting the greatest happiness of the greatest
+number.&nbsp; This, no doubt, is a sound principle, and the greatest
+number are by nature somewhat dull, conceited, and unscrupulous.&nbsp;
+They do not like those who are quick, unassuming, and sincere; how,
+then, consistently with the first principles either of morality or political
+economy as revealed to us by the Sunchild, can we encourage such people
+if we can bring sincerity and modesty fairly home to them?&nbsp; We
+cannot do so.&nbsp; And we must correct the young as far as possible
+from forming habits which, unless indulged in with the greatest moderation,
+are sure to ruin them.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I cannot pretend to consider myself very successful.&nbsp;
+I do my best, but I can only aim at making my school a reflection of
+the outside world.&nbsp; In the outside world we have to tolerate much
+that is prejudicial to the greatest happiness of the greatest number,
+partly because we cannot always discover in time who may be let alone
+as being genuinely insincere, and who are in reality masking sincerity
+under a garb of flippancy, and partly also because we wish to err on
+the side of letting the guilty escape, rather than of punishing the
+innocent.&nbsp; Thus many people who are perfectly well known to belong
+to the straightforward classes are allowed to remain at large, and may
+be even seen hobnobbing with the guardians of public immorality.&nbsp;
+Indeed it is not in the public interest that straightforwardness should
+be extirpated root and branch, for the presence of a small modicum of
+sincerity acts as a wholesome irritant to the academicism of the greatest
+number, stimulating it to consciousness of its own happy state, and
+giving it something to look down upon.&nbsp; Moreover, we hold it useful
+to have a certain number of melancholy examples, whose notorious failure
+shall serve as a warning to those who neglect cultivating that power
+of immoral self-control which shall prevent them from saying, or even
+thinking, anything that shall not immediately and palpably minister
+to the happiness, and hence meet the approval, of the greatest number.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>By this time the boys were all in school.&nbsp; &ldquo;There is not
+one prig in the whole lot,&rdquo; said the headmaster sadly.&nbsp; &ldquo;I
+wish there was, but only those boys come here who are notoriously too
+good to become current coin in the world unless they are hardened with
+an alloy of vice.&nbsp; I should have liked to show you our gambling,
+book-making, and speculation class, but the assistant-master who attends
+to this branch of our curriculum is gone to Sunch&rsquo;ston this afternoon.&nbsp;
+He has friends who have asked him to see the dedication of the new temple,
+and he will not be back till Monday.&nbsp; I really do not know what
+I can do better for you than examine the boys in Counsels of Imperfection.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>So saying, he went into the schoolroom, over the fireplace of which
+my father&rsquo;s eye caught an inscription, &ldquo;Resist good, and
+it will fly from you.&nbsp; Sunchild&rsquo;s Sayings, xvii. 2.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+Then, taking down a copy of the work just named from a shelf above his
+desk, he ran his eye over a few of its pages.</p>
+<p>He called up a class of about twenty boys.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Now, my boys,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;Why is it so necessary
+to avoid extremes of truthfulness?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It is not necessary, sir,&rdquo; said one youngster, &ldquo;and
+the man who says that it is so is a scoundrel.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Come here, my boy, and hold out your hand.&rdquo;&nbsp; When
+he had done so, Mr. Turvey gave him two sharp cuts with a cane.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;There now, go down to the bottom of the class and try not to
+be so extremely truthful in future.&rdquo;&nbsp; Then, turning to my
+father, he said, &ldquo;I hate caning them, but it is the only way to
+teach them.&nbsp; I really do believe that boy will know better than
+to say what he thinks another time.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He repeated his question to the class, and the head-boy answered,
+&ldquo;Because, sir, extremes meet, and extreme truth will be mixed
+with extreme falsehood.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Quite right, my boy.&nbsp; Truth is like religion; it has
+only two enemies&mdash;the too much and the too little.&nbsp; Your answer
+is more satisfactory than some of your recent conduct had led me to
+expect.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But, sir, you punished me only three weeks ago for telling
+you a lie.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh yes; why, so I did; I had forgotten.&nbsp; But then you
+overdid it.&nbsp; Still it was a step in the right direction.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And now, my boy,&rdquo; he said to a very frank and ingenuous
+youth about half way up the class, &ldquo;and how is truth best reached?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Through the falling out of thieves, sir.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Quite so.&nbsp; Then it will be necessary that the more earnest,
+careful, patient, self-sacrificing, enquirers after truth should have
+a good deal of the thief about them, though they are very honest people
+at the same time.&nbsp; Now what does the man&rdquo; (who on enquiry
+my father found to be none other than Mr. Turvey himself) &ldquo;say
+about honesty?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He says, sir, that honesty does not consist in never stealing,
+but in knowing how and where it will be safe to do so.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Remember,&rdquo; said Mr. Turvey to my father, &ldquo;how
+necessary it is that we should have a plentiful supply of thieves, if
+honest men are ever to come by their own.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He spoke with the utmost gravity, evidently quite easy in his mind
+that his scheme was the only one by which truth could be successfully
+attained.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But pray let me have any criticism you may feel inclined to
+make.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I have none,&rdquo; said my father.&nbsp; &ldquo;Your system
+commends itself to common sense; it is the one adopted in the law courts,
+and it lies at the very foundation of party government.&nbsp; If your
+academic bodies can supply the country with a sufficient number of thieves&mdash;which
+I have no doubt they can&mdash;there seems no limit to the amount of
+truth that may be attained.&nbsp; If, however, I may suggest the only
+difficulty that occurs to me, it is that academic thieves shew no great
+alacrity in falling out, but incline rather to back each other up through
+thick and thin.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ah, yes,&rdquo; said Mr. Turvey, &ldquo;there is that difficulty;
+nevertheless circumstances from time to time arise to get them by the
+ears in spite of themselves.&nbsp; But from whatever point of view you
+may look at the question, it is obviously better to aim at imperfection
+than perfection; for if we aim steadily at imperfection, we shall probably
+get it within a reasonable time, whereas to the end of our days we should
+never reach perfection.&nbsp; Moreover, from a worldly point of view,
+there is no mistake so great as that of being always right.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+He then turned to his class and said&mdash;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And now tell me what did the Sunchild tell us about God and
+Mammon?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The head-boy answered: &ldquo;He said that we must serve both, for
+no man can serve God well and truly who does not serve Mammon a little
+also; and no man can serve Mammon effectually unless he serve God largely
+at the same time.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What were his words?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He said, &lsquo;Cursed be they that say, &ldquo;Thou shalt
+not serve God and Mammon, for it is the whole duty of man to know how
+to adjust the conflicting claims of these two deities.&rdquo;&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Here my father interposed.&nbsp; &ldquo;I knew the Sunchild; and
+I more than once heard him speak of God and Mammon.&nbsp; He never varied
+the form of the words he used, which were to the effect that a man must
+serve either God or Mammon, but that he could not serve both.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; said Mr. Turvey, &ldquo;that no doubt was his exoteric
+teaching, but Professors Hanky and Panky have assured me most solemnly
+that his esoteric teaching was as I have given it.&nbsp; By the way,
+these gentlemen are both, I understand, at Sunch&rsquo;ston, and I think
+it quite likely that I shall have a visit from them this afternoon.&nbsp;
+If you do not know them I should have great pleasure in introducing
+you to them; I was at Bridgeford with both of them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I have had the pleasure of meeting them already,&rdquo; said
+my father, &ldquo;and as you are by no means certain that they will
+come, I will ask you to let me thank you for all that you have been
+good enough to shew me, and bid you good-afternoon.&nbsp; I have a rather
+pressing engagement&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My dear sir, you must please give me five minutes more.&nbsp;
+I shall examine the boys in the Musical Bank Catechism.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+He pointed to one of them and said, &ldquo;Repeat your duty towards
+your neighbour.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My duty towards my neighbour,&rdquo; said the boy, &ldquo;is
+to be quite sure that he is not likely to borrow money of me before
+I let him speak to me at all, and then to have as little to do with
+him as&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>At this point there was a loud ring at the door bell.&nbsp; &ldquo;Hanky
+and Panky come to see me, no doubt,&rdquo; said Mr. Turvey.&nbsp; &ldquo;I
+do hope it is so.&nbsp; You must stay and see them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My dear sir,&rdquo; said my father, putting his handkerchief
+up to his face, &ldquo;I am taken suddenly unwell and must positively
+leave you.&rdquo;&nbsp; He said this in so peremptory a tone that Mr.
+Turvey had to yield.&nbsp; My father held his handkerchief to his face
+as he went through the passage and hall, but when the servant opened
+the door he took it down, for there was no Hanky or Panky&mdash;no one,
+in fact, but a poor, wizened old man who had come, as he did every other
+Saturday afternoon, to wind up the Deformatory clocks.</p>
+<p>Nevertheless, he had been scared, and was in a very wicked-fleeth-when-no-man-pursueth
+frame of mind.&nbsp; He went to his inn, and shut himself up in his
+room for some time, taking notes of all that had happened to him in
+the last three days.&nbsp; But even at his inn he no longer felt safe.&nbsp;
+How did he know but that Hanky and Panky might have driven over from
+Sunch&rsquo;ston to see Mr. Turvey, and might put up at this very house?
+or they might even be going to spend the night here.&nbsp; He did not
+venture out of his room till after seven by which time he had made rough
+notes of as much of the foregoing chapters as had come to his knowledge
+so far.&nbsp; Much of what I have told as nearly as I could in the order
+in which it happened, he did not learn till later.&nbsp; After giving
+the merest outline of his interview with Mr. Turvey, he wrote a note
+as follows:&mdash;&ldquo;I suppose I must have held forth about the
+greatest happiness of the greatest number, but I had quite forgotten
+it, though I remember repeatedly quoting my favourite proverb, &lsquo;Every
+man for himself, and the devil take the hindmost.&rsquo;&nbsp; To this
+they have paid no attention.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>By seven his panic about Hanky and Panky ended, for if they had not
+come by this time, they were not likely to do so.&nbsp; Not knowing
+that they were staying at the Mayor&rsquo;s, he had rather settled it
+that they would now stroll up to the place where they had left their
+hoard and bring it down as soon as night had fallen.&nbsp; And it is
+quite possible that they might have found some excuse for doing this,
+when dinner was over, if their hostess had not undesignedly hindered
+them by telling them about the Sunchild.&nbsp; When the conversation
+recorded in the preceding chapter was over, it was too late for them
+to make any plausible excuse for leaving the house; we may be sure,
+therefore, that much more had been said than Yram and George were able
+to remember and report to my father.</p>
+<p>After another stroll about Fairmead, during which he saw nothing
+but what on a larger scale he had already seen at Sunch&rsquo;ston,
+he returned to his inn at about half-past eight, and ordered supper
+in a public room that corresponded with the coffee-room of an English
+hotel.</p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIV: MY FATHER MAKES THE ACQUAINTANCE OF MR. BALMY, AND WALKS
+WITH HIM NEXT DAY TO SUNCH&rsquo;STON</h2>
+<p>Up to this point, though he had seen enough to shew him the main
+drift of the great changes that had taken place in Erewhonian opinions,
+my father had not been able to glean much about the history of the transformation.&nbsp;
+He could see that it had all grown out of the supposed miracle of his
+balloon ascent, and he could understand that the ignorant masses had
+been so astounded by an event so contrary to all their experience, that
+their faith in experience was utterly routed and demoralised.&nbsp;
+If a man and a woman might rise from the earth and disappear into the
+sky, what else might not happen?&nbsp; If they had been wrong in thinking
+such a thing impossible, in how much else might they not be mistaken
+also?&nbsp; The ground was shaken under their very feet.</p>
+<p>It was not as though the thing had been done in a corner.&nbsp; Hundreds
+of people had seen the ascent; and even if only a small number had been
+present, the disappearance of the balloon, of my mother, and of my father
+himself, would have confirmed their story.&nbsp; My father, then, could
+understand that a single incontrovertible miracle of the first magnitude
+should uproot the hedges of caution in the minds of the common people,
+but he could not understand how such men as Hanky and Panky, who evidently
+did not believe that there had been any miracle at all, had been led
+to throw themselves so energetically into a movement so subversive of
+all their traditions, when, as it seemed to him, if they had held out
+they might have pricked the balloon bubble easily enough, and maintained
+everything <i>in statu quo</i>.</p>
+<p>How, again, had they converted the King&mdash;if they had converted
+him?&nbsp; The Queen had had full knowledge of all the preparations
+for the ascent.&nbsp; The King had had everything explained to him.&nbsp;
+The workmen and workwomen who had made the balloon and the gas could
+testify that none but natural means had been made use of&mdash;means
+which, if again employed any number of times, would effect a like result.&nbsp;
+How could it be that when the means of resistance were so ample and
+so easy, the movement should nevertheless have been irresistible?&nbsp;
+For had it not been irresistible, was it to be believed that astute
+men like Hanky and Panky would have let themselves be drawn into it?</p>
+<p>What then had been its inner history?&nbsp; My father had so fully
+determined to make his way back on the following evening, that he saw
+no chance of getting to know the facts&mdash;unless, indeed, he should
+be able to learn something from Hanky&rsquo;s sermon; he was therefore
+not sorry to find an elderly gentleman of grave but kindly aspect seated
+opposite to him when he sat down to supper.</p>
+<p>The expression on this man&rsquo;s face was much like that of the
+early Christians as shewn in the S. Giovanni Laterano bas-reliefs at
+Rome, and again, though less aggressively self-confident, like that
+on the faces of those who have joined the Salvation Army.&nbsp; If he
+had been in England, my father would have set him down as a Swedenborgian;
+this being impossible, he could only note that the stranger bowed his
+head, evidently saying a short grace before he began to eat, as my father
+had always done when he was in Erewhon before.&nbsp; I will not say
+that my father had never omitted to say grace during the whole of the
+last twenty years, but he said it now, and unfortunately forgetting
+himself, he said it in the English language, not loud, but nevertheless
+audibly.</p>
+<p>My father was alarmed at what he had done, but there was no need,
+for the stranger immediately said, &ldquo;I hear, sir, that you have
+the gift of tongues.&nbsp; The Sunchild often mentioned it to us, as
+having been vouchsafed long since to certain of the people, to whom,
+for our learning, he saw fit to feign that he belonged.&nbsp; He thus
+foreshadowed prophetically its manifestation also among ourselves.&nbsp;
+All which, however, you must know as well as I do.&nbsp; Can you interpret?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>My father was much shocked, but he remembered having frequently spoken
+of the power of speaking in unknown tongues which was possessed by many
+of the early Christians, and he also remembered that in times of high
+religious enthusiasm this power had repeatedly been imparted, or supposed
+to be imparted, to devout believers in the middle ages.&nbsp; It grated
+upon him to deceive one who was so obviously sincere, but to avoid immediate
+discomfiture he fell in with what the stranger had said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Alas! sir,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;that rarer and more precious
+gift has been withheld from me; nor can I speak in an unknown tongue,
+unless as it is borne in upon me at the moment.&nbsp; I could not even
+repeat the words that have just fallen from me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That,&rdquo; replied the stranger, &ldquo;is almost invariably
+the case.&nbsp; These illuminations of the spirit are beyond human control.&nbsp;
+You spoke in so low a tone that I cannot interpret what you have just
+said, but should you receive a second inspiration later, I shall doubtless
+be able to interpret it for you.&nbsp; I have been singularly gifted
+in this respect&mdash;more so, perhaps, than any other interpreter in
+Erewhon.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>My father mentally vowed that no second inspiration should be vouchsafed
+to him, but presently remembering how anxious he was for information
+on the points touched upon at the beginning of this chapter, and seeing
+that fortune had sent him the kind of man who would be able to enlighten
+him, he changed his mind; nothing, he reflected, would be more likely
+to make the stranger talk freely with him, than the affording him an
+opportunity for showing off his skill as an interpreter.</p>
+<p>Something, therefore, he would say, but what?&nbsp; No one could
+talk more freely when the train of his thoughts, or the conversation
+of others, gave him his cue, but when told to say an unattached &ldquo;something,&rdquo;
+he could not even think of &ldquo;How do you do this morning? it is
+a very fine day;&rdquo; and the more he cudgelled his brains for &ldquo;something,&rdquo;
+the more they gave no response.&nbsp; He could not even converse further
+with the stranger beyond plain &ldquo;yes&rdquo; and &ldquo;no&rdquo;;
+so he went on with his supper, and in thinking of what he was eating
+and drinking for the moment forgot to ransack his brain.&nbsp; No sooner
+had he left off ransacking it, than it suggested something&mdash;not,
+indeed, a very brilliant something, but still something.&nbsp; On having
+grasped it, he laid down his knife and fork, and with the air of one
+distraught he said&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;My name is Norval, on the Grampian Hills<br>
+My father feeds his flock&mdash;a frugal swain.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>&ldquo;I heard you,&rdquo; exclaimed the stranger, &ldquo;and I can
+interpret every word of what you have said, but it would not become
+me to do so, for you have conveyed to me a message more comforting than
+I can bring myself to repeat even to him who has conveyed it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Having said this he bowed his head, and remained for some time wrapped
+in meditation.&nbsp; My father kept a respectful silence, but after
+a little time he ventured to say in a low tone, how glad he was to have
+been the medium through whom a comforting assurance had been conveyed.&nbsp;
+Presently, on finding himself encouraged to renew the conversation,
+he threw out a deferential feeler as to the causes that might have induced
+Mr. Balmy to come to Fairmead.&nbsp; &ldquo;Perhaps,&rdquo; he said,
+&ldquo;you, like myself, have come to these parts in order to see the
+dedication of the new temple; I could not get a lodging in Sunch&rsquo;ston,
+so I walked down here this morning.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>This, it seemed, had been Mr. Balmy&rsquo;s own case, except that
+he had not yet been to Sunch&rsquo;ston.&nbsp; Having heard that it
+was full to overflowing, he had determined to pass the night at Fairmead,
+and walk over in the morning&mdash;starting soon after seven, so as
+to arrive in good time for the dedication ceremony.&nbsp; When my father
+heard this, he proposed that they should walk together, to which Mr.
+Balmy gladly consented; it was therefore arranged that they should go
+to bed early, breakfast soon after six, and then walk to Sunch&rsquo;ston.&nbsp;
+My father then went to his own room, where he again smoked a surreptitious
+pipe up the chimney.</p>
+<p>Next morning the two men breakfasted together, and set out as the
+clock was striking seven.&nbsp; The day was lovely beyond the power
+of words, and still fresh&mdash;for Fairmead was some 2500 feet above
+the sea, and the sun did not get above the mountains that overhung it
+on the east side, till after eight o&rsquo;clock.&nbsp; Many persons
+were also starting for Sunch&rsquo;ston, and there was a procession
+got up by the Musical Bank Managers of the town, who walked in it, robed
+in rich dresses of scarlet and white embroidered with much gold thread.&nbsp;
+There was a banner displaying an open chariot in which the Sunchild
+and his bride were seated, beaming with smiles, and in attitudes suggesting
+that they were bowing to people who were below them.&nbsp; The chariot
+was, of course, drawn by the four black and white horses of which the
+reader has already heard, and the balloon had been ignored.&nbsp; Readers
+of my father&rsquo;s book will perhaps remember that my mother was not
+seen at all&mdash;she was smuggled into the car of the balloon along
+with sundry rugs, under which she lay concealed till the balloon had
+left the earth.&nbsp; All this went for nothing.&nbsp; It has been said
+that though God cannot alter the past, historians can; it is perhaps
+because they can be useful to Him in this respect that He tolerates
+their existence.&nbsp; Painters, my father now realised, can do all
+that historians can, with even greater effect.</p>
+<p>Women headed the procession&mdash;the younger ones dressed in white,
+with veils and chaplets of roses, blue cornflower, and pheasant&rsquo;s
+eye Narcissus, while the older women were more soberly attired.&nbsp;
+The Bank Managers and the banner headed the men, who were mostly peasants,
+but among them were a few who seemed to be of higher rank, and these,
+for the most part, though by no means all of them, wore their clothes
+reversed&mdash;as I have forgotten to say was done also by Mr. Balmy.&nbsp;
+Both men and women joined in singing a litany the words of which my
+father could not catch; the tune was one he had been used to play on
+his apology for a flute when he was in prison, being, in fact, none
+other than &ldquo;Home, Sweet Home.&rdquo;&nbsp; There was no harmony;
+they never got beyond the first four bars, but these they must have
+repeated, my father thought, at least a hundred times between Fairmead
+and Sunch&rsquo;ston.&nbsp; &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said he to himself,
+&ldquo;however little else I may have taught them, I at any rate gave
+them the diatonic scale.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He now set himself to exploit his fellow-traveller, for they soon
+got past the procession.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The greatest miracle,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;in connection
+with this whole matter, has been&mdash;so at least it seems to me&mdash;not
+the ascent of the Sunchild with his bride, but the readiness with which
+the people generally acknowledged its miraculous character.&nbsp; I
+was one of those that witnessed the ascent, but I saw no signs that
+the crowd appreciated its significance.&nbsp; They were astounded, but
+they did not fall down and worship.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; said the other, &ldquo;but you forget the long
+drought and the rain that the Sunchild immediately prevailed on the
+air-god to send us.&nbsp; He had announced himself as about to procure
+it for us; it was on this ground that the King assented to the preparation
+of those material means that were necessary before the horses of the
+sun could attach themselves to the chariot into which the balloon was
+immediately transformed.&nbsp; Those horses might not be defiled by
+contact with this gross earth.&nbsp; I too witnessed the ascent; at
+the moment, I grant you, I saw neither chariot nor horses, and almost
+all those present shared my own temporary blindness; the whole action
+from the moment when the balloon left the earth, moved so rapidly, that
+we were flustered, and hardly knew what it was that we were really seeing.&nbsp;
+It was not till two or three years later that I found the scene presenting
+itself to my soul&rsquo;s imaginary sight in the full splendour which
+was no doubt witnessed, but not apprehended, by my bodily vision.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There,&rdquo; said my father, &ldquo;you confirm an opinion
+that I have long held.&mdash;Nothing is so misleading as the testimony
+of eye-witnesses.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A spiritual enlightenment from within,&rdquo; returned Mr.
+Balmy, &ldquo;is more to be relied on than any merely physical affluence
+from external objects.&nbsp; Now, when I shut my eyes, I see the balloon
+ascend a little way, but almost immediately the heavens open, the horses
+descend, the balloon is transformed, and the glorious pageant careers
+onward till it vanishes into the heaven of heavens.&nbsp; Hundreds with
+whom I have conversed assure me that their experience has been the same
+as mine.&nbsp; Has yours been different?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh no, not at all; but I always see some storks circling round
+the balloon before I see any horses.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How strange!&nbsp; I have heard others also say that they
+saw the storks you mention; but let me do my utmost I cannot force them
+into my mental image of the scene.&nbsp; This shows, as you were saying
+just now, how incomplete the testimony of an eye-witness often is.&nbsp;
+It is quite possible that the storks were there, but the horses and
+the chariot have impressed themselves more vividly on my mind than anything
+else has.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Quite so; and I am not without hope that even at this late
+hour some further details may yet be revealed to us.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It is possible, but we should be as cautious in accepting
+any fresh details as in rejecting them.&nbsp; Should some heresy obtain
+wide acceptance, visions will perhaps be granted to us that may be useful
+in refuting it, but otherwise I expect nothing more.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Neither do I, but I have heard people say that inasmuch as
+the Sunchild said he was going to interview the air-god in order to
+send us rain, he was more probably son to the air-god than to the sun.&nbsp;
+Now here is a heresy which&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But, my dear sir,&rdquo; said Mr. Balmy, interrupting him
+with great warmth, &ldquo;he spoke of his father in heaven as endowed
+with attributes far exceeding any that can be conceivably ascribed to
+the air-god.&nbsp; The power of the air-god does not extend beyond our
+own atmosphere.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Pray believe me,&rdquo; said my father, who saw by the ecstatic
+gleam in his companion&rsquo;s eye that there was nothing to be done
+but to agree with him, &ldquo;that I accept&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Hear me to the end,&rdquo; replied Mr. Balmy.&nbsp; &ldquo;Who
+ever heard the Sunchild claim relationship with the air-god?&nbsp; He
+could command the air-god, and evidently did so, halting no doubt for
+this beneficent purpose on his journey towards his ultimate destination.&nbsp;
+Can we suppose that the air-god, who had evidently intended withholding
+the rain from us for an indefinite period, should have so immediately
+relinquished his designs against us at the intervention of any less
+exalted personage than the sun&rsquo;s own offspring?&nbsp; Impossible!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I quite agree with you,&rdquo; exclaimed my father, &ldquo;it
+is out of the&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Let me finish what I have to say.&nbsp; When the rain came
+so copiously for days, even those who had not seen the miraculous ascent
+found its consequences come so directly home to them, that they had
+no difficulty in accepting the report of others.&nbsp; There was not
+a farmer or cottager in the land but heaved a sigh of relief at rescue
+from impending ruin, and they all knew it was the Sunchild who had promised
+the King that he would make the air-god send it.&nbsp; So abundantly,
+you will remember, did it come, that we had to pray to him to stop it,
+which in his own good time he was pleased to do.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I remember,&rdquo; said my father, who was at last able to
+edge in a word, &ldquo;that it nearly flooded me out of house and home.&nbsp;
+And yet, in spite of all this, I hear that there are many at Bridgeford
+who are still hardened unbelievers.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Alas! you speak too truly.&nbsp; Bridgeford and the Musical
+Banks for the first three years fought tooth and nail to blind those
+whom it was their first duty to enlighten.&nbsp; I was a Professor of
+the hypothetical language, and you may perhaps remember how I was driven
+from my chair on account of the fearlessness with which I expounded
+the deeper mysteries of Sunchildism.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, I remember well how cruelly&mdash;&rdquo; but my father
+was not allowed to get beyond &ldquo;cruelly.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It was I who explained why the Sunchild had represented himself
+as belonging to a people in many respects analogous to our own, when
+no such people can have existed.&nbsp; It was I who detected that the
+supposed nation spoken of by the Sunchild was an invention designed
+in order to give us instruction by the light of which we might more
+easily remodel our institutions.&nbsp; I have sometimes thought that
+my gift of interpretation was vouchsafed to me in recognition of the
+humble services that I was hereby allowed to render.&nbsp; By the way,
+you have received no illumination this morning, have you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I never do, sir, when I am in the company of one whose conversation
+I find supremely interesting.&nbsp; But you were telling me about Bridgeford:
+I live hundreds of miles from Bridgeford, and have never understood
+the suddenness, and completeness, with which men like Professors Hanky
+and Panky and Dr. Downie changed front.&nbsp; Do they believe as you
+and I do, or did they merely go with the times?&nbsp; I spent a couple
+of hours with Hanky and Panky only two evenings ago, and was not so
+much impressed as I could have wished with the depth of their religious
+fervour.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;They are sincere now&mdash;more especially Hanky&mdash;but
+I cannot think I am judging them harshly, if I say that they were not
+so at first.&nbsp; Even now, I fear, that they are more carnally than
+spiritually minded.&nbsp; See how they have fought for the aggrandisement
+of their own order.&nbsp; It is mainly their doing that the Musical
+Banks have usurped the spiritual authority formerly exercised by the
+straighteners.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But the straighteners,&rdquo; said my father, &ldquo;could
+not co-exist with Sunchildism, and it is hard to see how the claims
+of the Banks can be reasonably gainsaid.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Perhaps; and after all the Banks are our main bulwark against
+the evils that I fear will follow from the repeal of the laws against
+machinery.&nbsp; This has already led to the development of a materialism
+which minimizes the miraculous element in the Sunchild&rsquo;s ascent,
+as our own people minimize the material means that were the necessary
+prologue to the miraculous.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Thus did they converse; but I will not pursue their conversation
+further.&nbsp; It will be enough to say that in further floods of talk
+Mr. Balmy confirmed what George had said about the Banks having lost
+their hold upon the masses.&nbsp; That hold was weak even in the time
+of my father&rsquo;s first visit; but when the people saw the hostility
+of the Banks to a movement which far the greater number of them accepted,
+it seemed as though both Bridgeford and the Banks were doomed, for Bridgeford
+was heart and soul with the Banks.&nbsp; Hanky, it appeared, though
+under thirty, and not yet a Professor, grasped the situation, and saw
+that Bridgeford must either move with the times, or go.&nbsp; He consulted
+some of the most sagacious Heads of Houses and Professors, with the
+result that a committee of enquiry was appointed, which in due course
+reported that the evidence for the Sunchild&rsquo;s having been the
+only child of the sun was conclusive.&nbsp; It was about this time&mdash;that
+is to say some three years after his ascent&mdash;that &ldquo;Higgsism,&rdquo;
+as it had been hitherto called, became &ldquo;Sunchildism,&rdquo; and
+&ldquo;Higgs&rdquo; the &ldquo;Sunchild.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>My father also learned the King&rsquo;s fury at his escape (for he
+would call it nothing else) with my mother.&nbsp; This was so great
+that though he had hitherto been, and had ever since proved himself
+to be, a humane ruler, he ordered the instant execution of all who had
+been concerned in making either the gas or the balloon; and his cruel
+orders were carried out within a couple of hours.&nbsp; At the same
+time he ordered the destruction by fire of the Queen&rsquo;s workshops,
+and of all remnants of any materials used in making the balloon.&nbsp;
+It is said the Queen was so much grieved and outraged (for it was her
+doing that the material ground-work, so to speak, had been provided
+for the miracle) that she wept night and day without ceasing three whole
+months, and never again allowed her husband to embrace her, till he
+had also embraced Sunchildism.</p>
+<p>When the rain came, public indignation at the King&rsquo;s action
+was raised almost to revolution pitch, and the King was frightened at
+once by the arrival of the promised downfall and the displeasure of
+his subjects.&nbsp; But he still held out, and it was only after concessions
+on the part of the Bridgeford committee, that he at last consented to
+the absorption of Sunchildism into the Musical Bank system, and to its
+establishment as the religion of the country.&nbsp; The far-reaching
+changes in Erewhonian institutions with which the reader is already
+acquainted followed as a matter of course.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I know the difficulty,&rdquo; said my father presently, &ldquo;with
+which the King was persuaded to allow the way in which the Sunchild&rsquo;s
+dress should be worn to be a matter of opinion, not dogma.&nbsp; I see
+we have adopted different fashions.&nbsp; Have you any decided opinions
+upon the subject?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I have; but I will ask you not to press me for them.&nbsp;
+Let this matter remain as the King has left it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>My father thought that he might now venture on a shot.&nbsp; So he
+said, &ldquo;I have always understood, too, that the King forced the
+repeal of the laws against machinery on the Bridgeford committee, as
+another condition of his assent?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Certainly.&nbsp; He insisted on this, partly to gratify the
+Queen, who had not yet forgiven him, and who had set her heart on having
+a watch, and partly because he expected that a development of the country&rsquo;s
+resources, in consequence of a freer use of machinery, would bring more
+money into his exchequer.&nbsp; Bridgeford fought hard and wisely here,
+but they had gained so much by the Musical Bank Managers being recognised
+as the authorised exponents of Sunchildism, that they thought it wise
+to yield&mdash;apparently with a good grace&mdash;and thus gild the
+pill which his Majesty was about to swallow.&nbsp; But even then they
+feared the consequences that are already beginning to appear, all which,
+if I mistake not, will assume far more serious proportions in the future.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;See,&rdquo; said my father suddenly, &ldquo;we are coming
+to another procession, and they have got some banners, let us walk a
+little quicker and overtake it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Horrible!&rdquo; replied Mr. Balmy fiercely.&nbsp; &ldquo;You
+must be short-sighted, or you could never have called my attention to
+it.&nbsp; Let us get it behind us as fast as possible, and not so much
+as look at it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh yes, yes,&rdquo; said my father, &ldquo;it is indeed horrible,
+I had not seen what it was.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He had not the faintest idea what the matter was, but he let Mr.
+Balmy walk a little ahead of him, so that he could see the banners,
+the most important of which he found to display a balloon pure and simple,
+with one figure in the car.&nbsp; True, at the top of the banner there
+was a smudge which might be taken for a little chariot, and some very
+little horses, but the balloon was the only thing insisted on.&nbsp;
+As for the procession, it consisted entirely of men, whom a smaller
+banner announced to be workmen from the Fairmead iron and steel works.&nbsp;
+There was a third banner, which said, &ldquo;Science as well as Sunchildism.&rdquo;</p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XV: THE TEMPLE IS DEDICATED TO MY FATHER, AND CERTAIN EXTRACTS
+ARE READ FROM HIS SUPPOSED SAYINGS</h2>
+<p>&ldquo;It is enough to break one&rsquo;s heart,&rdquo; said Mr. Balmy
+when he had outstripped the procession, and my father was again beside
+him.&nbsp; &ldquo;&lsquo;As well as,&rsquo; indeed!&nbsp; We know what
+that means.&nbsp; Wherever there is a factory there is a hot-bed of
+unbelief.&nbsp; &lsquo;As well as&rsquo;!&nbsp; Why it is a defiance.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What, I wonder,&rdquo; said my father innocently, &ldquo;must
+the Sunchild&rsquo;s feelings be, as he looks down on this procession.&nbsp;
+For there can be little doubt that he is doing so.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There can be no doubt at all,&rdquo; replied Mr. Balmy, &ldquo;that
+he is taking note of it, and of all else that is happening this day
+in Erewhon.&nbsp; Heaven grant that he be not so angered as to chastise
+the innocent as well as the guilty.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I doubt,&rdquo; said my father, &ldquo;his being so angry
+even with this procession, as you think he is.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Here, fearing an outburst of indignation, he found an excuse for
+rapidly changing the conversation.&nbsp; Moreover he was angry with
+himself for playing upon this poor good creature.&nbsp; He had not done
+so of malice prepense; he had begun to deceive him, because he believed
+himself to be in danger if he spoke the truth; and though he knew the
+part to be an unworthy one, he could not escape from continuing to play
+it, if he was to discover things that he was not likely to discover
+otherwise.</p>
+<p>Often, however, he had checked himself.&nbsp; It had been on the
+tip of his tongue to be illuminated with the words,</p>
+<blockquote><p>Sukoh and Sukop were two pretty men,<br>
+They lay in bed till the clock struck ten,</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>and to follow it up with,</p>
+<blockquote><p>Now with the drops of this most Yknarc time<br>
+My love looks fresh,</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>in order to see how Mr. Balmy would interpret the assertion here
+made about the Professors, and what statement he would connect with
+his own Erewhonian name; but he had restrained himself.</p>
+<p>The more he saw, and the more he heard, the more shocked he was at
+the mischief he had done.&nbsp; See how he had unsettled the little
+mind this poor, dear, good gentleman had ever had, till he was now a
+mere slave to preconception.&nbsp; And how many more had he not in like
+manner brought to the verge of idiocy?&nbsp; How many again had he not
+made more corrupt than they were before, even though he had not deceived
+them&mdash;as for example, Hanky and Panky.&nbsp; And the young? how
+could such a lie as that a chariot and four horses came down out of
+the clouds enter seriously into the life of any one, without distorting
+his mental vision, if not ruining it?</p>
+<p>And yet, the more he reflected, the more he also saw that he could
+do no good by saying who he was.&nbsp; Matters had gone so far that
+though he spoke with the tongues of men and angels he would not be listened
+to; and even if he were, it might easily prove that he had added harm
+to that which he had done already.&nbsp; No.&nbsp; As soon as he had
+heard Hanky&rsquo;s sermon, he would begin to work his way back, and
+if the Professors had not yet removed their purchase, he would recover
+it; but he would pin a bag containing about five pounds worth of nuggets
+on to the tree in which they had hidden it, and, if possible, he would
+find some way of sending the rest to George.</p>
+<p>He let Mr. Balmy continue talking, glad that this gentleman required
+little more than monosyllabic answers, and still more glad, in spite
+of some agitation, to see that they were now nearing Sunch&rsquo;ston,
+towards which a great concourse of people was hurrying from Clearwater,
+and more distant towns on the main road.&nbsp; Many whole families were
+coming,&mdash;the fathers and mothers carrying the smaller children,
+and also their own shoes and stockings, which they would put on when
+nearing the town.&nbsp; Most of the pilgrims brought provisions with
+them.&nbsp; All wore European costumes, but only a few of them wore
+it reversed, and these were almost invariably of higher social status
+than the great body of the people, who were mainly peasants.</p>
+<p>When they reached the town, my father was relieved at finding that
+Mr. Balmy had friends on whom he wished to call before going to the
+temple.&nbsp; He asked my father to come with him, but my father said
+that he too had friends, and would leave him for the present, while
+hoping to meet him again later in the day.&nbsp; The two, therefore,
+shook hands with great effusion, and went their several ways.&nbsp;
+My father&rsquo;s way took him first into a confectioner&rsquo;s shop,
+where he bought a couple of Sunchild buns, which he put into his pocket,
+and refreshed himself with a bottle of Sunchild cordial and water.&nbsp;
+All shops except those dealing in refreshments were closed, and the
+town was gaily decorated with flags and flowers, often festooned into
+words or emblems proper for the occasion.</p>
+<p>My father, it being now a quarter to eleven, made his way towards
+the temple, and his heart was clouded with care as he walked along.&nbsp;
+Not only was his heart clouded, but his brain also was oppressed, and
+he reeled so much on leaving the confectioner&rsquo;s shop, that he
+had to catch hold of some railings till the faintness and giddiness
+left him.&nbsp; He knew the feeling to be the same as what he had felt
+on the Friday evening, but he had no idea of the cause, and as soon
+as the giddiness left him he thought there was nothing the matter with
+him.</p>
+<p>Turning down a side street that led into the main square of the town,
+he found himself opposite the south end of the temple, with its two
+lofty towers that flanked the richly decorated main entrance.&nbsp;
+I will not attempt to describe the architecture, for my father could
+give me little information on this point.&nbsp; He only saw the south
+front for two or three minutes, and was not impressed by it, save in
+so far as it was richly ornamented&mdash;evidently at great expense&mdash;and
+very large.&nbsp; Even if he had had a longer look, I doubt whether
+I should have got more out of him, for he knew nothing of architecture,
+and I fear his test whether a building was good or bad, was whether
+it looked old and weather-beaten or no.&nbsp; No matter what a building
+was, if it was three or four hundred years old he liked it, whereas,
+if it was new, he would look to nothing but whether it kept the rain
+out.&nbsp; Indeed I have heard him say that the mediaeval sculpture
+on some of our great cathedrals often only pleases us because time and
+weather have set their seals upon it, and that if we could see it as
+it was when it left the mason&rsquo;s hands, we should find it no better
+than much that is now turned out in the Euston Road.</p>
+<p>The ground plan here given will help the reader to understand the
+few following pages more easily.</p>
+<pre>                +--------------------+
+  N            /          a           \
+ W+E          /                 b      \------------+
+  S          /       G          H       \           |
+            |             C             |    N      |
++-----------+---------------------------+-----------+------+
+|                  ------------------- I                   |
+|                  -------------------                     |
+|                  -------------------                     |
+|          o&rsquo;                                o&rsquo;            |
+|                                                          |
+|  E |||||||||||||||                 ||||||||||||||||| F   |
+|    |||||||||||||||                 |||||||||||||||||     |
+|                                                          |
+| e  A     o&rsquo;     B               C          o&rsquo;    D       | f
+|    ---          ---             ---              ---     |
+|    ---          ---             ---              ---     |
+|    ---          ---             ---              ---     |
+|    ---   o&rsquo;     ---             ---        o&rsquo;    ---     |
+|    ---          ---             ---              ---     |
+|    ---          ---             ---              ---     |
+|    ---          ---             ---              ---     |
+|    ---   o&rsquo;     ---             ---        o&rsquo;    ---     |
+|                                                          |
+|                                                          |
+|                                                          |
+|          o&rsquo;                                o&rsquo;            |
+|                                                          |
+|                                                          |
+| g                                                        |  h
+|           o&rsquo;                               o&rsquo;            |
++-----------+--------------------------------+-------------+
+|           |--------------------------------|             |
+|           |-------------M------------------|             |
+|    K      |--------------------------------|     L       |
+|           |--------------------------------|             |
+|           |--------------------------------|             |
+|           |                                |             |
++-----------+                                +-------------+</pre>
+<p>a.&nbsp; Table with cashier&rsquo;s seat on either side, and alms-box
+in front.&nbsp; The picture is exhibited on a scaffolding behind it.</p>
+<p>b.&nbsp; The reliquary.</p>
+<p>c.&nbsp; The President&rsquo;s chair.</p>
+<p>d.&nbsp; Pulpit and lectern.</p>
+<table class="autotable">
+<tr><td>
+e.</td><td rowspan="4">Side doors.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>f.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>g.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>h.</td></tr></table>
+<p>i.&nbsp; Yram&rsquo;s seat.</p>
+<p>k.&nbsp; Seats of George and the Sunchild.</p>
+<p>o&rsquo;&nbsp; Pillars.</p>
+<p>A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, blocks of seats.</p>
+<p>I.&nbsp; Steps leading from the apse to the nave.</p>
+<p>K and L.&nbsp; Towers.</p>
+<p>M.&nbsp; Steps and main entrance.</p>
+<p>N.&nbsp; Robing-room.</p>
+<p>The building was led up to by a flight of steps (M), and on entering
+it my father found it to consist of a spacious nave, with two aisles
+and an apse which was raised some three feet above the nave and aisles.&nbsp;
+There were no transepts.&nbsp; In the apse there was the table (a),
+with the two bowls of Musical Bank money mentioned on an earlier page,
+as also the alms-box in front of it.</p>
+<p>At some little distance in front of the table stood the President&rsquo;s
+chair (c), or I might almost call it throne.&nbsp; It was so placed
+that his back would be turned towards the table, which fact again shews
+that the table was not regarded as having any greater sanctity than
+the rest of the temple.</p>
+<p>Behind the table, the picture already spoken of was raised aloft.&nbsp;
+There was no balloon; some clouds that hung about the lower part of
+the chariot served to conceal the fact that the painter was uncertain
+whether it ought to have wheels or no.&nbsp; The horses were without
+driver, and my father thought that some one ought to have had them in
+hand, for they were in far too excited a state to be left safely to
+themselves.&nbsp; They had hardly any harness, but what little there
+was was enriched with gold bosses.&nbsp; My mother was in Erewhonian
+costume, my father in European, but he wore his clothes reversed.&nbsp;
+Both he and my mother seemed to be bowing graciously to an unseen crowd
+beneath them, and in the distance, near the bottom of the picture, was
+a fairly accurate representation of the Sunch&rsquo;ston new temple.&nbsp;
+High up, on the right hand, was a disc, raised and gilt, to represent
+the sun; on it, in low relief, there was an indication of a gorgeous
+palace, in which, no doubt, the sun was supposed to live; though how
+they made it all out my father could not conceive.</p>
+<p>On the right of the table there was a reliquary (b) of glass, much
+adorned with gold, or more probably gilding, for gold was so scarce
+in Erewhon that gilding would be as expensive as a thin plate of gold
+would be in Europe: but there is no knowing.&nbsp; The reliquary was
+attached to a portable stand some five feet high, and inside it was
+the relic already referred to.&nbsp; The crowd was so great that my
+father could not get near enough to see what it contained, but I may
+say here, that when, two days later, circumstances compelled him to
+have a close look at it, he saw that it consisted of about a dozen fine
+coprolites, deposited by some antediluvian creature or creatures, which,
+whatever else they may have been, were certainly not horses.</p>
+<p>In the apse there were a few cross benches (G and H) on either side,
+with an open space between them, which was partly occupied by the President&rsquo;s
+seat already mentioned.&nbsp; Those on the right, as one looked towards
+the apse, were for the Managers and Cashiers of the Bank, while those
+on the left were for their wives and daughters.</p>
+<p>In the centre of the nave, only a few feet in front of the steps
+leading to the apse, was a handsome pulpit and lectern (d).&nbsp; The
+pulpit was raised some feet above the ground, and was so roomy that
+the preacher could walk about in it.&nbsp; On either side of it there
+were cross benches with backs (E and F); those on the right were reserved
+for the Mayor, civic functionaries, and distinguished visitors, while
+those on the left were for their wives and daughters.</p>
+<p>Benches with backs (A, B, C, D) were placed about half-way down both
+nave and aisles&mdash;those in the nave being divided so as to allow
+a free passage between them.&nbsp; The rest of the temple was open space,
+about which people might walk at their will.&nbsp; There were side doors
+(<i>e</i>, <i>j</i>, and <i>f</i>, <i>h</i>) at the upper and lower
+end of each aisle.&nbsp; Over the main entrance was a gallery in which
+singers were placed.</p>
+<p>As my father was worming his way among the crowd, which was now very
+dense, he was startled at finding himself tapped lightly on the shoulder,
+and turning round in alarm was confronted by the beaming face of George.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How do you do, Professor Panky?&rdquo; said the youth&mdash;who
+had decided thus to address him.&nbsp; &ldquo;What are you doing here
+among the common people?&nbsp; Why have you not taken your place in
+one of the seats reserved for our distinguished visitors?&nbsp; I am
+afraid they must be all full by this time, but I will see what I can
+do for you.&nbsp; Come with me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; said my father.&nbsp; His heart beat so
+fast that this was all he could say, and he followed meek as a lamb.</p>
+<p>With some difficulty the two made their way to the right-hand corner
+seats of block C, for every seat in the reserved block was taken.&nbsp;
+The places which George wanted for my father and for himself were already
+occupied by two young men of about eighteen and nineteen, both of them
+well-grown, and of prepossessing appearance.&nbsp; My father saw by
+the truncheons they carried that they were special constables, but he
+took no notice of this, for there were many others scattered about the
+crowd.&nbsp; George whispered a few words to one of them, and to my
+father&rsquo;s surprise they both gave up their seats, which appear
+on the plan as (<i>k</i>).</p>
+<p>It afterwards transpired that these two young men were George&rsquo;s
+brothers, who by his desire had taken the seats some hours ago, for
+it was here that George had determined to place himself and my father
+if he could find him.&nbsp; He chose these places because they would
+be near enough to let his mother (who was at i, in the middle of the
+front row of block E, to the left of the pulpit) see my father without
+being so near as to embarrass him; he could also see and be seen by
+Hanky, and hear every word of his sermon; but perhaps his chief reason
+had been the fact that they were not far from the side-door at the upper
+end of the right-hand aisle, while there was no barrier to interrupt
+rapid egress should this prove necessary.</p>
+<p>It was now high time that they should sit down, which they accordingly
+did.&nbsp; George sat at the end of the bench, and thus had my father
+on his left.&nbsp; My father was rather uncomfortable at seeing the
+young men whom they had turned out, standing against a column close
+by, but George said that this was how it was to be, and there was nothing
+to be done but to submit.&nbsp; The young men seemed quite happy, which
+puzzled my father, who of course had no idea that their action was preconcerted.</p>
+<p>Panky was in the first row of block F, so that my father could not
+see his face except sometimes when he turned round.&nbsp; He was sitting
+on the Mayor&rsquo;s right hand, while Dr. Downie was on his left; he
+looked at my father once or twice in a puzzled way, as though he ought
+to have known him, but my father did not think he recognised him.&nbsp;
+Hanky was still with President Gurgoyle and others in the robing-room,
+N; Yram had already taken her seat: my father knew her in a moment,
+though he pretended not to do so when George pointed her out to him.&nbsp;
+Their eyes met for a second; Yram turned hers quickly away, and my father
+could not see a trace of recognition in her face.&nbsp; At no time during
+the whole ceremony did he catch her looking at him again.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why, you stupid man,&rdquo; she said to him later on in the
+day with a quick, kindly smile, &ldquo;I was looking at you all the
+time.&nbsp; As soon as the President or Hanky began to talk about you
+I knew you would stare at him, and then I could look.&nbsp; As soon
+as they left off talking about you I knew you would be looking at me,
+unless you went to sleep&mdash;and as I did not know which you might
+be doing, I waited till they began to talk about you again.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>My father had hardly taken note of his surroundings when the choir
+began singing, accompanied by a few feeble flutes and lutes, or whatever
+the name of the instrument should be, but with no violins, for he knew
+nothing of the violin, and had not been able to teach the Erewhonians
+anything about it.&nbsp; The voices were all in unison, and the tune
+they sang was one which my father had taught Yram to sing; but he could
+not catch the words.</p>
+<p>As soon as the singing began, a procession, headed by the venerable
+Dr. Gurgoyle, President of the Musical Banks of the province, began
+to issue from the robing-room, and move towards the middle of the apse.&nbsp;
+The President was sumptuously dressed, but he wore no mitre, nor anything
+to suggest an English or European Bishop.&nbsp; The Vice-President,
+Head Manager, Vice-Manager, and some Cashiers of the Bank, now ranged
+themselves on either side of him, and formed an impressive group as
+they stood, gorgeously arrayed, at the top of the steps leading from
+the apse to the nave.&nbsp; Here they waited till the singers left off
+singing.</p>
+<p>When the litany, or hymn, or whatever it should be called, was over,
+the Head Manager left the President&rsquo;s side and came down to the
+lectern in the nave, where he announced himself as about to read some
+passages from the Sunchild&rsquo;s Sayings.&nbsp; Perhaps because it
+was the first day of the year according to their new calendar, the reading
+began with the first chapter, the whole of which was read.&nbsp; My
+father told me that he quite well remembered having said the last verse,
+which he still held as true; hardly a word of the rest was ever spoken
+by him, though he recognised his own influence in almost all of it.&nbsp;
+The reader paused, with good effect, for about five seconds between
+each paragraph, and read slowly and very clearly.&nbsp; The chapter
+was as follows:-</p>
+<blockquote><p>These are the words of the Sunchild about God and man.&nbsp;
+He said&mdash;</p>
+<p>1.&nbsp; God is the baseless basis of all thoughts, things, and deeds.</p>
+<p>2.&nbsp; So that those who say that there is a God, lie, unless they
+also mean that there is no God; and those who say that there is no God,
+lie, unless they also mean that there is a God.</p>
+<p>3.&nbsp; It is very true to say that man is made after the likeness
+of God; and yet it is very untrue to say this.</p>
+<p>4.&nbsp; God lives and moves in every atom throughout the universe.&nbsp;
+Therefore it is wrong to think of Him as &lsquo;Him&rsquo; and &lsquo;He,&rsquo;
+save as by the clutching of a drowning man at a straw.</p>
+<p>5.&nbsp; God is God to us only so long as we cannot see Him.&nbsp;
+When we are near to seeing Him He vanishes, and we behold Nature in
+His stead.</p>
+<p>6.&nbsp; We approach Him most nearly when we think of Him as our
+expression for Man&rsquo;s highest conception, of goodness, wisdom,
+and power.&nbsp; But we cannot rise to Him above the level of our own
+highest selves.</p>
+<p>7.&nbsp; We remove ourselves most far from Him when we invest Him
+with human form and attributes.</p>
+<p>8.&nbsp; My father the sun, the earth, the moon, and all planets
+that roll round my father, are to God but as a single cell in our bodies
+to ourselves.</p>
+<p>9.&nbsp; He is as much above my father, as my father is above men
+and women.</p>
+<p>10.&nbsp; The universe is instinct with the mind of God.&nbsp; The
+mind of God is in all that has mind throughout all worlds.&nbsp; There
+is no God but the Universe, and man, in this world is His prophet.</p>
+<p>11.&nbsp; God&rsquo;s conscious life, nascent, so far as this world
+is concerned, in the infusoria, adolescent in the higher mammals, approaches
+maturity on this earth in man.&nbsp; All these living beings are members
+one of another, and of God.</p>
+<p>12.&nbsp; Therefore, as man cannot live without God in the world,
+so neither can God live in this world without mankind.</p>
+<p>13.&nbsp; If we speak ill of God in our ignorance it may be forgiven
+us; but if we speak ill of His Holy Spirit indwelling in good men and
+women it may not be forgiven us.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>The Head Manager now resumed his place by President Gurgoyle&rsquo;s
+side, and the President in the name of his Majesty the King declared
+the temple to be hereby dedicated to the contemplation of the Sunchild
+and the better exposition of his teaching.&nbsp; This was all that was
+said.&nbsp; The reliquary was then brought forward and placed at the
+top of the steps leading from the apse to the nave; but the original
+intention of carrying it round the temple was abandoned for fear of
+accidents through the pressure round it of the enormous multitudes who
+were assembled.&nbsp; More singing followed of a simple but impressive
+kind; during this I am afraid I must own that my father, tired with
+his walk, dropped off into a refreshing slumber, from which he did not
+wake till George nudged him and told him not to snore, just as the Vice-Manager
+was going towards the lectern to read another chapter of the Sunchild&rsquo;s
+Sayings&mdash;which was as follows:-</p>
+<blockquote><p>The Sunchild also spoke to us a parable about the unwisdom
+of the children yet unborn, who though they know so much, yet do not
+know as much as they think they do.</p>
+<p>He said:-</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The unborn have knowledge of one another so long as they are
+unborn, and this without impediment from walls or material obstacles.&nbsp;
+The unborn children in any city form a population apart, who talk with
+one another and tell each other about their developmental progress.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;They have no knowledge, and cannot even conceive the existence
+of anything that is not such as they are themselves.&nbsp; Those who
+have been born are to them what the dead are to us.&nbsp; They can see
+no life in them, and know no more about them than they do of any stage
+in their own past development other than the one through which they
+are passing at the moment.&nbsp; They do not even know that their mothers
+are alive&mdash;much less that their mothers were once as they now are.&nbsp;
+To an embryo, its mother is simply the environment, and is looked upon
+much as our inorganic surroundings are by ourselves.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The great terror of their lives is the fear of birth,&mdash;that
+they shall have to leave the only thing that they can think of as life,
+and enter upon a dark unknown which is to them tantamount to annihilation.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Some, indeed, among them have maintained that birth is not
+the death which they commonly deem it, but that there is a life beyond
+the womb of which they as yet know nothing, and which is a million fold
+more truly life than anything they have yet been able even to imagine.&nbsp;
+But the greater number shake their yet unfashioned heads and say they
+have no evidence for this that will stand a moment&rsquo;s examination.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;Nay,&rsquo; answer the others, &lsquo;so much work,
+so elaborate, so wondrous as that whereon we are now so busily engaged
+must have a purpose, though the purpose is beyond our grasp.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;Never,&rsquo; reply the first speakers; &lsquo;our
+pleasure in the work is sufficient justification for it.&nbsp; Who has
+ever partaken of this life you speak of, and re-entered into the womb
+to tell us of it?&nbsp; Granted that some few have pretended to have
+done this, but how completely have their stories broken down when subjected
+to the tests of sober criticism.&nbsp; No.&nbsp; When we are born we
+are born, and there is an end of us.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But in the hour of birth, when they can no longer re-enter
+the womb and tell the others, Behold! they find that it is not so.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Here the reader again closed his book and resumed his place in the
+apse.</p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVI: PROFESSOR HANKY PREACHES A SERMON, IN THE COURSE OF
+WHICH MY FATHER DECLARES HIMSELF TO BE THE SUNCHILD</h2>
+<p>Professor Hanky then went up into the pulpit, richly but soberly
+robed in vestments the exact nature of which I cannot determine.&nbsp;
+His carriage was dignified, and the harsh lines on his face gave it
+a strong individuality, which, though it did not attract, conveyed an
+impression of power that could not fail to interest.&nbsp; As soon as
+he had given attention time to fix itself upon him, he began his sermon
+without text or preliminary matter of any kind, and apparently without
+notes.</p>
+<p>He spoke clearly and very quietly, especially at the beginning; he
+used action whenever it could point his meaning, or give it life and
+colour, but there was no approach to staginess or even oratorical display.&nbsp;
+In fact, he spoke as one who meant what he was saying, and desired that
+his hearers should accept his meaning, fully confident in his good faith.&nbsp;
+His use of pause was effective.&nbsp; After the word &ldquo;mistake,&rdquo;
+at the end of the opening sentence, he held up his half-bent hand and
+paused for full three seconds, looking intently at his audience as he
+did so.&nbsp; Every one felt the idea to be here enounced that was to
+dominate the sermon.</p>
+<p>The sermon&mdash;so much of it as I can find room for&mdash;was as
+follows:-</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My friends, let there be no mistake.&nbsp; At such a time,
+as this, it is well we should look back upon the path by which we have
+travelled, and forward to the goal towards which we are tending.&nbsp;
+As it was necessary that the material foundations of this building should
+be so sure that there shall be no subsidence in the superstructure,
+so is it not less necessary to ensure that there shall be no subsidence
+in the immaterial structure that we have raised in consequence of the
+Sunchild&rsquo;s sojourn among us.&nbsp; Therefore, my friends, I again
+say, &lsquo;Let there be no mistake.&rsquo;&nbsp; Each stone that goes
+towards the uprearing of this visible fane, each human soul that does
+its part in building the invisible temple of our national faith, is
+bearing witness to, and lending its support to, that which is either
+the truth of truths, or the baseless fabric of a dream.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My friends, this is the only possible alternative.&nbsp; He
+in whose name we are here assembled, is either worthy of more reverential
+honour than we can ever pay him, or he is worthy of no more honour than
+any other honourable man among ourselves.&nbsp; There can be no halting
+between these two opinions.&nbsp; The question of questions is, was
+he the child of the tutelary god of this world&mdash;the sun, and is
+it to the palace of the sun that he returned when he left us, or was
+he, as some amongst us still do not hesitate to maintain, a mere man,
+escaping by unusual but strictly natural means to some part of this
+earth with which we are unacquainted.&nbsp; My friends, either we are
+on a right path or on a very wrong one, and in a matter of such supreme
+importance&mdash;there must be no mistake.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I need not remind those of you whose privilege it is to live
+in Sunch&rsquo;ston, of the charm attendant on the Sunchild&rsquo;s
+personal presence and conversation, nor of his quick sympathy, his keen
+intellect, his readiness to adapt himself to the capacities of all those
+who came to see him while he was in prison.&nbsp; He adored children,
+and it was on them that some of his most conspicuous miracles were performed.&nbsp;
+Many a time when a child had fallen and hurt itself, was he known to
+make the place well by simply kissing it.&nbsp; Nor need I recall to
+your minds the spotless purity of his life&mdash;so spotless that not
+one breath of slander has ever dared to visit it.&nbsp; I was one of
+the not very many who had the privilege of being admitted to the inner
+circle of his friends during the later weeks that he was amongst us.&nbsp;
+I loved him dearly, and it will ever be the proudest recollection of
+my life that he deigned to return me no small measure of affection.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>My father, furious as he was at finding himself dragged into complicity
+with this man&rsquo;s imposture, could not resist a smile at the effrontery
+with which he lowered his tone here, and appeared unwilling to dwell
+on an incident which he could not recall without being affected almost
+to tears, and mere allusion to which, had involved an apparent self-display
+that was above all things repugnant to him.&nbsp; What a difference
+between the Hanky of Thursday evening with its &ldquo;never set eyes
+on him and hope I never shall,&rdquo; and the Hanky of Sunday morning,
+who now looked as modest as Cleopatra might have done had she been standing
+godmother to a little blue-eyed girl&mdash;Bellerophon&rsquo;s first-born
+baby.</p>
+<p>Having recovered from his natural, but promptly repressed, emotion,
+the Professor continued:-</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I need not remind you of the purpose for which so many of
+us, from so many parts of our kingdom, are here assembled.&nbsp; We
+know what we have come hither to do: we are come each one of us to sign
+and seal by his presence the bond of his assent to those momentous changes,
+which have found their first great material expression in the temple
+that you see around you.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You all know how, in accordance with the expressed will of
+the Sunchild, the Presidents and Vice-Presidents of the Musical Banks
+began as soon as he had left us to examine, patiently, carefully, earnestly,
+and without bias of any kind, firstly the evidences in support of the
+Sunchild&rsquo;s claim to be the son of the tutelar deity of this world,
+and secondly the precise nature of his instructions as regards the future
+position and authority of the Musical Banks.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My friends, it is easy to understand why the Sunchild should
+have given us these instructions.&nbsp; With that foresight which is
+the special characteristic of divine, as compared with human, wisdom,
+he desired that the evidences in support of his superhuman character
+should be collected, sifted, and placed on record, before anything was
+either lost through the death of those who could alone substantiate
+it, or unduly supplied through the enthusiasm of over-zealous visionaries.&nbsp;
+The greater any true miracle has been, the more certainly will false
+ones accrete round it; here, then, we find the explanation of the command
+the Sunchild gave to us to gather, verify, and record, the facts of
+his sojourn here in Erewhon.&nbsp; For above all things he held it necessary
+to ensure that there should be neither mistake, nor even possibility
+of mistake.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Consider for a moment what differences of opinion would infallibly
+have arisen, if the evidences for the miraculous character of the Sunchild&rsquo;s
+mission had been conflicting&mdash;if they had rested on versions each
+claiming to be equally authoritative, but each hopelessly irreconcilable
+on vital points with every single other.&nbsp; What would future generations
+have said in answer to those who bade them fling all human experience
+to the winds, on the strength of records written they knew not certainly
+by whom, nor how long after the marvels that they recorded, and of which
+all that could be certainly said was that no two of them told the same
+story?</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Who that believes either in God or man&mdash;who with any
+self-respect, or respect for the gift of reason with which God had endowed
+him, either would, or could, believe that a chariot and four horses
+had come down from heaven, and gone back again with human or quasi-human
+occupants, unless the evidences for the fact left no loophole for escape?&nbsp;
+If a single loophole were left him, he would be unpardonable, not for
+disbelieving the story, but for believing it.&nbsp; The sin against
+God would lie not in want of faith, but in faith.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My friends, there are two sins in matters of belief.&nbsp;
+There is that of believing on too little evidence, and that of requiring
+too much before we are convinced.&nbsp; The guilt of the latter is incurred,
+alas! by not a few amongst us at the present day, but if the testimony
+to the truth of the wondrous event so faithfully depicted on the picture
+that confronts you had been less contemporaneous, less authoritative,
+less unanimous, future generations&mdash;and it is for them that we
+should now provide&mdash;would be guilty of the first-named, and not
+less heinous sin if they believed at all.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Small wonder, then, that the Sunchild, having come amongst
+us for our advantage, not his own, would not permit his beneficent designs
+to be endangered by the discrepancies, mythical developments, idiosyncracies,
+and a hundred other defects inevitably attendant on amateur and irresponsible
+recording.&nbsp; Small wonder, then, that he should have chosen the
+officials of the Musical Banks, from the Presidents and Vice-Presidents
+downwards to be the authoritative exponents of his teaching, the depositaries
+of his traditions, and his representatives here on earth till he shall
+again see fit to visit us.&nbsp; For he will come.&nbsp; Nay it is even
+possible that he may be here amongst us at this very moment, disguised
+so that none may know him, and intent only on watching our devotion
+towards him.&nbsp; If this be so, let me implore him, in the name of
+the sun his father, to reveal himself.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Now Hanky had already given my father more than one look that had
+made him uneasy.&nbsp; He had evidently recognised him as the supposed
+ranger of last Thursday evening.&nbsp; Twice he had run his eye like
+a searchlight over the front benches opposite to him, and when the beam
+had reached my father there had been no more searching.&nbsp; It was
+beginning to dawn upon my father that George might have discovered that
+he was not Professor Panky; was it for this reason that these two young
+special constables, though they gave up their places, still kept so
+close to him?&nbsp; Was George only waiting his opportunity to arrest
+him&mdash;not of course even suspecting who he was&mdash;but as a foreign
+devil who had tried to pass himself off as Professor Panky?&nbsp; Had
+this been the meaning of his having followed him to Fairmead?&nbsp;
+And should he have to be thrown into the Blue Pool by George after all?&nbsp;
+&ldquo;It would serve me,&rdquo; said he to himself, &ldquo;richly right.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>These fears which had been taking shape for some few minutes were
+turned almost to certainties by the half-contemptuous glance Hanky threw
+towards him as he uttered what was obviously intended as a challenge.&nbsp;
+He saw that all was over, and was starting to his feet to declare himself,
+and thus fall into the trap that Hanky was laying for him, when George
+gripped him tightly by the knee and whispered, &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t&mdash;you
+are in great danger.&rdquo;&nbsp; And he smiled kindly as he spoke.</p>
+<p>My father sank back dumbfounded.&nbsp; &ldquo;You know me?&rdquo;
+he whispered in reply.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Perfectly.&nbsp; So does Hanky, so does my mother; say no
+more,&rdquo; and he again smiled.</p>
+<p>George, as my father afterwards learned, had hoped that he would
+reveal himself, and had determined in spite of his mother&rsquo;s instructions,
+to give him an opportunity of doing so.&nbsp; It was for this reason
+that he had not arrested him quietly, as he could very well have done,
+before the service began.&nbsp; He wished to discover what manner of
+man his father was, and was quite happy as soon as he saw that he would
+have spoken out if he had not been checked.&nbsp; He had not yet caught
+Hanky&rsquo;s motive in trying to goad my father, but on seeing that
+he was trying to do this, he knew that a trap was being laid, and that
+my father must not be allowed to speak.</p>
+<p>Almost immediately, however, he perceived that while his eyes had
+been turned on Hanky, two burly vergers had wormed their way through
+the crowd and taken their stand close to his two brothers.&nbsp; Then
+he understood, and understood also how to frustrate.</p>
+<p>As for my father, George&rsquo;s ascendancy over him&mdash;quite
+felt by George&mdash;was so absolute that he could think of nothing
+now but the exceeding great joy of finding his fears groundless, and
+of delivering himself up to his son&rsquo;s guidance in the assurance
+that the void in his heart was filled, and that his wager not only would
+be held as won, but was being already paid.&nbsp; How they had found
+out, why he was not to speak as he would assuredly have done&mdash;for
+he was in a white heat of fury&mdash;what did it all matter now that
+he had found that which he had feared he should fail to find?&nbsp;
+He gave George a puzzled smile, and composed himself as best he could
+to hear the continuation of Hanky&rsquo;s sermon, which was as follows:-</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Who could the Sunchild have chosen, even though he had been
+gifted with no more than human sagacity, but the body of men whom he
+selected?&nbsp; It becomes me but ill to speak so warmly in favour of
+that body of whom I am the least worthy member, but what other is there
+in Erewhon so above all suspicion of slovenliness, self-seeking, preconceived
+bias, or bad faith?&nbsp; If there was one set of qualities more essential
+than another for the conduct of the investigations entrusted to us by
+the Sunchild, it was those that turn on meekness and freedom from all
+spiritual pride.&nbsp; I believe I can say quite truly that these are
+the qualities for which Bridgeford is more especially renowned.&nbsp;
+The readiness of her Professors to learn even from those who at first
+sight may seem least able to instruct them&mdash;the gentleness with
+which they correct an opponent if they feel it incumbent upon them to
+do so, the promptitude with which they acknowledge error when it is
+pointed out to them and quit a position no matter how deeply they have
+been committed to it, at the first moment in which they see that they
+cannot hold it righteously, their delicate sense of honour, their utter
+immunity from what the Sunchild used to call log-rolling or intrigue,
+the scorn with which they regard anything like hitting below the belt&mdash;these
+I believe I may truly say are the virtues for which Bridgeford is pre-eminently
+renowned.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The Professor went on to say a great deal more about the fitness
+of Bridgeford and the Musical Bank managers for the task imposed on
+them by the Sunchild, but here my father&rsquo;s attention flagged&mdash;nor,
+on looking at the verbatim report of the sermon that appeared next morning
+in the leading Sunch&rsquo;ston journal, do I see reason to reproduce
+Hanky&rsquo;s words on this head.&nbsp; It was all to shew that there
+had been no possibility of mistake.</p>
+<p>Meanwhile George was writing on a scrap of paper as though he was
+taking notes of the sermon.&nbsp; Presently he slipped this into my
+father&rsquo;s hand.&nbsp; It ran:-</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You see those vergers standing near my brothers, who gave
+up their seats to us.&nbsp; Hanky tried to goad you into speaking that
+they might arrest you, and get you into the Bank prisons.&nbsp; If you
+fall into their hands you are lost.&nbsp; I must arrest you instantly
+on a charge of poaching on the King&rsquo;s preserves, and make you
+my prisoner.&nbsp; Let those vergers catch sight of the warrant which
+I shall now give you.&nbsp; Read it and return it to me.&nbsp; Come
+with me quietly after service.&nbsp; I think you had better not reveal
+yourself at all.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>As soon as he had given my father time to read the foregoing, George
+took a warrant out of his pocket.&nbsp; My father pretended to read
+it and returned it.&nbsp; George then laid his hand on his shoulder,
+and in an undertone arrested him.&nbsp; He then wrote on another scrap
+of paper and passed it on to the elder of his two brothers.&nbsp; It
+was to the effect that he had now arrested my father, and that if the
+vergers attempted in any way to interfere between him and his prisoner,
+his brothers were to arrest both of them, which, as special constables,
+they had power to do.</p>
+<p>Yram had noted Hanky&rsquo;s attempt to goad my father, and had not
+been prepared for his stealing a march upon her by trying to get my
+father arrested by Musical Bank officials, rather than by her son.&nbsp;
+On the preceding evening this last plan had been arranged on; and she
+knew nothing of the note that Hanky had sent an hour or two later to
+the Manager of the temple&mdash;the substance of which the reader can
+sufficiently guess.&nbsp; When she had heard Hanky&rsquo;s words and
+saw the vergers, she was for a few minutes seriously alarmed, but she
+was reassured when she saw George give my father the warrant, and her
+two sons evidently explaining the position to the vergers.</p>
+<p>Hanky had by this time changed his theme, and was warning his hearers
+of the dangers that would follow on the legalization of the medical
+profession, and the repeal of the edicts against machines.&nbsp; Space
+forbids me to give his picture of the horrible tortures that future
+generations would be put to by medical men, if these were not duly kept
+in check by the influence of the Musical Banks; the horrors of the inquisition
+in the middle ages are nothing to what he depicted as certain to ensue
+if medical men were ever to have much money at their command.&nbsp;
+The only people in whose hands money might be trusted safely were those
+who presided over the Musical Banks.&nbsp; This tirade was followed
+by one not less alarming about the growth of materialistic tendencies
+among the artisans employed in the production of mechanical inventions.&nbsp;
+My father, though his eyes had been somewhat opened by the second of
+the two processions he had seen on his way to Sunch&rsquo;ston, was
+not prepared to find that in spite of the superficially almost universal
+acceptance of the new faith, there was a powerful, and it would seem
+growing, undercurrent of scepticism, with a desire to reduce his escape
+with my mother to a purely natural occurence.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It is not enough,&rdquo; said Hanky, &ldquo;that the Sunchild
+should have ensured the preparation of authoritative evidence of his
+supernatural character.&nbsp; The evidences happily exist in overwhelming
+strength, but they must be brought home to minds that as yet have stubbornly
+refused to receive them.&nbsp; During the last five years there has
+been an enormous increase in the number of those whose occupation in
+the manufacture of machines inclines them to a materialistic explanation
+even of the most obviously miraculous events, and the growth of this
+class in our midst constituted, and still constitutes, a grave danger
+to the state.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It was to meet this that the society was formed on behalf
+of which I appeal fearlessly to your generosity.&nbsp; It is called,
+as most of you doubtless know, the Sunchild Evidence Society; and his
+Majesty the King graciously consented to become its Patron.&nbsp; This
+society not only collects additional evidences&mdash;indeed it is entirely
+due to its labours that the precious relic now in this temple was discovered&mdash;but
+it is its beneficent purpose to lay those that have been authoritatively
+investigated before men who, if left to themselves, would either neglect
+them altogether, or worse still reject them.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;For the first year or two the efforts of the society met with
+but little success among those for whose benefit they were more particularly
+intended, but during the present year the working classes in some cities
+and towns (stimulated very much by the lectures of my illustrious friend
+Professor Panky) have shewn a most remarkable and zealous interest in
+Sunchild evidences, and have formed themselves into local branches for
+the study and defence of Sunchild truth.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yet in spite of all this need&mdash;of all this patient labour
+and really very gratifying success&mdash;the subscriptions to the society
+no longer furnish it with its former very modest income&mdash;an income
+which is deplorably insufficient if the organization is to be kept effective,
+and the work adequately performed.&nbsp; In spite of the most rigid
+economy, the committee have been compelled to part with a considerable
+portion of their small reserve fund (provided by a legacy) to tide over
+difficulties.&nbsp; But this method of balancing expenditure and income
+is very unsatisfactory, and cannot be long continued.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am led to plead for the society with especial insistence
+at the present time, inasmuch as more than one of those whose unblemished
+life has made them fitting recipients of such a signal favour, have
+recently had visions informing them that the Sunchild will again shortly
+visit us.&nbsp; We know not when he will come, but when he comes, my
+friends, let him not find us unmindful of, nor ungrateful for, the inestimable
+services he has rendered us.&nbsp; For come he surely will.&nbsp; Either
+in winter, what time icicles hang by the wall and milk comes frozen
+home in the pail&mdash;or in summer when days are at their longest and
+the mowing grass is about&mdash;there will be an hour, either at morn,
+or eve, or in the middle day, when he will again surely come.&nbsp;
+May it be mine to be among those who are then present to receive him.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Here he again glared at my father, whose blood was boiling.&nbsp;
+George had not positively forbidden him to speak out; he therefore sprang
+to his feet, &ldquo;You lying hound,&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;I am the
+Sunchild, and you know it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>George, who knew that he had my father in his own hands, made no
+attempt to stop him, and was delighted that he should have declared
+himself though he had felt it his duty to tell him not to do so.&nbsp;
+Yram turned pale.&nbsp; Hanky roared out, &ldquo;Tear him in pieces&mdash;leave
+not a single limb on his body.&nbsp; Take him out and burn him alive.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+The vergers made a dash for him&mdash;but George&rsquo;s brothers seized
+them.&nbsp; The crowd seemed for a moment inclined to do as Hanky bade
+them, but Yram rose from her place, and held up her hand as one who
+claimed attention.&nbsp; She advanced towards George and my father as
+unconcernedly as though she were merely walking out of church, but she
+still held her hand uplifted.&nbsp; All eyes were turned on her, as
+well as on George and my father, and the icy calm of her self-possession
+chilled those who were inclined for the moment to take Hanky&rsquo;s
+words literally.&nbsp; There was not a trace of fluster in her gait,
+action, or words, as she said&mdash;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My friends, this temple, and this day, must not be profaned
+with blood.&nbsp; My son will take this poor madman to the prison.&nbsp;
+Let him be judged and punished according to law.&nbsp; Make room, that
+he and my son may pass.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Then, turning to my father, she said, &ldquo;Go quietly with the
+Ranger.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Having so spoken, she returned to her seat as unconcernedly as she
+had left it.</p>
+<p>Hanky for a time continued to foam at the mouth and roar out, &ldquo;Tear
+him to pieces! burn him alive!&rdquo; but when he saw that there was
+no further hope of getting the people to obey him, he collapsed on to
+a seat in his pulpit, mopped his bald head, and consoled himself with
+a great pinch of a powder which corresponds very closely to our own
+snuff.</p>
+<p>George led my father out by the side door at the north end of the
+western aisle; the people eyed him intently, but made way for him without
+demonstration.&nbsp; One voice alone was heard to cry out, &ldquo;Yes,
+he is the Sunchild!&rdquo;&nbsp; My father glanced at the speaker, and
+saw that he was the interpreter who had taught him the Erewhonian language
+when he was in prison.</p>
+<p>George, seeing a special constable close by, told him to bid his
+brothers release the vergers, and let them arrest the interpreter&mdash;this
+the vergers, foiled as they had been in the matter of my father&rsquo;s
+arrest, were very glad to do.&nbsp; So the poor interpreter, to his
+dismay, was lodged at once in one of the Bank prison-cells, where he
+could do no further harm.</p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVII: GEORGE TAKES HIS FATHER TO PRISON, AND THERE OBTAINS
+SOME USEFUL INFORMATION</h2>
+<p>By this time George had got my father into the open square, where
+he was surprised to find that a large bonfire had been made and lighted.&nbsp;
+There had been nothing of the kind an hour before; the wood, therefore,
+must have been piled and lighted while people had been in church.&nbsp;
+He had no time at the moment to enquire why this had been done, but
+later on he discovered that on the Sunday morning the Manager of the
+new temple had obtained leave from the Mayor to have the wood piled
+in the square, representing that this was Professor Hanky&rsquo;s contribution
+to the festivities of the day.&nbsp; There had, it seemed, been no intention
+of lighting it until nightfall; but it had accidentally caught fire
+through the carelessness of a workman, much about the time when Hanky
+began to preach.&nbsp; No one for a moment believed that there had been
+any sinister intention, or that Professor Hanky when he urged the crowd
+to burn my father alive, even knew that there was a pile of wood in
+the square at all&mdash;much less that it had been lighted&mdash;for
+he could hardly have supposed that the wood had been got together so
+soon.&nbsp; Nevertheless both George and my father, when they knew all
+that had passed, congratulated themselves on the fact that my father
+had not fallen into the hands of the vergers, who would probably have
+tried to utilise the accidental fire, though in no case is it likely
+they would have succeeded.</p>
+<p>As soon as they were inside the gaol, the old Master recognised my
+father.&nbsp; &ldquo;Bless my heart&mdash;what?&nbsp; You here, again,
+Mr. Higgs?&nbsp; Why, I thought you were in the palace of the sun your
+father.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I wish I was,&rdquo; answered my father, shaking hands with
+him, but he could say no more.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are as safe here as if you were,&rdquo; said George laughing,
+&ldquo;and safer.&rdquo;&nbsp; Then turning to his grandfather, he said,
+&ldquo;You have the record of Mr. Higgs&rsquo;s marks and measurements?&nbsp;
+I know you have: take him to his old cell; it is the best in the prison;
+and then please bring me the record.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The old man took George and my father to the cell which he had occupied
+twenty years earlier&mdash;but I cannot stay to describe his feelings
+on finding himself again within it.&nbsp; The moment his grandfather&rsquo;s
+back was turned, George said to my father, &ldquo;And now shake hands
+also with your son.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>As he spoke he took my father&rsquo;s hand and pressed it warmly
+between both his own.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then you know you are my son,&rdquo; said my father as steadily
+as the strong emotion that mastered him would permit.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Certainly.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But you did not know this when I was walking with you on Friday?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Of course not.&nbsp; I thought you were Professor Panky; if
+I had not taken you for one of the two persons named in your permit,
+I should have questioned you closely, and probably ended by throwing
+you into the Blue Pool.&rdquo;&nbsp; He shuddered as he said this.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But you knew who I was when you called me Panky in the temple?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Quite so.&nbsp; My mother told me everything on Friday evening.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And that is why you tried to find me at Fairmead?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, but where in the world were you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I was inside the Musical Bank of the town, resting and reading.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>George laughed, and said, &ldquo;On purpose to hide?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh no; pure chance.&nbsp; But on Friday evening?&nbsp; How
+could your mother have found out by that time that I was in Erewhon?&nbsp;
+Am I on my head or my heels?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;On your heels, my father, which shall take you back to your
+own country as soon as we can get you out of this.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What have I done to deserve so much goodwill?&nbsp; I have
+done you nothing but harm?&rdquo;&nbsp; Again he was quite overcome.</p>
+<p>George patted him gently on the hand, and said, &ldquo;You made a
+bet and you won it.&nbsp; During the very short time that we can be
+together, you shall be paid in full, and may heaven protect us both.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>As soon as my father could speak he said, &ldquo;But how did your
+mother find out that I was in Erewhon?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Hanky and Panky were dining with her, and they told her some
+things that she thought strange.&nbsp; She cross-questioned them, put
+two and two together, learned that you had got their permit out of them,
+saw that you intended to return on Friday, and concluded that you would
+be sleeping in Sunch&rsquo;ston.&nbsp; She sent for me, told me all,
+bade me scour Sunch&rsquo;ston to find you, intending that you should
+be at once escorted safely over the preserves by me.&nbsp; I found your
+inn, but you had given us the slip.&nbsp; I tried first Fairmead and
+then Clearwater, but did not find you till this morning.&nbsp; For reasons
+too long to repeat, my mother warned Hanky and Panky that you would
+be in the temple; whereon Hanky tried to get you into his clutches.&nbsp;
+Happily he failed, but if I had known what he was doing I should have
+arrested you before the service.&nbsp; I ought to have done this, but
+I wanted you to win your wager, and I shall get you safely away in spite
+of them.&nbsp; My mother will not like my having let you hear Hanky&rsquo;s
+sermon and declare yourself.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You half told me not to say who I was.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, but I was delighted when you disobeyed me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I did it very badly.&nbsp; I never rise to great occasions,
+I always fall to them, but these things must come as they come.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You did it as well as it could be done, and good will come
+of it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And now,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;describe exactly all
+that passed between you and the Professors.&nbsp; On which side of Panky
+did Hanky sit, and did they sit north and south or east and west?&nbsp;
+How did you get&mdash;oh yes, I know that&mdash;you told them it would
+be of no further use to them.&nbsp; Tell me all else you can.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>My father said that the Professors were sitting pretty well east
+and west, so that Hanky, who was on the east side, nearest the mountains,
+had Panky, who was on the Sunch&rsquo;ston side, on his right hand.&nbsp;
+George made a note of this.&nbsp; My father then told what the reader
+already knows, but when he came to the measurement of the boots, George
+said, &ldquo;Take your boots off,&rdquo; and began taking off his own.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Foot for foot,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;we are not father and son,
+but brothers.&nbsp; Yours will fit me; they are less worn than mine,
+but I daresay you will not mind that.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>On this George <i>ex abundanti cautel&acirc;</i> knocked a nail out
+of the right boot that he had been wearing and changed boots with my
+father; but he thought it more plausible not to knock out exactly the
+same nail that was missing on my father&rsquo;s boot.&nbsp; When the
+change was made, each found&mdash;or said he found&mdash;the other&rsquo;s
+boots quite comfortable.</p>
+<p>My father all the time felt as though he were a basket given to a
+dog.&nbsp; The dog had got him, was proud of him, and no one must try
+to take him away.&nbsp; The promptitude with which George took to him,
+the obvious pleasure he had in &ldquo;running&rdquo; him, his quick
+judgement, verging as it should towards rashness, his confidence that
+my father trusted him without reserve, the conviction of perfect openness
+that was conveyed by the way in which his eyes never budged from my
+father&rsquo;s when he spoke to him, his genial, kindly, manner, perfect
+physical health, and the air he had of being on the best possible terms
+with himself and every one else&mdash;the combination of all this so
+overmastered my poor father (who indeed had been sufficiently mastered
+before he had been five minutes in George&rsquo;s company) that he resigned
+himself as gratefully to being a basket, as George had cheerfully undertaken
+the task of carrying him.</p>
+<p>In passing I may say that George could never get his own boots back
+again, though he tried more than once to do so.&nbsp; My father always
+made some excuse.&nbsp; They were the only memento of George that he
+brought home with him; I wonder that he did not ask for a lock of his
+hair, but he did not.&nbsp; He had the boots put against a wall in his
+bedroom, where he could see them from his bed, and during his illness,
+while consciousness yet remained with him, I saw his eyes continually
+turn towards them.&nbsp; George, in fact, dominated him as long as anything
+in this world could do so.&nbsp; Nor do I wonder; on the contrary, I
+love his memory the better; for I too, as will appear later, have seen
+George, and whatever little jealousy I may have felt, vanished on my
+finding him almost instantaneously gain the same ascendancy over me
+his brother, that he had gained over his and my father.&nbsp; But of
+this no more at present.&nbsp; Let me return to the gaol in Sunch&rsquo;ston.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Tell me more,&rdquo; said George, &ldquo;about the Professors.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>My father told him about the nuggets, the sale of his kit, the receipt
+he had given for the money, and how he had got the nuggets back from
+a tree, the position of which he described.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I know the tree; have you got the nuggets here?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Here they are, with the receipt, and the pocket handkerchief
+marked with Hanky&rsquo;s name.&nbsp; The pocket handkerchief was found
+wrapped round some dried leaves that we call tea, but I have not got
+these with me.&rdquo;&nbsp; As he spoke he gave everything to George,
+who showed the utmost delight in getting possession of them.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I suppose the blanket and the rest of the kit are still in
+the tree?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Unless Hanky and Panky have got them away, or some one has
+found them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;This is not likely.&nbsp; I will now go to my office, but
+I will come back very shortly.&nbsp; My grandfather shall bring you
+something to eat at once.&nbsp; I will tell him to send enough for two&rdquo;&mdash;which
+he accordingly did.</p>
+<p>On reaching the office, he told his next brother (whom he had made
+an under-ranger) to go to the tree he described, and bring back the
+bundle he should find concealed therein.&nbsp; &ldquo;You can go there
+and back,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;in an hour and a half, and I shall
+want the bundle by that time.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The brother, whose name I never rightly caught, set out at once.&nbsp;
+As soon as he was gone, George took from a drawer the feathers and bones
+of quails, that he had shown my father on the morning when he met him.&nbsp;
+He divided them in half, and made them into two bundles, one of which
+he docketed, &ldquo;Bones of quails eaten, XIX. xii. 29, by Professor
+Hanky, P.O.W.W., &amp;c.&rdquo;&nbsp; And he labelled Panky&rsquo;s
+quail bones in like fashion.</p>
+<p>Having done this, he returned to the gaol, but on his way he looked
+in at the Mayor&rsquo;s, and left a note saying that he should be at
+the gaol, where any message would reach him, but that he did not wish
+to meet Professors Hanky and Panky for another couple of hours.&nbsp;
+It was now about half-past twelve, and he caught sight of a crowd coming
+quietly out of the temple, whereby he knew that Hanky would soon be
+at the Mayor&rsquo;s house.</p>
+<p>Dinner was brought in almost at the moment when George returned to
+the gaol.&nbsp; As soon as it was over George said:-</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Are you quite sure you have made no mistake about the way
+in which you got the permit out of the Professors?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Quite sure.&nbsp; I told them they would not want it, and
+said I could save them trouble if they gave it me.&nbsp; They never
+suspected why I wanted it.&nbsp; Where do you think I may be mistaken?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You sold your nuggets for rather less than a twentieth part
+of their value, and you threw in some curiosities, that would have fetched
+about half as much as you got for the nuggets.&nbsp; You say you did
+this because you wanted money to keep you going till you could sell
+some of your nuggets.&nbsp; This sounds well at first, but the sacrifice
+is too great to be plausible when considered.&nbsp; It looks more like
+a case of good honest manly straightforward corruption.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But surely you believe me?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Of course I do.&nbsp; I believe every syllable that comes
+from your mouth, but I shall not be able to make out that the story
+was as it was not, unless I am quite certain what it really was.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It was exactly as I have told you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That is enough.&nbsp; And now, may I tell my mother that you
+will put yourself in her, and the Mayor&rsquo;s, and my, hands, and
+will do whatever we tell you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I will be obedience itself&mdash;but you will not ask me to
+do anything that will make your mother or you think less well of me?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If we tell you what you are to do, we shall not think any
+the worse of you for doing it.&nbsp; Then I may say to my mother that
+you will be good and give no trouble&mdash;not even though we bid you
+shake hands with Hanky and Panky?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I will embrace them and kiss them on both cheeks, if you and
+she tell me to do so.&nbsp; But what about the Mayor?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He has known everything, and condoned everything, these last
+twenty years.&nbsp; He will leave everything to my mother and me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Shall I have to see him?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Certainly.&nbsp; You must be brought up before him to-morrow
+morning.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How can I look him in the face?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;As you would me, or any one else.&nbsp; It is understood among
+us that nothing happened.&nbsp; Things may have looked as though they
+had happened, but they did not happen.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And you are not yet quite twenty?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, but I am son to my mother&mdash;and,&rdquo; he added,
+&ldquo;to one who can stretch a point or two in the way of honesty as
+well as other people.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Having said this with a laugh, he again took my father&rsquo;s hand
+between both his, and went back to his office&mdash;where he set himself
+to think out the course he intended to take when dealing with the Professors.</p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVIII: YRAM INVITES DR. DOWNIE AND MRS. HUMDRUM TO LUNCHEON&mdash;A
+PASSAGE AT ARMS BETWEEN HER AND HANKY IS AMICABLY ARRANGED</h2>
+<p>The disturbance caused by my father&rsquo;s outbreak was quickly
+suppressed, for George got him out of the temple almost immediately;
+it was bruited about, however, that the Sunchild had come down from
+the palace of the sun, but had disappeared as soon as any one had tried
+to touch him.&nbsp; In vain did Hanky try to put fresh life into his
+sermon; its back had been broken, and large numbers left the church
+to see what they could hear outside, or failing information, to discourse
+more freely with one another.</p>
+<p>Hanky did his best to quiet his hearers when he found that he could
+not infuriate them,&mdash;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;This poor man,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;is already known to
+me, as one of those who have deluded themselves into believing that
+they are the Sunchild.&nbsp; I have known of his so declaring himself,
+more than once, in the neighbourhood of Bridgeford, and others have
+not infrequently done the same; I did not at first recognize him, and
+regret that the shock of horror his words occasioned me should have
+prompted me to suggest violence against him.&nbsp; Let this unfortunate
+affair pass from your minds, and let me again urge upon you the claims
+of the Sunchild Evidence Society.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The audience on hearing that they were to be told more about the
+Sunchild Evidence Society melted away even more rapidly than before,
+and the sermon fizzled out to an ignominious end quite unworthy of its
+occasion.</p>
+<p>About half-past twelve, the service ended, and Hanky went to the
+robing-room to take off his vestments.&nbsp; Yram, the Mayor, and Panky,
+waited for him at the door opposite to that through which my father
+had been taken; while waiting, Yram scribbled off two notes in pencil,
+one to Dr. Downie, and another to Mrs. Humdrum, begging them to come
+to lunch at once&mdash;for it would be one o&rsquo;clock before they
+could reach the Mayor&rsquo;s.&nbsp; She gave these notes to the Mayor,
+and bade him bring both the invited guests along with him.</p>
+<p>The Mayor left just as Hanky was coming towards her.&nbsp; &ldquo;This,
+Mayoress,&rdquo; he said with some asperity, &ldquo;is a very serious
+business.&nbsp; It has ruined my collection.&nbsp; Half the people left
+the temple without giving anything at all.&nbsp; You seem,&rdquo; he
+added in a tone the significance of which could not be mistaken, &ldquo;to
+be very fond, Mayoress, of this Mr. Higgs.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Yram, &ldquo;I am; I always liked him, and
+I am sorry for him; but he is not the person I am most sorry for at
+this moment&mdash;he, poor man, is not going to be horsewhipped within
+the next twenty minutes.&rdquo;&nbsp; And she spoke the &ldquo;he&rdquo;
+in italics.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I do not understand you, Mayoress.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My husband will explain, as soon as I have seen him.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Hanky,&rdquo; said Panky, &ldquo;you must withdraw, and apologise
+at once.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Hanky was not slow to do this, and when he had disavowed everything,
+withdrawn everything, apologised for everything, and eaten humble pie
+to Yram&rsquo;s satisfaction, she smiled graciously, and held out her
+hand, which Hanky was obliged to take.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And now, Professor,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;let me return
+to your remark that this is a very serious business, and let me also
+claim a woman&rsquo;s privilege of being listened to whenever she chooses
+to speak.&nbsp; I propose, then, that we say nothing further about this
+matter till after luncheon.&nbsp; I have asked Dr. Downie and Mrs. Humdrum
+to join us&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why Mrs. Humdrum?&rdquo; interrupted Hanky none too pleasantly,
+for he was still furious about the duel that had just taken place between
+himself and his hostess.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My dear Professor,&rdquo; said Yram good-humouredly, &ldquo;pray
+say all you have to say and I will continue.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Hanky was silent.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I have asked,&rdquo; resumed Yram, &ldquo;Dr. Downie and Mrs.
+Humdrum to join, us, and after luncheon we can discuss the situation
+or no as you may think proper.&nbsp; Till then let us say no more.&nbsp;
+Luncheon will be over by two o&rsquo;clock or soon after, and the banquet
+will not begin till seven, so we shall have plenty of time.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Hanky looked black and said nothing.&nbsp; As for Panky he was morally
+in a state of collapse, and did not count.</p>
+<p>Hardly had they reached the Mayor&rsquo;s house when the Mayor also
+arrived with Dr. Downie and Mrs. Humdrum, both of whom had seen and
+recognised my father in spite of his having dyed his hair.&nbsp; Dr.
+Downie had met him at supper in Mr. Thims&rsquo;s rooms when he had
+visited Bridgeford, and naturally enough had observed him closely.&nbsp;
+Mrs. Humdrum, as I have already said, had seen him more than once when
+he was in prison.&nbsp; She and Dr. Downie were talking earnestly over
+the strange reappearance of one whom they had believed long since dead,
+but Yram imposed on them the same silence that she had already imposed
+on the Professors.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Professor Hanky,&rdquo; said she to Mrs. Humdrum, in Hanky&rsquo;s
+hearing, &ldquo;is a little alarmed at my having asked you to join our
+secret conclave.&nbsp; He is not married, and does not know how well
+a woman can hold her tongue when she chooses.&nbsp; I should have told
+you all that passed, for I mean to follow your advice, so I thought
+you had better hear everything yourself.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Hanky still looked black, but he said nothing.&nbsp; Luncheon was
+promptly served, and done justice to in spite of much preoccupation;
+for if there is one thing that gives a better appetite than another,
+it is a Sunday morning&rsquo;s service with a charity sermon to follow.&nbsp;
+As the guests might not talk on the subject they wanted to talk about,
+and were in no humour to speak of anything else, they gave their whole
+attention to the good things that were before them, without so much
+as a thought about reserving themselves for the evening&rsquo;s banquet.&nbsp;
+Nevertheless, when luncheon was over, the Professors were in no more
+genial, manageable, state of mind than they had been when it began.</p>
+<p>When the servants had left the room, Yram said to Hanky, &ldquo;You
+saw the prisoner, and he was the man you met on Thursday night?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Certainly, he was wearing the forbidden dress and he had many
+quails in his possession.&nbsp; There is no doubt also that he was a
+foreign devil.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>At this point, it being now nearly half-past two, George came in,
+and took a seat next to Mrs. Humdrum&mdash;between her and his mother&mdash;who
+of course sat at the head of the table with the Mayor opposite to her.&nbsp;
+On one side of the table sat the Professors, and on the other Dr. Downie,
+Mrs. Humdrum, and George, who had heard the last few words that Hanky
+had spoken.</p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIX: A COUNCIL IS HELD AT THE MAYOR&rsquo;S, IN THE COURSE
+OF WHICH GEORGE TURNS THE TABLES ON THE PROFESSORS</h2>
+<p>&ldquo;Now who,&rdquo; said Yram, &ldquo;is this unfortunate creature
+to be, when he is brought up to-morrow morning, on the charge of poaching?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It is not necessary,&rdquo; said Hanky severely, &ldquo;that
+he should be brought up for poaching.&nbsp; He is a foreign devil, and
+as such your son is bound to fling him without trial into the Blue Pool.&nbsp;
+Why bring a smaller charge when you must inflict the death penalty on
+a more serious one?&nbsp; I have already told you that I shall feel
+it my duty to report the matter at headquarters, unless I am satisfied
+that the death penalty has been inflicted.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; said George, &ldquo;we must all of us do
+our duty, and I shall not shrink from mine&mdash;but I have arrested
+this man on a charge of poaching, and must give my reasons; the case
+cannot be dropped, and it must be heard in public.&nbsp; Am I, or am
+I not, to have the sworn depositions of both you gentlemen to the fact
+that the prisoner is the man you saw with quails in his possession?&nbsp;
+If you can depose to this he will be convicted, for there can be no
+doubt he killed the birds himself.&nbsp; The least penalty my father
+can inflict is twelve months&rsquo; imprisonment with hard labour; and
+he must undergo this sentence before I can Blue-Pool him.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then comes the question whether or no he is a foreign devil.&nbsp;
+I may decide this in private, but I must have depositions on oath before
+I do so, and at present I have nothing but hearsay.&nbsp; Perhaps you
+gentlemen can give me the evidence I shall require, but the case is
+one of such importance that were the prisoner proved never so clearly
+to be a foreign devil, I should not Blue-Pool him till I had taken the
+King&rsquo;s pleasure concerning him.&nbsp; I shall rejoice, therefore,
+if you gentlemen can help me to sustain the charge of poaching, and
+thus give me legal standing-ground for deferring action which the King
+might regret, and which once taken cannot be recalled.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Here Yram interposed.&nbsp; &ldquo;These points,&rdquo; she said,
+&ldquo;are details.&nbsp; Should we not first settle, not what, but
+who, we shall allow the prisoner to be, when he is brought up to-morrow
+morning?&nbsp; Settle this, and the rest will settle itself.&nbsp; He
+has declared himself to be the Sunchild, and will probably do so again.&nbsp;
+I am prepared to identify him, so is Dr. Downie, so is Mrs. Humdrum,
+the interpreter, and doubtless my father.&nbsp; Others of known respectability
+will also do so, and his marks and measurements are sure to correspond
+quite sufficiently.&nbsp; The question is, whether all this is to be
+allowed to appear on evidence, or whether it is to be established, as
+it easily may, if we give our minds to it, that he is not the Sunchild.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Whatever else he is,&rdquo; said Hanky, &ldquo;he must not
+be the Sunchild.&nbsp; He must, if the charge of poaching cannot be
+dropped, be a poacher and a foreign devil.&nbsp; I was doubtless too
+hasty when I said that I believed I recognized the man as one who had
+more than once declared himself to be the Sunchild&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But, Hanky,&rdquo; interrupted Panky, &ldquo;are you sure
+that you can swear to this man&rsquo;s being the man we met on Thursday
+night?&nbsp; We only saw him by firelight, and I doubt whether I should
+feel justified in swearing to him.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, well: on second thoughts I am not sure, Panky, but what
+you may be right after all; it is possible that he may be what I said
+he was in my sermon.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I rejoice to hear you say so,&rdquo; said George, &ldquo;for
+in this case the charge of poaching will fall through.&nbsp; There will
+be no evidence against the prisoner.&nbsp; And I rejoice also to think
+that I shall have nothing to warrant me in believing him to be a foreign
+devil.&nbsp; For if he is not to be the Sunchild, and not to be your
+poacher, he becomes a mere monomaniac.&nbsp; If he apologises for having
+made a disturbance in the temple, and promises not to offend again,
+a fine, and a few days&rsquo; imprisonment, will meet the case, and
+he may be discharged.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I see, I see,&rdquo; said Hanky very angrily.&nbsp; &ldquo;You
+are determined to get this man off if you can.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I shall act,&rdquo; said George, &ldquo;in accordance with
+sworn evidence, and not otherwise.&nbsp; Choose whether you will have
+the prisoner to be your poacher or no: give me your sworn depositions
+one way or the other, and I shall know how to act.&nbsp; If you depose
+on oath to the identity of the prisoner and your poacher, he will be
+convicted and imprisoned.&nbsp; As to his being a foreign devil, if
+he is the Sunchild, of course he is one; but otherwise I cannot Blue-Pool
+him even when his sentence is expired, without testimony deposed to
+me on oath in private, though no open trial is required.&nbsp; A case
+for suspicion was made out in my hearing last night, but I must have
+depositions on oath to all the leading facts before I can decide what
+my duty is.&nbsp; What will you swear to?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;All this,&rdquo; said Hanky, in a voice husky with passion,
+&ldquo;shall be reported to the King.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I intend to report every word of it; but that is not the point:
+the question is what you gentlemen will swear to?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Very well.&nbsp; I will settle it thus.&nbsp; We will swear
+that the prisoner is the poacher we met on Thursday night, and that
+he is also a foreign devil: his wearing the forbidden dress; his foreign
+accent; the foot-tracks we found in the snow, as of one coming over
+from the other side; his obvious ignorance of the Afforesting Act, as
+shown by his having lit a fire and making no effort to conceal his quails
+till our permit shewed him his blunder; the cock-and-bull story he told
+us about your orders, and that other story about his having killed a
+foreign devil&mdash;if these facts do not satisfy you, they will satisfy
+the King that the prisoner is a foreign devil as well as a poacher.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Some of these facts,&rdquo; answered George, &ldquo;are new
+to me.&nbsp; How do you know that the foot-tracks were made by the prisoner?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Panky brought out his note-book and read the details he had noted.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Did you examine the man&rsquo;s boots?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;One of them, the right foot; this, with the measurements,
+was quite enough.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Hardly.&nbsp; Please to look at both soles of my own boots;
+you will find that those tracks were mine.&nbsp; I will have the prisoner&rsquo;s
+boots examined; in the meantime let me tell you that I was up at the
+statues on Thursday morning, walked three or four hundred yards beyond
+them, over ground where there was less snow, returned over the snow,
+and went two or three times round them, as it is the Ranger&rsquo;s
+duty to do once a year in order to see that none of them are beginning
+to lean.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He showed the soles of his boots, and the Professors were obliged
+to admit that the tracks were his.&nbsp; He cautioned them as to the
+rest of the points on which they relied.&nbsp; Might they not be as
+mistaken, as they had just proved to be about the tracks?&nbsp; He could
+not, however, stir them from sticking to it that there was enough evidence
+to prove my father to be a foreign devil, and declaring their readiness
+to depose to the facts on oath.&nbsp; In the end Hanky again fiercely
+accused him of trying to shield the prisoner.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are quite right,&rdquo; said George, &ldquo;and you will
+see my reasons shortly.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I have no doubt,&rdquo; said Hanky significantly, &ldquo;that
+they are such as would weigh with any man of ordinary feeling.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I understand, then,&rdquo; said George, appearing to take
+no notice of Hanky&rsquo;s innuendo, &ldquo;that you will swear to the
+facts as you have above stated them?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Certainly.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then kindly wait while I write them on the form that I have
+brought with me; the Mayor can administer the oath and sign your depositions.&nbsp;
+I shall then be able to leave you, and proceed with getting up the case
+against the prisoner.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>So saying, he went to a writing-table in another part of the room,
+and made out the depositions.</p>
+<p>Meanwhile the Mayor, Mrs. Humdrum, and Dr. Downie (who had each of
+them more than once vainly tried to take part in the above discussion)
+conversed eagerly in an undertone among themselves.&nbsp; Hanky was
+blind with rage, for he had a sense that he was going to be outwitted;
+the Mayor, Yram, and Mrs. Humdrum had already seen that George thought
+he had all the trumps in his own hand, but they did not know more.&nbsp;
+Dr. Downie was frightened, and Panky so muddled as to be <i>hors de
+combat</i>.</p>
+<p>George now rejoined the Professors, and read the depositions: the
+Mayor administered the oath according to Erewhonian custom; the Professors
+signed without a word, and George then handed the document to his father
+to countersign.</p>
+<p>The Mayor examined it, and almost immediately said, &ldquo;My dear
+George, you have made a mistake; these depositions are on a form reserved
+for deponents who are on the point of death.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Alas!&rdquo; answered George, &ldquo;there is no help for
+it.&nbsp; I did my utmost to prevent their signing.&nbsp; I knew that
+those depositions were their own death warrant,&mdash;and that is why,
+though I was satisfied that the prisoner is a foreign devil, I had hoped
+to be able to shut my eyes.&nbsp; I can now no longer do so, and as
+the inevitable consequence, I must Blue-Pool both the Professors before
+midnight.&nbsp; What man of ordinary feeling would not under these circumstances
+have tried to dissuade them from deposing as they have done?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>By this time the Professors had started to their feet, and there
+was a look of horrified astonishment on the faces of all present, save
+that of George, who seemed quite happy.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What monstrous absurdity is this?&rdquo; shouted Hanky; &ldquo;do
+you mean to murder us?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Certainly not.&nbsp; But you have insisted that I should do
+my duty, and I mean to do it.&nbsp; You gentlemen have now been proved
+to my satisfaction to have had traffic with a foreign devil; and under
+section 37 of the Afforesting Act, I must at once Blue-Pool any such
+persons without public trial.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nonsense, nonsense, there was nothing of the kind on our permit,
+and as for trafficking with this foreign devil, we spoke to him, but
+we neither bought nor sold.&nbsp; Where is the Act?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Here.&nbsp; On your permit you were referred to certain other
+clauses not set out therein, which might be seen at the Mayor&rsquo;s
+office.&nbsp; Clause 37 is as follows:-</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;It is furthermore enacted that should any of his
+Majesty&rsquo;s subjects be found, after examination by the Head Ranger,
+to have had traffic of any kind by way of sale or barter with any foreign
+devil, the said Ranger, on being satisfied that such traffic has taken
+place, shall forthwith, with or without the assistance of his under-rangers,
+convey such subjects of his Majesty to the Blue Pool, bind them, weight
+them, and fling them into it, without the formality of a trial, and
+shall report the circumstances of the case to his Majesty.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>&ldquo;But we never bought anything from the prisoner.&nbsp; What
+evidence can you have of this but the word of a foreign devil in such
+straits that he would swear to anything?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The prisoner has nothing to do with it.&nbsp; I am convinced
+by this receipt in Professor Panky&rsquo;s handwriting which states
+that he and you jointly purchased his kit from the prisoner, and also
+this bag of gold nuggets worth about &pound;100 in silver, for the absurdly
+small sum of &pound;4, 10s. in silver.&nbsp; I am further convinced
+by this handkerchief marked with Professor Hanky&rsquo;s name, in which
+was found a broken packet of dried leaves that are now at my office
+with the rest of the prisoner&rsquo;s kit.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then we were watched and dogged,&rdquo; said Hanky, &ldquo;on
+Thursday evening.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That, sir,&rdquo; replied George, &ldquo;is my business, not
+yours.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Here Panky laid his arms on the table, buried his head in them, and
+burst into tears.&nbsp; Every one seemed aghast, but the Mayor, Yram,
+and Mrs. Humdrum saw that George was enjoying it all far too keenly
+to be serious.&nbsp; Dr. Downie was still frightened (for George&rsquo;s
+surface manner was Rhadamanthine) and did his utmost to console Panky.&nbsp;
+George pounded away ruthlessly at his case.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I say nothing about your having bought quails from the prisoner
+and eaten them.&nbsp; As you justly remarked just now, there is no object
+in preferring a smaller charge when one must inflict the death penalty
+on a more serious one.&nbsp; Still, Professor Hanky, these are bones
+of the quails you ate as you sate opposite the prisoner on the side
+of the fire nearest Sunch&rsquo;ston; these are Professor Panky&rsquo;s
+bones, with which I need not disturb him.&nbsp; This is your permit,
+which was found upon the prisoner, and which there can be no doubt you
+sold him, having been bribed by the offer of the nuggets for&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Monstrous, monstrous!&nbsp; Infamous falsehood!&nbsp; Who
+will believe such a childish trumped up story!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Who, sir, will believe anything else?&nbsp; You will hardly
+contend that you did not know the nuggets were gold, and no one will
+believe you mean enough to have tried to get this poor man&rsquo;s property
+out of him for a song&mdash;you knowing its value, and he not knowing
+the same.&nbsp; No one will believe that you did not know the man to
+be a foreign devil, or that he could hoodwink two such learned Professors
+so cleverly as to get their permit out of them.&nbsp; Obviously he seduced
+you into selling him your permit, and&mdash;I presume because he wanted
+a little of our money&mdash;he made you pay him for his kit.&nbsp; I
+am satisfied that you have not only had traffic with a foreign devil,
+but traffic of a singularly atrocious kind, and this being so, I shall
+Blue-Pool both of you as soon as I can get you up to the Pool itself.&nbsp;
+The sooner we start the better.&nbsp; I shall gag you, and drive you
+up in a close carriage as far as the road goes; from that point you
+can walk up, or be dragged up as you may prefer, but you will probably
+find walking more comfortable.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But,&rdquo; said Hanky, &ldquo;come what may, I must be at
+the banquet.&nbsp; I am set down to speak.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The Mayor will explain that you have been taken somewhat suddenly
+unwell.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Here Yram, who had been talking quietly with her husband, Dr. Downie,
+and Mrs. Humdrum, motioned her son to silence.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I feared,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;that difficulties might
+arise, though I did not foresee how seriously they would affect my guests.&nbsp;
+Let Mrs. Humdrum on our side, and Dr. Downie on that of the Professors,
+go into the next room and talk the matter quietly over; let us then
+see whether we cannot agree to be bound by their decision.&nbsp; I do
+not doubt but they will find some means of averting any catastrophe
+more serious&mdash;No, Professor Hanky, the doors are locked&mdash;than
+a little perjury in which we shall all share and share alike.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do what you like,&rdquo; said Hanky, looking for all the world
+like a rat caught in a trap.&nbsp; As he spoke he seized a knife from
+the table, whereon George pulled a pair of handcuffs from his pocket
+and slipped them on to his wrists before he well knew what was being
+done to him.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;George,&rdquo; said the Mayor, &ldquo;this is going too far.&nbsp;
+Do you mean to Blue-Pool the Professors or no?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not if they will compromise.&nbsp; If they will be reasonable,
+they will not be Blue-Pooled; if they think they can have everything
+their own way, the eels will be at them before morning.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>A voice was heard from the head of Panky which he had buried in his
+arms upon the table.&nbsp; &ldquo;Co-co-co-compromise,&rdquo; it said;
+and the effect was so comic that every one except Hanky smiled.&nbsp;
+Meanwhile Yram had conducted Dr. Downie and Mrs. Humdrum into an adjoining
+room.</p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XX: MRS. HUMDRUM AND DR. DOWNIE PROPOSE A COMPROMISE, WHICH,
+AFTER AN AMENDMENT BY GEORGE, IS CARRIED NEM.&nbsp; CON.</h2>
+<p>They returned in about ten minutes, and Dr. Downie asked Mrs. Humdrum
+to say what they had agreed to recommend.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We think,&rdquo; said she very demurely, &ldquo;that the strict
+course would be to drop the charge of poaching, and Blue-Pool both the
+Professors and the prisoner without delay.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We also think that the proper thing would be to place on record
+that the prisoner is the Sunchild&mdash;about which neither Dr. Downie
+nor I have a shadow of doubt.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;These measures we hold to be the only legal ones, but at the
+same time we do not recommend them.&nbsp; We think it would offend the
+public conscience if it came to be known, as it certainly would, that
+the Sunchild was violently killed, on the very day that had seen us
+dedicate a temple in his honour, and perhaps at the very hour when laudatory
+speeches were being made about him at the Mayor&rsquo;s banquet; we
+think also that we should strain a good many points rather than Blue-Pool
+the Professors.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nothing is perfect, and Truth makes her mistakes like other
+people; when she goes wrong and reduces herself to such an absurdity
+as she has here done, those who love her must save her from herself,
+correct her, and rehabilitate her.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Our conclusion, therefore, is this:-</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The prisoner must recant on oath his statement that he is
+the Sunchild.&nbsp; The interpreter must be squared, or convinced of
+his mistake.&nbsp; The Mayoress, Dr. Downie, I, and the gaoler (with
+the interpreter if we can manage him), must depose on oath that the
+prisoner is not Higgs.&nbsp; This must be our contribution to the rehabilitation
+of Truth.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The Professors must contribute as follows: They must swear
+that the prisoner is not the man they met with quails in his possession
+on Thursday night.&nbsp; They must further swear that they have one
+or both of them known him, off and on, for many years past, as a monomaniac
+with Sunchildism on the brain but otherwise harmless.&nbsp; If they
+will do this, no proceedings are to be taken against them.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The Mayor&rsquo;s contribution shall be to reprimand the prisoner,
+and order him to repeat his recantation in the new temple before the
+Manager and Head Cashier, and to confirm his statement on oath by kissing
+the reliquary containing the newly found relic.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The Ranger and the Master of the Gaol must contribute that
+the prisoner&rsquo;s measurements, and the marks found on his body,
+negative all possibility of his identity with the Sunchild, and that
+all the hair on the covered as well as the uncovered parts of his body
+was found to be jet black.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We advise further that the prisoner should have his nuggets
+and his kit returned to him, and that the receipt given by the Professors
+together with Professor Hanky&rsquo;s handkerchief be given back to
+the Professors.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Furthermore, seeing that we should all of us like to have
+a quiet evening with the prisoner, we should petition the Mayor and
+Mayoress to ask him to meet all here present at dinner to-morrow evening,
+after his discharge, on the plea that Professors Hanky and Panky and
+Dr. Downie may give him counsel, convince him of his folly, and if possible
+free him henceforth from the monomania under which he now suffers.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The prisoner shall give his word of honour, never to return
+to Erewhon, nor to encourage any of his countrymen to do so.&nbsp; After
+the dinner to which we hope the Mayoress will invite us, the Ranger,
+if the night is fair, shall escort the prisoner as far as the statues,
+whence he will find his own way home.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Those who are in favour of this compromise hold up their hands.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The Mayor and Yram held up theirs.&nbsp; &ldquo;Will you hold up
+yours, Professor Hanky,&rdquo; said George, &ldquo;if I release you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Hanky with a gruff laugh, whereon George
+released him and he held up both his hands.</p>
+<p>Panky did not hold up his, whereon Hanky said, &ldquo;Hold up your
+hands, Panky, can&rsquo;t you?&nbsp; We are really very well out of
+it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Panky, hardly lifting his head, sobbed out, &ldquo;I think we ought
+to have our f-f-fo-fo-four pounds ten returned to us.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am afraid, sir,&rdquo; said George, &ldquo;that the prisoner
+must have spent the greater part of this money.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Every one smiled, indeed it was all George could do to prevent himself
+from laughing outright.&nbsp; The Mayor brought out his purse, counted
+the money, and handed it good-humouredly to Panky, who gratefully received
+it, and said he would divide it with Hanky.&nbsp; He then held up his
+hands, &ldquo;But,&rdquo; he added, turning to his brother Professor,
+&ldquo;so long as I live, Hanky, I will never go out anywhere again
+with you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>George then turned to Hanky and said, &ldquo;I am afraid I must now
+trouble you and Professor Panky to depose on oath to the facts which
+Mrs. Humdrum and Dr. Downie propose you should swear to in open court
+to-morrow.&nbsp; I knew you would do so, and have brought an ordinary
+form, duly filled up, which declares that the prisoner is not the poacher
+you met on Thursday; and also, that he has been long known to both of
+you as a harmless monomaniac.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>As he spoke he brought out depositions to the above effect which
+he had just written in his office; he shewed the Professors that the
+form was this time an innocent one, whereon they made no demur to signing
+and swearing in the presence of the Mayor, who attested.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The former depositions,&rdquo; said Hanky, &ldquo;had better
+be destroyed at once.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That,&rdquo; said George, &ldquo;may hardly be, but so long
+as you stick to what you have just sworn to, they will not be used against
+you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Hanky scowled, but knew that he was powerless and said no more.</p>
+<hr class="tb">
+<p>The knowledge of what ensued did not reach me from my father.&nbsp;
+George and his mother, seeing how ill he looked, and what a shock the
+events of the last few days had given him, resolved that he should not
+know of the risk that George was about to run; they therefore said nothing
+to him about it.&nbsp; What I shall now tell, I learned on the occasion
+already referred to when I had the happiness to meet George.&nbsp; I
+am in some doubt whether it is more fitly told here, or when I come
+to the interview between him and me; on the whole, however, I suppose
+chronological order is least outraged by dealing with it here.</p>
+<p>As soon as the Professors had signed the second depositions, George
+said, &ldquo;I have not yet held up my hands, but I will hold them up
+if Mrs. Humdrum and Dr. Downie will approve of what I propose.&nbsp;
+Their compromise does not go far enough, for swear as we may, it is
+sure to get noised abroad, with the usual exaggerations, that the Sunchild
+has been here, and that he has been spirited away either by us, or by
+the sun his father.&nbsp; For one person whom we know of as having identified
+him, there will be five, of whom we know nothing, and whom we cannot
+square.&nbsp; Reports will reach the King sooner or later, and I shall
+be sent for.&nbsp; Meanwhile the Professors will be living in fear of
+intrigue on my part, and I, however unreasonably, shall fear the like
+on theirs.&nbsp; This should not be.&nbsp; I mean, therefore, on the
+day following my return from escorting the prisoner, to set out for
+the capital, see the King, and make a clean breast of the whole matter.&nbsp;
+To this end I must have the nuggets, the prisoner&rsquo;s kit, his receipt,
+Professor Hanky&rsquo;s handkerchief, and, of course, the two depositions
+just sworn to by the Professors.&nbsp; I hope and think that the King
+will pardon us all round; but whatever he may do I shall tell him everything.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Hanky was up in arms at once.&nbsp; &ldquo;Sheer madness,&rdquo;
+he exclaimed.&nbsp; Yram and the Mayor looked anxious; Dr. Downie eyed
+George as though he were some curious creature, which he heard of but
+had never seen, and was rather disposed to like.&nbsp; Mrs. Humdrum
+nodded her head approvingly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Quite right, George,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;tell his Majesty
+everything.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Dr. Downie then said, &ldquo;Your son, Mayoress, is a very sensible
+fellow.&nbsp; I will go with him, and with the Professors&mdash;for
+they had better come too: each will hear what the other says, and we
+will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.&nbsp;
+I am, as you know, a <i>persona grata</i> at Court; I will say that
+I advised your son&rsquo;s action.&nbsp; The King has liked him ever
+since he was a boy, and I am not much afraid about what he will do.&nbsp;
+In public, no doubt we had better hush things up, but in private the
+King must be told.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Hanky fought hard for some time, but George told him that it did
+not matter whether he agreed or no.&nbsp; &ldquo;You can come,&rdquo;
+he said, &ldquo;or stop away, just as you please.&nbsp; If you come,
+you can hear and speak; if you do not, you will not hear, but these
+two depositions will speak for you.&nbsp; Please yourself.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; he said at last, &ldquo;I suppose we had
+better go.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Every one having now understood what his or her part was to be, Yram
+said they had better shake hands all round and take a couple of hours&rsquo;
+rest before getting ready for the banquet.&nbsp; George said that the
+Professors did not shake hands with him very cordially, but the farce
+was gone through.&nbsp; When the hand-shaking was over, Dr. Downie and
+Mrs. Humdrum left the house, and the Professors retired grumpily to
+their own room.</p>
+<p>I will say here that no harm happened either to George or the Professors
+in consequence of his having told the King, but will reserve particulars
+for my concluding chapter.</p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXI: YRAM, ON GETTING RID OF HER GUESTS, GOES TO THE PRISON
+TO SEE MY FATHER</h2>
+<p>Yram did not take the advice she had given her guests, but set about
+preparing a basket of the best cold dainties she could find, including
+a bottle of choice wine that she knew my father would like; thus loaded
+she went to the gaol, which she entered by her father&rsquo;s private
+entrance.</p>
+<p>It was now about half-past four, so that much more must have been
+said and done after luncheon at the Mayor&rsquo;s than ever reached
+my father.&nbsp; The wonder is that he was able to collect so much.&nbsp;
+He, poor man, as soon as George left him, flung himself on to the bed
+that was in his cell and lay there wakeful, but not unquiet, till near
+the time when Yram reached the gaol.</p>
+<p>The old gaoler came to tell him that she had come and would be glad
+to see him; much as he dreaded the meeting there was no avoiding it,
+and in a few minutes Yram stood before him.</p>
+<p>Both were agitated, but Yram betrayed less of what she felt than
+my father.&nbsp; He could only bow his head and cover his face with
+his hands.&nbsp; Yram said, &ldquo;We are old friends; take your hands
+from your face and let me see you.&nbsp; There!&nbsp; That is well.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She took his right hand between both hers, looked at him with eyes
+full of kindness, and said softly&mdash;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are not much changed, but you look haggard, worn, and
+ill; I am uneasy about you.&nbsp; Remember, you are among friends, who
+will see that no harm befalls you.&nbsp; There is a look in your eyes
+that frightens me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>As she spoke she took the wine out of her basket, and poured him
+out a glass, but rather to give him some little thing to distract his
+attention, than because she expected him to drink it&mdash;which he
+could not do.</p>
+<p>She never asked him whether he found her altered, or turned the conversation
+ever such a little on to herself; all was for him; to soothe and comfort
+him, not in words alone, but in look, manner, and voice.&nbsp; My father
+knew that he could thank her best by controlling himself, and letting
+himself be soothed and comforted&mdash;at any rate so far as he could
+seem to be.</p>
+<p>Up to this time they had been standing, but now Yram, seeing my father
+calmer, said, &ldquo;Enough, let us sit down.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>So saying she seated herself at one end of the small table that was
+in the cell, and motioned my father to sit opposite to her.&nbsp; &ldquo;The
+light hurts you?&rdquo; she said, for the sun was coming into the room.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Change places with me, I am a sun worshipper.&nbsp; No, we can
+move the table, and we can then see each other better.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>This done, she said, still very softly, &ldquo;And now tell me what
+it is all about.&nbsp; Why have you come here?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Tell me first,&rdquo; said my father, &ldquo;what befell you
+after I had been taken away.&nbsp; Why did you not send me word when
+you found what had happened? or come after me?&nbsp; You know I should
+have married you at once, unless they bound me in fetters.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I know you would; but you remember Mrs. Humdrum?&nbsp; Yes,
+I see you do.&nbsp; I told her everything; it was she who saved me.&nbsp;
+We thought of you, but she saw that it would not do.&nbsp; As I was
+to marry Mr. Strong, the more you were lost sight of the better, but
+with George ever with me I have not been able to forget you.&nbsp; I
+might have been very happy with you, but I could not have been happier
+than I have been ever since that short dreadful time was over.&nbsp;
+George must tell you the rest.&nbsp; I cannot do so.&nbsp; All is well.&nbsp;
+I love my husband with my whole heart and soul, and he loves me with
+his.&nbsp; As between him and me, he knows everything; George is his
+son, not yours; we have settled it so, though we both know otherwise;
+as between you and me, for this one hour, here, there is no use in pretending
+that you are not George&rsquo;s father.&nbsp; I have said all I need
+say.&nbsp; Now, tell me what I asked you&mdash;Why are you here?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I fear,&rdquo; said my father, set at rest by the sweetness
+of Yram&rsquo;s voice and manner&mdash;he told me he had never seen
+any one to compare with her except my mother&mdash;&ldquo;I fear, to
+do as much harm now as I did before, and with as little wish to do any
+harm at all.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He then told her all that the reader knows, and explained how he
+had thought he could have gone about the country as a peasant, and seen
+how she herself had fared, without her, or any one, even suspecting
+that he was in the country.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You say your wife is dead, and that she left you with a son&mdash;is
+he like George?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;In mind and disposition, wonderfully; in appearance, no; he
+is dark and takes after his mother, and though he is handsome, he is
+not so good-looking as George.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No one,&rdquo; said George&rsquo;s mother, &ldquo;ever was,
+or ever will be, and he is as good as he looks.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I should not have believed you if you had said he was not.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That is right.&nbsp; I am glad you are proud of him.&nbsp;
+He irradiates the lives of every one of us.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And the mere knowledge that he exists will irradiate the rest
+of mine.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Long may it do so.&nbsp; Let us now talk about this morning&mdash;did
+you mean to declare yourself?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I do not know what I meant; what I most cared about was the
+doing what I thought George would wish to see his father do.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You did that; but he says he told you not to say who you were.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;So he did, but I knew what he would think right.&nbsp; He
+was uppermost in my thoughts all the time.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Yram smiled, and said, &ldquo;George is a dangerous person; you were
+both of you very foolish; one as bad as the other.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I do not know.&nbsp; I do not know anything.&nbsp; It is beyond
+me; but I am at peace about it, and hope I shall do the like again to-morrow
+before the Mayor.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I heartily hope you will do nothing of the kind.&nbsp; George
+tells me you have promised him to be good and to do as we bid you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;So I will; but he will not tell me to say that I am not what
+I am.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, he will, and I will tell you why.&nbsp; If we permit
+you to be Higgs the Sunchild, he must either throw his own father into
+the Blue Pool&mdash;which he will not do&mdash;or run great risk of
+being thrown into it himself, for not having Blue-Pooled a foreigner.&nbsp;
+I am afraid we shall have to make you do a good deal that neither you
+nor we shall like.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She then told him briefly of what had passed after luncheon at her
+house, and what it had been settled to do, leaving George to tell the
+details while escorting him towards the statues on the following evening.&nbsp;
+She said that every one would be so completely in every one else&rsquo;s
+power that there was no fear of any one&rsquo;s turning traitor.&nbsp;
+But she said nothing about George&rsquo;s intention of setting out for
+the capital on Wednesday morning to tell the whole story to the King.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Now,&rdquo; she said, when she had told him as much as was
+necessary, &ldquo;be good, and do as you said you would.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I will.&nbsp; I will deny myself, not once, nor twice, but
+as often as is necessary.&nbsp; I will kiss the reliquary, and when
+I meet Hanky and Panky at your table, I will be sworn brother to them&mdash;so
+long, that is, as George is out of hearing; for I cannot lie well to
+them when he is listening.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh yes, you can.&nbsp; He will understand all about it; he
+enjoys falsehood as well as we all do, and has the nicest sense of when
+to lie and when not to do so.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What gift can be more invaluable?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>My father, knowing that he might not have another chance of seeing
+Yram alone, now changed the conversation.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I have something,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;for George, but he
+must know nothing about it till after I am gone.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>As he spoke, he took from his pockets the nine small bags of nuggets
+that remained to him.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But this,&rdquo; said Yram, &ldquo;being gold, is a large
+sum: can you indeed spare it, and do you really wish George to have
+it all?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I shall be very unhappy if he does not, but he must know nothing
+about it till I am out of Erewhon.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>My father then explained to her that he was now very rich, and would
+have brought ten times as much, if he had known of George&rsquo;s existence.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Then,&rdquo; said Yram, musing, &ldquo;if you are rich, I accept
+and thank you heartily on his behalf.&nbsp; I can see a reason for his
+not knowing what you are giving him at present, but it is too long to
+tell.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The reason was, that if George knew of this gold before he saw the
+King, he would be sure to tell him of it, and the King might claim it,
+for George would never explain that it was a gift from father to son;
+whereas if the King had once pardoned him, he would not be so squeamish
+as to open up the whole thing again with a postscript to his confession.&nbsp;
+But of this she said not a word.</p>
+<p>My father then told her of the box of sovereigns that he had left
+in his saddle-bags.&nbsp; &ldquo;They are coined,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and
+George will have to melt them down, but he will find some way of doing
+this.&nbsp; They will be worth rather more than these nine bags of nuggets.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The difficulty will be to get him to go down and fetch them,
+for it is against his oath to go far beyond the statues.&nbsp; If you
+could be taken faint and say you wanted help, he would see you to your
+camping ground without a word, but he would be angry if he found he
+had been tricked into breaking his oath in order that money might be
+given him.&nbsp; It would never do.&nbsp; Besides, there would not be
+time, for he must be back here on Tuesday night.&nbsp; No; if he breaks
+his oath he must do it with his eyes open&mdash;and he will do it later
+on&mdash;or I will go and fetch the money for him myself.&nbsp; He is
+in love with a grand-daughter of Mrs. Humdrum&rsquo;s, and this sum,
+together with what you are now leaving with me, will make him a well-to-do
+man.&nbsp; I have always been unhappy about his having any of the Mayor&rsquo;s
+money, and his salary was not quite enough for him to marry on.&nbsp;
+What can I say to thank you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Tell me, please, about Mrs. Humdrum&rsquo;s grand-daughter.&nbsp;
+You like her as a wife for George?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Absolutely.&nbsp; She is just such another as her grandmother
+must have been.&nbsp; She and George have been sworn lovers ever since
+he was ten, and she eight.&nbsp; The only drawback is that her mother,
+Mrs. Humdrum&rsquo;s second daughter, married for love, and there are
+many children, so that there will be no money with her; but what you
+are leaving will make everything quite easy, for he will sell the gold
+at once.&nbsp; I am so glad about it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Can you ask Mrs. Humdrum to bring her grand-daughter with
+her to-morrow evening?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am afraid not, for we shall want to talk freely at dinner,
+and she must not know that you are the Sunchild; she shall come to my
+house in the afternoon and you can see her then.&nbsp; You will be quite
+happy about her, but of course she must not know that you are her father-in-law
+that is to be.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;One thing more.&nbsp; As George must know nothing about the
+sovereigns, I must tell you how I will hide them.&nbsp; They are in
+a silver box, which I will bind to the bough of some tree close to my
+camp; or if I can find a tree with a hole in it I will drop the box
+into the hole.&nbsp; He cannot miss my camp; he has only to follow the
+stream that runs down from the pass till it gets near a large river,
+and on a small triangular patch of flat ground, he will see the ashes
+of my camp fire, a few yards away from the stream on his right hand
+as he descends.&nbsp; In whatever tree I may hide the box, I will strew
+wood ashes for some yards in a straight line towards it.&nbsp; I will
+then light another fire underneath, and blaze the tree with a knife
+that I have left at my camping ground.&nbsp; He is sure to find it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Yram again thanked him, and then my father, to change the conversation,
+asked whether she thought that George really would have Blue-Pooled
+the Professors.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There is no knowing,&rdquo; said Yram.&nbsp; &ldquo;He is
+the gentlest creature living till some great provocation rouses him,
+and I never saw him hate and despise any one as he does the Professors.&nbsp;
+Much of what he said was merely put on, for he knew the Professors must
+yield.&nbsp; I do not like his ever having to throw any one into that
+horrid place, no more does he, but the Rangership is exactly the sort
+of thing to suit him, and the opening was too good to lose.&nbsp; I
+must now leave you, and get ready for the Mayor&rsquo;s banquet.&nbsp;
+We shall meet again to-morrow evening.&nbsp; Try and eat what I have
+brought you in this basket.&nbsp; I hope you will like the wine.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+She put out her hand, which my father took, and in another moment she
+was gone, for she saw a look in his face as though he would fain have
+asked her to let him once more press his lips to hers.&nbsp; Had he
+done this, without thinking about it, it is likely enough she would
+not have been ill pleased.&nbsp; But who can say?</p>
+<p>For the rest of the evening my father was left very much to his own
+not too comfortable reflections.&nbsp; He spent part of it in posting
+up the notes from which, as well as from his own mouth, my story is
+in great part taken.&nbsp; The good things that Yram had left with him,
+and his pipe, which she had told him he might smoke quite freely, occupied
+another part, and by ten o&rsquo;clock he went to bed.</p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXII: MAINLY OCCUPIED WITH A VERACIOUS EXTRACT FROM A SUNCH&rsquo;STONIAN
+JOURNAL</h2>
+<p>While my father was thus wiling away the hours in his cell, the whole
+town was being illuminated in his honour, and not more than a couple
+of hundred yards off, at the Mayor&rsquo;s banquet, he was being extolled
+as a superhuman being.</p>
+<p>The banquet, which was at the town hall, was indeed a very brilliant
+affair, but the little space that is left me forbids my saying more
+than that Hanky made what was considered the speech of the evening,
+and betrayed no sign of ill effects from the bad quarter of an hour
+which he had spent so recently.&nbsp; Not a trace was to be seen of
+any desire on his part to change his tone as regards Sunchildism&mdash;as,
+for example, to minimize the importance of the relic, or to remind his
+hearers that though the chariot and horses had undoubtedly come down
+from the sky and carried away my father and mother, yet that the earlier
+stage of the ascent had been made in a balloon.&nbsp; It almost seemed,
+so George told my father, as though he had resolved that he would speak
+lies, all lies, and nothing but lies.</p>
+<p>Panky, who was also to have spoken, was excused by the Mayor on the
+ground that the great heat and the excitement of the day&rsquo;s proceedings
+had quite robbed him of his voice.</p>
+<p>Dr. Downie had a jumping cat before his mental vision.&nbsp; He spoke
+quietly and sensibly, dwelling chiefly on the benefits that had already
+accrued to the kingdom through the abolition of the edicts against machinery,
+and the great developments which he foresaw as probable in the near
+future.&nbsp; He held up the Sunchild&rsquo;s example, and his ethical
+teaching, to the imitation and admiration of his hearers, but he said
+nothing about the miraculous element in my father&rsquo;s career, on
+which he declared that his friend Professor Hanky had already so eloquently
+enlarged as to make further allusion to it superfluous.</p>
+<p>The reader knows what was to happen on the following morning.&nbsp;
+The programme concerted at the Mayor&rsquo;s was strictly adhered to.&nbsp;
+The following account, however, which appeared in the Sunch&rsquo;ston
+bi-weekly newspaper two days after my father had left, was given me
+by George a year later, on the occasion of that interview to which I
+have already more than once referred.&nbsp; There were other accounts
+in other papers, but the one I am giving departs the least widely from
+the facts.&nbsp; It ran:-</p>
+<p>&ldquo;<i>The close of a disagreeable incident</i>.&mdash;Our readers
+will remember that on Sunday last during the solemn inauguration of
+the temple now dedicated to the Sunchild, an individual on the front
+bench of those set apart for the public suddenly interrupted Professor
+Hanky&rsquo;s eloquent sermon by declaring himself to be the Sunchild,
+and saying that he had come down from the sun to sanctify by his presence
+the glorious fane which the piety of our fellow-citizens and others
+has erected in his honour.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Wild rumours obtained credence throughout the congregation
+to the effect that this person was none other than the Sunchild himself,
+and in spite of the fact that his complexion and the colour of his hair
+showed this to be impossible, more than one person was carried away
+by the excitement of the moment, and by some few points of resemblance
+between the stranger and the Sunchild.&nbsp; Under the influence of
+this belief, they were preparing to give him the honour which they supposed
+justly due to him, when to the surprise of every one he was taken into
+custody by the deservedly popular Ranger of the King&rsquo;s preserves,
+and in the course of the afternoon it became generally known that he
+had been arrested on the charge of being one of a gang of poachers who
+have been known for some time past to be making much havoc among the
+quails on the preserves.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;This offence, at all times deplored by those who desire that
+his Majesty should enjoy good sport when he honours us with a visit,
+is doubly deplorable during the season when, on the higher parts of
+the preserves, the young birds are not yet able to shift for themselves;
+the Ranger, therefore, is indefatigable in his efforts to break up the
+gang, and with this end in view, for the last fortnight has been out
+night and day on the remoter sections of the forest&mdash;little suspecting
+that the marauders would venture so near Sunch&rsquo;ston as it now
+seems they have done.&nbsp; It is to his extreme anxiety to detect and
+punish these miscreants that we must ascribe the arrest of a man, who,
+however foolish, and indeed guilty, he is in other respects, is innocent
+of the particular crime imputed to him.&nbsp; The circumstances that
+led to his arrest have reached us from an exceptionally well-informed
+source, and are as follows:-</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Our distinguished guests, Professors Hanky and Panky, both
+of them justly celebrated archaeologists, had availed themselves of
+the opportunity afforded them by their visit to Sunch&rsquo;ston, to
+inspect the mysterious statues at the head of the stream that comes
+down near this city, and which have hitherto baffled all those who have
+tried to ascertain their date and purpose.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;On their descent after a fatiguing day the Professors were
+benighted, and lost their way.&nbsp; Seeing the light of a small fire
+among some trees near them, they made towards it, hoping to be directed
+rightly, and found a man, respectably dressed, sitting by the fire with
+several brace of quails beside him, some of them plucked.&nbsp; Believing
+that in spite of his appearance, which would not have led them to suppose
+that he was a poacher, he must unquestionably be one, they hurriedly
+enquired their way, intending to leave him as soon as they had got their
+answer; he, however, attacked them, or made as though he would do so,
+and said he would show them a way which they should be in no fear of
+losing, whereon Professor Hanky, with a well-directed blow, felled him
+to the ground.&nbsp; The two Professors, fearing that other poachers
+might come to his assistance, made off as nearly as they could guess
+in the direction of Sunch&rsquo;ston.&nbsp; When they had gone a mile
+or two onward at haphazard, they sat down under a large tree, and waited
+till day began to break; they then resumed their journey, and before
+long struck a path which led them to a spot from which they could see
+the towers of the new temple.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Fatigued though they were, they waited before taking the rest
+of which they stood much in need, till they had reported their adventure
+at the Ranger&rsquo;s office.&nbsp; The Ranger was still out on the
+preserves, but immediately on his return on Saturday morning he read
+the description of the poacher&rsquo;s appearance and dress, about which
+last, however, the only remarkable feature was that it was better than
+a poacher might be expected to possess, and gave an air of respectability
+to the wearer that might easily disarm suspicion.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The Ranger made enquiries at all the inns in Sunch&rsquo;ston,
+and at length succeeded in hearing of a stranger who appeared to correspond
+with the poacher whom the Professors had seen; but the man had already
+left, and though the Ranger did his best to trace him he did not succeed.&nbsp;
+On Sunday morning, however, he observed the prisoner, and found that
+he answered the description given by the Professors; he therefore arrested
+him quietly in the temple, but told him that he should not take him
+to prison till the service was over.&nbsp; The man said he would come
+quietly inasmuch as he should easily be able to prove his innocence.&nbsp;
+In the meantime, however, he professed the utmost anxiety to hear Professor
+Hanky&rsquo;s sermon, which he said he believed would concern him nearly.&nbsp;
+The Ranger paid no attention to this, and was as much astounded as the
+rest of the congregation were, when immediately after one of Professor
+Hanky&rsquo;s most eloquent passages, the man started up and declared
+himself to be the Sunchild.&nbsp; On this the Ranger took him away at
+once, and for the man&rsquo;s own protection hurried him off to prison.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Professor Hanky was so much shocked at such outrageous conduct,
+that for the moment he failed to recognise the offender; after a few
+seconds, however, he grasped the situation, and knew him to be one who
+on previous occasions, near Bridgeford, had done what he was now doing.&nbsp;
+It seems that he is notorious in the neighbourhood of Bridgeford, as
+a monomaniac who is so deeply impressed with the beauty of the Sunchild&rsquo;s
+character&mdash;and we presume also of his own&mdash;as to believe that
+he is himself the Sunchild.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Recovering almost instantly from the shock the interruption
+had given him, the learned Professor calmed his hearers by acquainting
+them with the facts of the case, and continued his sermon to the delight
+of all who heard it.&nbsp; We should say, however, that the gentleman
+who twenty years ago instructed the Sunchild in the Erewhonian language,
+was so struck with some few points of resemblance between the stranger,
+and his former pupil, that he acclaimed him, and was removed forcibly
+by the vergers.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;On Monday morning the prisoner was brought up before the Mayor.&nbsp;
+We cannot say whether it was the sobering effect of prison walls, or
+whether he had been drinking before he entered the temple, and had now
+had time enough to recover himself&mdash;at any rate for some reason
+or other he was abjectly penitent when his case came on for hearing.&nbsp;
+The charge of poaching was first gone into, but was immediately disposed
+of by the evidence of the two Professors, who stated that the prisoner
+bore no resemblance to the poacher they had seen, save that he was about
+the same height and age, and was respectably dressed.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The charge of disturbing the congregation by declaring himself
+the Sunchild was then proceeded with, and unnecessary as it may appear
+to be, it was thought advisable to prevent all possibility of the man&rsquo;s
+assertion being accepted by the ignorant as true, at some later date,
+when those who could prove its falsehood were no longer living.&nbsp;
+The prisoner, therefore, was removed to his cell, and there measured
+by the Master of the Gaol, and the Ranger in the presence of the Mayor,
+who attested the accuracy of the measurements.&nbsp; Not one single
+one of them corresponded with those recorded of the Sunchild himself,
+and a few marks such as moles, and permanent scars on the Sunchild&rsquo;s
+body were not found on the prisoner&rsquo;s.&nbsp; Furthermore the prisoner
+was shaggy-breasted, with much coarse jet black hair on the fore-arms
+and from the knees downwards, whereas the Sunchild had little hair save
+on his head, and what little there was, was fine, and very light in
+colour.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Confronted with these discrepancies, the gentleman who had
+taught the Sunchild our language was convinced of his mistake, though
+he still maintained that there was some superficial likeness between
+his former pupil and the prisoner.&nbsp; Here he was confirmed by the
+Master of the Gaol, the Mayoress, Mrs. Humdrum, and Professors Hanky
+and Panky, who all of them could see what the interpreter meant, but
+denied that the prisoner could be mistaken for the Sunchild for more
+than a few seconds.&nbsp; No doubt the prisoner&rsquo;s unhappy delusion
+has been fostered, if not entirely caused, by his having been repeatedly
+told that he was like the Sunchild.&nbsp; The celebrated Dr. Downie,
+who well remembers the Sunchild, was also examined, and gave his evidence
+with so much convincing detail as to make it unnecessary to call further
+witnesses.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It having been thus once for all officially and authoritatively
+placed on record that the prisoner was not the Sunchild, Professors
+Hanky and Panky then identified him as a well known monomaniac on the
+subject of Sunchildism, who in other respects was harmless.&nbsp; We
+withhold his name and place of abode, out of consideration for the well
+known and highly respectable family to which he belongs.&nbsp; The prisoner
+admitted with much contrition that he had made a disturbance in the
+temple, but pleaded that he had been carried away by the eloquence of
+Professor Hanky; he promised to avoid all like offence in future, and
+threw himself on the mercy of the court.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The Mayor, unwilling that Sunday&rsquo;s memorable ceremony
+should be the occasion of a serious punishment to any of those who took
+part in it, reprimanded the prisoner in a few severe but not unkindly
+words, inflicted a fine of forty shillings, and ordered that the prisoner
+should be taken directly to the temple, where he should confess his
+folly to the Manager and Head Cashier, and confirm his words by kissing
+the reliquary in which the newly found relic has been placed.&nbsp;
+The prisoner being unable to pay the fine, some of the ladies and gentlemen
+in court kindly raised the amount amongst them, in pity for the poor
+creature&rsquo;s obvious contrition, rather than see him sent to prison
+for a month in default of payment.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The prisoner was then conducted to the temple, followed by
+a considerable number of people.&nbsp; Strange to say, in spite of the
+overwhelming evidence that they had just heard, some few among the followers,
+whose love of the marvellous overpowered their reason, still maintained
+that the prisoner was the Sunchild.&nbsp; Nothing could be more decorous
+than the prisoner&rsquo;s behaviour when, after hearing the recantation
+that was read out to him by the Manager, he signed the document with
+his name and address, which we again withhold, and kissed the reliquary
+in confirmation of his words.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The Mayor then declared the prisoner to be at liberty.&nbsp;
+When he had done so he said, &lsquo;I strongly urge you to place yourself
+under my protection for the present, that you may be freed from the
+impertinent folly and curiosity of some whose infatuation might lead
+you from that better mind to which I believe you are now happily restored.&nbsp;
+I wish you to remain for some few hours secluded in the privacy of my
+own study, where Dr. Downie and the two excellent Professors will administer
+that ghostly counsel to you, which will be likely to protect you from
+any return of your unhappy delusion.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The man humbly bowed assent, and was taken by the Mayor&rsquo;s
+younger sons to the Mayor&rsquo;s own house, where he was duly cared
+for.&nbsp; About midnight, when all was quiet, he was conducted to the
+outskirts of the town towards Clearwater, and furnished with enough
+money to provide for his more pressing necessities till he could reach
+some relatives who reside three or four days&rsquo; walk down on the
+road towards the capital.&nbsp; He desired the man who accompanied him
+to repeat to the Mayor his heartfelt thanks for the forbearance and
+generosity with which he had been treated.&nbsp; The remembrance of
+this, he said, should be ever present with him, and he was confident
+would protect him if his unhappy monomania shewed any signs of returning.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Let us now, however, remind our readers that the poacher who
+threatened Professors Hanky and Panky&rsquo;s life on Thursday evening
+last is still at large.&nbsp; He is evidently a man of desperate character,
+and it is to be hoped that our fellow-citizens will give immediate information
+at the Ranger&rsquo;s office if they see any stranger in the neighbourhood
+of the preserves whom they may have reasonable grounds for suspecting.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;P.S.&mdash;As we are on the point of going to press we learn
+that a dangerous lunatic, who has been for some years confined in the
+Clearwater asylum, succeeded in escaping on the night of Wednesday last,
+and it is surmised with much probability, that this was the man who
+threatened the two Professors on Thursday evening.&nbsp; His being alone,
+his having dared to light a fire, probably to cook quails which he had
+been driven to kill from stress of hunger, the respectability of his
+dress, and the fury with which he would have attacked the two Professors
+single-handed, but for Professor Hanky&rsquo;s presence of mind in giving
+him a knock-down blow, all point in the direction of thinking that he
+was no true poacher, but, what is even more dangerous&mdash;a madman
+at large.&nbsp; We have not received any particulars as to the man&rsquo;s
+appearance, nor the clothes he was wearing, but we have little doubt
+that these will confirm the surmise to which we now give publicity.&nbsp;
+If it is correct it becomes doubly incumbent on all our fellow-citizens
+to be both on the watch, and on their guard.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We may add that the man was fully believed to have taken the
+direction towards the capital; hence no attempts were made to look for
+him in the neighbourhood of Sunch&rsquo;ston, until news of the threatened
+attack on the Professors led the keeper of the asylum to feel confident
+that he had hitherto been on a wrong scent.&rdquo;</p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXIII: MY FATHER IS ESCORTED TO THE MAYOR&rsquo;S HOUSE,
+AND IS INTRODUCED TO A FUTURE DAUGHTER-IN-LAW</h2>
+<p>My father said he was followed to the Mayor&rsquo;s house by a good
+many people, whom the Mayor&rsquo;s sons in vain tried to get rid of.&nbsp;
+One or two of these still persisted in saying he was the Sunchild&mdash;whereon
+another said, &ldquo;But his hair is black.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; was the answer, &ldquo;but a man can dye his hair,
+can he not? look at his blue eyes and his eyelashes?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>My father was doubting whether he ought not to again deny his identity
+out of loyalty to the Mayor and Yram, when George&rsquo;s next brother
+said, &ldquo;Pay no attention to them, but step out as fast as you can.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+This settled the matter, and in a few minutes they were at the Mayor&rsquo;s,
+where the young men took him into the study; the elder said with a smile,
+&ldquo;We should like to stay and talk to you, but my mother said we
+were not to do so.&rdquo;&nbsp; Whereon they left him much to his regret,
+but he gathered rightly that they had not been officially told who he
+was, and were to be left to think what they liked, at any rate for the
+present.</p>
+<p>In a few minutes the Mayor entered, and going straight up to my father
+shook him cordially by the hand.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I have brought you this morning&rsquo;s paper,&rdquo; said
+he.&nbsp; &ldquo;You will find a full report of Professor Hanky&rsquo;s
+sermon, and of the speeches at last night&rsquo;s banquet.&nbsp; You
+see they pass over your little interruption with hardly a word, but
+I dare say they will have made up their minds about it all by Thursday&rsquo;s
+issue.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He laughed as he produced the paper&mdash;which my father brought
+home with him, and without which I should not have been able to report
+Hanky&rsquo;s sermon as fully as I have done.&nbsp; But my father could
+not let things pass over thus lightly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I thank you,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;but I have much more to
+thank you for, and know not how to do it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Can you not trust me to take everything as said?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, but I cannot trust myself not to be haunted if I do not
+say&mdash;or at any rate try to say&mdash;some part of what I ought
+to say.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Very well; then I will say something myself.&nbsp; I have
+a small joke, the only one I ever made, which I inflict periodically
+upon my wife.&nbsp; You, and I suppose George, are the only two other
+people in the world to whom it can ever be told; let me see, then, if
+I cannot break the ice with it.&nbsp; It is this.&nbsp; Some men have
+twin sons; George in this topsy turvey world of ours has twin fathers&mdash;you
+by luck, and me by cunning.&nbsp; I see you smile; give me your hand.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>My father took the Mayor&rsquo;s hand between both his own.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Had I been in your place,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I should be
+glad to hope that I might have done as you did.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And I,&rdquo; said the Mayor, more readily than might have
+been expected of him, &ldquo;fear that if I had been in yours&mdash;I
+should have made it the proper thing for you to do.&nbsp; There!&nbsp;
+The ice is well broken, and now for business.&nbsp; You will lunch with
+us, and dine in the evening.&nbsp; I have given it out that you are
+of good family, so there is nothing odd in this.&nbsp; At lunch you
+will not be the Sunchild, for my younger children will be there; at
+dinner all present will know who you are, so we shall be free as soon
+as the servants are out of the room.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am sorry, but I must send you away with George as soon as
+the streets are empty&mdash;say at midnight&mdash;for the excitement
+is too great to allow of your staying longer.&nbsp; We must keep your
+rug and the things you cook with, but my wife will find you what will
+serve your turn.&nbsp; There is no moon, so you and George will camp
+out as soon as you get well on to the preserves; the weather is hot,
+and you will neither of you take any harm.&nbsp; To-morrow by mid-day
+you will be at the statues, where George must bid you good-bye, for
+he must be at Sunch&rsquo;ston to-morrow night.&nbsp; You will doubtless
+get safely home; I wish with all my heart that I could hear of your
+having done so, but this, I fear, may not be.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;So be it,&rdquo; replied my father, &ldquo;but there is something
+I should yet say.&nbsp; The Mayoress has no doubt told you of some gold,
+coined and uncoined, that I am leaving for George.&nbsp; She will also
+have told you that I am rich; this being so, I should have brought him
+much more, if I had known that there was any such person.&nbsp; You
+have other children; if you leave him anything, you will be taking it
+away from your own flesh and blood; if you leave him nothing, it will
+be a slur upon him.&nbsp; I must therefore send you enough gold, to
+provide for George as your other children will be provided for; you
+can settle it upon him at once, and make it clear that the settlement
+is instead of provision for him by will.&nbsp; The difficulty is in
+the getting the gold into Erewhon, and until it is actually here, he
+must know nothing about it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>I have no space for the discussion that followed.&nbsp; In the end
+it was settled that George was to have &pound;2000 in gold, which the
+Mayor declared to be too much, and my father too little.&nbsp; Both,
+however, were agreed that Erewhon would before long be compelled to
+enter into relations with foreign countries, in which case the value
+of gold would decline so much as to make &pound;2000 worth little more
+than it would be in England.&nbsp; The Mayor proposed to buy land with
+it, which he would hand over to George as a gift from himself, and this
+my father at once acceded to.&nbsp; All sorts of questions such as will
+occur to the reader were raised and settled, but I must beg him to be
+content with knowing that everything was arranged with the good sense
+that two such men were sure to bring to bear upon it.</p>
+<p>The getting the gold into Erewhon was to be managed thus.&nbsp; George
+was to know nothing, but a promise was to be got from him that at noon
+on the following New Year&rsquo;s day, or whatever day might be agreed
+upon, he would be at the statues, where either my father or myself would
+meet him, spend a couple of hours with him, and then return.&nbsp; Whoever
+met George was to bring the gold as though it were for the Mayor, and
+George could be trusted to be human enough to bring it down, when he
+saw that it would be left where it was if he did not do so.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He will kick a good deal,&rdquo; said the Mayor, &ldquo;at
+first, but he will come round in the end.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Luncheon was now announced.&nbsp; My father was feeling faint and
+ill; more than once during the forenoon he had had a return of the strange
+giddiness and momentary loss of memory which had already twice attacked
+him, but he had recovered in each case so quickly that no one had seen
+he was unwell.&nbsp; He, poor man, did not yet know what serious brain
+exhaustion these attacks betokened, and finding himself in his usual
+health as soon as they passed away, set them down as simply effects
+of fatigue and undue excitement.</p>
+<p>George did not lunch with the others.&nbsp; Yram explained that he
+had to draw up a report which would occupy him till dinner time.&nbsp;
+Her three other sons, and her three lovely daughters, were there.&nbsp;
+My father was delighted with all of them, for they made friends with
+him at once.&nbsp; He had feared that he would have been disgraced in
+their eyes, by his having just come from prison, but whatever they may
+have thought, no trace of anything but a little engaging timidity on
+the girls&rsquo; part was to be seen.&nbsp; The two elder boys&mdash;or
+rather young men, for they seemed fully grown, though, like George,
+not yet bearded&mdash;treated him as already an old acquaintance, while
+the youngest, a lad of fourteen, walked straight up to him, put out
+his hand, and said, &ldquo;How do you do, sir?&rdquo; with a pretty
+blush that went straight to my father&rsquo;s heart.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;These boys,&rdquo; he said to Yram aside, &ldquo;who have
+nothing to blush for&mdash;see how the blood mantles into their young
+cheeks, while I, who should blush at being spoken to by them, cannot
+do so.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do not talk nonsense,&rdquo; said Yram, with mock severity.</p>
+<p>But it was no nonsense to my poor father.&nbsp; He was awed at the
+goodness and beauty with which he found himself surrounded.&nbsp; His
+thoughts were too full of what had been, what was, and what was yet
+to be, to let him devote himself to these young people as he would dearly
+have liked to do.&nbsp; He could only look at them, wonder at them,
+fall in love with them, and thank heaven that George had been brought
+up in such a household.</p>
+<p>When luncheon was over, Yram said, &ldquo;I will now send you to
+a room where you can lie down and go to sleep for a few hours.&nbsp;
+You will be out late to-night, and had better rest while you can.&nbsp;
+Do you remember the drink you taught us to make of corn parched and
+ground?&nbsp; You used to say you liked it.&nbsp; A cup shall be brought
+to your room at about five, for you must try and sleep till then.&nbsp;
+If you notice a little box on the dressing-table of your room, you will
+open it or no as you like.&nbsp; About half-past five there will be
+a visitor, whose name you can guess, but I shall not let her stay long
+with you.&nbsp; Here comes the servant to take you to your room.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+On this she smiled, and turned somewhat hurriedly away.</p>
+<p>My father on reaching his room went to the dressing-table, where
+he saw a small unpretending box, which he immediately opened.&nbsp;
+On the top was a paper with the words, &ldquo;Look&mdash;say nothing&mdash;forget.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+Beneath this was some cotton wool, and then&mdash;the two buttons and
+the lock of his own hair, that he had given Yram when he said good-bye
+to her.</p>
+<p>The ghost of the lock that Yram had then given him, rose from the
+dead, and smote him as with a whip across the face.&nbsp; On what dust-heap
+had it not been thrown how many long years ago?&nbsp; Then she had never
+forgotten him? to have been remembered all these years by such a woman
+as that, and never to have heeded it&mdash;never to have found out what
+she was though he had seen her day after day for months.&nbsp; Ah! but
+she was then still budding.&nbsp; That was no excuse.&nbsp; If a loveable
+woman&mdash;aye, or any woman&mdash;has loved a man, even though he
+cannot marry her, or even wish to do so, at any rate let him not forget
+her&mdash;and he had forgotten Yram as completely until the last few
+days, as though he had never seen her.&nbsp; He took her little missive,
+and under &ldquo;Look,&rdquo; he wrote, &ldquo;I have;&rdquo; under
+&ldquo;Say nothing,&rdquo; &ldquo;I will;&rdquo; under &ldquo;forget,&rdquo;
+&ldquo;never.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;And I never shall,&rdquo; he said
+to himself, as he replaced the box upon the table.&nbsp; He then lay
+down to rest upon the bed, but he could get no sleep.</p>
+<p>When the servant brought him his imitation coffee&mdash;an imitation
+so successful that Yram made him a packet of it to replace the tea that
+he must leave behind him&mdash;he rose and presently came downstairs
+into the drawing-room, where he found Yram and Mrs. Humdrum&rsquo;s
+grand-daughter, of whom I will say nothing, for I have never seen her,
+and know nothing about her, except that my father found her a sweet-looking
+girl, of graceful figure and very attractive expression.&nbsp; He was
+quite happy about her, but she was too young and shy to make it possible
+for him to do more than admire her appearance, and take Yram&rsquo;s
+word for it that she was as good as she looked.</p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXIV: AFTER DINNER, DR. DOWNIE AND THE PROFESSORS WOULD
+BE GLAD TO KNOW WHAT IS TO BE DONE ABOUT SUNCHILDISM</h2>
+<p>It was about six when George&rsquo;s <i>fianc&eacute;e</i> left the
+house, and as soon as she had done so, Yram began to see about the rug
+and the best substitutes she could find for the billy and pannikin.&nbsp;
+She had a basket packed with all that my father and George would want
+to eat and drink while on the preserves, and enough of everything, except
+meat, to keep my father going till he could reach the shepherd&rsquo;s
+hut of which I have already spoken.&nbsp; Meat would not keep, and my
+father could get plenty of flappers&mdash;i.e. ducks that cannot yet
+fly&mdash;when he was on the river-bed down below.</p>
+<p>The above preparations had not been made very long, before Mrs. Humdrum
+arrived, followed presently by Dr. Downie and in due course by the Professors,
+who were still staying in the house.&nbsp; My father remembered Mrs.
+Humdrum&rsquo;s good honest face, but could not bring Dr. Downie to
+his recollection till the Doctor told him when and where they had met,
+and then he could only very uncertainly recall him, though he vowed
+that he could now do so perfectly well.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;At any rate,&rdquo; said Hanky, advancing towards him with
+his best Bridgeford manner, &ldquo;you will not have forgotten meeting
+my brother Professor and myself.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It has been rather a forgetting sort of a morning,&rdquo;
+said my father demurely, &ldquo;but I can remember that much, and am
+delighted to renew my acquaintance with both of you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>As he spoke he shook hands with both Professors.</p>
+<p>George was a little late, but when he came, dinner was announced.&nbsp;
+My father sat on Yram&rsquo;s right-hand, Dr. Downie on her left.&nbsp;
+George was next my father, with Mrs. Humdrum opposite to him.&nbsp;
+The Professors sat one on either side of the Mayor.&nbsp; During dinner
+the conversation turned almost entirely on my father&rsquo;s flight,
+his narrow escape from drowning, and his adventures on his return to
+England; about these last my father was very reticent, for he said nothing
+about his book, and antedated his accession of wealth by some fifteen
+years, but as he walked up towards the statues with George he told him
+everything.</p>
+<p>My father repeatedly tried to turn the conversation from himself,
+but Mrs. Humdrum and Yram wanted to know about Nna Haras, as they persisted
+in calling my mother&mdash;how she endured her terrible experiences
+in the balloon, when she and my father were married, all about my unworthy
+self, and England generally.&nbsp; No matter how often he began to ask
+questions about the Nosnibors and other old acquaintances, both the
+ladies soon went back to his own adventures.&nbsp; He succeeded, however,
+in learning that Mr. Nosnibor was dead, and Zulora, an old maid of the
+most unattractive kind, who had persistently refused to accept Sunchildism,
+while Mrs. Nosnibor was the recipient of honours hardly inferior to
+those conferred by the people at large on my father and mother, with
+whom, indeed, she believed herself to have frequent interviews by way
+of visionary revelations.&nbsp; So intolerable were these revelations
+to Zulora, that a separate establishment had been provided for her.&nbsp;
+George said to my father quietly&mdash;&ldquo;Do you know I begin to
+think that Zulora must be rather a nice person.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Perhaps,&rdquo; said my father grimly, &ldquo;but my wife
+and I did not find it out.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>When the ladies left the room, Dr. Downie took Yram&rsquo;s seat,
+and Hanky Dr. Downie&rsquo;s; the Mayor took Mrs. Humdrum&rsquo;s, leaving
+my father, George, and Panky, in their old places.&nbsp; Almost immediately,
+Dr. Downie said, &ldquo;And now, Mr, Higgs, tell us, as a man of the
+world, what we are to do about Sunchildism?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>My father smiled at this.&nbsp; &ldquo;You know, my dear sir, as
+well as I do, that the proper thing would be to put me back in prison,
+and keep me there till you can send me down to the capital.&nbsp; You
+should eat your oaths of this morning, as I would eat mine; tell every
+one here who I am; let them see that my hair has been dyed; get all
+who knew me when I was here before to come and see me; appoint an unimpeachable
+committee to examine the record of my marks and measurements, and compare
+it with those of my own body.&nbsp; You should let me be seen in every
+town at which I lodged on my way down, and tell people that you had
+made a mistake.&nbsp; When you get to the capital, hand me over to the
+King&rsquo;s tender mercies and say that our oaths were only taken this
+morning to prevent a ferment in the town.&nbsp; I will play my part
+very willingly.&nbsp; The King can only kill me, and I should die like
+a gentleman.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;They will not do it,&rdquo; said George quietly to my father,
+&ldquo;and I am glad of it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He was right.&nbsp; &ldquo;This,&rdquo; said Dr. Downie, &ldquo;is
+a counsel of perfection.&nbsp; Things have gone too far, and we are
+flesh and blood.&nbsp; What would those who in your country come nearest
+to us Musical Bank Managers do, if they found they had made such a mistake
+as we have, and dared not own it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do not ask me,&rdquo; said my father; &ldquo;the story is
+too long, and too terrible.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;At any rate, then, tell us what you would have us do that
+is within our reach.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I have done you harm enough, and if I preach, as likely as
+not I shall do more.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Seeing, however, that Dr. Downie was anxious to hear what he thought,
+my father said&mdash;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then I must tell you.&nbsp; Our religion sets before us an
+ideal which we all cordially accept, but it also tells us of marvels
+like your chariot and horses, which we most of us reject.&nbsp; Our
+best teachers insist on the ideal, and keep the marvels in the background.&nbsp;
+If they could say outright that our age has outgrown them, they would
+say so, but this they may not do; nevertheless they contrive to let
+their opinions be sufficiently well known, and their hearers are content
+with this.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We have others who take a very different course, but of these
+I will not speak.&nbsp; Roughly, then, if you cannot abolish me altogether,
+make me a peg on which to hang all your own best ethical and spiritual
+conceptions.&nbsp; If you will do this, and wriggle out of that wretched
+relic, with that not less wretched picture&mdash;if you will make me
+out to be much better and abler than I was, or ever shall be, Sunchildism
+may serve your turn for many a long year to come.&nbsp; Otherwise it
+will tumble about your heads before you think it will.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Am I to go on or stop?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Go on,&rdquo; said George softly.&nbsp; That was enough for
+my father, so on he went.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are already doing part of what I wish.&nbsp; I was delighted
+with the two passages I heard on Sunday, from what you call the Sunchild&rsquo;s
+Sayings.&nbsp; I never said a word of either passage; I wish I had;
+I wish I could say anything half so good.&nbsp; And I have read a pamphlet
+by President Gurgoyle, which I liked extremely; but I never said what
+he says I did.&nbsp; Again, I wish I had.&nbsp; Keep to this sort of
+thing, and I will be as good a Sunchildist as any of you.&nbsp; But
+you must bribe some thief to steal that relic, and break it up to mend
+the roads with; and&mdash;for I believe that here as elsewhere fires
+sometimes get lighted through the carelessness of a workman&mdash;set
+the most careless workman you can find to do a plumbing job near that
+picture.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Hanky looked black at this, and George trod lightly on my father&rsquo;s
+toe, but he told me that my father&rsquo;s face was innocence itself.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;These are hard sayings,&rdquo; said Dr. Downie.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I know they are,&rdquo; replied my father, &ldquo;and I do
+not like saying them, but there is no royal road to unlearning, and
+you have much to unlearn.&nbsp; Still, you Musical Bank people bear
+witness to the fact that beyond the kingdoms of this world there is
+another, within which the writs of this world&rsquo;s kingdoms do not
+run.&nbsp; This is the great service which our church does for us in
+England, and hence many of us uphold it, though we have no sympathy
+with the party now dominant within it.&nbsp; &lsquo;Better,&rsquo; we
+think, &lsquo;a corrupt church than none at all.&rsquo;&nbsp; Moreover,
+those who in my country would step into the church&rsquo;s shoes are
+as corrupt as the church, and more exacting.&nbsp; They are also more
+dangerous, for the masses distrust the church, and are on their guard
+against aggression, whereas they do not suspect the doctrinaires and
+faddists, who, if they could, would interfere in every concern of our
+lives.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Let me return to yourselves.&nbsp; You Musical Bank Managers
+are very much such a body of men as your country needs&mdash;but when
+I was here before you had no figurehead; I have unwittingly supplied
+you with one, and it is perhaps because you saw this, that you good
+people of Bridgeford took up with me.&nbsp; Sunchildism is still young
+and plastic; if you will let the cock-and-bull stories about me tacitly
+drop, and invent no new ones, beyond saying what a delightful person
+I was, I really cannot see why I should not do for you as well as any
+one else.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There.&nbsp; What I have said is nine-tenths of it rotten
+and wrong, but it is the most practicable rotten and wrong that I can
+suggest, seeing into what a rotten and wrong state of things you have
+drifted.&nbsp; And now, Mr. Mayor, do you not think we may join the
+Mayoress and Mrs. Humdrum?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;As you please, Mr. Higgs,&rdquo; answered the Mayor.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then let us go, for I have said too much already, and your
+son George tells me that we must be starting shortly.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>As they were leaving the room Panky sidled up to my father and said,
+&ldquo;There is a point, Mr. Higgs, which you can settle for me, though
+I feel pretty certain how you will settle it.&nbsp; I think that a corruption
+has crept into the text of the very beautiful&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>At this moment, as my father, who saw what was coming, was wondering
+what in the world he could say, George came up to him and said, &ldquo;Mr.
+Higgs, my mother wishes me to take you down into the store-room, to
+make sure that she has put everything for you as you would like it.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+On this my father said he would return directly and answer what he knew
+would be Panky&rsquo;s question.</p>
+<p>When Yram had shewn what she had prepared&mdash;all of it, of course,
+faultless&mdash;she said, &ldquo;And now, Mr. Higgs, about our leave-taking.&nbsp;
+Of course we shall both of us feel much.&nbsp; I shall; I know you will;
+George will have a few more hours with you than the rest of us, but
+his time to say good-bye will come, and it will be painful to both of
+you.&nbsp; I am glad you came&mdash;I am glad you have seen George,
+and George you, and that you took to one another.&nbsp; I am glad my
+husband has seen you; he has spoken to me about you very warmly, for
+he has taken to you much as George did.&nbsp; I am very, very glad to
+have seen you myself, and to have learned what became of you&mdash;and
+of your wife.&nbsp; I know you wish well to all of us; be sure that
+we all of us wish most heartily well to you and yours.&nbsp; I sent
+for you and George, because I could not say all this unless we were
+alone; it is all I can do,&rdquo; she said, with a smile, &ldquo;to
+say it now.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Indeed it was, for the tears were in her eyes all the time, as they
+were also in my father&rsquo;s.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Let this,&rdquo; continued Yram, &ldquo;be our leave-taking&mdash;for
+we must have nothing like a scene upstairs.&nbsp; Just shake hands with
+us all, say the usual conventional things, and make it as short as you
+can; but I could not bear to send you away without a few warmer words
+than I could have said when others were in the room.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;May heaven bless you and yours,&rdquo; said my father, &ldquo;for
+ever and ever.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That will do,&rdquo; said George gently.&nbsp; &ldquo;Now,
+both of you shake hands, and come upstairs with me.&rdquo;</p>
+<hr class="tb">
+<p>When all three of them had got calm, for George had been moved almost
+as much as his father and mother, they went upstairs, and Panky came
+for his answer.&nbsp; &ldquo;You are very possibly right,&rdquo; said
+my father&mdash;&ldquo;the version you hold to be corrupt is the one
+in common use amongst ourselves, but it is only a translation, and very
+possibly only a translation of a translation, so that it may perhaps
+have been corrupted before it reached us.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That,&rdquo; said Panky, &ldquo;will explain everything,&rdquo;
+and he went contentedly away.</p>
+<p>My father talked a little aside with Mrs. Humdrum about her grand-daughter
+and George, for Yram had told him that she knew all about the attachment,
+and then George, who saw that my father found the greatest difficulty
+in maintaining an outward calm, said, &ldquo;Mr. Higgs, the streets
+are empty; we had better go.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>My father did as Yram had told him; shook hands with every one, said
+all that was usual and proper as briefly as he could, and followed George
+out of the room.&nbsp; The Mayor saw them to the door, and saved my
+father from embarrassment by saying, &ldquo;Mr. Higgs, you and I understand
+one another too well to make it necessary for us to say so.&nbsp; Good-bye
+to you, and may no ill befall you ere you get home.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>My father grasped his hand in both his own.&nbsp; &ldquo;Again,&rdquo;
+he said, &ldquo;I can say no more than that I thank you from the bottom
+of my heart.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>As he spoke he bowed his head, and went out with George into the
+night.</p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXV: GEORGE ESCORTS MY FATHER TO THE STATUES; THE TWO THEN
+PART</h2>
+<p>The streets were quite deserted as George had said they would be,
+and very dark, save for an occasional oil lamp.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;As soon as we can get within the preserves,&rdquo; said George,
+&ldquo;we had better wait till morning.&nbsp; I have a rug for myself
+as well as for you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I saw you had two,&rdquo; answered my father; &ldquo;you must
+let me carry them both; the provisions are much the heavier load.”</p>
+<p>George fought as hard as a dog would do, till my father said that
+they must not quarrel during the very short time they had to be together.&nbsp;
+On this George gave up one rug meekly enough, and my father yielded
+about the basket, and the other rug.</p>
+<p>It was about half-past eleven when they started, and it was after
+one before they reached the preserves.&nbsp; For the first mile from
+the town they were not much hindered by the darkness, and my father
+told George about his book and many another matter; he also promised
+George to say nothing about this second visit.&nbsp; Then the road became
+more rough, and when it dwindled away to be a mere lane&mdash;becoming
+presently only a foot track&mdash;they had to mind their footsteps,
+and got on but slowly.&nbsp; The night was starlit, and warm, considering
+that they were more than three thousand feet above the sea, but it was
+very dark, so that my father was well enough pleased when George showed
+him the white stones that marked the boundary, and said they had better
+soon make themselves as comfortable as they could till morning.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We can stay here,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;till half-past three,
+there will be a little daylight then; we will rest half an hour for
+breakfast at about five, and by noon we shall be at the statues, where
+we will dine.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>This being settled, George rolled himself up in his rug, and in a
+few minutes went comfortably off to sleep.&nbsp; Not so my poor father.&nbsp;
+He wound up his watch, wrapped his rug round him, and lay down; but
+he could get no sleep.&nbsp; After such a day, and such an evening,
+how could any one have slept?</p>
+<p>About three the first signs of dawn began to show, and half an hour
+later my father could see the sleeping face of his son&mdash;whom it
+went to his heart to wake.&nbsp; Nevertheless he woke him, and in a
+few minutes the two were on their way&mdash;George as fresh as a lark&mdash;my
+poor father intent on nothing so much as on hiding from George how ill
+and unsound in body and mind he was feeling.</p>
+<p>They walked on, saying but little, till at five by my father&rsquo;s
+watch George proposed a halt for breakfast.&nbsp; The spot he chose
+was a grassy oasis among the trees, carpeted with subalpine flowers,
+now in their fullest beauty, and close to a small stream that here came
+down from a side valley.&nbsp; The freshness of the morning air, the
+extreme beauty of the place, the lovely birds that flitted from tree
+to tree, the exquisite shapes and colours of the flowers, still dew-bespangled,
+and above all, the tenderness with which George treated him, soothed
+my father, and when he and George had lit a fire and made some hot corn-coffee&mdash;with
+a view to which Yram had put up a bottle of milk&mdash;he felt so much
+restored as to look forward to the rest of his journey without alarm.&nbsp;
+Moreover he had nothing to carry, for George had left his own rug at
+the place where they had slept, knowing that he should find it on his
+return; he had therefore insisted on carrying my father&rsquo;s.&nbsp;
+My father fought as long as he could, but he had to give in.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Now tell me,&rdquo; said George, glad to change the subject,
+&ldquo;what will those three men do about what you said to them last
+night?&nbsp; Will they pay any attention to it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>My father laughed.&nbsp; &ldquo;My dear George, what a question&mdash;I
+do not know them well enough.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh yes, you do.&nbsp; At any rate say what you think most
+likely.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Very well.&nbsp; I think Dr. Downie will do much as I said.&nbsp;
+He will not throw the whole thing over, through fear of schism, loyalty
+to a party from which he cannot well detach himself, and because he
+does not think that the public is quite tired enough of its toy.&nbsp;
+He will neither preach nor write against it, but he will live lukewarmly
+against it, and this is what the Hankys hate.&nbsp; They can stand either
+hot or cold, but they are afraid of lukewarm.&nbsp; In England Dr. Downie
+would be a Broad Churchman.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do you think we shall ever get rid of Sunchildism altogether?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If they stick to the cock-and-bull stories they are telling
+now, and rub them in, as Hanky did on Sunday, it may go, and go soon.&nbsp;
+It has taken root too quickly and easily; and its top is too heavy for
+its roots; still there are so many chances in its favour that it may
+last a long time.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And how about Hanky?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He will brazen it out, relic, chariot, and all: and he will
+welcome more relics and more cock-and-bull stories; his single eye will
+be upon his own aggrandisement and that of his order.&nbsp; Plausible,
+unscrupulous, heartless scoundrel that he is, he will play for the queen
+and the women of the court, as Dr. Downie will play for the king and
+the men.&nbsp; He and his party will sleep neither night nor day, but
+they will have one redeeming feature&mdash;whoever they may deceive,
+they will not deceive themselves.&nbsp; They believe every one else
+to be as bad as they are, and see no reason why they should not push
+their own wares in the way of business.&nbsp; Hanky is everything that
+we in England rightly or wrongly believe a typical Jesuit to be.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And Panky&mdash;what about him?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Panky must persuade himself of his own lies, before he is
+quite comfortable about telling them to other people.&nbsp; Hanky keeps
+Hanky well out of it; Panky must have a base of operations in Panky.&nbsp;
+Hanky will lead him by the nose, bit by bit, for his is the master spirit.&nbsp;
+In England Panky would be what we call an extreme ritualist.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then the real battle will be between Hanky and Dr. Downie.&nbsp;
+Which will carry the day?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;For the present, probably Hanky.&nbsp; He is the more vigilant,
+and energetic; in this case Sunchildism will have to go, and I am afraid
+your whole Musical Bank system will be swept away along with it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And why not?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Because, my dear boy, though false in the letter, if good
+counsels prevail, it may be made true enough in spirit.&nbsp; If it
+were to go, its place would be soon filled by men who would be as false
+in letter as the others were, and much more false in spirit.&nbsp; You
+want a heart to check your head, and a head to check your heart.&nbsp;
+As in our English body politic there are two parties opposed to one
+another, neither of which can thrive if the other is unduly weakened,
+so in our spiritual and intellectual world two parties more or less
+antagonistic are equally necessary.&nbsp; Those who are at the head
+of science provide us with the one party; those whom we call our churchmen
+are the other.&nbsp; Both are corrupt, but we can spare neither, for
+each checks as far as it can the corruptions of the other.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then you would have us uphold Sunchildism, knowing it to be
+untrue?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do what you will, you will not get perfect truth.&nbsp; And
+if you can follow the lead which I believe Dr. Downie will give you,
+that is to say, get rid of cock-and-bull stories, idealise my unworthy
+self, and, as I said last night, make me a peg on which to hang your
+own best thoughts&mdash;Sunchildism will be as near truth as anything
+you are likely to get.&nbsp; But if Hankyism triumphs, come what may
+you must get rid of it, for he and his school will tamper with the one
+sure and everlasting word of God revealed to us by human experience.&nbsp;
+He who plays fast and loose with this is as one who would forge God&rsquo;s
+signature to a cheque drawn on God&rsquo;s own bank.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Are we to foster the belief that it was indeed the Sunchild
+who interrupted Hanky&rsquo;s sermon?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, where you safely can, but not otherwise; and commit the
+facts to writing as soon as you can find time.&nbsp; Do nothing to jeopardise
+your own safety; you can do more by perfunctory acquiescence than by
+open dissent.&nbsp; And tell those friends whom you can trust, what
+these my parting words to you have been.&nbsp; But above all I charge
+you solemnly, do nothing to jeopardise your own safety; you cannot play
+into Hanky&rsquo;s hands more certainly than by risking this.&nbsp;
+Think how he and Panky would rejoice, and how Dr. Downie would grieve.&nbsp;
+Be wise and wary; bide your time; do what you prudently can, and you
+will find you can do much; try to do more, and you will do nothing.&nbsp;
+Be guided by the Mayor, by your mother&mdash;and by that dear old lady
+whose grandson you will&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then they have told you,&rdquo; interrupted the youth blushing
+scarlet.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My dearest boy, of course they have, and I have seen her,
+and am head over ears in love with her myself.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He was all smiles and blushes, and vowed for a few minutes that it
+was a shame of them to tell me, but presently he said&mdash;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then you like her.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Rather!&rdquo; said my father vehemently, and shaking George
+by the hand.&nbsp; But he said nothing about the nuggets and the sovereigns,
+knowing that Yram did not wish him to do so.&nbsp; Neither did George
+say anything about his determination to start for the capital in the
+morning, and make a clean breast of everything to the King.&nbsp; So
+soon does it become necessary even for those who are most cordially
+attached to hide things from one another.&nbsp; My father, however,
+was made comfortable by receiving a promise from the youth that he would
+take no step of which the persons he had named would disapprove.</p>
+<p>When once Mrs. Humdrum&rsquo;s grand-daughter had been introduced
+there was no more talking about Hanky and Panky; for George began to
+bubble over with the subject that was nearest his heart, and how much
+he feared that it would be some time yet before he could be married.&nbsp;
+Many a story did he tell of his early attachment and of its course for
+the last ten years, but my space will not allow me to inflict one of
+them on the reader.&nbsp; My father saw that the more he listened and
+sympathised and encouraged, the fonder George became of him, and this
+was all he cared about.</p>
+<p>Thus did they converse hour after hour.&nbsp; They passed the Blue
+Pool, without seeing it or even talking about it for more than a minute.&nbsp;
+George kept an eye on the quails and declared them fairly plentiful
+and strong on the wing, but nothing now could keep him from pouring
+out his whole heart about Mrs. Humdrum&rsquo;s grand-daughter, until
+towards noon they caught sight of the statues, and a halt was made which
+gave my father the first pang he had felt that morning, for he knew
+that the statues would be the beginning of the end.</p>
+<p>There was no need to light a fire, for Yram had packed for them two
+bottles of a delicious white wine, something like White Capri, which
+went admirably with the many more solid good things that she had provided
+for them.&nbsp; As soon as they had finished a hearty meal my father
+said to George, &ldquo;You must have my watch for a keepsake; I see
+you are not wearing my boots.&nbsp; I fear you did not find them comfortable,
+but I am glad you have not got them on, for I have set my heart on keeping
+yours.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Let us settle about the boots first.&nbsp; I rather fancied
+that that was why you put me off when I wanted to get my own back again;
+and then I thought I should like yours for a keepsake, so I put on another
+pair last night, and they are nothing like so comfortable as yours were.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Now I wonder,&rdquo; said my father to me, &ldquo;whether
+this was true, or whether it was only that dear fellow&rsquo;s pretty
+invention; but true or false I was as delighted as he meant me to be.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>I asked George about this when I saw him, and he confessed with an
+ingenuous blush that my father&rsquo;s boots had hurt him, and that
+he had never thought of making a keepsake of them, till my father&rsquo;s
+words stimulated his invention.</p>
+<p>As for the watch, which was only a silver one, but of the best make,
+George protested for a time, but when he had yielded, my father could
+see that he was overjoyed at getting it; for watches, though now permitted,
+were expensive and not in common use.</p>
+<p>Having thus bribed him, my father broached the possibility of his
+meeting him at the statues on that day twelvemonth, but of course saying
+nothing about why he was so anxious that he should come.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I will come,&rdquo; said my father, &ldquo;not a yard farther
+than the statues, and if I cannot come I will send your brother.&nbsp;
+And I will come at noon; but it is possible that the river down below
+may be in fresh, and I may not be able to hit off the day, though I
+will move heaven and earth to do so.&nbsp; Therefore if I do not meet
+you on the day appointed, do your best to come also at noon on the following
+day.&nbsp; I know how inconvenient this will be for you, and will come
+true to the day if it is possible.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>To my father&rsquo;s surprise, George did not raise so many difficulties
+as he had expected.&nbsp; He said it might be done, if neither he nor
+my father were to go beyond the statues.&nbsp; &ldquo;And difficult
+as it will be for you,&rdquo; said George, &ldquo;you had better come
+a second day if necessary, as I will, for who can tell what might happen
+to make the first day impossible?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then,&rdquo; said my father, &ldquo;we shall be spared that
+horrible feeling that we are parting without hope of seeing each other
+again.&nbsp; I find it hard enough to say good-bye even now, but I do
+not know how I could have faced it if you had not agreed to our meeting
+again.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The day fixed upon will be our XXI. i. 3, and the hour noon
+as near as may be?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;So.&nbsp; Let me write it down: &lsquo;XXI. i. 3, <i>i.e</i>.
+our December 9, 1891, I am to meet George at the statues, at twelve
+o&rsquo;clock, and if he does not come, I am to be there again on the
+following day.&rsquo;”</p>
+<p>In like manner, George wrote down what he was to do: &ldquo;XXI.
+i. 3, or failing this XXI. i. 4.&nbsp; Statues.&nbsp; Noon.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;This,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;is a solemn covenant, is it not?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said my father, &ldquo;and may all good omens
+attend it!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The words were not out of his mouth before a mountain bird, something
+like our jackdaw, but smaller and of a bluer black, flew out of the
+hollow mouth of one of the statues, and with a hearty chuckle perched
+on the ground at his feet, attracted doubtless by the scraps of food
+that were lying about.&nbsp; With the fearlessness of birds in that
+country, it looked up at him and George, gave another hearty chuckle,
+and flew back to its statue with the largest fragment it could find.</p>
+<p>They settled that this was an omen so propitious that they could
+part in good hope.&nbsp; &ldquo;Let us finish the wine,&rdquo; said
+my father, &ldquo;and then, do what must be done!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>They finished the wine to each other&rsquo;s good health; George
+drank also to mine, and said he hoped my father would bring me with
+him, while my father drank to Yram, the Mayor, their children, Mrs.
+Humdrum, and above all to Mrs. Humdrum&rsquo;s grand-daughter.&nbsp;
+They then re-packed all that could be taken away; my father rolled his
+rug to his liking, slung it over his shoulder, gripped George&rsquo;s
+hand, and said, &ldquo;My dearest boy, when we have each turned our
+backs upon one another, let us walk our several ways as fast as we can,
+and try not to look behind us.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>So saying he loosed his grip of George&rsquo;s hand, bared his head,
+lowered it, and turned away.</p>
+<p>George burst into tears, and followed him after he had gone two paces;
+he threw his arms round him, hugged him, kissed him on his lips, cheeks,
+and forehead, and then turning round, strode full speed towards Sunch&rsquo;ston.&nbsp;
+My father never took his eyes off him till he was out of sight, but
+the boy did not look round.&nbsp; When he could see him no more, my
+father with faltering gait, and feeling as though a prop had suddenly
+been taken from under him, began to follow the stream down towards his
+old camp.</p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXVI: MY FATHER REACHES HOME, AND DIES NOT LONG AFTERWARDS</h2>
+<p>My father could walk but slowly, for George&rsquo;s boots had blistered
+his feet, and it seemed to him that the river-bed, of which he caught
+glimpses now and again, never got any nearer; but all things come to
+an end, and by seven o&rsquo;clock on the night of Tuesday, he was on
+the spot which he had left on the preceding Friday morning.&nbsp; Three
+entire days had intervened, but he felt that something, he knew not
+what, had seized him, and that whereas before these three days life
+had been one thing, what little might follow them, would be another&mdash;and
+a very different one.</p>
+<p>He soon caught sight of his horse which had strayed a mile lower
+down the river-bed, and in spite of his hobbles had crossed one ugly
+stream that my father dared not ford on foot.&nbsp; Tired though he
+was, he went after him, bridle in hand, and when the friendly creature
+saw him, it recrossed the stream, and came to him of its own accord&mdash;either
+tired of his own company, or tempted by some bread my father held out
+towards him.&nbsp; My father took off the hobbles, and rode him bare-backed
+to the camping ground, where he rewarded him with more bread and biscuit,
+and then hobbled him again for the night.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It was here,&rdquo; he said to me on one of the first days
+after his return, &ldquo;that I first knew myself to be a broken man.&nbsp;
+As for meeting George again, I felt sure that it would be all I could
+do to meet his brother; and though George was always in my thoughts,
+it was for you and not him that I was now yearning.&nbsp; When I gave
+George my watch, how glad I was that I had left my gold one at home,
+for that is yours, and I could not have brought myself to give it him.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Never mind that, my dear father,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;but
+tell me how you got down the river, and thence home again.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My very dear boy,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I can hardly remember,
+and I had no energy to make any more notes.&nbsp; I remember putting
+a scrap of paper into the box of sovereigns, merely sending George my
+love along with the money; I remember also dropping the box into a hole
+in a tree, which I blazed, and towards which I drew a line of wood-ashes.&nbsp;
+I seem to see a poor unhinged creature gazing moodily for hours into
+a fire which he heaps up now and again with wood.&nbsp; There is not
+a breath of air; Nature sleeps so calmly that she dares not even breathe
+for fear of waking; the very river has hushed his flow.&nbsp; Without,
+the starlit calm of a summer&rsquo;s night in a great wilderness; within,
+a hurricane of wild and incoherent thoughts battling with one another
+in their fury to fall upon him and rend him&mdash;and on the other side
+the great wall of mountain, thousands of children praying at their mother&rsquo;s
+knee to this poor dazed thing.&nbsp; I suppose this half delirious wretch
+must have been myself.&nbsp; But I must have been more ill when I left
+England than I thought I was, or Erewhon would not have broken me down
+as it did.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>No doubt he was right.&nbsp; Indeed it was because Mr. Cathie and
+his doctor saw that he was out of health and in urgent need of change,
+that they left off opposing his wish to travel.&nbsp; There is no use,
+however, in talking about this now.</p>
+<p>I never got from him how he managed to reach the shepherd&rsquo;s
+hut, but I learned some little from the shepherd, when I stayed with
+him both on going towards Erewhon, and on returning.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He did not seem to have drink in him,&rdquo; said the shepherd,
+&ldquo;when he first came here; but he must have been pretty full of
+it, or he must have had some bottles in his saddle-bags; for he was
+awful when he came back.&nbsp; He had got them worse than any man I
+ever saw, only that he was not awkward.&nbsp; He said there was a bird
+flying out of a giant&rsquo;s mouth and laughing at him, and he kept
+muttering about a blue pool, and hanky-panky of all sorts, and he said
+he knew it was all hanky-panky, at least I thought he said so, but it
+was no use trying to follow him, for it was all nothing but horrors.&nbsp;
+He said I was to stop the people from trying to worship him.&nbsp; Then
+he said the sky opened and he could see the angels going about and singing
+&lsquo;Hallelujah.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How long did he stay with you?&rdquo; I asked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;About ten days, but the last three he was himself again, only
+too weak to move.&nbsp; He thought he was cured except for weakness.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do you know how he had been spending the last two days or
+so before he got down to your hut?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>I said two days, because this was the time I supposed he would take
+to descend the river.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I should say drinking all the time.&nbsp; He said he had fallen
+off his horse two or three times, till he took to leading him.&nbsp;
+If he had had any other horse than old Doctor he would have been a dead
+man.&nbsp; Bless you, I have known that horse ever since he was foaled,
+and I never saw one like him for sense.&nbsp; He would pick fords better
+than that gentleman could, I know, and if the gentleman fell off him
+he would just stay stock still.&nbsp; He was badly bruised, poor man,
+when he got here.&nbsp; I saw him through the gorge when he left me,
+and he gave me a sovereign; he said he had only one other left to take
+him down to the port, or he would have made it more.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He was my father,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and he is dead, but
+before he died he told me to give you five pounds which I have brought
+you.&nbsp; I think you are wrong in saying that he had been drinking.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That is what they all say; but I take it very kind of him
+to have thought of me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>My father&rsquo;s illness for the first three weeks after his return
+played with him as a cat plays with a mouse; now and again it would
+let him have a day or two&rsquo;s run, during which he was so cheerful
+and unclouded that his doctor was quite hopeful about him.&nbsp; At
+various times on these occasions I got from him that when he left the
+shepherd&rsquo;s hut, he thought his illness had run itself out, and
+that he should now reach the port from which he was to sail for S. Francisco
+without misadventure.&nbsp; This he did, and he was able to do all he
+had to do at the port, though frequently attacked with passing fits
+of giddiness.&nbsp; I need not dwell upon his voyage to S. Francisco,
+and thence home; it is enough to say that he was able to travel by himself
+in spite of gradually, but continually, increasing failure.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;When,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I reached the port, I telegraphed
+as you know, for more money.&nbsp; How puzzled you must have been.&nbsp;
+I sold my horse to the man from whom I bought it, at a loss of only
+about &pound;10, and I left with him my saddle, saddle-bags, small hatchet,
+my hobbles, and in fact everything that I had taken with me, except
+what they had impounded in Erewhon.&nbsp; Yram&rsquo;s rug I dropped
+into the river when I knew that I should no longer need it&mdash;as
+also her substitutes for my billy and pannikin; and I burned her basket.&nbsp;
+The shepherd would have asked me questions.&nbsp; You will find an order
+to deliver everything up to bearer.&nbsp; You need therefore take nothing
+from England.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>At another time he said, &ldquo;When you go, for it is plain I cannot,
+and go one or other of us must, try and get the horse I had: he will
+be nine years old, and he knows all about the rivers: if you leave everything
+to him, you may shut your eyes, but do not interfere with him.&nbsp;
+Give the shepherd what I said and he will attend to you, but go a day
+or two too soon, for the margin of one day was not enough to allow in
+case of a fresh in the river; if the water is discoloured you must not
+cross it&mdash;not even with Doctor.&nbsp; I could not ask George to
+come up three days running from Sunch&rsquo;ston to the statues and
+back.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Here he became exhausted.&nbsp; Almost the last coherent string of
+sentences I got from him was as follows:-</p>
+<p>&ldquo;About George&rsquo;s money if I send him &pound;2000 you will
+still have nearly &pound;150,000 left, and Mr. Cathie will not let you
+try to make it more.&nbsp; I know you would give him four or five thousand,
+but the Mayor and I talked it over, and settled that &pound;2000 in
+gold would make him a rich man.&nbsp; Consult our good friend Alfred&rdquo;
+(meaning, of course, Mr. Cathie) &ldquo;about the best way of taking
+the money.&nbsp; I am afraid there is nothing for it but gold, and this
+will be a great weight for you to carry&mdash;about, I believe 36 lbs.&nbsp;
+Can you do this?&nbsp; I really think that if you lead your horse you
+. . . no&mdash;there will be the getting him down again&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t worry about it, my dear father,&rdquo; said I,
+&ldquo;I can do it easily if I stow the load rightly, and I will see
+to this.&nbsp; I shall have nothing else to carry, for I shall camp
+down below both morning and evening.&nbsp; But would you not like to
+send some present to the Mayor, Yram, their other children, and Mrs.
+Humdrum&rsquo;s grand-daughter?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do what you can,&rdquo; said my father.&nbsp; And these were
+the last instructions he gave me about those adventures with which alone
+this work is concerned.</p>
+<p>The day before he died, he had a little flicker of intelligence,
+but all of a sudden his face became clouded as with great anxiety; he
+seemed to see some horrible chasm in front of him which he had to cross,
+or which he feared that I must cross, for he gasped out words, which,
+as near as I could catch them, were, &ldquo;Look out!&nbsp; John!&nbsp;
+Leap!&nbsp; Leap!&nbsp; Le.... &rdquo; but he could not say all that
+he was trying to say and closed his eyes, having, as I then deemed,
+seen that he was on the brink of that gulf which lies between life and
+death; I took it that in reality he died at that moment; for there was
+neither struggle, nor hardly movement of any kind afterwards&mdash;nothing
+but a pulse which for the next several hours grew fainter and fainter
+so gradually, that it was not till some time after it had ceased to
+beat that we were certain of its having done so.</p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXVII: I MEET MY BROTHER GEORGE AT THE STATUES, ON THE TOP
+OF THE PASS INTO EREWHON</h2>
+<p>This book has already become longer than I intended, but I will ask
+the reader to have patience while I tell him briefly of my own visit
+to the threshold of that strange country of which I fear that he may
+be already beginning to tire.</p>
+<p>The winding-up of my father&rsquo;s estate was a very simple matter,
+and by the beginning of September 1891 I should have been free to start;
+but about that time I became engaged, and naturally enough I did not
+want to be longer away than was necessary.&nbsp; I should not have gone
+at all if I could have helped it.&nbsp; I left, however, a fortnight
+later than my father had done.</p>
+<p>Before starting I bought a handsome gold repeater for the Mayor,
+and a brooch for Yram, of pearls and diamonds set in gold, for which
+I paid &pound;200.&nbsp; For Yram&rsquo;s three daughters and for Mrs.
+Humdrum&rsquo;s grand-daughter I took four brooches each of which cost
+about &pound;15, 15s., and for the boys I got three ten-guinea silver
+watches.&nbsp; For George I only took a strong English knife of the
+best make, and the two thousand pounds worth of uncoined gold, which
+for convenience&rsquo; sake I had had made into small bars.&nbsp; I
+also had a knapsack made that would hold these and nothing else&mdash;each
+bar being strongly sewn into its place, so that none of them could shift.&nbsp;
+Whenever I went on board ship, or went on shore, I put this on my back,
+so that no one handled it except myself&mdash;and I can assure the reader
+that I did not find it a light weight to handle.&nbsp; I ought to have
+taken something for old Mrs. Humdrum, but I am ashamed to say that I
+forgot her.</p>
+<p>I went as directly as I could to the port of which my father had
+told me, and reached it on November 27, one day later than he had done
+in the preceding year.</p>
+<p>On the following day, which was a Saturday, I went to the livery
+stables from which my father had bought his horse, and found to my great
+delight that Doctor could be at my disposal, for, as it seemed to me,
+the very reasonable price of fifteen shillings a day.&nbsp; I shewed
+the owner of the stables my father&rsquo;s order, and all the articles
+he had left were immediately delivered to me.&nbsp; I was still wearing
+crape round one arm, and the horse-dealer, whose name was Baker, said
+he was afraid the other gentleman might be dead.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Indeed, he is so,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and a great grief
+it is to me; he was my father.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Dear, dear,&rdquo; answered Mr. Baker, &ldquo;that is a very
+serious thing for the poor gentleman.&nbsp; He seemed quite unfit to
+travel alone, and I feared he was not long for this world, but he was
+bent on going.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>I had nothing now to do but to buy a blanket, pannikin, and billy,
+with some tea, tobacco, two bottles of brandy, some ship&rsquo;s biscuits,
+and whatever other few items were down on the list of requisites which
+my father had dictated to me.&nbsp; Mr. Baker, seeing that I was what
+he called a new chum, shewed me how to pack my horse, but I kept my
+knapsack full of gold on my back, and though I could see that it puzzled
+him, he asked no questions.&nbsp; There was no reason why I should not
+set out at once for the principal town of the colony, which was some
+ten miles inland; I, therefore, arranged at my hotel that the greater
+part of my luggage should await my return, and set out to climb the
+high hills that back the port.&nbsp; From the top of these I had a magnificent
+view of the plains that I should have to cross, and of the long range
+of distant mountains which bounded them north and south as far as the
+eye could reach.&nbsp; On some of the mountains I could still see streaks
+of snow, but my father had explained to me that the ranges I should
+here see, were not those dividing the English colony from Erewhon.&nbsp;
+I also saw, some nine miles or so out upon the plains, the more prominent
+buildings of a large town which seemed to be embosomed in trees, and
+this I reached in about an hour and a half; for I had to descend at
+a foot&rsquo;s pace, and Doctor&rsquo;s many virtues did not comprise
+a willingness to go beyond an amble.</p>
+<p>At the town above referred to I spent the night, and began to strike
+across the plains on the following morning.&nbsp; I might have crossed
+these in three days at twenty-five miles a day, but I had too much time
+on my hands, and my load of gold was so uncomfortable that I was glad
+to stay at one accommodation house after another, averaging about eighteen
+miles a day.&nbsp; I have no doubt that if I had taken advice, I could
+have stowed my load more conveniently, but I could not unpack it, and
+made the best of it as it was.</p>
+<p>On the evening of Wednesday, December 2, I reached the river which
+I should have to follow up; it was here nearing the gorge through which
+it had to pass before the country opened out again at the back of the
+front range.&nbsp; I came upon it quite suddenly on reaching the brink
+of a great terrace, the bank of which sloped almost precipitously down
+towards it, but was covered with grass.&nbsp; The terrace was some three
+hundred feet above the river, and faced another similar one, which was
+from a mile and a half to two miles distant.&nbsp; At the bottom of
+this huge yawning chasm, rolled the mighty river, and I shuddered at
+the thought of having to cross and recross it.&nbsp; For it was angry,
+muddy, evidently in heavy fresh, and filled bank and bank for nearly
+a mile with a flood of seething waters.</p>
+<p>I followed along the northern edge of the terrace, till I reached
+the last accommodation house that could be said to be on the plains&mdash;which,
+by the way, were here some eight or nine hundred feet above sea level.&nbsp;
+When I reached this house, I was glad to learn that the river was not
+likely to remain high for more than a day or two, and that if what was
+called a Southerly Burster came up, as it might be expected to do at
+any moment, it would be quite low again before three days were over.</p>
+<p>At this house I stayed the night, and in the course of the evening
+a stray dog&mdash;a retriever, hardly full grown, and evidently very
+much down on his luck&mdash;took up with me; when I inquired about him,
+and asked if I might take him with me, the landlord said he wished I
+would, for he knew nothing about him and was trying to drive him from
+the house.&nbsp; Knowing what a boon the companionship of this poor
+beast would be to me when I was camping out alone, I encouraged him,
+and next morning he followed me as a matter of course.</p>
+<p>In the night the Southerly Burster which my host anticipated had
+come up, cold and blustering, but invigorating after the hot, dry, wind
+that had been blowing hard during the daytime as I had crossed the plains.&nbsp;
+A mile or two higher up I passed a large sheep-station, but did not
+stay there.&nbsp; One or two men looked at me with surprise, and asked
+me where I was going, whereon I said I was in search of rare plants
+and birds for the Museum of the town at which I had slept the night
+after my arrival.&nbsp; This satisfied their curiosity, and I ambled
+on accompanied by the dog.&nbsp; In passing I may say that I found Doctor
+not to excel at any pace except an amble, but for a long journey, especially
+for one who is carrying a heavy, awkward load, there is no pace so comfortable;
+and he ambled fairly fast.</p>
+<p>I followed the horse track which had been cut through the gorge,
+and in many places I disliked it extremely, for the river, still in
+fresh, was raging furiously; twice, for some few yards, where the gorge
+was wider and the stream less rapid, it covered the track, and I had
+no confidence that it might not have washed it away; on these occasions
+Doctor pricked his ears towards the water, and was evidently thinking
+exactly what his rider was.&nbsp; He decided, however, that all would
+be sound, and took to the water without any urging on my part.&nbsp;
+Seeing his opinion, I remembered my father&rsquo;s advice, and let him
+do what he liked, but in one place for three or four yards the water
+came nearly up to his belly, and I was in great fear for the watches
+that were in my saddle-bags.&nbsp; As for the dog, I feared I had lost
+him, but after a time he rejoined me, though how he contrived to do
+so I cannot say.</p>
+<p>Nothing could be grander than the sight of this great river pent
+into a narrow compass, and occasionally becoming more like an immense
+waterfall than a river, but I was in continual fear of coming to more
+places where the water would be over the track, and perhaps of finding
+myself unable to get any farther.&nbsp; I therefore failed to enjoy
+what was really far the most impressive sight in its way that I had
+ever seen.&nbsp; &ldquo;Give me,&rdquo; I said to myself, &ldquo;the
+Thames at Richmond,&rdquo; and right thankful was I, when at about two
+o&rsquo;clock I found that I was through the gorge and in a wide valley,
+the greater part of which, however, was still covered by the river.&nbsp;
+It was here that I heard for the first time the curious sound of boulders
+knocking against each other underneath the great body of water that
+kept rolling them round and round.</p>
+<p>I now halted, and lit a fire, for there was much dead scrub standing
+that had remained after the ground had been burned for the first time
+some years previously.&nbsp; I made myself some tea, and turned Doctor
+out for a couple of hours to feed.&nbsp; I did not hobble him, for my
+father had told me that he would always come for bread.&nbsp; When I
+had dined, and smoked, and slept for a couple of hours or so, I reloaded
+Doctor and resumed my journey towards the shepherd&rsquo;s hut, which
+I caught sight of about a mile before I reached it.&nbsp; When nearly
+half a mile off it, I dismounted, and made a written note of the exact
+spot at which I did so.&nbsp; I then turned for a couple of hundred
+yards to my right, at right angles to the track, where some huge rocks
+were lying&mdash;fallen ages since from the mountain that flanked this
+side of the valley.&nbsp; Here I deposited my knapsack in a hollow underneath
+some of the rocks, and put a good sized stone in front of it, for I
+meant spending a couple of days with the shepherd to let the river go
+down.&nbsp; Moreover, as it was now only December 3, I had too much
+time on my hands, but I had not dared to cut things finer.</p>
+<p>I reached the hut at about six o&rsquo;clock, and introduced myself
+to the shepherd, who was a nice, kind old man, commonly called Harris,
+but his real name he told me was Horace&mdash;Horace Taylor.&nbsp; I
+had the conversation with him of which I have already told the reader,
+adding that my father had been unable to give a coherent account of
+what he had seen, and that I had been sent to get the information he
+had failed to furnish.</p>
+<p>The old man said that I must certainly wait a couple of days before
+I went higher up the river.&nbsp; He had made himself a nice garden,
+in which he took the greatest pride, and which supplied him with plenty
+of vegetables.&nbsp; He was very glad to have company, and to receive
+the newspapers which I had taken care to bring him.&nbsp; He had a real
+genius for simple cookery, and fed me excellently.&nbsp; My father&rsquo;s
+&pound;5, and the ration of brandy which I nightly gave him, made me
+a welcome guest, and though I was longing to be at any rate as far as
+the foot of the pass into Erewhon, I amused myself very well in an abundance
+of ways with which I need not trouble the reader.</p>
+<p>One of the first things that Harris said to me was, &ldquo;I wish
+I knew what your father did with the nice red blanket he had with him
+when he went up the river.&nbsp; He had none when he came down again;
+I have no horse here, but I borrowed one from a man who came up one
+day from down below, and rode to a place where I found what I am sure
+were the ashes of the last fire he made, but I could find neither the
+blanket nor the billy and pannikin he took away with him.&nbsp; He said
+he supposed he must have left the things there, but he could remember
+nothing about it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am afraid,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;that I cannot help you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;At any rate,&rdquo; continued the shepherd, &ldquo;I did not
+have my ride for nothing, for as I was coming back I found this rug
+half covered with sand on the river-bed.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>As he spoke he pointed to an excellent warm rug, on the spare bunk
+in his hut.&nbsp; &ldquo;It is none of our make,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;I
+suppose some foreign digger has come over from the next river down south
+and got drowned, for it had not been very long where I found it, at
+least I think not, for it was not much fly-blown, and no one had passed
+here to go up the river since your father.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>I knew what it was, but I held my tongue beyond saying that the rug
+was a very good one.</p>
+<p>The next day, December 4, was lovely, after a night that had been
+clear and cold, with frost towards early morning.&nbsp; When the shepherd
+had gone for some three hours in the forenoon to see his sheep (that
+were now lambing), I walked down to the place where I had left my knapsack,
+and carried it a good mile above the hut, where I again hid it.&nbsp;
+I could see the great range from one place, and the thick new fallen
+snow assured me that the river would be quite normal shortly.&nbsp;
+Indeed, by evening it was hardly at all discoloured, but I waited another
+day, and set out on the morning of Sunday, December 6.&nbsp; The river
+was now almost as low as in winter, and Harris assured me that if I
+used my eyes I could not miss finding a ford over one stream or another
+every half mile or so.&nbsp; I had the greatest difficulty in preventing
+him from accompanying me on foot for some little distance, but I got
+rid of him in the end; he came with me beyond the place where I had
+hidden my knapsack, but when he had left me long enough, I rode back
+and got it.</p>
+<p>I see I am dwelling too long upon my own small adventures.&nbsp;
+Suffice it that, accompanied by my dog, I followed the north bank of
+the river till I found I must cross one stream before I could get any
+farther.&nbsp; This place would not do, and I had to ride half a mile
+back before I found one that seemed as if it might be safe.&nbsp; I
+fancy my father must have done just the same thing, for Doctor seemed
+to know the ground, and took to the water the moment I brought him to
+it.&nbsp; It never reached his belly, but I confess I did not like it.&nbsp;
+By and by I had to recross, and so on, off and on, till at noon I camped
+for dinner.&nbsp; Here the dog found me a nest of young ducks, nearly
+fledged, from which the parent birds tried with great success to decoy
+me.&nbsp; I fully thought I was going to catch them, but the dog knew
+better and made straight for the nest, from which he returned immediately
+with a fine young duck in his mouth, which he laid at my feet, wagging
+his tail and barking.&nbsp; I took another from the nest and left two
+for the old birds.</p>
+<p>The afternoon was much as the morning and towards seven I reached
+a place which suggested itself as a good camping ground.&nbsp; I had
+hardly fixed on it and halted, before I saw a few pieces of charred
+wood, and felt sure that my father must have camped at this very place
+before me.&nbsp; I hobbled Doctor, unloaded, plucked and singed a duck,
+and gave the dog some of the meat with which Harris had furnished me;
+I made tea, laid my duck on the embers till it was cooked, smoked, gave
+myself a nightcap of brandy and water, and by and by rolled myself round
+in my blanket, with the dog curled up beside me.&nbsp; I will not dwell
+upon the strangeness of my feelings&mdash;nor the extreme beauty of
+the night.&nbsp; But for the dog, and Doctor, I should have been frightened,
+but I knew that there were no savage creatures or venomous snakes in
+the country, and both the dog and Doctor were such good companionable
+creatures, that I did not feel so much oppressed by the solitude as
+I had feared I should be.&nbsp; But the night was cold, and my blanket
+was not enough to keep me comfortably warm.</p>
+<p>The following day was delightfully warm as soon as the sun got to
+the bottom of the valley, and the fresh fallen snow disappeared so fast
+from the snowy range that I was afraid it would raise the river&mdash;which,
+indeed, rose in the afternoon and became slightly discoloured, but it
+cannot have been more than three or four inches deeper, for it never
+reached the bottom of my saddle-bags.&nbsp; I believe Doctor knew exactly
+where I was going, for he wanted no guidance.&nbsp; I halted again at
+midday, got two more ducks, crossed and recrossed the river, or some
+of its streams, several times, and at about six, caught sight, after
+a bend in the valley, of the glacier descending on to the river-bed.&nbsp;
+This I knew to be close to the point at which I was to camp for the
+night, and from which I was to ascend the mountain.&nbsp; After another
+hour&rsquo;s slow progress over the increasing roughness of the river-bed,
+I saw the triangular delta of which my father had told me, and the stream
+that had formed it, bounding down the mountain side.&nbsp; Doctor went
+right up to the place where my father&rsquo;s fire had been, and I again
+found many pieces of charred wood and ashes.</p>
+<p>As soon as I had unloaded Doctor and hobbled him, I went to a tree
+hard by, on which I could see the mark of a blaze, and towards which
+I thought I could see a line of wood ashes running.&nbsp; There I found
+a hole in which some bird had evidently been wont to build, and surmised
+correctly that it must be the one in which my father had hidden his
+box of sovereigns.&nbsp; There was no box in the hole now, and I began
+to feel that I was at last within measureable distance of Erewhon and
+the Erewhonians.</p>
+<p>I camped for the night here, and again found my single blanket insufficient.&nbsp;
+The next day, i.e. Tuesday, December 8, I had to pass as I best could,
+and it occurred to me that as I should find the gold a great weight,
+I had better take it some three hours up the mountain side and leave
+it there, so as to make the following day less fatiguing, and this I
+did, returning to my camp for dinner; but I was panic-stricken all the
+rest of the day lest I should not have hidden it safely, or lest I should
+be unable to find it next day&mdash;conjuring up a hundred absurd fancies
+as to what might befall it.&nbsp; And after all, heavy though it was,
+I could have carried it all the way.&nbsp; In the afternoon I saddled
+Doctor and rode him up to the glaciers, which were indeed magnificent,
+and then I made the few notes of my journey from which this chapter
+has been taken.&nbsp; I made excuses for turning in early, and at daybreak
+rekindled my fire and got my breakfast.&nbsp; All the time the companionship
+of the dog was an unspeakable comfort to me.</p>
+<p>It was now the day my father had fixed for my meeting with George,
+and my excitement (with which I have not yet troubled the reader, though
+it had been consuming me ever since I had left Harris&rsquo;s hut) was
+beyond all bounds, so much so that I almost feared I was in a fever
+which would prevent my completing the little that remained of my task;
+in fact, I was in as great a panic as I had been about the gold that
+I had left.&nbsp; My hands trembled as I took the watches, and the brooches
+for Yram and her daughters from my saddle-bags, which I then hung, probably
+on the very bough on which my father had hung them.&nbsp; Needless to
+say, I also hung my saddle and bridle along with the saddle-bags.</p>
+<p>It was nearly seven before I started, and about ten before I reached
+the hiding-place of my knapsack.&nbsp; I found it, of course, quite
+easily, shouldered it, and toiled on towards the statues.&nbsp; At a
+quarter before twelve I reached them, and almost beside myself as I
+was, could not refrain from some disappointment at finding them a good
+deal smaller than I expected.&nbsp; My father, correcting the measurement
+he had given in his book, said he thought that they were about four
+or five times the size of life; but really I do not think they were
+more than twenty feet high, any one of them.&nbsp; In other respects
+my father&rsquo;s description of them is quite accurate.&nbsp; There
+was no wind, and as a matter of course, therefore, they were not chanting.&nbsp;
+I wiled away the quarter of an hour before the time when George became
+due, with wondering at them, and in a way admiring them, hideous though
+they were; but all the time I kept looking towards the part from which
+George should come.</p>
+<p>At last my watch pointed to noon, but there was no George.&nbsp;
+A quarter past twelve, but no George.&nbsp; Half-past, still no George.&nbsp;
+One o&rsquo;clock, and all the quarters till three o&rsquo;clock, but
+still no George.&nbsp; I tried to eat some of the ship&rsquo;s biscuits
+I had brought with me, but I could not.&nbsp; My disappointment was
+now as great as my excitement had been all the forenoon; at three o&rsquo;clock
+I fairly cried, and for half an hour could only fling myself on the
+ground and give way to all the unreasonable spleen that extreme vexation
+could suggest.&nbsp; True, I kept telling myself that for aught I knew
+George might be dead, or down with a fever; but this would not do; for
+in this last case he should have sent one of his brothers to meet me,
+and it was not likely that he was dead.&nbsp; I am afraid I thought
+it most probable that he had been casual&mdash;of which unworthy suspicion
+I have long since been heartily ashamed.</p>
+<p>I put the brooches inside my knapsack, and hid it in a place where
+I was sure no one would find it; then, with a heavy heart, I trudged
+down again to my camp&mdash;broken in spirit, and hopeless for the morrow.</p>
+<p>I camped again, but it was some hours before I got a wink of sleep;
+and when sleep came it was accompanied by a strange dream.&nbsp; I dreamed
+that I was by my father&rsquo;s bedside, watching his last flicker of
+intelligence, and vainly trying to catch the words that he was not less
+vainly trying to utter.&nbsp; All of a sudden the bed seemed to be at
+my camping ground, and the largest of the statues appeared, quite small,
+high up the mountain side, but striding down like a giant in seven league
+boots till it stood over me and my father, and shouted out &ldquo;Leap,
+John, leap.&rdquo;&nbsp; In the horror of this vision I woke with a
+loud cry that woke my dog also, and made him shew such evident signs
+of fear, that it seemed to me as though he too must have shared my dream.</p>
+<p>Shivering with cold I started up in a frenzy, but there was nothing,
+save a night of such singular beauty that I did not even try to go to
+sleep again.&nbsp; Naturally enough, on trying to keep awake I dropped
+asleep before many minutes were over.</p>
+<p>In the morning I again climbed up to the statues, without, to my
+surprise, being depressed with the idea that George would again fail
+to meet me.&nbsp; On the contrary, without rhyme or reason, I had a
+strong presentiment that he would come.&nbsp; And sure enough, as soon
+as I caught sight of the statues, which I did about a quarter to twelve,
+I saw a youth coming towards me, with a quick step, and a beaming face
+that had only to be seen to be fallen in love with.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are my brother,&rdquo; said he to me.&nbsp; &ldquo;Is
+my father with you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>I pointed to the crape on my arm, and to the ground, but said nothing.</p>
+<p>He understood me, and bared his head.&nbsp; Then he flung his arms
+about me and kissed my forehead according to Erewhonian custom.&nbsp;
+I was a little surprised at his saying nothing to me about the way in
+which he had disappointed me on the preceding day; I resolved, however,
+to wait for the explanation that I felt sure he would give me presently.</p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXVIII: GEORGE AND I SPEND A FEW HOURS TOGETHER AT THE STATUES,
+AND THEN PART&mdash;I REACH HOME&mdash;POSTSCRIPT</h2>
+<p>I have said on an earlier page that George gained an immediate ascendancy
+over me, but ascendancy is not the word&mdash;he took me by storm; how,
+or why, I neither know nor want to know, but before I had been with
+him more than a few minutes I felt as though I had known and loved him
+all my life.&nbsp; And the dog fawned upon him as though he felt just
+as I did.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Come to the statues,&rdquo; said he, as soon as he had somewhat
+recovered from the shock of the news I had given him.&nbsp; &ldquo;We
+can sit down there on the very stone on which our father and I sat a
+year ago.&nbsp; I have brought a basket, which my mother packed for&mdash;for&mdash;him
+and me.&nbsp; Did he talk to you about me?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He talked of nothing so much, and he thought of nothing so
+much.&nbsp; He had your boots put where he could see them from his bed
+until he died.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Then followed the explanation about these boots, of which the reader
+has already been told.&nbsp; This made us both laugh, and from that
+moment we were cheerful.</p>
+<p>I say nothing about our enjoyment of the luncheon with which Yram
+had provided us, and if I were to detail all that I told George about
+my father, and all the additional information that I got from him&mdash;(many
+a point did he clear up for me that I had not fully understood)&mdash;I
+should fill several chapters, whereas I have left myself only one.&nbsp;
+Luncheon being over I said&mdash;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And are you married?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes&rdquo; (with a blush), &ldquo;and are you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>I could not blush.&nbsp; Why should I?&nbsp; And yet young people&mdash;especially
+the most ingenuous among them&mdash;are apt to flush up on being asked
+if they are, or are going, to be married.&nbsp; If I could have blushed,
+I would.&nbsp; As it was I could only say that I was engaged and should
+marry as soon as I got back.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then you have come all this way for me, when you were wanting
+to get married?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Of course I have.&nbsp; My father on his death-bed told me
+to do so, and to bring you something that I have brought you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What trouble I have given!&nbsp; How can I thank you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Shake hands with me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Whereon he gave my hand a stronger grip than I had quite bargained
+for.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And now,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;before I tell you what I have
+brought, you must promise me to accept it.&nbsp; Your father said I
+was not to leave you till you had done so, and I was to say that he
+sent it with his dying blessing.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>After due demur George gave his promise, and I took him to the place
+where I had hidden my knapsack.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I brought it up yesterday,&rdquo; said I.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yesterday? but why?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Because yesterday&mdash;was it not?&mdash;was the first of
+the two days agreed upon between you and our father?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No&mdash;surely to-day is the first day&mdash;I was to come
+XXI. i. 3, which would be your December 9.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But yesterday was December 9 with us&mdash;to-day is December
+10.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Strange!&nbsp; What day of the week do you make it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;To-day is Thursday, December 10.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;This is still stranger&mdash;we make it Wednesday; yesterday
+was Tuesday.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Then I saw it.&nbsp; The year XX. had been a leap year with the Erewhonians,
+and 1891 in England had not.&nbsp; This, then, was what had crossed
+my father&rsquo;s brain in his dying hours, and what he had vainly tried
+to tell me.&nbsp; It was also what my unconscious self had been struggling
+to tell my conscious one, during the past night, but which my conscious
+self had been too stupid to understand.&nbsp; And yet my conscious self
+had caught it in an imperfect sort of a way after all, for from the
+moment that my dream had left me I had been composed, and easy in my
+mind that all would be well.&nbsp; I wish some one would write a book
+about dreams and parthenogenesis&mdash;for that the two are part and
+parcel of the same story&mdash;a brood of folly without father bred&mdash;I
+cannot doubt.</p>
+<p>I did not trouble George with any of this rubbish, but only shewed
+him how the mistake had arisen.&nbsp; When we had laughed sufficiently
+over my mistake&mdash;for it was I who had come up on the wrong day,
+not he&mdash;I fished my knapsack out of its hiding-place.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do not unpack it,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;beyond taking out
+the brooches, or you will not be able to pack it so well; but you can
+see the ends of the bars of gold, and you can feel the weight; my father
+sent them for you.&nbsp; The pearl brooch is for your mother, the smaller
+brooches are for your sisters, and your wife.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>I then told him how much gold there was, and from my pockets brought
+out the watches and the English knife.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;This last,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;is the only thing that I
+am giving you; the rest is all from our father.&nbsp; I have many many
+times as much gold myself, and this is legally your property as much
+as mine is mine.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>George was aghast, but he was powerless alike to express his feelings,
+or to refuse the gold.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do you mean to say that my father left me this by his will?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Certainly he did,&rdquo; said I, inventing a pious fraud.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It is all against my oath,&rdquo; said he, looking grave.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Your oath be hanged,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;You must
+give the gold to the Mayor, who knows that it was coming, and it will
+appear to the world, as though he were giving it you now instead of
+leaving you anything.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But it is ever so much too much!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It is not half enough.&nbsp; You and the Mayor must settle
+all that between you.&nbsp; He and our father talked it all over, and
+this was what they settled.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And our father planned all this, without saying a word to
+me about it while we were on our way up here?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes.&nbsp; There might have been some hitch in the gold&rsquo;s
+coming.&nbsp; Besides the Mayor told him not to tell you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And he never said anything about the other money he left for
+me&mdash;which enabled me to marry at once?&nbsp; Why was this?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Your mother said he was not to do so.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Bless my heart, how they have duped me all round.&nbsp; But
+why would not my mother let your father tell me?&nbsp; Oh yes&mdash;she
+was afraid I should tell the King about it, as I certainly should, when
+I told him all the rest.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Tell the King?&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;what have you been telling
+the King?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Everything; except about the nuggets and the sovereigns, of
+which I knew nothing; and I have felt myself a blackguard ever since
+for not telling him about these when he came up here last autumn&mdash;but
+I let the Mayor and my mother talk me over, as I am afraid they will
+do again.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;When did you tell the King?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Then followed all the details that I have told in the latter part
+of Chapter XXI.&nbsp; When I asked how the King took the confession,
+George said&mdash;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He was so much flattered at being treated like a reasonable
+being, and Dr. Downie, who was chief spokesman, played his part so discreetly,
+without attempting to obscure even the most compromising issues, that
+though his Majesty made some show of displeasure at first, it was plain
+that he was heartily enjoying the whole story.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Dr. Downie shewed very well.&nbsp; He took on himself the
+onus of having advised our action, and he gave me all the credit of
+having proposed that we should make a clean breast of everything.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The King, too, behaved with truly royal politeness; he was
+on the point of asking why I had not taken our father to the Blue Pool
+at once, and flung him into it on the Sunday afternoon, when something
+seemed to strike him: he gave me a searching look, on which he said
+in an undertone, &lsquo;Oh yes,&rsquo; and did not go on with his question.&nbsp;
+He never blamed me for anything, and when I begged him to accept my
+resignation of the Rangership, he said&mdash;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;No.&nbsp; Stay where you are till I lose confidence
+in you, which will not, I think, be very soon.&nbsp; I will come and
+have a few days&rsquo; shooting about the middle of March, and if I
+have good sport I shall order your salary to be increased.&nbsp; If
+any more foreign devils come over, do not Blue-Pool them; send them
+down to me, and I will see what I think of them; I am much disposed
+to encourage a few of them to settle here.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am sure,&rdquo; continued George, &ldquo;that he said this
+because he knew I was half a foreign devil myself.&nbsp; Indeed he won
+my heart not only by the delicacy of his consideration, but by the obvious
+good will he bore me.&nbsp; I do not know what he did with the nuggets,
+but he gave orders that the blanket and the rest of my father&rsquo;s
+kit should be put in the great Erewhonian Museum.&nbsp; As regards my
+father&rsquo;s receipt, and the Professors&rsquo; two depositions, he
+said he would have them carefully preserved in his secret archives.&nbsp;
+&lsquo;A document,&rsquo; he said somewhat enigmatically, &lsquo;is
+a document&mdash;but, Professor Hanky, you can have this&rsquo;&mdash;and
+as he spoke he handed him back his pocket-handkerchief.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Hanky during the whole interview was furious, at having to
+play so undignified a part, but even more so, because the King while
+he paid marked attention to Dr. Downie, and even to myself, treated
+him with amused disdain.&nbsp; Nevertheless, angry though he was, he
+was impenitent, unabashed, and brazened it out at Bridgeford, that the
+King had received him with open arms, and had snubbed Dr. Downie and
+myself.&nbsp; But for his (Hanky&rsquo;s) intercession, I should have
+been dismissed then and there from the Rangership.&nbsp; And so forth.&nbsp;
+Panky never opened his mouth.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Returning to the King, his Majesty said to Dr. Downie, &lsquo;I
+am afraid I shall not be able to canonize any of you gentlemen just
+yet.&nbsp; We must let this affair blow over.&nbsp; Indeed I am in half
+a mind to have this Sunchild bubble pricked; I never liked it, and am
+getting tired of it; you Musical Bank gentlemen are overdoing it.&nbsp;
+I will talk it over with her Majesty.&nbsp; As for Professor Hanky,
+I do not see how I can keep one who has been so successfully hoodwinked,
+as my Professor of Worldly Wisdom; but I will consult her Majesty about
+this point also.&nbsp; Perhaps I can find another post for him.&nbsp;
+If I decide on having Sunchildism pricked, he shall apply the pin.&nbsp;
+You may go.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And glad enough,&rdquo; said George, &ldquo;we all of us were
+to do so.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But did he,&rdquo; I asked, &ldquo;try to prick the bubble
+of Sunchildism?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh no.&nbsp; As soon as he said he would talk it over with
+her Majesty, I knew the whole thing would end in smoke, as indeed to
+all outward appearance it shortly did; for Dr. Downie advised him not
+to be in too great a hurry, and whatever he did to do it gradually.&nbsp;
+He therefore took no further action than to show marked favour to practical
+engineers and mechanicians.&nbsp; Moreover he started an aeronautical
+society, which made Bridgeford furious; but so far, I am afraid it has
+done us no good, for the first ascent was disastrous, involving the
+death of the poor fellow who made it, and since then no one has ventured
+to ascend.&nbsp; I am afraid we do not get on very fast.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Did the King,&rdquo; I asked, &ldquo;increase your salary?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes.&nbsp; He doubled it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And what do they say in Sunch&rsquo;ston about our father&rsquo;s
+second visit?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>George laughed, and shewed me the newspaper extract which I have
+already given.&nbsp; I asked who wrote it.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I did,&rdquo; said he, with a demure smile; &ldquo;I wrote
+it at night after I returned home, and before starting for the capital
+next morning.&nbsp; I called myself &lsquo;the deservedly popular Ranger,&rsquo;
+to avert suspicion.&nbsp; No one found me out; you can keep the extract,
+I brought it here on purpose.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It does you great credit.&nbsp; Was there ever any lunatic,
+and was he found?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh yes.&nbsp; That part was true, except that he had never
+been up our way.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then the poacher is still at large?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It is to be feared so.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And were Dr. Downie and the Professors canonized after all.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not yet; but the Professors will be next month&mdash;for Hanky
+is still Professor.&nbsp; Dr. Downie backed out of it.&nbsp; He said
+it was enough to be a Sunchildist without being a Sunchild Saint.&nbsp;
+He worships the jumping cat as much as the others, but he keeps his
+eye better on the cat, and sees sooner both when it will jump, and where
+it will jump to.&nbsp; Then, without disturbing any one, he insinuates
+himself into the place which will be best when the jump is over.&nbsp;
+Some say that the cat knows him and follows him; at all events when
+he makes a move the cat generally jumps towards him soon afterwards.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You give him a very high character.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, but I have my doubts about his doing much in this matter;
+he is getting old, and Hanky burrows like a mole night and day.&nbsp;
+There is no knowing how it will all end.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And the people at Sunch&rsquo;ston?&nbsp; Has it got well
+about among them, in spite of your admirable article, that it was the
+Sunchild himself who interrupted Hanky?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It has, and it has not.&nbsp; Many of us know the truth, but
+a story came down from Bridgeford that it was an evil spirit who had
+assumed the Sunchild&rsquo;s form, intending to make people sceptical
+about Sunchildism; Hanky and Panky cowed this spirit, otherwise it would
+never have recanted.&nbsp; Many people swallow this.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But Hanky and Panky swore that they knew the man.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That does not matter.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And now please, how long have you been married?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;About ten months.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Any family?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;One boy about a fortnight old.&nbsp; Do come down to Sunch&rsquo;ston
+and see him&mdash;he is your own nephew.&nbsp; You speak Erewhonian
+so perfectly that no human being would suspect you were a foreigner,
+and you look one of us from head to foot.&nbsp; I can smuggle you through
+quite easily, and my mother would so like to see you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>I should dearly have liked to have gone, but it was out of the question.&nbsp;
+I had nothing with me but the clothes I stood in; moreover I was longing
+to be back in England, and when once I was in Erewhon there was no knowing
+when I should be able to get away again; but George fought hard before
+he gave in.</p>
+<p>It was now nearing the time when this strange meeting between two
+brothers&mdash;as strange a one as the statues can ever have looked
+down upon&mdash;must come to an end.&nbsp; I shewed George what the
+repeater would do, and what it would expect of its possessor.&nbsp;
+I gave him six good photographs, of my father and myself&mdash;three
+of each.&nbsp; He had never seen a photograph, and could hardly believe
+his eyes as he looked at those I shewed him.&nbsp; I also gave him three
+envelopes addressed to myself, care of Alfred Emery Cathie, Esq., 15
+Clifford&rsquo;s Inn, London, and implored him to write to me if he
+could ever find means of getting a letter over the range as far as the
+shepherd&rsquo;s hut.&nbsp; At this he shook his head, but he promised
+to write if he could.&nbsp; I also told him that I had written a full
+account of my father&rsquo;s second visit to Erewhon, but that it should
+never be published till I heard from him&mdash;at which he again shook
+his head, but added, &ldquo;And yet who can tell?&nbsp; For the King
+may have the country opened up to foreigners some day after all.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Then he thanked me a thousand times over, shouldered the knapsack,
+embraced me as he had my father, and caressed the dog, embraced me again,
+and made no attempt to hide the tears that ran down his cheeks.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;I shall wait here till you are
+out of sight.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>I turned away, and did not look back till I reached the place at
+which I knew that I should lose the statues.&nbsp; I then turned round,
+waved my hand&mdash;as also did George, and went down the mountain side,
+full of sad thoughts, but thankful that my task had been so happily
+accomplished, and aware that my life henceforward had been enriched
+by something that I could never lose.</p>
+<p>For I had never seen, and felt as though I never could see, George&rsquo;s
+equal.&nbsp; His absolute unconsciousness of self, the unhesitating
+way in which he took me to his heart, his fearless frankness, the happy
+genial expression that played on his face, and the extreme sweetness
+of his smile&mdash;these were the things that made me say to myself
+that the &ldquo;blazon of beauty&rsquo;s best&rdquo; could tell me nothing
+better than what I had found and lost within the last three hours.&nbsp;
+How small, too, I felt by comparison!&nbsp; If for no other cause, yet
+for this, that I, who had wept so bitterly over my own disappointment
+the day before, could meet this dear fellow&rsquo;s tears with no tear
+of my own.</p>
+<p>But let this pass.&nbsp; I got back to Harris&rsquo;s hut without
+adventure.&nbsp; When there, in the course of the evening, I told Harris
+that I had a fancy for the rug he had found on the river-bed, and that
+if he would let me have it, I would give him my red one and ten shillings
+to boot.&nbsp; The exchange was so obviously to his advantage that he
+made no demur, and next morning I strapped Yram&rsquo;s rug on to my
+horse, and took it gladly home to England, where I keep it on my own
+bed next to the counterpane, so that with care it may last me out my
+life.&nbsp; I wanted him to take the dog and make a home for him, but
+he had two collies already, and said that a retriever would be of no
+use to him.&nbsp; So I took the poor beast on with me to the port, where
+I was glad to find that Mr. Baker liked him and accepted him from me,
+though he was not mine to give.&nbsp; He had been such an unspeakable
+comfort to me when I was alone, that he would have haunted me unless
+I had been able to provide for him where I knew he would be well cared
+for.&nbsp; As for Doctor, I was sorry to leave him, but I knew he was
+in good hands.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I see you have not brought your knapsack back, sir,&rdquo;
+said Mr. Baker.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and very thankful was I when I had
+handed it over to those for whom it was intended.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I have no doubt you were, sir, for I could see it was a desperate
+heavy load for you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Indeed it was.&rdquo;&nbsp; But at this point I brought the
+discussion to a close.</p>
+<p>Two days later I sailed, and reached home early in February 1892.&nbsp;
+I was married three weeks later, and when the honeymoon was over, set
+about making the necessary, and some, I fear, unnecessary additions
+to this book&mdash;by far the greater part of which had been written,
+as I have already said, many months earlier.&nbsp; I now leave it, at
+any rate for the present, April 22, 1892.</p>
+<hr class="tb">
+<p>Postscript.&mdash;On the last day of November 1900, I received a
+letter addressed in Mr. Alfred Cathie&rsquo;s familiar handwriting,
+and on opening it found that it contained another, addressed to me in
+my own, and unstamped.&nbsp; For the moment I was puzzled, but immediately
+knew that it must be from George.&nbsp; I tore it open, and found eight
+closely written pages, which I devoured as I have seldom indeed devoured
+so long a letter.&nbsp; It was dated XXIX. vii. 1, and, as nearly as
+I can translate it was as follows;-</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Twice, my dearest brother, have I written to you, and twice
+in successive days in successive years, have I been up to the statues
+on the chance that you could meet me, as I proposed in my letters.&nbsp;
+Do not think I went all the way back to Sunch&rsquo;ston&mdash;there
+is a ranger&rsquo;s shelter now only an hour and a half below the statues,
+and here I passed the night.&nbsp; I knew you had got neither of my
+letters, for if you had got them and could not come yourself, you would
+have sent some one whom you could trust with a letter.&nbsp; I know
+you would, though I do not know how you would have contrived to do it.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I sent both letters through Bishop Kahabuka (or, as his inferior
+clergy call him, &lsquo;Chowbok&rsquo;), head of the Christian Mission
+to Er&euml;wh&ecirc;mos, which, as your father has doubtless told you,
+is the country adjoining Erewhon, but inhabited by a coloured race having
+no affinity with our own.&nbsp; Bishop Kahabuka has penetrated at times
+into Erewhon, and the King, wishing to be on good terms with his neighbours,
+has permitted him to establish two or three mission stations in the
+western parts of Erewhon.&nbsp; Among the missionaries are some few
+of your own countrymen.&nbsp; None of us like them, but one of them
+is teaching me English, which I find quite easy.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;As I wrote in the letters that have never reached you, I am
+no longer Ranger.&nbsp; The King, after some few years (in the course
+of which I told him of your visit, and what you had brought me), declared
+that I was the only one of his servants whom he could trust, and found
+high office for me, which kept me in close confidential communication
+with himself.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;About three years ago, on the death of his Prime Minister,
+he appointed me to fill his place; and it was on this, that so many
+possibilities occurred to me concerning which I dearly longed for your
+opinion, that I wrote and asked you, if you could, to meet me personally
+or by proxy at the statues, which I could reach on the occasion of my
+annual visit to my mother&mdash;yes&mdash;and father&mdash;at Sunch&rsquo;ston.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I sent both letters by way of Erewhemos, confiding them to
+Bishop Kahabuka, who is just such another as St. Hanky.&nbsp; He tells
+me that our father was a very old and dear friend of his&mdash;but of
+course I did not say anything about his being my own father.&nbsp; I
+only inquired about a Mr. Higgs, who was now worshipped in Erewhon as
+a supernatural being.&nbsp; The Bishop said it was, &ldquo;Oh, so very
+dreadful,&rdquo; and he felt it all the more keenly, for the reason
+that he had himself been the means of my father&rsquo;s going to Erewhon,
+by giving him the information that enabled him to find the pass over
+the range that bounded the country.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I did not like the man, but I thought I could trust him with
+a letter, which it now seems I could not do.&nbsp; This third letter
+I have given him with a promise of a hundred pounds in silver for his
+new Cathedral, to be paid as soon as I get an answer from you.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We are all well at Sunch&rsquo;ston; so are my wife and eight
+children&mdash;five sons and three daughters&mdash;but the country is
+at sixes and sevens.&nbsp; St. Panky is dead, but his son Pocus is worse.&nbsp;
+Dr. Downie has become very lethargic.&nbsp; I can do less against St.
+Hankyism than when I was a private man.&nbsp; A little indiscretion
+on my part would plunge the country in civil war.&nbsp; Our engineers
+and so-called men of science are sturdily begging for endowments, and
+steadily claiming to have a hand in every pie that is baked from one
+end of the country to the other.&nbsp; The missionaries are buying up
+all our silver, and a change in the relative values of gold and silver
+is in progress of which none of us foresee the end.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The King and I both think that annexation by England, or a
+British Protectorate, would be the saving of us, for we have no army
+worth the name, and if you do not take us over some one else soon will.&nbsp;
+The King has urged me to send for you.&nbsp; If you come (do! do! do!)
+you had better come by way of Erewhemos, which is now in monthly communication
+with Southampton.&nbsp; If you will write me that you are coming I will
+meet you at the port, and bring you with me to our own capital, where
+the King will be overjoyed to see you.&rdquo;</p>
+<hr class="tb">
+<p>The rest of the letter was filled with all sorts of news which interested
+me, but would require chapters of explanation before they could become
+interesting to the reader.</p>
+<p>The letter wound up:-</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;You may publish now whatever you like, whenever
+you like.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Write to me by way of Erewhemos, care of the Right Reverend
+the Lord Bishop, and say which way you will come.&nbsp; If you prefer
+the old road, we are bound to be in the neighbourhood of the statues
+by the beginning of March.&nbsp; My next brother is now Ranger, and
+could meet you at the statues with permit and luncheon, and more of
+that white wine than ever you will be able to drink.&nbsp; Only let
+me know what you will do.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I should tell you that the old railway which used to run from
+Clearwater to the capital, and which, as you know, was allowed to go
+to ruin, has been reconstructed at an outlay far less than might have
+been expected&mdash;for the bridges had been maintained for ordinary
+carriage traffic.&nbsp; The journey, therefore, from Sunch&rsquo;ston
+to the capital can now be done in less than forty hours.&nbsp; On the
+whole, however, I recommend you to come by way of Erewhemos.&nbsp; If
+you start, as I think possible, without writing from England, Bishop
+Kahabuka&rsquo;s palace is only eight miles from the port, and he will
+give you every information about your further journey&mdash;a distance
+of less than a couple of hundred miles.&nbsp; But I should prefer to
+meet you myself.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My dearest brother, I charge you by the memory of our common
+father, and even more by that of those three hours that linked you to
+me for ever, and which I would fain hope linked me also to yourself&mdash;come
+over, if by any means you can do so&mdash;come over and help us.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;GEORGE STRONG.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>&ldquo;My dear,&rdquo; said I to my wife who was at the other end
+of the breakfast table, &ldquo;I shall have to translate this letter
+to you, and then you will have to help me to begin packing; for I have
+none too much time.&nbsp; I must see Alfred, and give him a power of
+attorney.&nbsp; He will arrange with some publisher about my book, and
+you can correct the press.&nbsp; Break the news gently to the children;
+and get along without me, my dear, for six months as well as you can.&rdquo;</p>
+<hr class="tb">
+<p>I write this at Southampton, from which port I sail to-morrow&mdash;i.e.
+November 15, 1900&mdash;for Erewhemos.</p>
+<h2>Footnotes</h2>
+<p><a name="footnote1"></a><a href="#citation1">{1}</a>&nbsp; See Chapter
+X.</p>
+
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1971 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
+
diff --git a/1971-h/images/cover.jpg b/1971-h/images/cover.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ad3341c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/1971-h/images/cover.jpg
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b5dba15
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This book, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this book outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5fff202
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+book #1971 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1971)
diff --git a/old/1971.txt b/old/1971.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..316646d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/1971.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,9012 @@
+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Erewhon Revisited, by Samuel Butler
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Erewhon Revisited
+
+Author: Samuel Butler
+
+Release Date: March 20, 2005  [eBook #1971]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EREWHON REVISITED***
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcribed from the 1916 A. C. Fifield edition by David Price, email
+ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
+
+
+
+
+
+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
+   Sara ingannato, o vorra 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
+naivete 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 Ate.
+
+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
+_viva 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 pounds, 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 pounds, 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
+aerial 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 a
+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
+pounds, 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 pound,
+10s. (silver), leaving him about 3 pounds (silver), including the money
+for which he had sold the quails, to carry him on till Sunday afternoon.
+He intended to spend say 2 pounds (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 _resume_ 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 _bona 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 was whether or no it would be
+sharp practice to know what she knew and say nothing about it.  Her
+husband hated _finesse_ as much as she did, and they settled it that
+though the question was a nice one, the more proper thing to do would be
+to tell the Professors what it might so possibly concern one or both of
+them to know.
+
+On George's return without news of my father, they found he thought just
+as they did; so it was arranged that they should let the Professors dine
+in peace, but tell them about the Sunchild's being again in Erewhon as
+soon as dinner was over.
+
+"Happily," said George, "they will do no harm.  They will wish Higgs's
+presence to remain unknown as much as we do, and they will be glad that
+he should be got out of the country immediately."
+
+"Not so, my dear," said Yram.  "'Out of the country' will not do for
+those people.  Nothing short of 'out of the world' will satisfy them."
+
+"That," said George promptly, "must not be."
+
+"Certainly not, my dear, but that is what they will want.  I do not like
+having to tell them, but I am afraid we must."
+
+"Never mind," said the Mayor, laughing.  "Tell them, and let us see what
+happens."
+
+They then dressed for dinner, where Hanky and Panky were the only guests.
+When dinner was over Yram sent away her other children, George alone
+remaining.  He sat opposite the Professors, while the Mayor and Yram were
+at the two ends of the table.
+
+"I am afraid, dear Professor Hanky," said Yram, "that I was not quite
+open with you last night, but I wanted time to think things over, and I
+know you will forgive me when you remember what a number of guests I had
+to attend to."  She then referred to what Hanky had told her about the
+supposed ranger, and shewed him how obvious it was that this man was a
+foreigner, who had been for some time in Erewhon more than seventeen
+years ago, but had had no communication with it since then.  Having
+pointed sufficiently, as she thought, to the Sunchild, she said, "You see
+who I believe this man to have been.  Have I said enough, or shall I say
+more?"
+
+"I understand you," said Hanky, "and I agree with you that the Sunchild
+will be in the temple to-morrow.  It is a serious business, but I shall
+not alter my sermon.  He must listen to what I may choose to say, and I
+wish I could tell him what a fool he was for coming here.  If he behaves
+himself, well and good: your son will arrest him quietly after service,
+and by night he will be in the Blue Pool.  Your son is bound to throw him
+there as a foreign devil, without the formality of a trial.  It would be
+a most painful duty to me, but unless I am satisfied that that man has
+been thrown into the Blue Pool, I shall have no option but to report the
+matter at headquarters.  If, on the other hand, the poor wretch makes a
+disturbance, I can set the crowd on to tear him in pieces."
+
+George was furious, but he remained quite calm, and left everything to
+his mother.
+
+"I have nothing to do with the Blue Pool," said Yram drily.  "My son, I
+doubt not, will know how to do his duty; but if you let the people kill
+this man, his body will remain, and an inquest must be held, for the
+matter will have been too notorious to be hushed up.  All Higgs's
+measurements and all marks on his body were recorded, and these alone
+would identify him.  My father, too, who is still master of the gaol, and
+many another, could swear to him.  Should the body prove, as no doubt it
+would, to be that of the Sunchild, what is to become of Sunchildism?"
+
+Hanky smiled.  "It would not be proved.  The measurements of a man of
+twenty or thereabouts would not correspond with this man's.  All we
+Professors should attend the inquest, and half Bridgeford is now in
+Sunch'ston.  No matter though nine-tenths of the marks and measurements
+corresponded, so long as there is a tenth that does not do so, we should
+not be flesh and blood if we did not ignore the nine points and insist
+only on the tenth.  After twenty years we shall find enough to serve our
+turn.  Think of what all the learning of the country is committed to;
+think of the change in all our ideas and institutions; think of the King
+and of Court influence.  I need not enlarge.  We shall not permit the
+body to be the Sunchild's.  No matter what evidence you may produce, we
+shall sneer it down, and say we must have more before you can expect us
+to take you seriously; if you bring more, we shall pay no attention; and
+the more you bring the more we shall laugh at you.  No doubt those among
+us who are by way of being candid will admit that your arguments ought to
+be considered, but you must not expect that it will be any part of their
+duty to consider them.
+
+"And even though we admitted that the body had been proved up to the hilt
+to be the Sunchild's, do you think that such a trifle as that could
+affect Sunchildism?  Hardly.  Sunch'ston is no match for Bridgeford and
+the King; our only difficulty would lie in settling which was the most
+plausible way of the many plausible ways in which the death could be
+explained.  We should hatch up twenty theories in less than twenty hours,
+and the last state of Sunchildism would be stronger than the first.  For
+the people want it, and so long as they want it they will have it.  At
+the same time the supposed identification of the body, even by some few
+ignorant people here, might lead to a local heresy that is as well
+avoided, and it will be better that your son should arrest the man before
+the dedication, if he can be found, and throw him into the Blue Pool
+without any one but ourselves knowing that he has been here at all."
+
+I need not dwell on the deep disgust with which this speech was listened
+to, but the Mayor, and Yram, and George said not a word.
+
+"But, Mayoress," said Panky, who had not opened his lips so far, "are you
+sure that you are not too hasty in believing this stranger to be the
+Sunchild?  People are continually thinking that such and such another is
+the Sunchild come down again from the sun's palace and going to and fro
+among us.  How many such stories, sometimes very plausibly told, have we
+not had during the last twenty years?  They never take root, and die out
+of themselves as suddenly as they spring up.  That the man is a poacher
+can hardly be doubted; I thought so the moment I saw him; but I think I
+can also prove to you that he is not a foreigner, and, therefore, that he
+is not the Sunchild.  He quoted the Sunchild's prayer with a corruption
+that can have only reached him from an Erewhonian source--"
+
+Here Hanky interrupted him somewhat brusquely.  "The man, Panky," said
+he, "was the Sunchild; and he was not a poacher, for he had no idea that
+he was breaking the law; nevertheless, as you say, Sunchildism on the
+brain has been a common form of mania for several years.  Several persons
+have even believed themselves to be the Sunchild.  We must not forget
+this, if it should get about that Higgs has been here."
+
+Then, turning to Yram, he said sternly, "But come what may, your son must
+take him to the Blue Pool at nightfall."
+
+"Sir," said George, with perfect suavity, "you have spoken as though you
+doubted my readiness to do my duty.  Let me assure you very solemnly that
+when the time comes for me to act, I shall act as duty may direct."
+
+"I will answer for him," said Yram, with even more than her usual quick,
+frank smile, "that he will fulfil his instructions to the letter,
+unless," she added, "some black and white horses come down from heaven
+and snatch poor Higgs out of his grasp.  Such things have happened before
+now."
+
+"I should advise your son to shoot them if they do," said Hanky drily and
+sub-defiantly.
+
+Here the conversation closed; but it was useless trying to talk of
+anything else, so the Professors asked Yram to excuse them if they
+retired early, in view of the fact that they had a fatiguing day before
+them.  This excuse their hostess readily accepted.
+
+"Do not let us talk any more now," said Yram as soon as they had left the
+room.  "It will be quite time enough when the dedication is over.  But I
+rather think the black and white horses will come."
+
+"I think so too, my dear," said the Mayor laughing.
+
+"They shall come," said George gravely; "but we have not yet got enough
+to make sure of bringing them.  Higgs will perhaps be able to help me to-
+morrow."
+
+* * * * *
+
+"Now what," said Panky as they went upstairs, "does that woman mean--for
+she means something?  Black and white horses indeed!"
+
+"I do not know what she means to do," said the other, "but I know that
+she thinks she can best us."
+
+"I wish we had not eaten those quails."
+
+"Nonsense, Panky; no one saw us but Higgs, and the evidence of a foreign
+devil, in such straits as his, could not stand for a moment.  We did not
+eat them.  No, no; she has something that she thinks better than that.
+Besides, it is absolutely impossible that she should have heard what
+happened.  What I do not understand is, why she should have told us about
+the Sunchild's being here at all.  Why not have left us to find it out or
+to know nothing about it?  I do not understand it."
+
+So true is it, as Euclid long since observed, that the less cannot
+comprehend that which is the greater.  True, however, as this is, it is
+also sometimes true that the greater cannot comprehend the less.  Hanky
+went musing to his own room and threw himself into an easy chair to think
+the position over.  After a few minutes he went to a table on which he
+saw pen, ink, and paper, and wrote a short letter; then he rang the bell.
+
+When the servant came he said, "I want to send this note to the manager
+of the new temple, and it is important that he should have it to-night.
+Be pleased, therefore, to take it to him and deliver it into his own
+hands; but I had rather you said nothing about it to the Mayor or
+Mayoress, nor to any of your fellow-servants.  Slip out unperceived if
+you can.  When you have delivered the note, ask for an answer at once,
+and bring it to me."
+
+So saying, he slipped a sum equal to about five shillings into the man's
+hand.
+
+The servant returned in about twenty minutes, for the temple was quite
+near, and gave a note to Hanky, which ran, "Your wishes shall be attended
+to without fail."
+
+"Good!" said Hanky to the man.  "No one in the house knows of your having
+run this errand for me?"
+
+"No one, sir."
+
+"Thank you!  I wish you a very good night."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII: A VISIT TO THE PROVINCIAL DEFORMATORY AT FAIRMEAD
+
+
+Having finished his early dinner, and not fearing that he should be
+either recognised at Fairmead or again enquired after from Sunch'ston, my
+father went out for a stroll round the town, to see what else he could
+find that should be new and strange to him.  He had not gone far before
+he saw a large building with an inscription saying that it was the
+Provincial Deformatory for Boys.  Underneath the larger inscription there
+was a smaller one--one of those corrupt versions of my father's sayings,
+which, on dipping into the Sayings of the Sunchild, he had found to be so
+vexatiously common.  The inscription ran:-
+
+   "When the righteous man turneth away from the righteousness that he
+   hath committed, and doeth that which is a little naughty and wrong, he
+   will generally be found to have gained in amiability what he has lost
+   in righteousness."  Sunchild Sayings, chap. xxii. v. 15.
+
+The case of the little girl that he had watched earlier in the day had
+filled him with a great desire to see the working of one of these curious
+institutions; he therefore resolved to call on the headmaster (whose name
+he found to be Turvey), and enquire about terms, alleging that he had a
+boy whose incorrigible rectitude was giving him much anxiety.  The
+information he had gained in the forenoon would be enough to save him
+from appearing to know nothing of the system.  On having rung the bell,
+he announced himself to the servant as a Mr. Senoj, and asked if he could
+see the Principal.
+
+Almost immediately he was ushered into the presence of a beaming, dapper-
+looking, little old gentleman, quick of speech and movement, in spite of
+some little portliness.
+
+"Ts, ts, ts," he said, when my father had enquired about terms and asked
+whether he might see the system at work.  "How unfortunate that you
+should have called on a Saturday afternoon.  We always have a
+half-holiday.  But stay--yes--that will do very nicely; I will send for
+them into school as a means of stimulating their refractory system."
+
+He called his servant and told him to ring the boys into school.  Then,
+turning to my father he said, "Stand here, sir, by the window; you will
+see them all come trooping in.  H'm, h'm, I am sorry to see them still
+come back as soon as they hear the bell.  I suppose I shall ding some
+recalcitrancy into them some day, but it is uphill work.  Do you see the
+head-boy--the third of those that are coming up the path?  I shall have
+to get rid of him.  Do you see him? he is going back to whip up the
+laggers--and now he has boxed a boy's ears: that boy is one of the most
+hopeful under my care.  I feel sure he has been using improper language,
+and my head-boy has checked him instead of encouraging him."  And so on
+till the boys were all in school.
+
+"You see, my dear sir," he said to my father, "we are in an impossible
+position.  We have to obey instructions from the Grand Council of
+Education at Bridgeford, and they have established these institutions in
+consequence of the Sunchild's having said that we should aim at promoting
+the greatest happiness of the greatest number.  This, no doubt, is a
+sound principle, and the greatest number are by nature somewhat dull,
+conceited, and unscrupulous.  They do not like those who are quick,
+unassuming, and sincere; how, then, consistently with the first
+principles either of morality or political economy as revealed to us by
+the Sunchild, can we encourage such people if we can bring sincerity and
+modesty fairly home to them?  We cannot do so.  And we must correct the
+young as far as possible from forming habits which, unless indulged in
+with the greatest moderation, are sure to ruin them.
+
+"I cannot pretend to consider myself very successful.  I do my best, but
+I can only aim at making my school a reflection of the outside world.  In
+the outside world we have to tolerate much that is prejudicial to the
+greatest happiness of the greatest number, partly because we cannot
+always discover in time who may be let alone as being genuinely
+insincere, and who are in reality masking sincerity under a garb of
+flippancy, and partly also because we wish to err on the side of letting
+the guilty escape, rather than of punishing the innocent.  Thus many
+people who are perfectly well known to belong to the straightforward
+classes are allowed to remain at large, and may be even seen hobnobbing
+with the guardians of public immorality.  Indeed it is not in the public
+interest that straightforwardness should be extirpated root and branch,
+for the presence of a small modicum of sincerity acts as a wholesome
+irritant to the academicism of the greatest number, stimulating it to
+consciousness of its own happy state, and giving it something to look
+down upon.  Moreover, we hold it useful to have a certain number of
+melancholy examples, whose notorious failure shall serve as a warning to
+those who neglect cultivating that power of immoral self-control which
+shall prevent them from saying, or even thinking, anything that shall not
+immediately and palpably minister to the happiness, and hence meet the
+approval, of the greatest number."
+
+By this time the boys were all in school.  "There is not one prig in the
+whole lot," said the headmaster sadly.  "I wish there was, but only those
+boys come here who are notoriously too good to become current coin in the
+world unless they are hardened with an alloy of vice.  I should have
+liked to show you our gambling, book-making, and speculation class, but
+the assistant-master who attends to this branch of our curriculum is gone
+to Sunch'ston this afternoon.  He has friends who have asked him to see
+the dedication of the new temple, and he will not be back till Monday.  I
+really do not know what I can do better for you than examine the boys in
+Counsels of Imperfection."
+
+So saying, he went into the schoolroom, over the fireplace of which my
+father's eye caught an inscription, "Resist good, and it will fly from
+you.  Sunchild's Sayings, xvii. 2."  Then, taking down a copy of the work
+just named from a shelf above his desk, he ran his eye over a few of its
+pages.
+
+He called up a class of about twenty boys.
+
+"Now, my boys," he said, "Why is it so necessary to avoid extremes of
+truthfulness?"
+
+"It is not necessary, sir," said one youngster, "and the man who says
+that it is so is a scoundrel."
+
+"Come here, my boy, and hold out your hand."  When he had done so, Mr.
+Turvey gave him two sharp cuts with a cane.  "There now, go down to the
+bottom of the class and try not to be so extremely truthful in future."
+Then, turning to my father, he said, "I hate caning them, but it is the
+only way to teach them.  I really do believe that boy will know better
+than to say what he thinks another time."
+
+He repeated his question to the class, and the head-boy answered,
+"Because, sir, extremes meet, and extreme truth will be mixed with
+extreme falsehood."
+
+"Quite right, my boy.  Truth is like religion; it has only two
+enemies--the too much and the too little.  Your answer is more
+satisfactory than some of your recent conduct had led me to expect."
+
+"But, sir, you punished me only three weeks ago for telling you a lie."
+
+"Oh yes; why, so I did; I had forgotten.  But then you overdid it.  Still
+it was a step in the right direction."
+
+"And now, my boy," he said to a very frank and ingenuous youth about half
+way up the class, "and how is truth best reached?"
+
+"Through the falling out of thieves, sir."
+
+"Quite so.  Then it will be necessary that the more earnest, careful,
+patient, self-sacrificing, enquirers after truth should have a good deal
+of the thief about them, though they are very honest people at the same
+time.  Now what does the man" (who on enquiry my father found to be none
+other than Mr. Turvey himself) "say about honesty?"
+
+"He says, sir, that honesty does not consist in never stealing, but in
+knowing how and where it will be safe to do so."
+
+"Remember," said Mr. Turvey to my father, "how necessary it is that we
+should have a plentiful supply of thieves, if honest men are ever to come
+by their own."
+
+He spoke with the utmost gravity, evidently quite easy in his mind that
+his scheme was the only one by which truth could be successfully
+attained.
+
+"But pray let me have any criticism you may feel inclined to make."
+
+"I have none," said my father.  "Your system commends itself to common
+sense; it is the one adopted in the law courts, and it lies at the very
+foundation of party government.  If your academic bodies can supply the
+country with a sufficient number of thieves--which I have no doubt they
+can--there seems no limit to the amount of truth that may be attained.
+If, however, I may suggest the only difficulty that occurs to me, it is
+that academic thieves shew no great alacrity in falling out, but incline
+rather to back each other up through thick and thin."
+
+"Ah, yes," said Mr. Turvey, "there is that difficulty; nevertheless
+circumstances from time to time arise to get them by the ears in spite of
+themselves.  But from whatever point of view you may look at the
+question, it is obviously better to aim at imperfection than perfection;
+for if we aim steadily at imperfection, we shall probably get it within a
+reasonable time, whereas to the end of our days we should never reach
+perfection.  Moreover, from a worldly point of view, there is no mistake
+so great as that of being always right."  He then turned to his class and
+said--
+
+"And now tell me what did the Sunchild tell us about God and Mammon?"
+
+The head-boy answered: "He said that we must serve both, for no man can
+serve God well and truly who does not serve Mammon a little also; and no
+man can serve Mammon effectually unless he serve God largely at the same
+time."
+
+"What were his words?"
+
+"He said, 'Cursed be they that say, "Thou shalt not serve God and Mammon,
+for it is the whole duty of man to know how to adjust the conflicting
+claims of these two deities."'"
+
+Here my father interposed.  "I knew the Sunchild; and I more than once
+heard him speak of God and Mammon.  He never varied the form of the words
+he used, which were to the effect that a man must serve either God or
+Mammon, but that he could not serve both."
+
+"Ah!" said Mr. Turvey, "that no doubt was his exoteric teaching, but
+Professors Hanky and Panky have assured me most solemnly that his
+esoteric teaching was as I have given it.  By the way, these gentlemen
+are both, I understand, at Sunch'ston, and I think it quite likely that I
+shall have a visit from them this afternoon.  If you do not know them I
+should have great pleasure in introducing you to them; I was at
+Bridgeford with both of them."
+
+"I have had the pleasure of meeting them already," said my father, "and
+as you are by no means certain that they will come, I will ask you to let
+me thank you for all that you have been good enough to shew me, and bid
+you good-afternoon.  I have a rather pressing engagement--"
+
+"My dear sir, you must please give me five minutes more.  I shall examine
+the boys in the Musical Bank Catechism."  He pointed to one of them and
+said, "Repeat your duty towards your neighbour."
+
+"My duty towards my neighbour," said the boy, "is to be quite sure that
+he is not likely to borrow money of me before I let him speak to me at
+all, and then to have as little to do with him as--"
+
+At this point there was a loud ring at the door bell.  "Hanky and Panky
+come to see me, no doubt," said Mr. Turvey.  "I do hope it is so.  You
+must stay and see them."
+
+"My dear sir," said my father, putting his handkerchief up to his face,
+"I am taken suddenly unwell and must positively leave you."  He said this
+in so peremptory a tone that Mr. Turvey had to yield.  My father held his
+handkerchief to his face as he went through the passage and hall, but
+when the servant opened the door he took it down, for there was no Hanky
+or Panky--no one, in fact, but a poor, wizened old man who had come, as
+he did every other Saturday afternoon, to wind up the Deformatory clocks.
+
+Nevertheless, he had been scared, and was in a very wicked-fleeth-when-no-
+man-pursueth frame of mind.  He went to his inn, and shut himself up in
+his room for some time, taking notes of all that had happened to him in
+the last three days.  But even at his inn he no longer felt safe.  How
+did he know but that Hanky and Panky might have driven over from
+Sunch'ston to see Mr. Turvey, and might put up at this very house? or
+they might even be going to spend the night here.  He did not venture out
+of his room till after seven by which time he had made rough notes of as
+much of the foregoing chapters as had come to his knowledge so far.  Much
+of what I have told as nearly as I could in the order in which it
+happened, he did not learn till later.  After giving the merest outline
+of his interview with Mr. Turvey, he wrote a note as follows:--"I suppose
+I must have held forth about the greatest happiness of the greatest
+number, but I had quite forgotten it, though I remember repeatedly
+quoting my favourite proverb, 'Every man for himself, and the devil take
+the hindmost.'  To this they have paid no attention."
+
+By seven his panic about Hanky and Panky ended, for if they had not come
+by this time, they were not likely to do so.  Not knowing that they were
+staying at the Mayor's, he had rather settled it that they would now
+stroll up to the place where they had left their hoard and bring it down
+as soon as night had fallen.  And it is quite possible that they might
+have found some excuse for doing this, when dinner was over, if their
+hostess had not undesignedly hindered them by telling them about the
+Sunchild.  When the conversation recorded in the preceding chapter was
+over, it was too late for them to make any plausible excuse for leaving
+the house; we may be sure, therefore, that much more had been said than
+Yram and George were able to remember and report to my father.
+
+After another stroll about Fairmead, during which he saw nothing but what
+on a larger scale he had already seen at Sunch'ston, he returned to his
+inn at about half-past eight, and ordered supper in a public room that
+corresponded with the coffee-room of an English hotel.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV: MY FATHER MAKES THE ACQUAINTANCE OF MR BALMY, AND WALKS WITH
+HIM NEXT DAY TO SUNCH'STON
+
+
+Up to this point, though he had seen enough to shew him the main drift of
+the great changes that had taken place in Erewhonian opinions, my father
+had not been able to glean much about the history of the transformation.
+He could see that it had all grown out of the supposed miracle of his
+balloon ascent, and he could understand that the ignorant masses had been
+so astounded by an event so contrary to all their experience, that their
+faith in experience was utterly routed and demoralised.  It a man and a
+woman might rise from the earth and disappear into the sky, what else
+might not happen?  If they had been wrong in thinking such a thing
+impossible, in how much else might they not be mistaken also?  The ground
+was shaken under their very feet.
+
+It was not as though the thing had been done in a corner.  Hundreds of
+people had seen the ascent; and even if only a small number had been
+present, the disappearance of the balloon, of my mother, and of my father
+himself, would have confirmed their story.  My father, then, could
+understand that a single incontrovertible miracle of the first magnitude
+should uproot the hedges of caution in the minds of the common people,
+but he could not understand how such men as Hanky and Panky, who
+evidently did not believe that there had been any miracle at all, had
+been led to throw themselves so energetically into a movement so
+subversive of all their traditions, when, as it seemed to him, if they
+had held out they might have pricked the balloon bubble easily enough,
+and maintained everything _in statu quo_.
+
+How, again, had they converted the King--if they had converted him?  The
+Queen had had full knowledge of all the preparations for the ascent.  The
+King had had everything explained to him.  The workmen and workwomen who
+had made the balloon and the gas could testify that none but natural
+means had been made use of--means which, if again employed any number of
+times, would effect a like result.  How could it be that when the means
+of resistance were so ample and so easy, the movement should nevertheless
+have been irresistible?  For had it not been irresistible, was it to be
+believed that astute men like Hanky and Panky would have let themselves
+be drawn into it?
+
+What then had been its inner history?  My father had so fully determined
+to make his way back on the following evening, that he saw no chance of
+getting to know the facts--unless, indeed, he should be able to learn
+something from Hanky's sermon; he was therefore not sorry to find an
+elderly gentleman of grave but kindly aspect seated opposite to him when
+he sat down to supper.
+
+The expression on this man's face was much like that of the early
+Christians as shewn in the S. Giovanni Laterano bas-reliefs at Rome, and
+again, though less aggressively self-confident, like that on the faces of
+those who have joined the Salvation Army.  If he had been in England, my
+father would have set him down as a Swedenborgian; this being impossible,
+he could only note that the stranger bowed his head, evidently saying a
+short grace before he began to eat, as my father had always done when he
+was in Erewhon before.  I will not say that my father had never omitted
+to say grace during the whole of the last twenty years, but he said it
+now, and unfortunately forgetting himself, he said it in the English
+language, not loud, but nevertheless audibly.
+
+My father was alarmed at what he had done, but there was no need, for the
+stranger immediately said, "I hear, sir, that you have the gift of
+tongues.  The Sunchild often mentioned it to us, as having been
+vouchsafed long since to certain of the people, to whom, for our
+learning, he saw fit to feign that he belonged.  He thus foreshadowed
+prophetically its manifestation also among ourselves.  All which,
+however, you must know as well as I do.  Can you interpret?"
+
+My father was much shocked, but he remembered having frequently spoken of
+the power of speaking in unknown tongues which was possessed by many of
+the early Christians, and he also remembered that in times of high
+religious enthusiasm this power had repeatedly been imparted, or supposed
+to be imparted, to devout believers in the middle ages.  It grated upon
+him to deceive one who was so obviously sincere, but to avoid immediate
+discomfiture he fell in with what the stranger had said.
+
+"Alas! sir," said he, "that rarer and more precious gift has been
+withheld from me; nor can I speak in an unknown tongue, unless as it is
+borne in upon me at the moment.  I could not even repeat the words that
+have just fallen from me."
+
+"That," replied the stranger, "is almost invariably the case.  These
+illuminations of the spirit are beyond human control.  You spoke in so
+low a tone that I cannot interpret what you have just said, but should
+you receive a second inspiration later, I shall doubtless be able to
+interpret it for you.  I have been singularly gifted in this respect--more
+so, perhaps, than any other interpreter in Erewhon."
+
+My father mentally vowed that no second inspiration should be vouchsafed
+to him, but presently remembering how anxious he was for information on
+the points touched upon at the beginning of this chapter, and seeing that
+fortune had sent him the kind of man who would be able to enlighten him,
+he changed his mind; nothing, he reflected, would be more likely to make
+the stranger talk freely with him, than the affording him an opportunity
+for showing off his skill as an interpreter.
+
+Something, therefore, he would say, but what?  No one could talk more
+freely when the train of his thoughts, or the conversation of others,
+gave him his cue, but when told to say an unattached "something," he
+could not even think of "How do you do this morning? it is a very fine
+day;" and the more he cudgelled his brains for "something," the more they
+gave no response.  He could not even converse further with the stranger
+beyond plain "yes" and "no"; so he went on with his supper, and in
+thinking of what he was eating and drinking for the moment forgot to
+ransack his brain.  No sooner had he left off ransacking it, than it
+suggested something--not, indeed, a very brilliant something, but still
+something.  On having grasped it, he laid down his knife and fork, and
+with the air of one distraught he said--
+
+   "My name is Norval, on the Grampian Hills
+   My father feeds his flock--a frugal swain."
+
+"I heard you," exclaimed the stranger, "and I can interpret every word of
+what you have said, but it would not become me to do so, for you have
+conveyed to me a message more comforting than I can bring myself to
+repeat even to him who has conveyed it."
+
+Having said this he bowed his head, and remained for some time wrapped in
+meditation.  My father kept a respectful silence, but after a little time
+he ventured to say in a low tone, how glad he was to have been the medium
+through whom a comforting assurance had been conveyed.  Presently, on
+finding himself encouraged to renew the conversation, he threw out a
+deferential feeler as to the causes that might have induced Mr. Balmy to
+come to Fairmead.  "Perhaps," he said, "you, like myself, have come to
+these parts in order to see the dedication of the new temple; I could not
+get a lodging in Sunch'ston, so I walked down here this morning."
+
+This, it seemed, had been Mr. Balmy's own case, except that he had not
+yet been to Sunch'ston.  Having heard that it was full to overflowing, he
+had determined to pass the night at Fairmead, and walk over in the
+morning--starting soon after seven, so as to arrive in good time for the
+dedication ceremony.  When my father heard this, he proposed that they
+should walk together, to which Mr. Balmy gladly consented; it was
+therefore arranged that they should go to bed early, breakfast soon after
+six, and then walk to Sunch'ston.  My father then went to his own room,
+where he again smoked a surreptitious pipe up the chimney.
+
+Next morning the two men breakfasted together, and set out as the clock
+was striking seven.  The day was lovely beyond the power of words, and
+still fresh--for Fairmead was some 2500 feet above the sea, and the sun
+did not get above the mountains that overhung it on the east side, till
+after eight o'clock.  Many persons were also starting for Sunch'ston, and
+there was a procession got up by the Musical Bank Managers of the town,
+who walked in it, robed in rich dresses of scarlet and white embroidered
+with much gold thread.  There was a banner displaying an open chariot in
+which the Sunchild and his bride were seated, beaming with smiles, and in
+attitudes suggesting that they were bowing to people who were below them.
+The chariot was, of course, drawn by the four black and white horses of
+which the reader has already heard, and the balloon had been ignored.
+Readers of my father's book will perhaps remember that my mother was not
+seen at all--she was smuggled into the car of the balloon along with
+sundry rugs, under which she lay concealed till the balloon had left the
+earth.  All this went for nothing.  It has been said that though God
+cannot alter the past, historians can; it is perhaps because they can be
+useful to Him in this respect that He tolerates their existence.
+Painters, my father now realised, can do all that historians can, with
+even greater effect.
+
+Women headed the procession--the younger ones dressed in white, with
+veils and chaplets of roses, blue cornflower, and pheasant's eye
+Narcissus, while the older women were more soberly attired.  The Bank
+Managers and the banner headed the men, who were mostly peasants, but
+among them were a few who seemed to be of higher rank, and these, for the
+most part, though by no means all of them, wore their clothes reversed--as
+I have forgotten to say was done also by Mr. Balmy.  Both men and women
+joined in singing a litany the words of which my father could not catch;
+the tune was one he had been used to play on his apology for a flute when
+he was in prison, being, in fact, none other than "Home, Sweet Home."
+There was no harmony; they never got beyond the first four bars, but
+these they must have repeated, my father thought, at least a hundred
+times between Fairmead and Sunch'ston.  "Well," said he to himself,
+"however little else I may have taught them, I at any rate gave them the
+diatonic scale."
+
+He now set himself to exploit his fellow-traveller, for they soon got
+past the procession.
+
+"The greatest miracle," said he, "in connection with this whole matter,
+has been--so at least it seems to me--not the ascent of the Sunchild with
+his bride, but the readiness with which the people generally acknowledged
+its miraculous character.  I was one of those that witnessed the ascent,
+but I saw no signs that the crowd appreciated its significance.  They
+were astounded, but they did not fall down and worship."
+
+"Ah," said the other, "but you forget the long drought and the rain that
+the Sunchild immediately prevailed on the air-god to send us.  He had
+announced himself as about to procure it for us; it was on this ground
+that the King assented to the preparation of those material means that
+were necessary before the horses of the sun could attach themselves to
+the chariot into which the balloon was immediately transformed.  Those
+horses might not be defiled by contact with this gross earth.  I too
+witnessed the ascent; at the moment, I grant you, I saw neither chariot
+nor horses, and almost all those present shared my own temporary
+blindness; the whole action from the moment when the balloon left the
+earth, moved so rapidly, that we were flustered, and hardly knew what it
+was that we were really seeing.  It was not till two or three years later
+that I found the scene presenting itself to my soul's imaginary sight in
+the full splendour which was no doubt witnessed, but not apprehended, by
+my bodily vision."
+
+"There," said my father, "you confirm an opinion that I have long
+held.--Nothing is so misleading as the testimony of eye-witnesses."
+
+"A spiritual enlightenment from within," returned Mr. Balmy, "is more to
+be relied on than any merely physical affluence from external objects.
+Now, when I shut my eyes, I see the balloon ascend a little way, but
+almost immediately the heavens open, the horses descend, the balloon is
+transformed, and the glorious pageant careers onward till it vanishes
+into the heaven of heavens.  Hundreds with whom I have conversed assure
+me that their experience has been the same as mine.  Has yours been
+different?"
+
+"Oh no, not at all; but I always see some storks circling round the
+balloon before I see any horses."
+
+"How strange!  I have heard others also say that they saw the storks you
+mention; but let me do my utmost I cannot force them into my mental image
+of the scene.  This shows, as you were saying just now, how incomplete
+the testimony of an eye-witness often is.  It is quite possible that the
+storks were there, but the horses and the chariot have impressed
+themselves more vividly on my mind than anything else has."
+
+"Quite so; and I am not without hope that even at this late hour some
+further details may yet be revealed to us."
+
+"It is possible, but we should be as cautious in accepting any fresh
+details as in rejecting them.  Should some heresy obtain wide acceptance,
+visions will perhaps be granted to us that may be useful in refuting it,
+but otherwise I expect nothing more."
+
+"Neither do I, but I have heard people say that inasmuch as the Sunchild
+said he was going to interview the air-god in order to send us rain, he
+was more probably son to the air-god than to the sun.  Now here is a
+heresy which--"
+
+"But, my dear sir," said Mr. Balmy, interrupting him with great warmth,
+"he spoke of his father in heaven as endowed with attributes far
+exceeding any that can be conceivably ascribed to the air-god.  The power
+of the air-god does not extend beyond our own atmosphere."
+
+"Pray believe me," said my father, who saw by the ecstatic gleam in his
+companion's eye that there was nothing to be done but to agree with him,
+"that I accept--"
+
+"Hear me to the end," replied Mr. Balmy.  "Who ever heard the Sunchild
+claim relationship with the air-god?  He could command the air-god, and
+evidently did so, halting no doubt for this beneficent purpose on his
+journey towards his ultimate destination.  Can we suppose that the air-
+god, who had evidently intended withholding the rain from us for an
+indefinite period, should have so immediately relinquished his designs
+against us at the intervention of any less exalted personage than the
+sun's own offspring?  Impossible!"
+
+"I quite agree with you," exclaimed my father, "it is out of the--"
+
+"Let me finish what I have to say.  When the rain came so copiously for
+days, even those who had not seen the miraculous ascent found its
+consequences come so directly home to them, that they had no difficulty
+in accepting the report of others.  There was not a farmer or cottager in
+the land but heaved a sigh of relief at rescue from impending ruin, and
+they all knew it was the Sunchild who had promised the King that he would
+make the air-god send it.  So abundantly, you will remember, did it come,
+that we had to pray to him to stop it, which in his own good time he was
+pleased to do."
+
+"I remember," said my father, who was at last able to edge in a word,
+"that it nearly flooded me out of house and home.  And yet, in spite of
+all this, I hear that there are many at Bridgeford who are still hardened
+unbelievers."
+
+"Alas! you speak too truly.  Bridgeford and the Musical Banks for the
+first three years fought tooth and nail to blind those whom it was their
+first duty to enlighten.  I was a Professor of the hypothetical language,
+and you may perhaps remember how I was driven from my chair on account of
+the fearlessness with which I expounded the deeper mysteries of
+Sunchildism."
+
+"Yes, I remember well how cruelly--" but my father was not allowed to get
+beyond "cruelly."
+
+"It was I who explained why the Sunchild had represented himself as
+belonging to a people in many respects analogous to our own, when no such
+people can have existed.  It was I who detected that the supposed nation
+spoken of by the Sunchild was an invention designed in order to give us
+instruction by the light of which we might more easily remodel our
+institutions.  I have sometimes thought that my gift of interpretation
+was vouchsafed to me in recognition of the humble services that I was
+hereby allowed to render.  By the way, you have received no illumination
+this morning, have you?"
+
+"I never do, sir, when I am in the company of one whose conversation I
+find supremely interesting.  But you were telling me about Bridgeford: I
+live hundreds of miles from Bridgeford, and have never understood the
+suddenness, and completeness, with which men like Professors Hanky and
+Panky and Dr. Downie changed front.  Do they believe as you and I do, or
+did they merely go with the times?  I spent a couple of hours with Hanky
+and Panky only two evenings ago, and was not so much impressed as I could
+have wished with the depth of their religious fervour."
+
+"They are sincere now--more especially Hanky--but I cannot think I am
+judging them harshly, if I say that they were not so at first.  Even now,
+I fear, that they are more carnally than spiritually minded.  See how
+they have fought for the aggrandisement of their own order.  It is mainly
+their doing that the Musical Banks have usurped the spiritual authority
+formerly exercised by the straighteners."
+
+"But the straighteners," said my father, "could not co-exist with
+Sunchildism, and it is hard to see how the claims of the Banks can be
+reasonably gainsaid."
+
+"Perhaps; and after all the Banks are our main bulwark against the evils
+that I fear will follow from the repeal of the laws against machinery.
+This has already led to the development of a materialism which minimizes
+the miraculous element in the Sunchild's ascent, as our own people
+minimize the material means that were the necessary prologue to the
+miraculous."
+
+Thus did they converse; but I will not pursue their conversation further.
+It will be enough to say that in further floods of talk Mr. Balmy
+confirmed what George had said about the Banks having lost their hold
+upon the masses.  That hold was weak even in the time of my father's
+first visit; but when the people saw the hostility of the Banks to a
+movement which far the greater number of them accepted, it seemed as
+though both Bridgeford and the Banks were doomed, for Bridgeford was
+heart and soul with the Banks.  Hanky, it appeared, though under thirty,
+and not yet a Professor, grasped the situation, and saw that Bridgeford
+must either move with the times, or go.  He consulted some of the most
+sagacious Heads of Houses and Professors, with the result that a
+committee of enquiry was appointed, which in due course reported that the
+evidence for the Sunchild's having been the only child of the sun was
+conclusive.  It was about this time--that is to say some three years
+after his ascent--that "Higgsism," as it had been hitherto called, became
+"Sunchildism," and "Higgs" the "Sunchild."
+
+My father also learned the King's fury at his escape (for he would call
+it nothing else) with my mother.  This was so great that though he had
+hitherto been, and had ever since proved himself to be, a humane ruler,
+he ordered the instant execution of all who had been concerned in making
+either the gas or the balloon; and his cruel orders were carried out
+within a couple of hours.  At the same time he ordered the destruction by
+fire of the Queen's workshops, and of all remnants of any materials used
+in making the balloon.  It is said the Queen was so much grieved and
+outraged (for it was her doing that the material ground-work, so to
+speak, had been provided for the miracle) that she wept night and day
+without ceasing three whole months, and never again allowed her husband
+to embrace her, till he had also embraced Sunchildism.
+
+When the rain came, public indignation at the King's action was raised
+almost to revolution pitch, and the King was frightened at once by the
+arrival of the promised downfall and the displeasure of his subjects.  But
+he still held out, and it was only after concessions on the part of the
+Bridgeford committee, that he at last consented to the absorption of
+Sunchildism into the Musical Bank system, and to its establishment as the
+religion of the country.  The far-reaching changes in Erewhonian
+institutions with which the reader is already acquainted followed as a
+matter of course.
+
+"I know the difficulty," said my father presently, "with which the King
+was persuaded to allow the way in which the Sunchild's dress should be
+worn to be a matter of opinion, not dogma.  I see we have adopted
+different fashions.  Have you any decided opinions upon the subject?"
+
+"I have; but I will ask you not to press me for them.  Let this matter
+remain as the King has left it."
+
+My father thought that he might now venture on a shot.  So he said, "I
+have always understood, too, that the King forced the repeal of the laws
+against machinery on the Bridgeford committee, as another condition of
+his assent?"
+
+"Certainly.  He insisted on this, partly to gratify the Queen, who had
+not yet forgiven him, and who had set her heart on having a watch, and
+partly because he expected that a development of the country's resources,
+in consequence of a freer use of machinery, would bring more money into
+his exchequer.  Bridgeford fought hard and wisely here, but they had
+gained so much by the Musical Bank Managers being recognised as the
+authorised exponents of Sunchildism, that they thought it wise to
+yield--apparently with a good grace--and thus gild the pill which his
+Majesty was about to swallow.  But even then they feared the consequences
+that are already beginning to appear, all which, if I mistake not, will
+assume far more serious proportions in the future."
+
+"See," said my father suddenly, "we are coming to another procession, and
+they have got some banners, let us walk a little quicker and overtake
+it."
+
+"Horrible!" replied Mr. Balmy fiercely.  "You must be short-sighted, or
+you could never have called my attention to it.  Let us get it behind us
+as fast as possible, and not so much as look at it."
+
+"Oh yes, yes," said my father, "it is indeed horrible, I had not seen
+what it was."
+
+He had not the faintest idea what the matter was, but he let Mr. Balmy
+walk a little ahead of him, so that he could see the banners, the most
+important of which he found to display a balloon pure and simple, with
+one figure in the car.  True, at the top of the banner there was a smudge
+which might be taken for a little chariot, and some very little horses,
+but the balloon was the only thing insisted on.  As for the procession,
+it consisted entirely of men, whom a smaller banner announced to be
+workmen from the Fairmead iron and steel works.  There was a third
+banner, which said, "Science as well as Sunchildism."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV: THE TEMPLE IS DEDICATED TO MY FATHER, AND CERTAIN EXTRACTS
+ARE READ FROM HIS SUPPOSED SAYINGS
+
+
+"It is enough to break one's heart," said Mr. Balmy when he had
+outstripped the procession, and my father was again beside him.  "'As
+well as,' indeed!  We know what that means.  Wherever there is a factory
+there is a hot-bed of unbelief.  'As well as'!  Why it is a defiance."
+
+"What, I wonder," said my father innocently, "must the Sunchild's
+feelings be, as he looks down on this procession.  For there can be
+little doubt that he is doing so."
+
+"There can be no doubt at all," replied Mr. Balmy, "that he is taking
+note of it, and of all else that is happening this day in Erewhon.  Heaven
+grant that he be not so angered as to chastise the innocent as well as
+the guilty."
+
+"I doubt," said my father, "his being so angry even with this procession,
+as you think he is."
+
+Here, fearing an outburst of indignation, he found an excuse for rapidly
+changing the conversation.  Moreover he was angry with himself for
+playing upon this poor good creature.  He had not done so of malice
+prepense; he had begun to deceive him, because he believed himself to be
+in danger if he spoke the truth; and though he knew the part to be an
+unworthy one, he could not escape from continuing to play it, if he was
+to discover things that he was not likely to discover otherwise.
+
+Often, however, he had checked himself.  It had been on the tip of his
+tongue to be illuminated with the words,
+
+   Sukoh and Sukop were two pretty men,
+   They lay in bed till the clock struck ten,
+
+and to follow it up with,
+
+   Now with the drops of this most Yknarc time
+   My love looks fresh,
+
+in order to see how Mr. Balmy would interpret the assertion here made
+about the Professors, and what statement he would connect with his own
+Erewhonian name; but he had restrained himself.
+
+The more he saw, and the more he heard, the more shocked he was at the
+mischief he had done.  See how he had unsettled the little mind this
+poor, dear, good gentleman had ever had, till he was now a mere slave to
+preconception.  And how many more had he not in like manner brought to
+the verge of idiocy?  How many again had he not made more corrupt than
+they were before, even though he had not deceived them--as for example,
+Hanky and Panky.  And the young? how could such a lie as that a chariot
+and four horses came down out of the clouds enter seriously into the life
+of any one, without distorting his mental vision, if not ruining it?
+
+And yet, the more he reflected, the more he also saw that he could do no
+good by saying who he was.  Matters had gone so far that though he spoke
+with the tongues of men and angels he would not be listened to; and even
+if he were, it might easily prove that he had added harm to that which he
+had done already.  No.  As soon as he had heard Hanky's sermon, he would
+begin to work his way back, and if the Professors had not yet removed
+their purchase, he would recover it; but he would pin a bag containing
+about five pounds worth of nuggets on to the tree in which they had
+hidden it, and, if possible, he would find some way of sending the rest
+to George.
+
+He let Mr. Balmy continue talking, glad that this gentleman required
+little more than monosyllabic answers, and still more glad, in spite of
+some agitation, to see that they were now nearing Sunch'ston, towards
+which a great concourse of people was hurrying from Clearwater, and more
+distant towns on the main road.  Many whole families were coming,--the
+fathers and mothers carrying the smaller children, and also their own
+shoes and stockings, which they would put on when nearing the town.  Most
+of the pilgrims brought provisions with them.  All wore European
+costumes, but only a few of them wore it reversed, and these were almost
+invariably of higher social status than the great body of the people, who
+were mainly peasants.
+
+When they reached the town, my father was relieved at finding that Mr.
+Balmy had friends on whom he wished to call before going to the temple.
+He asked my father to come with him, but my father said that he too had
+friends, and would leave him for the present, while hoping to meet him
+again later in the day.  The two, therefore, shook hands with great
+effusion, and went their several ways.  My father's way took him first
+into a confectioner's shop, where he bought a couple of Sunchild buns,
+which he put into his pocket, and refreshed himself with a bottle of
+Sunchild cordial and water.  All shops except those dealing in
+refreshments were closed, and the town was gaily decorated with flags and
+flowers, often festooned into words or emblems proper for the occasion.
+
+My father, it being now a quarter to eleven, made his way towards the
+temple, and his heart was clouded with care as he walked along.  Not only
+was his heart clouded, but his brain also was oppressed, and he reeled so
+much on leaving the confectioner's shop, that he had to catch hold of
+some railings till the faintness and giddiness left him.  He knew the
+feeling to be the same as what he had felt on the Friday evening, but he
+had no idea of the cause, and as soon as the giddiness left him he
+thought there was nothing the matter with him.
+
+Turning down a side street that led into the main square of the town, he
+found himself opposite the south end of the temple, with its two lofty
+towers that flanked the richly decorated main entrance.  I will not
+attempt to describe the architecture, for my father could give me little
+information on this point.  He only saw the south front for two or three
+minutes, and was not impressed by it, save in so far as it was richly
+ornamented--evidently at great expense--and very large.  Even if he had
+had a longer look, I doubt whether I should have got more out of him, for
+he knew nothing of architecture, and I fear his test whether a building
+was good or bad, was whether it looked old and weather-beaten or no.  No
+matter what a building was, if it was three or four hundred years old he
+liked it, whereas, if it was new, he would look to nothing but whether it
+kept the rain out.  Indeed I have heard him say that the mediaeval
+sculpture on some of our great cathedrals often only pleases us because
+time and weather have set their seals upon it, and that if we could see
+it as it was when it left the mason's hands, we should find it no better
+than much that is now turned out in the Euston Road.
+
+The ground plan here given will help the reader to understand the few
+following pages more easily.
+
+                +--------------------+
+  N            /          a           \
+ W+E          /                 b      \------------+
+  S          /       G          H       \           |
+            |             C             |    N      |
++-----------+---------------------------+-----------+------+
+|                  ------------------- I                   |
+|                  -------------------                     |
+|                  -------------------                     |
+|          o'                                o'            |
+|                                                          |
+|  E |||||||||||||||                 ||||||||||||||||| F   |
+|    |||||||||||||||                 |||||||||||||||||     |
+|                                                          |
+| e  A     o'     B               C          o'    D       | f
+|    ---          ---             ---              ---     |
+|    ---          ---             ---              ---     |
+|    ---          ---             ---              ---     |
+|    ---   o'     ---             ---        o'    ---     |
+|    ---          ---             ---              ---     |
+|    ---          ---             ---              ---     |
+|    ---          ---             ---              ---     |
+|    ---   o'     ---             ---        o'    ---     |
+|                                                          |
+|                                                          |
+|                                                          |
+|          o'                                o'            |
+|                                                          |
+|                                                          |
+| g                                                        |  h
+|           o'                               o'            |
++-----------+--------------------------------+-------------+
+|           |--------------------------------|             |
+|           |-------------M------------------|             |
+|    K      |--------------------------------|     L       |
+|           |--------------------------------|             |
+|           |--------------------------------|             |
+|           |                                |             |
++-----------+                                +-------------+
+
+a.  Table with cashier's seat on either side, and alms-box in front.  The
+picture is exhibited on a scaffolding behind it.
+
+b.  The reliquary.
+
+c.  The President's chair.
+
+d.  Pulpit and lectern.
+
+e.  }
+f.  } Side doors.
+g.  }
+h.  }
+
+i.  Yram's seat.
+
+k.  Seats of George and the Sunchild.
+
+o'  Pillars.
+
+A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, blocks of seats.
+
+I.  Steps leading from the apse to the nave.
+
+K and L.  Towers.
+
+M.  Steps and main entrance.
+
+N.  Robing-room.
+
+The building was led up to by a flight of steps (M), and on entering it
+my father found it to consist of a spacious nave, with two aisles and an
+apse which was raised some three feet above the nave and aisles.  There
+were no transepts.  In the apse there was the table (a), with the two
+bowls of Musical Bank money mentioned on an earlier page, as also the
+alms-box in front of it.
+
+At some little distance in front of the table stood the President's chair
+(c), or I might almost call it throne.  It was so placed that his back
+would be turned towards the table, which fact again shews that the table
+was not regarded as having any greater sanctity than the rest of the
+temple.
+
+Behind the table, the picture already spoken of was raised aloft.  There
+was no balloon; some clouds that hung about the lower part of the chariot
+served to conceal the fact that the painter was uncertain whether it
+ought to have wheels or no.  The horses were without driver, and my
+father thought that some one ought to have had them in hand, for they
+were in far too excited a state to be left safely to themselves.  They
+had hardly any harness, but what little there was was enriched with gold
+bosses.  My mother was in Erewhonian costume, my father in European, but
+he wore his clothes reversed.  Both he and my mother seemed to be bowing
+graciously to an unseen crowd beneath them, and in the distance, near the
+bottom of the picture, was a fairly accurate representation of the
+Sunch'ston new temple.  High up, on the right hand, was a disc, raised
+and gilt, to represent the sun; on it, in low relief, there was an
+indication of a gorgeous palace, in which, no doubt, the sun was supposed
+to live; though how they made it all out my father could not conceive.
+
+On the right of the table there was a reliquary (b) of glass, much
+adorned with gold, or more probably gilding, for gold was so scarce in
+Erewhon that gilding would be as expensive as a thin plate of gold would
+be in Europe: but there is no knowing.  The reliquary was attached to a
+portable stand some five feet high, and inside it was the relic already
+referred to.  The crowd was so great that my father could not get near
+enough to see what it contained, but I may say here, that when, two days
+later, circumstances compelled him to have a close look at it, he saw
+that it consisted of about a dozen fine coprolites, deposited by some
+antediluvian creature or creatures, which, whatever else they may have
+been, were certainly not horses.
+
+In the apse there were a few cross benches (G and H) on either side, with
+an open space between them, which was partly occupied by the President's
+seat already mentioned.  Those on the right, as one looked towards the
+apse, were for the Managers and Cashiers of the Bank, while those on the
+left were for their wives and daughters.
+
+In the centre of the nave, only a few feet in front of the steps leading
+to the apse, was a handsome pulpit and lectern (d).  The pulpit was
+raised some feet above the ground, and was so roomy that the preacher
+could walk about in it.  On either side of it there were cross benches
+with backs (E and F); those on the right were reserved for the Mayor,
+civic functionaries, and distinguished visitors, while those on the left
+were for their wives and daughters.
+
+Benches with backs (A, B, C, D) were placed about half-way down both nave
+and aisles--those in the nave being divided so as to allow a free passage
+between them.  The rest of the temple was open space, about which people
+might walk at their will.  There were side doors (_e_, _j_, and _f_, _h_)
+at the upper and lower end of each aisle.  Over the main entrance was a
+gallery in which singers were placed.
+
+As my father was worming his way among the crowd, which was now very
+dense, he was startled at finding himself tapped lightly on the shoulder,
+and turning round in alarm was confronted by the beaming face of George.
+
+"How do you do, Professor Panky?" said the youth--who had decided thus to
+address him.  "What are you doing here among the common people?  Why have
+you not taken your place in one of the seats reserved for our
+distinguished visitors?  I am afraid they must be all full by this time,
+but I will see what I can do for you.  Come with me."
+
+"Thank you," said my father.  His heart beat so fast that this was all he
+could say, and he followed meek as a lamb.
+
+With some difficulty the two made their way to the right-hand corner
+seats of block C, for every seat in the reserved block was taken.  The
+places which George wanted for my father and for himself were already
+occupied by two young men of about eighteen and nineteen, both of them
+well-grown, and of prepossessing appearance.  My father saw by the
+truncheons they carried that they were special constables, but he took no
+notice of this, for there were many others scattered about the crowd.
+George whispered a few words to one of them, and to my father's surprise
+they both gave up their seats, which appear on the plan as (_k_).
+
+It afterwards transpired that these two young men were George's brothers,
+who by his desire had taken the seats some hours ago, for it was here
+that George had determined to place himself and my father if he could
+find him.  He chose these places because they would be near enough to let
+his mother (who was at i, in the middle of the front row of block E, to
+the left of the pulpit) see my father without being so near as to
+embarrass him; he could also see and be seen by Hanky, and hear every
+word of his sermon; but perhaps his chief reason had been the fact that
+they were not far from the side-door at the upper end of the right-hand
+aisle, while there was no barrier to interrupt rapid egress should this
+prove necessary.
+
+It was now high time that they should sit down, which they accordingly
+did.  George sat at the end of the bench, and thus had my father on his
+left.  My father was rather uncomfortable at seeing the young men whom
+they had turned out, standing against a column close by, but George said
+that this was how it was to be, and there was nothing to be done but to
+submit.  The young men seemed quite happy, which puzzled my father, who
+of course had no idea that their action was preconcerted.
+
+Panky was in the first row of block F, so that my father could not see
+his face except sometimes when he turned round.  He was sitting on the
+Mayor's right hand, while Dr. Downie was on his left; he looked at my
+father once or twice in a puzzled way, as though he ought to have known
+him, but my father did not think he recognised him.  Hanky was still with
+President Gurgoyle and others in the robing-room, N; Yram had already
+taken her seat: my father knew her in a moment, though he pretended not
+to do so when George pointed her out to him.  Their eyes met for a
+second; Yram turned hers quickly away, and my father could not see a
+trace of recognition in her face.  At no time during the whole ceremony
+did he catch her looking at him again.
+
+"Why, you stupid man," she said to him later on in the day with a quick,
+kindly smile, "I was looking at you all the time.  As soon as the
+President or Hanky began to talk about you I knew you would stare at him,
+and then I could look.  As soon as they left off talking about you I knew
+you would be looking at me, unless you went to sleep--and as I did not
+know which you might be doing, I waited till they began to talk about you
+again."
+
+My father had hardly taken note of his surroundings when the choir began
+singing, accompanied by a few feeble flutes and lutes, or whatever the
+name of the instrument should be, but with no violins, for he knew
+nothing of the violin, and had not been able to teach the Erewhonians
+anything about it.  The voices were all in unison, and the tune they sang
+was one which my father had taught Yram to sing; but he could not catch
+the words.
+
+As soon as the singing began, a procession, headed by the venerable Dr.
+Gurgoyle, President of the Musical Banks of the province, began to issue
+from the robing-room, and move towards the middle of the apse.  The
+President was sumptuously dressed, but he wore no mitre, nor anything to
+suggest an English or European Bishop.  The Vice-President, Head Manager,
+Vice-Manager, and some Cashiers of the Bank, now ranged themselves on
+either side of him, and formed an impressive group as they stood,
+gorgeously arrayed, at the top of the steps leading from the apse to the
+nave.  Here they waited till the singers left off singing.
+
+When the litany, or hymn, or whatever it should be called, was over, the
+Head Manager left the President's side and came down to the lectern in
+the nave, where he announced himself as about to read some passages from
+the Sunchild's Sayings.  Perhaps because it was the first day of the year
+according to their new calendar, the reading began with the first
+chapter, the whole of which was read.  My father told me that he quite
+well remembered having said the last verse, which he still held as true;
+hardly a word of the rest was ever spoken by him, though he recognised
+his own influence in almost all of it.  The reader paused, with good
+effect, for about five seconds between each paragraph, and read slowly
+and very clearly.  The chapter was as follows:-
+
+   These are the words of the Sunchild about God and man.  He said--
+
+   1.  God is the baseless basis of all thoughts, things, and deeds.
+
+   2.  So that those who say that there is a God, lie, unless they also
+   mean that there is no God; and those who say that there is no God,
+   lie, unless they also mean that there is a God.
+
+   3.  It is very true to say that man is made after the likeness of God;
+   and yet it is very untrue to say this.
+
+   4.  God lives and moves in every atom throughout the universe.
+   Therefore it is wrong to think of Him as 'Him' and 'He,' save as by
+   the clutching of a drowning man at a straw.
+
+   5.  God is God to us only so long as we cannot see Him.  When we are
+   near to seeing Him He vanishes, and we behold Nature in His stead.
+
+   6.  We approach Him most nearly when we think of Him as our expression
+   for Man's highest conception, of goodness, wisdom, and power.  But we
+   cannot rise to Him above the level of our own highest selves.
+
+   7.  We remove ourselves most far from Him when we invest Him with
+   human form and attributes.
+
+   8.  My father the sun, the earth, the moon, and all planets that roll
+   round my father, are to God but as a single cell in our bodies to
+   ourselves.
+
+   9.  He is as much above my father, as my father is above men and
+   women.
+
+   10.  The universe is instinct with the mind of God.  The mind of God
+   is in all that has mind throughout all worlds.  There is no God but
+   the Universe, and man, in this world is His prophet.
+
+   11.  God's conscious life, nascent, so far as this world is concerned,
+   in the infusoria, adolescent in the higher mammals, approaches
+   maturity on this earth in man.  All these living beings are members
+   one of another, and of God.
+
+   12.  Therefore, as man cannot live without God in the world, so
+   neither can God live in this world without mankind.
+
+   13.  If we speak ill of God in our ignorance it may be forgiven us;
+   but if we speak ill of His Holy Spirit indwelling in good men and
+   women it may not be forgiven us.
+
+The Head Manager now resumed his place by President Gurgoyle's side, and
+the President in the name of his Majesty the King declared the temple to
+be hereby dedicated to the contemplation of the Sunchild and the better
+exposition of his teaching.  This was all that was said.  The reliquary
+was then brought forward and placed at the top of the steps leading from
+the apse to the nave; but the original intention of carrying it round the
+temple was abandoned for fear of accidents through the pressure round it
+of the enormous multitudes who were assembled.  More singing followed of
+a simple but impressive kind; during this I am afraid I must own that my
+father, tired with his walk, dropped off into a refreshing slumber, from
+which he did not wake till George nudged him and told him not to snore,
+just as the Vice-Manager was going towards the lectern to read another
+chapter of the Sunchild's Sayings--which was as follows:-
+
+   The Sunchild also spoke to us a parable about the unwisdom of the
+   children yet unborn, who though they know so much, yet do not know as
+   much as they think they do.
+
+   He said:-
+
+   "The unborn have knowledge of one another so long as they are unborn,
+   and this without impediment from walls or material obstacles.  The
+   unborn children in any city form a population apart, who talk with one
+   another and tell each other about their developmental progress.
+
+   "They have no knowledge, and cannot even conceive the existence of
+   anything that is not such as they are themselves.  Those who have been
+   born are to them what the dead are to us.  They can see no life in
+   them, and know no more about them than they do of any stage in their
+   own past development other than the one through which they are passing
+   at the moment.  They do not even know that their mothers are
+   alive--much less that their mothers were once as they now are.  To an
+   embryo, its mother is simply the environment, and is looked upon much
+   as our inorganic surroundings are by ourselves.
+
+   "The great terror of their lives is the fear of birth,--that they
+   shall have to leave the only thing that they can think of as life, and
+   enter upon a dark unknown which is to them tantamount to annihilation.
+
+   "Some, indeed, among them have maintained that birth is not the death
+   which they commonly deem it, but that there is a life beyond the womb
+   of which they as yet know nothing, and which is a million fold more
+   truly life than anything they have yet been able even to imagine.  But
+   the greater number shake their yet unfashioned heads and say they have
+   no evidence for this that will stand a moment's examination.
+
+   "'Nay,' answer the others, 'so much work, so elaborate, so wondrous as
+   that whereon we are now so busily engaged must have a purpose, though
+   the purpose is beyond our grasp.'
+
+   "'Never,' reply the first speakers; 'our pleasure in the work is
+   sufficient justification for it.  Who has ever partaken of this life
+   you speak of, and re-entered into the womb to tell us of it?  Granted
+   that some few have pretended to have done this, but how completely
+   have their stories broken down when subjected to the tests of sober
+   criticism.  No.  When we are born we are born, and there is an end of
+   us.'
+
+   "But in the hour of birth, when they can no longer re-enter the womb
+   and tell the others, Behold! they find that it is not so."
+
+Here the reader again closed his book and resumed his place in the apse.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI: PROFESSOR HANKY PREACHES A SERMON, IN THE COURSE OF WHICH MY
+FATHER DECLARES HIMSELF TO BE THE SUNCHILD
+
+
+Professor Hanky then went up into the pulpit, richly but soberly robed in
+vestments the exact nature of which I cannot determine.  His carriage was
+dignified, and the harsh lines on his face gave it a strong
+individuality, which, though it did not attract, conveyed an impression
+of power that could not fail to interest.  As soon as he had given
+attention time to fix itself upon him, he began his sermon without text
+or preliminary matter of any kind, and apparently without notes.
+
+He spoke clearly and very quietly, especially at the beginning; he used
+action whenever it could point his meaning, or give it life and colour,
+but there was no approach to staginess or even oratorical display.  In
+fact, he spoke as one who meant what he was saying, and desired that his
+hearers should accept his meaning, fully confident in his good faith.  His
+use of pause was effective.  After the word "mistake," at the end of the
+opening sentence, he held up his half-bent hand and paused for full three
+seconds, looking intently at his audience as he did so.  Every one felt
+the idea to be here enounced that was to dominate the sermon.
+
+The sermon--so much of it as I can find room for--was as follows:-
+
+"My friends, let there be no mistake.  At such a time, as this, it is
+well we should look back upon the path by which we have travelled, and
+forward to the goal towards which we are tending.  As it was necessary
+that the material foundations of this building should be so sure that
+there shall be no subsidence in the superstructure, so is it not less
+necessary to ensure that there shall be no subsidence in the immaterial
+structure that we have raised in consequence of the Sunchild's sojourn
+among us.  Therefore, my friends, I again say, 'Let there be no mistake.'
+Each stone that goes towards the uprearing of this visible fane, each
+human soul that does its part in building the invisible temple of our
+national faith, is bearing witness to, and lending its support to, that
+which is either the truth of truths, or the baseless fabric of a dream.
+
+"My friends, this is the only possible alternative.  He in whose name we
+are here assembled, is either worthy of more reverential honour than we
+can ever pay him, or he is worthy of no more honour than any other
+honourable man among ourselves.  There can be no halting between these
+two opinions.  The question of questions is, was he the child of the
+tutelary god of this world--the sun, and is it to the palace of the sun
+that he returned when he left us, or was he, as some amongst us still do
+not hesitate to maintain, a mere man, escaping by unusual but strictly
+natural means to some part of this earth with which we are unacquainted.
+My friends, either we are on a right path or on a very wrong one, and in
+a matter of such supreme importance--there must be no mistake.
+
+"I need not remind those of you whose privilege it is to live in
+Sunch'ston, of the charm attendant on the Sunchild's personal presence
+and conversation, nor of his quick sympathy, his keen intellect, his
+readiness to adapt himself to the capacities of all those who came to see
+him while he was in prison.  He adored children, and it was on them that
+some of his most conspicuous miracles were performed.  Many a time when a
+child had fallen and hurt itself, was he known to make the place well by
+simply kissing it.  Nor need I recall to your minds the spotless purity
+of his life--so spotless that not one breath of slander has ever dared to
+visit it.  I was one of the not very many who had the privilege of being
+admitted to the inner circle of his friends during the later weeks that
+he was amongst us.  I loved him dearly, and it will ever be the proudest
+recollection of my life that he deigned to return me no small measure of
+affection."
+
+My father, furious as he was at finding himself dragged into complicity
+with this man's imposture, could not resist a smile at the effrontery
+with which he lowered his tone here, and appeared unwilling to dwell on
+an incident which he could not recall without being affected almost to
+tears, and mere allusion to which, had involved an apparent self-display
+that was above all things repugnant to him.  What a difference between
+the Hanky of Thursday evening with its "never set eyes on him and hope I
+never shall," and the Hanky of Sunday morning, who now looked as modest
+as Cleopatra might have done had she been standing godmother to a little
+blue-eyed girl--Bellerophon's first-born baby.
+
+Having recovered from his natural, but promptly repressed, emotion, the
+Professor continued:-
+
+"I need not remind you of the purpose for which so many of us, from so
+many parts of our kingdom, are here assembled.  We know what we have come
+hither to do: we are come each one of us to sign and seal by his presence
+the bond of his assent to those momentous changes, which have found their
+first great material expression in the temple that you see around you.
+
+"You all know how, in accordance with the expressed will of the Sunchild,
+the Presidents and Vice-Presidents of the Musical Banks began as soon as
+he had left us to examine, patiently, carefully, earnestly, and without
+bias of any kind, firstly the evidences in support of the Sunchild's
+claim to be the son of the tutelar deity of this world, and secondly the
+precise nature of his instructions as regards the future position and
+authority of the Musical Banks.
+
+"My friends, it is easy to understand why the Sunchild should have given
+us these instructions.  With that foresight which is the special
+characteristic of divine, as compared with human, wisdom, he desired that
+the evidences in support of his superhuman character should be collected,
+sifted, and placed on record, before anything was either lost through the
+death of those who could alone substantiate it, or unduly supplied
+through the enthusiasm of over-zealous visionaries.  The greater any true
+miracle has been, the more certainly will false ones accrete round it;
+here, then, we find the explanation of the command the Sunchild gave to
+us to gather, verify, and record, the facts of his sojourn here in
+Erewhon.  For above all things he held it necessary to ensure that there
+should be neither mistake, nor even possibility of mistake.
+
+"Consider for a moment what differences of opinion would infallibly have
+arisen, if the evidences for the miraculous character of the Sunchild's
+mission had been conflicting--if they had rested on versions each
+claiming to be equally authoritative, but each hopelessly irreconcilable
+on vital points with every single other.  What would future generations
+have said in answer to those who bade them fling all human experience to
+the winds, on the strength of records written they knew not certainly by
+whom, nor how long after the marvels that they recorded, and of which all
+that could be certainly said was that no two of them told the same story?
+
+"Who that believes either in God or man--who with any self-respect, or
+respect for the gift of reason with which God had endowed him, either
+would, or could, believe that a chariot and four horses had come down
+from heaven, and gone back again with human or quasi-human occupants,
+unless the evidences for the fact left no loophole for escape?  If a
+single loophole were left him, he would be unpardonable, not for
+disbelieving the story, but for believing it.  The sin against God would
+lie not in want of faith, but in faith.
+
+"My friends, there are two sins in matters of belief.  There is that of
+believing on too little evidence, and that of requiring too much before
+we are convinced.  The guilt of the latter is incurred, alas! by not a
+few amongst us at the present day, but if the testimony to the truth of
+the wondrous event so faithfully depicted on the picture that confronts
+you had been less contemporaneous, less authoritative, less unanimous,
+future generations--and it is for them that we should now provide--would
+be guilty of the first-named, and not less heinous sin if they believed
+at all.
+
+"Small wonder, then, that the Sunchild, having come amongst us for our
+advantage, not his own, would not permit his beneficent designs to be
+endangered by the discrepancies, mythical developments, idiosyncracies,
+and a hundred other defects inevitably attendant on amateur and
+irresponsible recording.  Small wonder, then, that he should have chosen
+the officials of the Musical Banks, from the Presidents and
+Vice-Presidents downwards to be the authoritative exponents of his
+teaching, the depositaries of his traditions, and his representatives
+here on earth till he shall again see fit to visit us.  For he will come.
+Nay it is even possible that he may be here amongst us at this very
+moment, disguised so that none may know him, and intent only on watching
+our devotion towards him.  If this be so, let me implore him, in the name
+of the sun his father, to reveal himself."
+
+Now Hanky had already given my father more than one look that had made
+him uneasy.  He had evidently recognised him as the supposed ranger of
+last Thursday evening.  Twice he had run his eye like a searchlight over
+the front benches opposite to him, and when the beam had reached my
+father there had been no more searching.  It was beginning to dawn upon
+my father that George might have discovered that he was not Professor
+Panky; was it for this reason that these two young special constables,
+though they gave up their places, still kept so close to him?  Was George
+only waiting his opportunity to arrest him--not of course even suspecting
+who he was--but as a foreign devil who had tried to pass himself off as
+Professor Panky?  Had this been the meaning of his having followed him to
+Fairmead?  And should he have to be thrown into the Blue Pool by George
+after all?  "It would serve me," said he to himself, "richly right."
+
+These fears which had been taking shape for some few minutes were turned
+almost to certainties by the half-contemptuous glance Hanky threw towards
+him as he uttered what was obviously intended as a challenge.  He saw
+that all was over, and was starting to his feet to declare himself, and
+thus fall into the trap that Hanky was laying for him, when George
+gripped him tightly by the knee and whispered, "Don't--you are in great
+danger."  And he smiled kindly as he spoke.
+
+My father sank back dumbfounded.  "You know me?" he whispered in reply.
+
+"Perfectly.  So does Hanky, so does my mother; say no more," and he again
+smiled.
+
+George, as my father afterwards learned, had hoped that he would reveal
+himself, and had determined in spite of his mother's instructions, to
+give him an opportunity of doing so.  It was for this reason that he had
+not arrested him quietly, as he could very well have done, before the
+service began.  He wished to discover what manner of man his father was,
+and was quite happy as soon as he saw that he would have spoken out if he
+had not been checked.  He had not yet caught Hanky's motive in trying to
+goad my father, but on seeing that he was trying to do this, he knew that
+a trap was being laid, and that my father must not be allowed to speak.
+
+Almost immediately, however, he perceived that while his eyes had been
+turned on Hanky, two burly vergers had wormed their way through the crowd
+and taken their stand close to his two brothers.  Then he understood, and
+understood also how to frustrate.
+
+As for my father, George's ascendancy over him--quite felt by George--was
+so absolute that he could think of nothing now but the exceeding great
+joy of finding his fears groundless, and of delivering himself up to his
+son's guidance in the assurance that the void in his heart was filled,
+and that his wager not only would be held as won, but was being already
+paid.  How they had found out, why he was not to speak as he would
+assuredly have done--for he was in a white heat of fury--what did it all
+matter now that he had found that which he had feared he should fail to
+find?  He gave George a puzzled smile, and composed himself as best he
+could to hear the continuation of Hanky's sermon, which was as follows:-
+
+"Who could the Sunchild have chosen, even though he had been gifted with
+no more than human sagacity, but the body of men whom he selected?  It
+becomes me but ill to speak so warmly in favour of that body of whom I am
+the least worthy member, but what other is there in Erewhon so above all
+suspicion of slovenliness, self-seeking, preconceived bias, or bad faith?
+If there was one set of qualities more essential than another for the
+conduct of the investigations entrusted to us by the Sunchild, it was
+those that turn on meekness and freedom from all spiritual pride.  I
+believe I can say quite truly that these are the qualities for which
+Bridgeford is more especially renowned.  The readiness of her Professors
+to learn even from those who at first sight may seem least able to
+instruct them--the gentleness with which they correct an opponent if they
+feel it incumbent upon them to do so, the promptitude with which they
+acknowledge error when it is pointed out to them and quit a position no
+matter how deeply they have been committed to it, at the first moment in
+which they see that they cannot hold it righteously, their delicate sense
+of honour, their utter immunity from what the Sunchild used to call log-
+rolling or intrigue, the scorn with which they regard anything like
+hitting below the belt--these I believe I may truly say are the virtues
+for which Bridgeford is pre-eminently renowned."
+
+The Professor went on to say a great deal more about the fitness of
+Bridgeford and the Musical Bank managers for the task imposed on them by
+the Sunchild, but here my father's attention flagged--nor, on looking at
+the verbatim report of the sermon that appeared next morning in the
+leading Sunch'ston journal, do I see reason to reproduce Hanky's words on
+this head.  It was all to shew that there had been no possibility of
+mistake.
+
+Meanwhile George was writing on a scrap of paper as though he was taking
+notes of the sermon.  Presently he slipped this into my father's hand.  It
+ran:-
+
+"You see those vergers standing near my brothers, who gave up their seats
+to us.  Hanky tried to goad you into speaking that they might arrest you,
+and get you into the Bank prisons.  If you fall into their hands you are
+lost.  I must arrest you instantly on a charge of poaching on the King's
+preserves, and make you my prisoner.  Let those vergers catch sight of
+the warrant which I shall now give you.  Read it and return it to me.
+Come with me quietly after service.  I think you had better not reveal
+yourself at all."
+
+As soon as he had given my father time to read the foregoing, George took
+a warrant out of his pocket.  My father pretended to read it and returned
+it.  George then laid his hand on his shoulder, and in an undertone
+arrested him.  He then wrote on another scrap of paper and passed it on
+to the elder of his two brothers.  It was to the effect that he had now
+arrested my father, and that if the vergers attempted in any way to
+interfere between him and his prisoner, his brothers were to arrest both
+of them, which, as special constables, they had power to do.
+
+Yram had noted Hanky's attempt to goad my father, and had not been
+prepared for his stealing a march upon her by trying to get my father
+arrested by Musical Bank officials, rather than by her son.  On the
+preceding evening this last plan had been arranged on; and she knew
+nothing of the note that Hanky had sent an hour or two later to the
+Manager of the temple--the substance of which the reader can sufficiently
+guess.  When she had heard Hanky's words and saw the vergers, she was for
+a few minutes seriously alarmed, but she was reassured when she saw
+George give my father the warrant, and her two sons evidently explaining
+the position to the vergers.
+
+Hanky had by this time changed his theme, and was warning his hearers of
+the dangers that would follow on the legalization of the medical
+profession, and the repeal of the edicts against machines.  Space forbids
+me to give his picture of the horrible tortures that future generations
+would be put to by medical men, if these were not duly kept in check by
+the influence of the Musical Banks; the horrors of the inquisition in the
+middle ages are nothing to what he depicted as certain to ensue if
+medical men were ever to have much money at their command.  The only
+people in whose hands money might be trusted safely were those who
+presided over the Musical Banks.  This tirade was followed by one not
+less alarming about the growth of materialistic tendencies among the
+artisans employed in the production of mechanical inventions.  My father,
+though his eyes had been somewhat opened by the second of the two
+processions he had seen on his way to Sunch'ston, was not prepared to
+find that in spite of the superficially almost universal acceptance of
+the new faith, there was a powerful, and it would seem growing,
+undercurrent of scepticism, with a desire to reduce his escape with my
+mother to a purely natural occurence.
+
+"It is not enough," said Hanky, "that the Sunchild should have ensured
+the preparation of authoritative evidence of his supernatural character.
+The evidences happily exist in overwhelming strength, but they must be
+brought home to minds that as yet have stubbornly refused to receive
+them.  During the last five years there has been an enormous increase in
+the number of those whose occupation in the manufacture of machines
+inclines them to a materialistic explanation even of the most obviously
+miraculous events, and the growth of this class in our midst constituted,
+and still constitutes, a grave danger to the state.
+
+"It was to meet this that the society was formed on behalf of which I
+appeal fearlessly to your generosity.  It is called, as most of you
+doubtless know, the Sunchild Evidence Society; and his Majesty the King
+graciously consented to become its Patron.  This society not only
+collects additional evidences--indeed it is entirely due to its labours
+that the precious relic now in this temple was discovered--but it is its
+beneficent purpose to lay those that have been authoritatively
+investigated before men who, if left to themselves, would either neglect
+them altogether, or worse still reject them.
+
+"For the first year or two the efforts of the society met with but little
+success among those for whose benefit they were more particularly
+intended, but during the present year the working classes in some cities
+and towns (stimulated very much by the lectures of my illustrious friend
+Professor Panky) have shewn a most remarkable and zealous interest in
+Sunchild evidences, and have formed themselves into local branches for
+the study and defence of Sunchild truth.
+
+"Yet in spite of all this need--of all this patient labour and really
+very gratifying success--the subscriptions to the society no longer
+furnish it with its former very modest income--an income which is
+deplorably insufficient if the organization is to be kept effective, and
+the work adequately performed.  In spite of the most rigid economy, the
+committee have been compelled to part with a considerable portion of
+their small reserve fund (provided by a legacy) to tide over
+difficulties.  But this method of balancing expenditure and income is
+very unsatisfactory, and cannot be long continued.
+
+"I am led to plead for the society with especial insistence at the
+present time, inasmuch as more than one of those whose unblemished life
+has made them fitting recipients of such a signal favour, have recently
+had visions informing them that the Sunchild will again shortly visit us.
+We know not when he will come, but when he comes, my friends, let him not
+find us unmindful of, nor ungrateful for, the inestimable services he has
+rendered us.  For come he surely will.  Either in winter, what time
+icicles hang by the wall and milk comes frozen home in the pail--or in
+summer when days are at their longest and the mowing grass is about--there
+will be an hour, either at morn, or eve, or in the middle day, when he
+will again surely come.  May it be mine to be among those who are then
+present to receive him."
+
+Here he again glared at my father, whose blood was boiling.  George had
+not positively forbidden him to speak out; he therefore sprang to his
+feet, "You lying hound," he cried, "I am the Sunchild, and you know it."
+
+George, who knew that he had my father in his own hands, made no attempt
+to stop him, and was delighted that he should have declared himself
+though he had felt it his duty to tell him not to do so.  Yram turned
+pale.  Hanky roared out, "Tear him in pieces--leave not a single limb on
+his body.  Take him out and burn him alive."  The vergers made a dash for
+him--but George's brothers seized them.  The crowd seemed for a moment
+inclined to do as Hanky bade them, but Yram rose from her place, and held
+up her hand as one who claimed attention.  She advanced towards George
+and my father as unconcernedly as though she were merely walking out of
+church, but she still held her hand uplifted.  All eyes were turned on
+her, as well as on George and my father, and the icy calm of her self-
+possession chilled those who were inclined for the moment to take Hanky's
+words literally.  There was not a trace of fluster in her gait, action,
+or words, as she said--
+
+"My friends, this temple, and this day, must not be profaned with blood.
+My son will take this poor madman to the prison.  Let him be judged and
+punished according to law.  Make room, that he and my son may pass."
+
+Then, turning to my father, she said, "Go quietly with the Ranger."
+
+Having so spoken, she returned to her seat as unconcernedly as she had
+left it.
+
+Hanky for a time continued to foam at the mouth and roar out, "Tear him
+to pieces! burn him alive!" but when he saw that there was no further
+hope of getting the people to obey him, he collapsed on to a seat in his
+pulpit, mopped his bald head, and consoled himself with a great pinch of
+a powder which corresponds very closely to our own snuff.
+
+George led my father out by the side door at the north end of the western
+aisle; the people eyed him intently, but made way for him without
+demonstration.  One voice alone was heard to cry out, "Yes, he is the
+Sunchild!"  My father glanced at the speaker, and saw that he was the
+interpreter who had taught him the Erewhonian language when he was in
+prison.
+
+George, seeing a special constable close by, told him to bid his brothers
+release the vergers, and let them arrest the interpreter--this the
+vergers, foiled as they had been in the matter of my father's arrest,
+were very glad to do.  So the poor interpreter, to his dismay, was lodged
+at once in one of the Bank prison-cells, where he could do no further
+harm.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII: GEORGE TAKES HIS FATHER TO PRISON, AND THERE OBTAINS SOME
+USEFUL INFORMATION
+
+
+By this time George had got my father into the open square, where he was
+surprised to find that a large bonfire had been made and lighted.  There
+had been nothing of the kind an hour before; the wood, therefore, must
+have been piled and lighted while people had been in church.  He had no
+time at the moment to enquire why this had been done, but later on he
+discovered that on the Sunday morning the Manager of the new temple had
+obtained leave from the Mayor to have the wood piled in the square,
+representing that this was Professor Hanky's contribution to the
+festivities of the day.  There had, it seemed, been no intention of
+lighting it until nightfall; but it had accidentally caught fire through
+the carelessness of a workman, much about the time when Hanky began to
+preach.  No one for a moment believed that there had been any sinister
+intention, or that Professor Hanky when he urged the crowd to burn my
+father alive, even knew that there was a pile of wood in the square at
+all--much less that it had been lighted--for he could hardly have
+supposed that the wood had been got together so soon.  Nevertheless both
+George and my father, when they knew all that had passed, congratulated
+themselves on the fact that my father had not fallen into the hands of
+the vergers, who would probably have tried to utilise the accidental
+fire, though in no case is it likely they would have succeeded.
+
+As soon as they were inside the gaol, the old Master recognised my
+father.  "Bless my heart--what?  You here, again, Mr. Higgs?  Why, I
+thought you were in the palace of the sun your father."
+
+"I wish I was," answered my father, shaking hands with him, but he could
+say no more.
+
+"You are as safe here as if you were," said George laughing, "and safer."
+Then turning to his grandfather, he said, "You have the record of Mr.
+Higgs's marks and measurements?  I know you have: take him to his old
+cell; it is the best in the prison; and then please bring me the record."
+
+The old man took George and my father to the cell which he had occupied
+twenty years earlier--but I cannot stay to describe his feelings on
+finding himself again within it.  The moment his grandfather's back was
+turned, George said to my father, "And now shake hands also with your
+son."
+
+As he spoke he took my father's hand and pressed it warmly between both
+his own.
+
+"Then you know you are my son," said my father as steadily as the strong
+emotion that mastered him would permit.
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"But you did not know this when I was walking with you on Friday?"
+
+"Of course not.  I thought you were Professor Panky; if I had not taken
+you for one of the two persons named in your permit, I should have
+questioned you closely, and probably ended by throwing you into the Blue
+Pool."  He shuddered as he said this.
+
+"But you knew who I was when you called me Panky in the temple?"
+
+"Quite so.  My mother told me everything on Friday evening."
+
+"And that is why you tried to find me at Fairmead?"
+
+"Yes, but where in the world were you?"
+
+"I was inside the Musical Bank of the town, resting and reading."
+
+George laughed, and said, "On purpose to hide?"
+
+"Oh no; pure chance.  But on Friday evening?  How could your mother have
+found out by that time that I was in Erewhon?  Am I on my head or my
+heels?"
+
+"On your heels, my father, which shall take you back to your own country
+as soon as we can get you out of this."
+
+"What have I done to deserve so much goodwill?  I have done you nothing
+but harm?"  Again he was quite overcome.
+
+George patted him gently on the hand, and said, "You made a bet and you
+won it.  During the very short time that we can be together, you shall be
+paid in full, and may heaven protect us both."
+
+As soon as my father could speak he said, "But how did your mother find
+out that I was in Erewhon?"
+
+"Hanky and Panky were dining with her, and they told her some things that
+she thought strange.  She cross-questioned them, put two and two
+together, learned that you had got their permit out of them, saw that you
+intended to return on Friday, and concluded that you would be sleeping in
+Sunch'ston.  She sent for me, told me all, bade me scour Sunch'ston to
+find you, intending that you should be at once escorted safely over the
+preserves by me.  I found your inn, but you had given us the slip.  I
+tried first Fairmead and then Clearwater, but did not find you till this
+morning.  For reasons too long to repeat, my mother warned Hanky and
+Panky that you would be in the temple; whereon Hanky tried to get you
+into his clutches.  Happily he failed, but if I had known what he was
+doing I should have arrested you before the service.  I ought to have
+done this, but I wanted you to win your wager, and I shall get you safely
+away in spite of them.  My mother will not like my having let you hear
+Hanky's sermon and declare yourself."
+
+"You half told me not to say who I was."
+
+"Yes, but I was delighted when you disobeyed me."
+
+"I did it very badly.  I never rise to great occasions, I always fall to
+them, but these things must come as they come."
+
+"You did it as well as it could be done, and good will come of it."
+
+"And now," he continued, "describe exactly all that passed between you
+and the Professors.  On which side of Panky did Hanky sit, and did they
+sit north and south or east and west?  How did you get--oh yes, I know
+that--you told them it would be of no further use to them.  Tell me all
+else you can."
+
+My father said that the Professors were sitting pretty well east and
+west, so that Hanky, who was on the east side, nearest the mountains, had
+Panky, who was on the Sunch'ston side, on his right hand.  George made a
+note of this.  My father then told what the reader already knows, but
+when he came to the measurement of the boots, George said, "Take your
+boots off," and began taking off his own.  "Foot for foot," said he, "we
+are not father and son, but brothers.  Yours will fit me; they are less
+worn than mine, but I daresay you will not mind that."
+
+On this George _ex abundanti cautela_ knocked a nail out of the right
+boot that he had been wearing and changed boots with my father; but he
+thought it more plausible not to knock out exactly the same nail that was
+missing on my father's boot.  When the change was made, each found--or
+said he found--the other's boots quite comfortable.
+
+My father all the time felt as though he were a basket given to a dog.
+The dog had got him, was proud of him, and no one must try to take him
+away.  The promptitude with which George took to him, the obvious
+pleasure he had in "running" him, his quick judgement, verging as it
+should towards rashness, his confidence that my father trusted him
+without reserve, the conviction of perfect openness that was conveyed by
+the way in which his eyes never budged from my father's when he spoke to
+him, his genial, kindly, manner, perfect physical health, and the air he
+had of being on the best possible terms with himself and every one
+else--the combination of all this so overmastered my poor father (who
+indeed had been sufficiently mastered before he had been five minutes in
+George's company) that he resigned himself as gratefully to being a
+basket, as George had cheerfully undertaken the task of carrying him.
+
+In passing I may say that George could never get his own boots back
+again, though he tried more than once to do so.  My father always made
+some excuse.  They were the only memento of George that he brought home
+with him; I wonder that he did not ask for a lock of his hair, but he did
+not.  He had the boots put against a wall in his bedroom, where he could
+see them from his bed, and during his illness, while consciousness yet
+remained with him, I saw his eyes continually turn towards them.  George,
+in fact, dominated him as long as anything in this world could do so.  Nor
+do I wonder; on the contrary, I love his memory the better; for I too, as
+will appear later, have seen George, and whatever little jealousy I may
+have felt, vanished on my finding him almost instantaneously gain the
+same ascendancy over me his brother, that he had gained over his and my
+father.  But of this no more at present.  Let me return to the gaol in
+Sunch'ston.
+
+"Tell me more," said George, "about the Professors."
+
+My father told him about the nuggets, the sale of his kit, the receipt he
+had given for the money, and how he had got the nuggets back from a tree,
+the position of which he described.
+
+"I know the tree; have you got the nuggets here?"
+
+"Here they are, with the receipt, and the pocket handkerchief marked with
+Hanky's name.  The pocket handkerchief was found wrapped round some dried
+leaves that we call tea, but I have not got these with me."  As he spoke
+he gave everything to George, who showed the utmost delight in getting
+possession of them.
+
+"I suppose the blanket and the rest of the kit are still in the tree?"
+
+"Unless Hanky and Panky have got them away, or some one has found them."
+
+"This is not likely.  I will now go to my office, but I will come back
+very shortly.  My grandfather shall bring you something to eat at once.  I
+will tell him to send enough for two"--which he accordingly did.
+
+On reaching the office, he told his next brother (whom he had made an
+under-ranger) to go to the tree he described, and bring back the bundle
+he should find concealed therein.  "You can go there and back," he said,
+"in an hour and a half, and I shall want the bundle by that time."
+
+The brother, whose name I never rightly caught, set out at once.  As soon
+as he was gone, George took from a drawer the feathers and bones of
+quails, that he had shown my father on the morning when he met him.  He
+divided them in half, and made them into two bundles, one of which he
+docketed, "Bones of quails eaten, XIX. xii. 29, by Professor Hanky,
+P.O.W.W., &c."  And he labelled Panky's quail bones in like fashion.
+
+Having done this, he returned to the gaol, but on his way he looked in at
+the Mayor's, and left a note saying that he should be at the gaol, where
+any message would reach him, but that he did not wish to meet Professors
+Hanky and Panky for another couple of hours.  It was now about half-past
+twelve, and he caught sight of a crowd coming quietly out of the temple,
+whereby he knew that Hanky would soon be at the Mayor's house.
+
+Dinner was brought in almost at the moment when George returned to the
+gaol.  As soon as it was over George said:-
+
+"Are you quite sure you have made no mistake about the way in which you
+got the permit out of the Professors?"
+
+"Quite sure.  I told them they would not want it, and said I could save
+them trouble if they gave it me.  They never suspected why I wanted it.
+Where do you think I may be mistaken?"
+
+"You sold your nuggets for rather less than a twentieth part of their
+value, and you threw in some curiosities, that would have fetched about
+half as much as you got for the nuggets.  You say you did this because
+you wanted money to keep you going till you could sell some of your
+nuggets.  This sounds well at first, but the sacrifice is too great to be
+plausible when considered.  It looks more like a case of good honest
+manly straightforward corruption."
+
+"But surely you believe me?"
+
+"Of course I do.  I believe every syllable that comes from your mouth,
+but I shall not be able to make out that the story was as it was not,
+unless I am quite certain what it really was."
+
+"It was exactly as I have told you."
+
+"That is enough.  And now, may I tell my mother that you will put
+yourself in her, and the Mayor's, and my, hands, and will do whatever we
+tell you?"
+
+"I will be obedience itself--but you will not ask me to do anything that
+will make your mother or you think less well of me?"
+
+"If we tell you what you are to do, we shall not think any the worse of
+you for doing it.  Then I may say to my mother that you will be good and
+give no trouble--not even though we bid you shake hands with Hanky and
+Panky?"
+
+"I will embrace them and kiss them on both cheeks, if you and she tell me
+to do so.  But what about the Mayor?"
+
+"He has known everything, and condoned everything, these last twenty
+years.  He will leave everything to my mother and me."
+
+"Shall I have to see him?"
+
+"Certainly.  You must be brought up before him to-morrow morning."
+
+"How can I look him in the face?"
+
+"As you would me, or any one else.  It is understood among us that
+nothing happened.  Things may have looked as though they had happened,
+but they did not happen."
+
+"And you are not yet quite twenty?"
+
+"No, but I am son to my mother--and," he added, "to one who can stretch a
+point or two in the way of honesty as well as other people."
+
+Having said this with a laugh, he again took my father's hand between
+both his, and went back to his office--where he set himself to think out
+the course he intended to take when dealing with the Professors.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII: YRAM INVITES DR. DOWNIE AND MRS. HUMDRUM TO LUNCHEON--A
+PASSAGE AT ARMS BETWEEN HER AND HANKY IS AMICABLY ARRANGED
+
+
+The disturbance caused by my father's outbreak was quickly suppressed,
+for George got him out of the temple almost immediately; it was bruited
+about, however, that the Sunchild had come down from the palace of the
+sun, but had disappeared as soon as any one had tried to touch him.  In
+vain did Hanky try to put fresh life into his sermon; its back had been
+broken, and large numbers left the church to see what they could hear
+outside, or failing information, to discourse more freely with one
+another.
+
+Hanky did his best to quiet his hearers when he found that he could not
+infuriate them,--
+
+"This poor man," he said, "is already known to me, as one of those who
+have deluded themselves into believing that they are the Sunchild.  I
+have known of his so declaring himself, more than once, in the
+neighbourhood of Bridgeford, and others have not infrequently done the
+same; I did not at first recognize him, and regret that the shock of
+horror his words occasioned me should have prompted me to suggest
+violence against him.  Let this unfortunate affair pass from your minds,
+and let me again urge upon you the claims of the Sunchild Evidence
+Society."
+
+The audience on hearing that they were to be told more about the Sunchild
+Evidence Society melted away even more rapidly than before, and the
+sermon fizzled out to an ignominious end quite unworthy of its occasion.
+
+About half-past twelve, the service ended, and Hanky went to the robing-
+room to take off his vestments.  Yram, the Mayor, and Panky, waited for
+him at the door opposite to that through which my father had been taken;
+while waiting, Yram scribbled off two notes in pencil, one to Dr. Downie,
+and another to Mrs. Humdrum, begging them to come to lunch at once--for
+it would be one o'clock before they could reach the Mayor's.  She gave
+these notes to the Mayor, and bade him bring both the invited guests
+along with him.
+
+The Mayor left just as Hanky was coming towards her.  "This, Mayoress,"
+he said with some asperity, "is a very serious business.  It has ruined
+my collection.  Half the people left the temple without giving anything
+at all.  You seem," he added in a tone the significance of which could
+not be mistaken, "to be very fond, Mayoress, of this Mr. Higgs."
+
+"Yes," said Yram, "I am; I always liked him, and I am sorry for him; but
+he is not the person I am most sorry for at this moment--he, poor man, is
+not going to be horsewhipped within the next twenty minutes."  And she
+spoke the "he" in italics.
+
+"I do not understand you, Mayoress."
+
+"My husband will explain, as soon as I have seen him."
+
+"Hanky," said Panky, "you must withdraw, and apologise at once."
+
+Hanky was not slow to do this, and when he had disavowed everything,
+withdrawn everything, apologised for everything, and eaten humble pie to
+Yram's satisfaction, she smiled graciously, and held out her hand, which
+Hanky was obliged to take.
+
+"And now, Professor," she said, "let me return to your remark that this
+is a very serious business, and let me also claim a woman's privilege of
+being listened to whenever she chooses to speak.  I propose, then, that
+we say nothing further about this matter till after luncheon.  I have
+asked Dr. Downie and Mrs. Humdrum to join us--"
+
+"Why Mrs. Humdrum?" interrupted Hanky none too pleasantly, for he was
+still furious about the duel that had just taken place between himself
+and his hostess.
+
+"My dear Professor," said Yram good-humouredly, "pray say all you have to
+say and I will continue."
+
+Hanky was silent.
+
+"I have asked," resumed Yram, "Dr. Downie and Mrs. Humdrum to join, us,
+and after luncheon we can discuss the situation or no as you may think
+proper.  Till then let us say no more.  Luncheon will be over by two
+o'clock or soon after, and the banquet will not begin till seven, so we
+shall have plenty of time."
+
+Hanky looked black and said nothing.  As for Panky he was morally in a
+state of collapse, and did not count.
+
+Hardly had they reached the Mayor's house when the Mayor also arrived
+with Dr. Downie and Mrs. Humdrum, both of whom had seen and recognised my
+father in spite of his having dyed his hair.  Dr. Downie had met him at
+supper in Mr. Thims's rooms when he had visited Bridgeford, and naturally
+enough had observed him closely.  Mrs. Humdrum, as I have already said,
+had seen him more than once when he was in prison.  She and Dr. Downie
+were talking earnestly over the strange reappearance of one whom they had
+believed long since dead, but Yram imposed on them the same silence that
+she had already imposed on the Professors.
+
+"Professor Hanky," said she to Mrs. Humdrum, in Hanky's hearing, "is a
+little alarmed at my having asked you to join our secret conclave.  He is
+not married, and does not know how well a woman can hold her tongue when
+she chooses.  I should have told you all that passed, for I mean to
+follow your advice, so I thought you had better hear everything
+yourself."
+
+Hanky still looked black, but he said nothing.  Luncheon was promptly
+served, and done justice to in spite of much preoccupation; for if there
+is one thing that gives a better appetite than another, it is a Sunday
+morning's service with a charity sermon to follow.  As the guests might
+not talk on the subject they wanted to talk about, and were in no humour
+to speak of anything else, they gave their whole attention to the good
+things that were before them, without so much as a thought about
+reserving themselves for the evening's banquet.  Nevertheless, when
+luncheon was over, the Professors were in no more genial, manageable,
+state of mind than they had been when it began.
+
+When the servants had left the room, Yram said to Hanky, "You saw the
+prisoner, and he was the man you met on Thursday night?"
+
+"Certainly, he was wearing the forbidden dress and he had many quails in
+his possession.  There is no doubt also that he was a foreign devil."
+
+At this point, it being now nearly half-past two, George came in, and
+took a seat next to Mrs. Humdrum--between her and his mother--who of
+course sat at the head of the table with the Mayor opposite to her.  On
+one side of the table sat the Professors, and on the other Dr. Downie,
+Mrs. Humdrum, and George, who had heard the last few words that Hanky had
+spoken.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX: A COUNCIL IS HELD AT THE MAYOR'S, IN THE COURSE OF WHICH
+GEORGE TURNS THE TABLES ON THE PROFESSORS
+
+
+"Now who," said Yram, "is this unfortunate creature to be, when he is
+brought up to-morrow morning, on the charge of poaching?"
+
+"It is not necessary," said Hanky severely, "that he should be brought up
+for poaching.  He is a foreign devil, and as such your son is bound to
+fling him without trial into the Blue Pool.  Why bring a smaller charge
+when you must inflict the death penalty on a more serious one?  I have
+already told you that I shall feel it my duty to report the matter at
+headquarters, unless I am satisfied that the death penalty has been
+inflicted."
+
+"Of course," said George, "we must all of us do our duty, and I shall not
+shrink from mine--but I have arrested this man on a charge of poaching,
+and must give my reasons; the case cannot be dropped, and it must be
+heard in public.  Am I, or am I not, to have the sworn depositions of
+both you gentlemen to the fact that the prisoner is the man you saw with
+quails in his possession?  If you can depose to this he will be
+convicted, for there can be no doubt he killed the birds himself.  The
+least penalty my father can inflict is twelve months' imprisonment with
+hard labour; and he must undergo this sentence before I can Blue-Pool
+him.
+
+"Then comes the question whether or no he is a foreign devil.  I may
+decide this in private, but I must have depositions on oath before I do
+so, and at present I have nothing but hearsay.  Perhaps you gentlemen can
+give me the evidence I shall require, but the case is one of such
+importance that were the prisoner proved never so clearly to be a foreign
+devil, I should not Blue-Pool him till I had taken the King's pleasure
+concerning him.  I shall rejoice, therefore, if you gentlemen can help me
+to sustain the charge of poaching, and thus give me legal standing-ground
+for deferring action which the King might regret, and which once taken
+cannot be recalled."
+
+Here Yram interposed.  "These points," she said, "are details.  Should we
+not first settle, not what, but who, we shall allow the prisoner to be,
+when he is brought up to-morrow morning?  Settle this, and the rest will
+settle itself.  He has declared himself to be the Sunchild, and will
+probably do so again.  I am prepared to identify him, so is Dr. Downie,
+so is Mrs. Humdrum, the interpreter, and doubtless my father.  Others of
+known respectability will also do so, and his marks and measurements are
+sure to correspond quite sufficiently.  The question is, whether all this
+is to be allowed to appear on evidence, or whether it is to be
+established, as it easily may, if we give our minds to it, that he is not
+the Sunchild."
+
+"Whatever else he is," said Hanky, "he must not be the Sunchild.  He
+must, if the charge of poaching cannot be dropped, be a poacher and a
+foreign devil.  I was doubtless too hasty when I said that I believed I
+recognized the man as one who had more than once declared himself to be
+the Sunchild--"
+
+"But, Hanky," interrupted Panky, "are you sure that you can swear to this
+man's being the man we met on Thursday night?  We only saw him by
+firelight, and I doubt whether I should feel justified in swearing to
+him."
+
+"Well, well: on second thoughts I am not sure, Panky, but what you may be
+right after all; it is possible that he may be what I said he was in my
+sermon."
+
+"I rejoice to hear you say so," said George, "for in this case the charge
+of poaching will fall through.  There will be no evidence against the
+prisoner.  And I rejoice also to think that I shall have nothing to
+warrant me in believing him to be a foreign devil.  For if he is not to
+be the Sunchild, and not to be your poacher, he becomes a mere
+monomaniac.  If he apologises for having made a disturbance in the
+temple, and promises not to offend again, a fine, and a few days'
+imprisonment, will meet the case, and he may be discharged."
+
+"I see, I see," said Hanky very angrily.  "You are determined to get this
+man off if you can."
+
+"I shall act," said George, "in accordance with sworn evidence, and not
+otherwise.  Choose whether you will have the prisoner to be your poacher
+or no: give me your sworn depositions one way or the other, and I shall
+know how to act.  If you depose on oath to the identity of the prisoner
+and your poacher, he will be convicted and imprisoned.  As to his being a
+foreign devil, if he is the Sunchild, of course he is one; but otherwise
+I cannot Blue-Pool him even when his sentence is expired, without
+testimony deposed to me on oath in private, though no open trial is
+required.  A case for suspicion was made out in my hearing last night,
+but I must have depositions on oath to all the leading facts before I can
+decide what my duty is.  What will you swear to?"
+
+"All this," said Hanky, in a voice husky with passion, "shall be reported
+to the King."
+
+"I intend to report every word of it; but that is not the point: the
+question is what you gentlemen will swear to?"
+
+"Very well.  I will settle it thus.  We will swear that the prisoner is
+the poacher we met on Thursday night, and that he is also a foreign
+devil: his wearing the forbidden dress; his foreign accent; the
+foot-tracks we found in the snow, as of one coming over from the other
+side; his obvious ignorance of the Afforesting Act, as shown by his
+having lit a fire and making no effort to conceal his quails till our
+permit shewed him his blunder; the cock-and-bull story he told us about
+your orders, and that other story about his having killed a foreign
+devil--if these facts do not satisfy you, they will satisfy the King that
+the prisoner is a foreign devil as well as a poacher."
+
+"Some of these facts," answered George, "are new to me.  How do you know
+that the foot-tracks were made by the prisoner?"
+
+Panky brought out his note-book and read the details he had noted.
+
+"Did you examine the man's boots?"
+
+"One of them, the right foot; this, with the measurements, was quite
+enough."
+
+"Hardly.  Please to look at both soles of my own boots; you will find
+that those tracks were mine.  I will have the prisoner's boots examined;
+in the meantime let me tell you that I was up at the statues on Thursday
+morning, walked three or four hundred yards beyond them, over ground
+where there was less snow, returned over the snow, and went two or three
+times round them, as it is the Ranger's duty to do once a year in order
+to see that none of them are beginning to lean."
+
+He showed the soles of his boots, and the Professors were obliged to
+admit that the tracks were his.  He cautioned them as to the rest of the
+points on which they relied.  Might they not be as mistaken, as they had
+just proved to be about the tracks?  He could not, however, stir them
+from sticking to it that there was enough evidence to prove my father to
+be a foreign devil, and declaring their readiness to depose to the facts
+on oath.  In the end Hanky again fiercely accused him of trying to shield
+the prisoner.
+
+"You are quite right," said George, "and you will see my reasons
+shortly."
+
+"I have no doubt," said Hanky significantly, "that they are such as would
+weigh with any man of ordinary feeling."
+
+"I understand, then," said George, appearing to take no notice of Hanky's
+innuendo, "that you will swear to the facts as you have above stated
+them?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"Then kindly wait while I write them on the form that I have brought with
+me; the Mayor can administer the oath and sign your depositions.  I shall
+then be able to leave you, and proceed with getting up the case against
+the prisoner."
+
+So saying, he went to a writing-table in another part of the room, and
+made out the depositions.
+
+Meanwhile the Mayor, Mrs. Humdrum, and Dr. Downie (who had each of them
+more than once vainly tried to take part in the above discussion)
+conversed eagerly in an undertone among themselves.  Hanky was blind with
+rage, for he had a sense that he was going to be outwitted; the Mayor,
+Yram, and Mrs. Humdrum had already seen that George thought he had all
+the trumps in his own hand, but they did not know more.  Dr. Downie was
+frightened, and Panky so muddled as to be _hors de combat_.
+
+George now rejoined the Professors, and read the depositions: the Mayor
+administered the oath according to Erewhonian custom; the Professors
+signed without a word, and George then handed the document to his father
+to countersign.
+
+The Mayor examined it, and almost immediately said, "My dear George, you
+have made a mistake; these depositions are on a form reserved for
+deponents who are on the point of death."
+
+"Alas!" answered George, "there is no help for it.  I did my utmost to
+prevent their signing.  I knew that those depositions were their own
+death warrant,--and that is why, though I was satisfied that the prisoner
+is a foreign devil, I had hoped to be able to shut my eyes.  I can now no
+longer do so, and as the inevitable consequence, I must Blue-Pool both
+the Professors before midnight.  What man of ordinary feeling would not
+under these circumstances have tried to dissuade them from deposing as
+they have done?"
+
+By this time the Professors had started to their feet, and there was a
+look of horrified astonishment on the faces of all present, save that of
+George, who seemed quite happy.
+
+"What monstrous absurdity is this?" shouted Hanky; "do you mean to murder
+us?"
+
+"Certainly not.  But you have insisted that I should do my duty, and I
+mean to do it.  You gentlemen have now been proved to my satisfaction to
+have had traffic with a foreign devil; and under section 37 of the
+Afforesting Act, I must at once Blue-Pool any such persons without public
+trial."
+
+"Nonsense, nonsense, there was nothing of the kind on our permit, and as
+for trafficking with this foreign devil, we spoke to him, but we neither
+bought nor sold.  Where is the Act?"
+
+"Here.  On your permit you were referred to certain other clauses not set
+out therein, which might be seen at the Mayor's office.  Clause 37 is as
+follows:-
+
+   "It is furthermore enacted that should any of his Majesty's subjects
+   be found, after examination by the Head Ranger, to have had traffic of
+   any kind by way of sale or barter with any foreign devil, the said
+   Ranger, on being satisfied that such traffic has taken place, shall
+   forthwith, with or without the assistance of his under-rangers, convey
+   such subjects of his Majesty to the Blue Pool, bind them, weight them,
+   and fling them into it, without the formality of a trial, and shall
+   report the circumstances of the case to his Majesty."
+
+"But we never bought anything from the prisoner.  What evidence can you
+have of this but the word of a foreign devil in such straits that he
+would swear to anything?"
+
+"The prisoner has nothing to do with it.  I am convinced by this receipt
+in Professor Panky's handwriting which states that he and you jointly
+purchased his kit from the prisoner, and also this bag of gold nuggets
+worth about 100 pounds in silver, for the absurdly small sum of 4 pounds,
+10s. in silver.  I am further convinced by this handkerchief marked with
+Professor Hanky's name, in which was found a broken packet of dried
+leaves that are now at my office with the rest of the prisoner's kit."
+
+"Then we were watched and dogged," said Hanky, "on Thursday evening."
+
+"That, sir," replied George, "is my business, not yours."
+
+Here Panky laid his arms on the table, buried his head in them, and burst
+into tears.  Every one seemed aghast, but the Mayor, Yram, and Mrs.
+Humdrum saw that George was enjoying it all far too keenly to be serious.
+Dr. Downie was still frightened (for George's surface manner was
+Rhadamanthine) and did his utmost to console Panky.  George pounded away
+ruthlessly at his case.
+
+"I say nothing about your having bought quails from the prisoner and
+eaten them.  As you justly remarked just now, there is no object in
+preferring a smaller charge when one must inflict the death penalty on a
+more serious one.  Still, Professor Hanky, these are bones of the quails
+you ate as you sate opposite the prisoner on the side of the fire nearest
+Sunch'ston; these are Professor Panky's bones, with which I need not
+disturb him.  This is your permit, which was found upon the prisoner, and
+which there can be no doubt you sold him, having been bribed by the offer
+of the nuggets for--"
+
+"Monstrous, monstrous!  Infamous falsehood!  Who will believe such a
+childish trumped up story!"
+
+"Who, sir, will believe anything else?  You will hardly contend that you
+did not know the nuggets were gold, and no one will believe you mean
+enough to have tried to get this poor man's property out of him for a
+song--you knowing its value, and he not knowing the same.  No one will
+believe that you did not know the man to be a foreign devil, or that he
+could hoodwink two such learned Professors so cleverly as to get their
+permit out of them.  Obviously he seduced you into selling him your
+permit, and--I presume because he wanted a little of our money--he made
+you pay him for his kit.  I am satisfied that you have not only had
+traffic with a foreign devil, but traffic of a singularly atrocious kind,
+and this being so, I shall Blue-Pool both of you as soon as I can get you
+up to the Pool itself.  The sooner we start the better.  I shall gag you,
+and drive you up in a close carriage as far as the road goes; from that
+point you can walk up, or be dragged up as you may prefer, but you will
+probably find walking more comfortable."
+
+"But," said Hanky, "come what may, I must be at the banquet.  I am set
+down to speak."
+
+"The Mayor will explain that you have been taken somewhat suddenly
+unwell."
+
+Here Yram, who had been talking quietly with her husband, Dr. Downie, and
+Mrs. Humdrum, motioned her son to silence.
+
+"I feared," she said, "that difficulties might arise, though I did not
+foresee how seriously they would affect my guests.  Let Mrs. Humdrum on
+our side, and Dr. Downie on that of the Professors, go into the next room
+and talk the matter quietly over; let us then see whether we cannot agree
+to be bound by their decision.  I do not doubt but they will find some
+means of averting any catastrophe more serious--No, Professor Hanky, the
+doors are locked--than a little perjury in which we shall all share and
+share alike."
+
+"Do what you like," said Hanky, looking for all the world like a rat
+caught in a trap.  As he spoke he seized a knife from the table, whereon
+George pulled a pair of handcuffs from his pocket and slipped them on to
+his wrists before he well knew what was being done to him.
+
+"George," said the Mayor, "this is going too far.  Do you mean to Blue-
+Pool the Professors or no?"
+
+"Not if they will compromise.  If they will be reasonable, they will not
+be Blue-Pooled; if they think they can have everything their own way, the
+eels will be at them before morning."
+
+A voice was heard from the head of Panky which he had buried in his arms
+upon the table.  "Co-co-co-compromise," it said; and the effect was so
+comic that every one except Hanky smiled.  Meanwhile Yram had conducted
+Dr. Downie and Mrs. Humdrum into an adjoining room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX: MRS. HUMDRUM AND DR. DOWNIE PROPOSE A COMPROMISE, WHICH,
+AFTER AN AMENDMENT BY GEORGE, IS CARRIED NEM.  CON.
+
+
+They returned in about ten minutes, and Dr. Downie asked Mrs. Humdrum to
+say what they had agreed to recommend.
+
+"We think," said she very demurely, "that the strict course would be to
+drop the charge of poaching, and Blue-Pool both the Professors and the
+prisoner without delay.
+
+"We also think that the proper thing would be to place on record that the
+prisoner is the Sunchild--about which neither Dr. Downie nor I have a
+shadow of doubt.
+
+"These measures we hold to be the only legal ones, but at the same time
+we do not recommend them.  We think it would offend the public conscience
+if it came to be known, as it certainly would, that the Sunchild was
+violently killed, on the very day that had seen us dedicate a temple in
+his honour, and perhaps at the very hour when laudatory speeches were
+being made about him at the Mayor's banquet; we think also that we should
+strain a good many points rather than Blue-Pool the Professors.
+
+"Nothing is perfect, and Truth makes her mistakes like other people; when
+she goes wrong and reduces herself to such an absurdity as she has here
+done, those who love her must save her from herself, correct her, and
+rehabilitate her.
+
+"Our conclusion, therefore, is this:-
+
+"The prisoner must recant on oath his statement that he is the Sunchild.
+The interpreter must be squared, or convinced of his mistake.  The
+Mayoress, Dr. Downie, I, and the gaoler (with the interpreter if we can
+manage him), must depose on oath that the prisoner is not Higgs.  This
+must be our contribution to the rehabilitation of Truth.
+
+"The Professors must contribute as follows: They must swear that the
+prisoner is not the man they met with quails in his possession on
+Thursday night.  They must further swear that they have one or both of
+them known him, off and on, for many years past, as a monomaniac with
+Sunchildism on the brain but otherwise harmless.  If they will do this,
+no proceedings are to be taken against them.
+
+"The Mayor's contribution shall be to reprimand the prisoner, and order
+him to repeat his recantation in the new temple before the Manager and
+Head Cashier, and to confirm his statement on oath by kissing the
+reliquary containing the newly found relic.
+
+"The Ranger and the Master of the Gaol must contribute that the
+prisoner's measurements, and the marks found on his body, negative all
+possibility of his identity with the Sunchild, and that all the hair on
+the covered as well as the uncovered parts of his body was found to be
+jet black.
+
+"We advise further that the prisoner should have his nuggets and his kit
+returned to him, and that the receipt given by the Professors together
+with Professor Hanky's handkerchief be given back to the Professors.
+
+"Furthermore, seeing that we should all of us like to have a quiet
+evening with the prisoner, we should petition the Mayor and Mayoress to
+ask him to meet all here present at dinner to-morrow evening, after his
+discharge, on the plea that Professors Hanky and Panky and Dr. Downie may
+give him counsel, convince him of his folly, and if possible free him
+henceforth from the monomania under which he now suffers.
+
+"The prisoner shall give his word of honour, never to return to Erewhon,
+nor to encourage any of his countrymen to do so.  After the dinner to
+which we hope the Mayoress Will invite us, the Ranger, if the night is
+fair, shall escort the prisoner as far as the statues, whence he will
+find his own way home.
+
+"Those who are in favour of this compromise hold up their hands."
+
+The Mayor and Yram held up theirs.  "Will you hold up yours, Professor
+Hanky," said George, "if I release you?"
+
+"Yes," said Hanky with a gruff laugh, whereon George released him and he
+held up both his hands.
+
+Panky did not hold up his, whereon Hanky said, "Hold up your hands,
+Panky, can't you?  We are really very well out of it."
+
+Panky, hardly lifting his head, sobbed out, "I think we ought to have our
+f-f-fo-fo-four pounds ten returned to us."
+
+"I am afraid, sir," said George, "that the prisoner must have spent the
+greater part of this money."
+
+Every one smiled, indeed it was all George could do to prevent himself
+from laughing outright.  The Mayor brought out his purse, counted the
+money, and handed it good-humouredly to Panky, who gratefully received
+it, and said he would divide it with Hanky.  He then held up his hands,
+"But," he added, turning to his brother Professor, "so long as I live,
+Hanky, I will never go out anywhere again with you."
+
+George then turned to Hanky and said, "I am afraid I must now trouble you
+and Professor Panky to depose on oath to the facts which Mrs. Humdrum and
+Dr. Downie propose you should swear to in open court to-morrow.  I knew
+you would do so, and have brought an ordinary form, duly filled up, which
+declares that the prisoner is not the poacher you met on Thursday; and
+also, that he has been long known to both of you as a harmless
+monomaniac."
+
+As he spoke he brought out depositions to the above effect which he had
+just written in his office; he shewed the Professors that the form was
+this time an innocent one, whereon they made no demur to signing and
+swearing in the presence of the Mayor, who attested.
+
+"The former depositions," said Hanky, "had better be destroyed at once."
+
+"That," said George, "may hardly be, but so long as you stick to what you
+have just sworn to, they will not be used against you."
+
+Hanky scowled, but knew that he was powerless and said no more.
+
+* * * * *
+
+The knowledge of what ensued did not reach me from my father.  George and
+his mother, seeing how ill he looked, and what a shock the events of the
+last few days had given him, resolved that he should not know of the risk
+that George was about to run; they therefore said nothing to him about
+it.  What I shall now tell, I learned on the occasion already referred to
+when I had the happiness to meet George.  I am in some doubt whether it
+is more fitly told here, or when I come to the interview between him and
+me; on the whole, however, I suppose chronological order is least
+outraged by dealing with it here.
+
+As soon as the Professors had signed the second depositions, George said,
+"I have not yet held up my hands, but I will hold them up if Mrs. Humdrum
+and Dr. Downie will approve of what I propose.  Their compromise does not
+go far enough, for swear as we may, it is sure to get noised abroad, with
+the usual exaggerations, that the Sunchild has been here, and that he has
+been spirited away either by us, or by the sun his father.  For one
+person whom we know of as having identified him, there will be five, of
+whom we know nothing, and whom we cannot square.  Reports will reach the
+King sooner or later, and I shall be sent for.  Meanwhile the Professors
+will be living in fear of intrigue on my part, and I, however
+unreasonably, shall fear the like on theirs.  This should not be.  I
+mean, therefore, on the day following my return from escorting the
+prisoner, to set out for the capital, see the King, and make a clean
+breast of the whole matter.  To this end I must have the nuggets, the
+prisoner's kit, his receipt, Professor Hanky's handkerchief, and, of
+course, the two depositions just sworn to by the Professors.  I hope and
+think that the King will pardon us all round; but whatever he may do I
+shall tell him everything."
+
+Hanky was up in arms at once.  "Sheer madness," he exclaimed.  Yram and
+the Mayor looked anxious; Dr. Downie eyed George as though he were some
+curious creature, which he heard of but had never seen, and was rather
+disposed to like.  Mrs. Humdrum nodded her head approvingly.
+
+"Quite right, George," said she, "tell his Majesty everything."
+
+Dr. Downie then said, "Your son, Mayoress, is a very sensible fellow.  I
+will go with him, and with the Professors--for they had better come too:
+each will hear what the other says, and we will tell the truth, the whole
+truth, and nothing but the truth.  I am, as you know, a _persona grata_
+at Court; I will say that I advised your son's action.  The King has
+liked him ever since he was a boy, and I am not much afraid about what he
+will do.  In public, no doubt we had better hush things up, but in
+private the King must be told."
+
+Hanky fought hard for some time, but George told him that it did not
+matter whether he agreed or no.  "You can come," he said, "or stop away,
+just as you please.  If you come, you can hear and speak; if you do not,
+you will not hear, but these two depositions will speak for you.  Please
+yourself."
+
+"Very well," he said at last, "I suppose we had better go."
+
+Every one having now understood what his or her part was to be, Yram said
+they had better shake hands all round and take a couple of hours' rest
+before getting ready for the banquet.  George said that the Professors
+did not shake hands with him very cordially, but the farce was gone
+through.  When the hand-shaking was over, Dr. Downie and Mrs. Humdrum
+left the house, and the Professors retired grumpily to their own room.
+
+I will say here that no harm happened either to George or the Professors
+in consequence of his having told the King, but will reserve particulars
+for my concluding chapter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI: YRAM, ON GETTING RID OF HER GUESTS, GOES TO THE PRISON TO
+SEE MY FATHER
+
+
+Yram did not take the advice she had given her guests, but set about
+preparing a basket of the best cold dainties she could find, including a
+bottle of choice wine that she knew my father would like; thus loaded she
+went to the gaol, which she entered by her father's private entrance.
+
+It was now about half-past four, so that much more must have been said
+and done after luncheon at the Mayor's than ever reached my father.  The
+wonder is that he was able to collect so much.  He, poor man, as soon as
+George left him, flung himself on to the bed that was in his cell and lay
+there wakeful, but not unquiet, till near the time when Yram reached the
+gaol.
+
+The old gaoler came to tell him that she had come and would be glad to
+see him; much as he dreaded the meeting there was no avoiding it, and in
+a few minutes Yram stood before him.
+
+Both were agitated, but Yram betrayed less of what she felt than my
+father.  He could only bow his head and cover his face with his hands.
+Yram said, "We are old friends; take your hands from your face and let me
+see you.  There!  That is well."
+
+She took his right hand between both hers, looked at him with eyes full
+of kindness, and said softly--
+
+"You are not much changed, but you look haggard, worn, and ill; I am
+uneasy about you.  Remember, you are among friends, who will see that no
+harm befalls you.  There is a look in your eyes that frightens me."
+
+As she spoke she took the wine out of her basket, and poured him out a
+glass, but rather to give him some little thing to distract his
+attention, than because she expected him to drink it--which he could not
+do.
+
+She never asked him whether he found her altered, or turned the
+conversation ever such a little on to herself; all was for him; to soothe
+and comfort him, not in words alone, but in look, manner, and voice.  My
+father knew that he could thank her best by controlling himself, and
+letting himself be soothed and comforted--at any rate so far as he could
+seem to be.
+
+Up to this time they had been standing, but now Yram, seeing my father
+calmer, said, "Enough, let us sit down."
+
+So saying she seated herself at one end of the small table that was in
+the cell, and motioned my father to sit opposite to her.  "The light
+hurts you?" she said, for the sun was coming into the room.  "Change
+places with me, I am a sun worshipper.  No, we can move the table, and we
+can then see each other better."
+
+This done, she said, still very softly, "And now tell me what it is all
+about.  Why have you come here?"
+
+"Tell me first," said my father, "what befell you after I had been taken
+away.  Why did you not send me word when you found what had happened? or
+come after me?  You know I should have married you at once, unless they
+bound me in fetters."
+
+"I know you would; but you remember Mrs. Humdrum?  Yes, I see you do.  I
+told her everything; it was she who saved me.  We thought of you, but she
+saw that it would not do.  As I was to marry Mr. Strong, the more you
+were lost sight of the better, but with George ever with me I have not
+been able to forget you.  I might have been very happy with you, but I
+could not have been happier than I have been ever since that short
+dreadful time was over.  George must tell you the rest.  I cannot do so.
+All is well.  I love my husband with my whole heart and soul, and he
+loves me with his.  As between him and me, he knows everything; George is
+his son, not yours; we have settled it so, though we both know otherwise;
+as between you and me, for this one hour, here, there is no use in
+pretending that you are not George's father.  I have said all I need say.
+Now, tell me what I asked you--Why are you here?"
+
+"I fear," said my father, set at rest by the sweetness of Yram's voice
+and manner--he told me he had never seen any one to compare with her
+except my mother--"I fear, to do as much harm now as I did before, and
+with as little wish to do any harm at all."
+
+He then told her all that the reader knows, and explained how he had
+thought he could have gone about the country as a peasant, and seen how
+she herself had fared, without her, or any one, even suspecting that he
+was in the country.
+
+"You say your wife is dead, and that she left you with a son--is he like
+George?"
+
+"In mind and disposition, wonderfully; in appearance, no; he is dark and
+takes after his mother, and though he is handsome, he is not so
+good-looking as George."
+
+"No one," said George's mother, "ever was, or ever will be, and he is as
+good as he looks."
+
+"I should not have believed you if you had said he was not."
+
+"That is right.  I am glad you are proud of him.  He irradiates the lives
+of every one of us."
+
+"And the mere knowledge that he exists will irradiate the rest of mine."
+
+"Long may it do so.  Let us now talk about this morning--did you mean to
+declare yourself?"
+
+"I do not know what I meant; what I most cared about was the doing what I
+thought George would wish to see his father do."
+
+"You did that; but he says he told you not to say who you were."
+
+"So he did, but I knew what he would think right.  He was uppermost in my
+thoughts all the time."
+
+Yram smiled, and said, "George is a dangerous person; you were both of
+you very foolish; one as bad as the other."
+
+"I do not know.  I do not know anything.  It is beyond me; but I am at
+peace about it, and hope I shall do the like again to-morrow before the
+Mayor."
+
+"I heartily hope you will do nothing of the kind.  George tells me you
+have promised him to be good and to do as we bid you."
+
+"So I will; but he will not tell me to say that I am not what I am."
+
+"Yes, he will, and I will tell you why.  If we permit you to be Higgs the
+Sunchild, he must either throw his own father into the Blue Pool--which
+he will not do--or run great risk of being thrown into it himself, for
+not having Blue-Pooled a foreigner.  I am afraid we shall have to make
+you do a good deal that neither you nor we shall like."
+
+She then told him briefly of what had passed after luncheon at her house,
+and what it had been settled to do, leaving George to tell the details
+while escorting him towards the statues on the following evening.  She
+said that every one would be so completely in every one else's power that
+there was no fear of any one's turning traitor.  But she said nothing
+about George's intention of setting out for the capital on Wednesday
+morning to tell the whole story to the King.
+
+"Now," she said, when she had told him as much as was necessary, "be
+good, and do as you said you would."
+
+"I will.  I will deny myself, not once, nor twice, but as often as is
+necessary.  I will kiss the reliquary, and when I meet Hanky and Panky at
+your table, I will be sworn brother to them--so long, that is, as George
+is out of hearing; for I cannot lie well to them when he is listening."
+
+"Oh yes, you can.  He will understand all about it; he enjoys falsehood
+as well as we all do, and has the nicest sense of when to lie and when
+not to do so."
+
+"What gift can be more invaluable?"
+
+My father, knowing that he might not have another chance of seeing Yram
+alone, now changed the conversation.
+
+"I have something," he said, "for George, but he must know nothing about
+it till after I am gone."
+
+As he spoke, he took from his pockets the nine small bags of nuggets that
+remained to him.
+
+"But this," said Yram, "being gold, is a large sum: can you indeed spare
+it, and do you really wish George to have it all?"
+
+"I shall be very unhappy if he does not, but he must know nothing about
+it till I am out of Erewhon."
+
+My father then explained to her that he was now very rich, and would have
+brought ten times as much, if he had known of George's existence.  "Then,"
+said Yram, musing, "if you are rich, I accept and thank you heartily on
+his behalf.  I can see a reason for his not knowing what you are giving
+him at present, but it is too long to tell."
+
+The reason was, that if George knew of this gold before he saw the King,
+he would be sure to tell him of it, and the King might claim it, for
+George would never explain that it was a gift from father to son; whereas
+if the King had once pardoned him, he would not be so squeamish as to
+open up the whole thing again with a postscript to his confession.  But
+of this she said not a word.
+
+My father then told her of the box of sovereigns that he had left in his
+saddle-bags.  "They are coined," he said, "and George will have to melt
+them down, but he will find some way of doing this.  They will be worth
+rather more than these nine bags of nuggets."
+
+"The difficulty will be to get him to go down and fetch them, for it is
+against his oath to go far beyond the statues.  If you could be taken
+faint and say you wanted help, he would see you to your camping ground
+without a word, but he would be angry if he found he had been tricked
+into breaking his oath in order that money might be given him.  It would
+never do.  Besides, there would not be time, for he must be back here on
+Tuesday night.  No; if he breaks his oath he must do it with his eyes
+open--and he will do it later on--or I will go and fetch the money for
+him myself.  He is in love with a grand-daughter of Mrs. Humdrum's, and
+this sum, together with what you are now leaving with me, will make him a
+well-to-do man.  I have always been unhappy about his having any of the
+Mayor's money, and his salary was not quite enough for him to marry on.
+What can I say to thank you?"
+
+"Tell me, please, about Mrs. Humdrum's grand-daughter.  You like her as a
+wife for George?"
+
+"Absolutely.  She is just such another as her grandmother must have been.
+She and George have been sworn lovers ever since he was ten, and she
+eight.  The only drawback is that her mother, Mrs. Humdrum's second
+daughter, married for love, and there are many children, so that there
+will be no money with her; but what you are leaving will make everything
+quite easy, for he will sell the gold at once.  I am so glad about it."
+
+"Can you ask Mrs. Humdrum to bring her grand-daughter with her to-morrow
+evening?"
+
+"I am afraid not, for we shall want to talk freely at dinner, and she
+must not know that you are the Sunchild; she shall come to my house in
+the afternoon and you can see her then.  You will be quite happy about
+her, but of course she must not know that you are her father-in-law that
+is to be."
+
+"One thing more.  As George must know nothing about the sovereigns, I
+must tell you how I will hide them.  They are in a silver box, which I
+will bind to the bough of some tree close to my camp; or if I can find a
+tree with a hole in it I will drop the box into the hole.  He cannot miss
+my camp; he has only to follow the stream that runs down from the pass
+till it gets near a large river, and on a small triangular patch of flat
+ground, he will see the ashes of my camp fire, a few yards away from the
+stream on his right hand as he descends.  In whatever tree I may hide the
+box, I will strew wood ashes for some yards in a straight line towards
+it.  I will then light another fire underneath, and blaze the tree with a
+knife that I have left at my camping ground.  He is sure to find it."
+
+Yram again thanked him, and then my father, to change the conversation,
+asked whether she thought that George really would have Blue-Pooled the
+Professors.
+
+"There is no knowing," said Yram.  "He is the gentlest creature living
+till some great provocation rouses him, and I never saw him hate and
+despise any one as he does the Professors.  Much of what he said was
+merely put on, for he knew the Professors must yield.  I do not like his
+ever having to throw any one into that horrid place, no more does he, but
+the Rangership is exactly the sort of thing to suit him, and the opening
+was too good to lose.  I must now leave you, and get ready for the
+Mayor's banquet.  We shall meet again to-morrow evening.  Try and eat
+what I have brought you in this basket.  I hope you will like the wine."
+She put out her hand, which my father took, and in another moment she was
+gone, for she saw a look in his face as though he would fain have asked
+her to let him once more press his lips to hers.  Had he done this,
+without thinking about it, it is likely enough she would not have been
+ill pleased.  But who can say?
+
+For the rest of the evening my father was left very much to his own not
+too comfortable reflections.  He spent part of it in posting up the notes
+from which, as well as from his own mouth, my story is in great part
+taken.  The good things that Yram had left with him, and his pipe, which
+she had told him he might smoke quite freely, occupied another part, and
+by ten o'clock he went to bed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII: MAINLY OCCUPIED WITH A VERACIOUS EXTRACT FROM A
+SUNCH'STONIAN JOURNAL
+
+
+While my father was thus wiling away the hours in his cell, the whole
+town was being illuminated in his honour, and not more than a couple of
+hundred yards off, at the Mayor's banquet, he was being extolled as a
+superhuman being.
+
+The banquet, which was at the town hall, was indeed a very brilliant
+affair, but the little space that is left me forbids my saying more than
+that Hanky made what was considered the speech of the evening, and
+betrayed no sign of ill effects from the bad quarter of an hour which he
+had spent so recently.  Not a trace was to be seen of any desire on his
+part to change his tone as regards Sunchildism--as, for example, to
+minimize the importance of the relic, or to remind his hearers that
+though the chariot and horses had undoubtedly come down from the sky and
+carried away my father and mother, yet that the earlier stage of the
+ascent had been made in a balloon.  It almost seemed, so George told my
+father, as though he had resolved that he would speak lies, all lies, and
+nothing but lies.
+
+Panky, who was also to have spoken, was excused by the Mayor on the
+ground that the great heat and the excitement of the day's proceedings
+had quite robbed him of his voice.
+
+Dr. Downie had a jumping cat before his mental vision.  He spoke quietly
+and sensibly, dwelling chiefly on the benefits that had already accrued
+to the kingdom through the abolition of the edicts against machinery, and
+the great developments which he foresaw as probable in the near future.
+He held up the Sunchild's example, and his ethical teaching, to the
+imitation and admiration of his hearers, but he said nothing about the
+miraculous element in my father's career, on which he declared that his
+friend Professor Hanky had already so eloquently enlarged as to make
+further allusion to it superfluous.
+
+The reader knows what was to happen on the following morning.  The
+programme concerted at the Mayor's was strictly adhered to.  The
+following account, however, which appeared in the Sunch'ston bi-weekly
+newspaper two days after my father had left, was given me by George a
+year later, on the occasion of that interview to which I have already
+more than once referred.  There were other accounts in other papers, but
+the one I am giving departs the least widely from the facts.  It ran:-
+
+"_The close of a disagreeable incident_.--Our readers will remember that
+on Sunday last during the solemn inauguration of the temple now dedicated
+to the Sunchild, an individual on the front bench of those set apart for
+the public suddenly interrupted Professor Hanky's eloquent sermon by
+declaring himself to be the Sunchild, and saying that he had come down
+from the sun to sanctify by his presence the glorious fane which the
+piety of our fellow-citizens and others has erected in his honour.
+
+"Wild rumours obtained credence throughout the congregation to the effect
+that this person was none other than the Sunchild himself, and in spite
+of the fact that his complexion and the colour of his hair showed this to
+be impossible, more than one person was carried away by the excitement of
+the moment, and by some few points of resemblance between the stranger
+and the Sunchild.  Under the influence of this belief, they were
+preparing to give him the honour which they supposed justly due to him,
+when to the surprise of every one he was taken into custody by the
+deservedly popular Ranger of the King's preserves, and in the course of
+the afternoon it became generally known that he had been arrested on the
+charge of being one of a gang of poachers who have been known for some
+time past to be making much havoc among the quails on the preserves.
+
+"This offence, at all times deplored by those who desire that his Majesty
+should enjoy good sport when he honours us with a visit, is doubly
+deplorable during the season when, on the higher parts of the preserves,
+the young birds are not yet able to shift for themselves; the Ranger,
+therefore, is indefatigable in his efforts to break up the gang, and with
+this end in view, for the last fortnight has been out night and day on
+the remoter sections of the forest--little suspecting that the marauders
+would venture so near Sunch'ston as it now seems they have done.  It is
+to his extreme anxiety to detect and punish these miscreants that we must
+ascribe the arrest of a man, who, however foolish, and indeed guilty, he
+is in other respects, is innocent of the particular crime imputed to him.
+The circumstances that led to his arrest have reached us from an
+exceptionally well-informed source, and are as follows:-
+
+"Our distinguished guests, Professors Hanky and Panky, both of them
+justly celebrated archaeologists, had availed themselves of the
+opportunity afforded them by their visit to Sunch'ston, to inspect the
+mysterious statues at the head of the stream that comes down near this
+city, and which have hitherto baffled all those who have tried to
+ascertain their date and purpose.
+
+"On their descent after a fatiguing day the Professors were benighted,
+and lost their way.  Seeing the light of a small fire among some trees
+near them, they made towards it, hoping to be directed rightly, and found
+a man, respectably dressed, sitting by the fire with several brace of
+quails beside him, some of them plucked.  Believing that in spite of his
+appearance, which would not have led them to suppose that he was a
+poacher, he must unquestionably be one, they hurriedly enquired their
+way, intending to leave him as soon as they had got their answer; he,
+however, attacked them, or made as though he would do so, and said he
+would show them a way which they should be in no fear of losing, whereon
+Professor Hanky, with a well-directed blow, felled him to the ground.  The
+two Professors, fearing that other poachers might come to his assistance,
+made off as nearly as they could guess in the direction of Sunch'ston.
+When they had gone a mile or two onward at haphazard, they sat down under
+a large tree, and waited till day began to break; they then resumed their
+journey, and before long struck a path which led them to a spot from
+which they could see the towers of the new temple.
+
+"Fatigued though they were, they waited before taking the rest of which
+they stood much in need, till they had reported their adventure at the
+Ranger's office.  The Ranger was still out on the preserves, but
+immediately on his return on Saturday morning he read the description of
+the poacher's appearance and dress, about which last, however, the only
+remarkable feature was that it was better than a poacher might be
+expected to possess, and gave an air of respectability to the wearer that
+might easily disarm suspicion.
+
+"The Ranger made enquiries at all the inns in Sunch'ston, and at length
+succeeded in hearing of a stranger who appeared to correspond with the
+poacher whom the Professors had seen; but the man had already left, and
+though the Ranger did his best to trace him he did not succeed.  On
+Sunday morning, however, he observed the prisoner, and found that he
+answered the description given by the Professors; he therefore arrested
+him quietly in the temple, but told him that he should not take him to
+prison till the service was over.  The man said he would come quietly
+inasmuch as he should easily be able to prove his innocence.  In the
+meantime, however, he professed the utmost anxiety to hear Professor
+Hanky's sermon, which he said he believed would concern him nearly.  The
+Ranger paid no attention to this, and was as much astounded as the rest
+of the congregation were, when immediately after one of Professor Hanky's
+most eloquent passages, the man started up and declared himself to be the
+Sunchild.  On this the Ranger took him away at once, and for the man's
+own protection hurried him off to prison.
+
+"Professor Hanky was so much shocked at such outrageous conduct, that for
+the moment he failed to recognise the offender; after a few seconds,
+however, he grasped the situation, and knew him to be one who on previous
+occasions, near Bridgeford, had done what he was now doing.  It seems
+that he is notorious in the neighbourhood of Bridgeford, as a monomaniac
+who is so deeply impressed with the beauty of the Sunchild's
+character--and we presume also of his own--as to believe that he is
+himself the Sunchild.
+
+"Recovering almost instantly from the shock the interruption had given
+him, the learned Professor calmed his hearers by acquainting them with
+the facts of the case, and continued his sermon to the delight of all who
+heard it.  We should say, however, that the gentleman who twenty years
+ago instructed the Sunchild in the Erewhonian language, was so struck
+with some few points of resemblance between the stranger, and his former
+pupil, that he acclaimed him, and was removed forcibly by the vergers.
+
+"On Monday morning the prisoner was brought up before the Mayor.  We
+cannot say whether it was the sobering effect of prison walls, or whether
+he had been drinking before he entered the temple, and had now had time
+enough to recover himself--at any rate for some reason or other he was
+abjectly penitent when his case came on for hearing.  The charge of
+poaching was first gone into, but was immediately disposed of by the
+evidence of the two Professors, who stated that the prisoner bore no
+resemblance to the poacher they had seen, save that he was about the same
+height and age, and was respectably dressed.
+
+"The charge of disturbing the congregation by declaring himself the
+Sunchild was then proceeded with, and unnecessary as it may appear to be,
+it was thought advisable to prevent all possibility of the man's
+assertion being accepted by the ignorant as true, at some later date,
+when those who could prove its falsehood were no longer living.  The
+prisoner, therefore, was removed to his cell, and there measured by the
+Master of the Gaol, and the Ranger in the presence of the Mayor, who
+attested the accuracy of the measurements.  Not one single one of them
+corresponded with those recorded of the Sunchild himself, and a few marks
+such as moles, and permanent scars on the Sunchild's body were not found
+on the prisoner's.  Furthermore the prisoner was shaggy-breasted, with
+much coarse jet black hair on the fore-arms and from the knees downwards,
+whereas the Sunchild had little hair save on his head, and what little
+there was, was fine, and very light in colour.
+
+"Confronted with these discrepancies, the gentleman who had taught the
+Sunchild our language was convinced of his mistake, though he still
+maintained that there was some superficial likeness between his former
+pupil and the prisoner.  Here he was confirmed by the Master of the Gaol,
+the Mayoress, Mrs. Humdrum, and Professors Hanky and Panky, who all of
+them could see what the interpreter meant, but denied that the prisoner
+could be mistaken for the Sunchild for more than a few seconds.  No doubt
+the prisoner's unhappy delusion has been fostered, if not entirely
+caused, by his having been repeatedly told that he was like the Sunchild.
+The celebrated Dr. Downie, who well remembers the Sunchild, was also
+examined, and gave his evidence with so much convincing detail as to make
+it unnecessary to call further witnesses.
+
+"It having been thus once for all officially and authoritatively placed
+on record that the prisoner was not the Sunchild, Professors Hanky and
+Panky then identified him as a well known monomaniac on the subject of
+Sunchildism, who in other respects was harmless.  We withhold his name
+and place of abode, out of consideration for the well known and highly
+respectable family to which he belongs.  The prisoner admitted with much
+contrition that he had made a disturbance in the temple, but pleaded that
+he had been carried away by the eloquence of Professor Hanky; he promised
+to avoid all like offence in future, and threw himself on the mercy of
+the court.
+
+"The Mayor, unwilling that Sunday's memorable ceremony should be the
+occasion of a serious punishment to any of those who took part in it,
+reprimanded the prisoner in a few severe but not unkindly words,
+inflicted a fine of forty shillings, and ordered that the prisoner should
+be taken directly to the temple, where he should confess his folly to the
+Manager and Head Cashier, and confirm his words by kissing the reliquary
+in which the newly found relic has been placed.  The prisoner being
+unable to pay the fine, some of the ladies and gentlemen in court kindly
+raised the amount amongst them, in pity for the poor creature's obvious
+contrition, rather than see him sent to prison for a month in default of
+payment.
+
+"The prisoner was then conducted to the temple, followed by a
+considerable number of people.  Strange to say, in spite of the
+overwhelming evidence that they had just heard, some few among the
+followers, whose love of the marvellous overpowered their reason, still
+maintained that the prisoner was the Sunchild.  Nothing could be more
+decorous than the prisoner's behaviour when, after hearing the
+recantation that was read out to him by the Manager, he signed the
+document with his name and address, which we again withhold, and kissed
+the reliquary in confirmation of his words.
+
+"The Mayor then declared the prisoner to be at liberty.  When he had done
+so he said, 'I strongly urge you to place yourself under my protection
+for the present, that you may be freed from the impertinent folly and
+curiosity of some whose infatuation might lead you from that better mind
+to which I believe you are now happily restored.  I wish you to remain
+for some few hours secluded in the privacy of my own study, where Dr.
+Downie and the two excellent Professors will administer that ghostly
+counsel to you, which will be likely to protect you from any return of
+your unhappy delusion.'
+
+"The man humbly bowed assent, and was taken by the Mayor's younger sons
+to the Mayor's own house, where he was duly cared for.  About midnight,
+when all was quiet, he was conducted to the outskirts of the town towards
+Clearwater, and furnished with enough money to provide for his more
+pressing necessities till he could reach some relatives who reside three
+or four days' walk down on the road towards the capital.  He desired the
+man who accompanied him to repeat to the Mayor his heartfelt thanks for
+the forbearance and generosity with which he had been treated.  The
+remembrance of this, he said, should be ever present with him, and he was
+confident would protect him if his unhappy monomania shewed any signs of
+returning.
+
+"Let us now, however, remind our readers that the poacher who threatened
+Professors Hanky and Panky's life on Thursday evening last is still at
+large.  He is evidently a man of desperate character, and it is to be
+hoped that our fellow-citizens will give immediate information at the
+Ranger's office if they see any stranger in the neighbourhood of the
+preserves whom they may have reasonable grounds for suspecting.
+
+"P.S.--As we are on the point of going to press we learn that a dangerous
+lunatic, who has been for some years confined in the Clearwater asylum,
+succeeded in escaping on the night of Wednesday last, and it is surmised
+with much probability, that this was the man who threatened the two
+Professors on Thursday evening.  His being alone, his having dared to
+light a fire, probably to cook quails which he had been driven to kill
+from stress of hunger, the respectability of his dress, and the fury with
+which he would have attacked the two Professors single-handed, but for
+Professor Hanky's presence of mind in giving him a knock-down blow, all
+point in the direction of thinking that he was no true poacher, but, what
+is even more dangerous--a madman at large.  We have not received any
+particulars as to the man's appearance, nor the clothes he was wearing,
+but we have little doubt that these will confirm the surmise to which we
+now give publicity.  If it is correct it becomes doubly incumbent on all
+our fellow-citizens to be both on the watch, and on their guard.
+
+"We may add that the man was fully believed to have taken the direction
+towards the capital; hence no attempts were made to look for him in the
+neighbourhood of Sunch'ston, until news of the threatened attack on the
+Professors led the keeper of the asylum to feel confident that he had
+hitherto been on a wrong scent."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII: MY FATHER IS ESCORTED TO THE MAYOR'S HOUSE, AND IS
+INTRODUCED TO A FUTURE DAUGHTER-IN-LAW
+
+
+My father said he was followed to the Mayor's house by a good many
+people, whom the Mayor's sons in vain tried to get rid of.  One or two of
+these still persisted in saying he was the Sunchild--whereon another
+said, "But his hair is black."
+
+"Yes," was the answer, "but a man can dye his hair, can he not? look at
+his blue eyes and his eyelashes?"
+
+My father was doubting whether he ought not to again deny his identity
+out of loyalty to the Mayor and Yram, when George's next brother said,
+"Pay no attention to them, but step out as fast as you can."  This
+settled the matter, and in a few minutes they were at the Mayor's, where
+the young men took him into the study; the elder said with a smile, "We
+should like to stay and talk to you, but my mother said we were not to do
+so."  Whereon they left him much to his regret, but he gathered rightly
+that they had not been officially told who he was, and were to be left to
+think what they liked, at any rate for the present.
+
+In a few minutes the Mayor entered, and going straight up to my father
+shook him cordially by the hand.
+
+"I have brought you this morning's paper," said he.  "You will find a
+full report of Professor Hanky's sermon, and of the speeches at last
+night's banquet.  You see they pass over your little interruption with
+hardly a word, but I dare say they will have made up their minds about it
+all by Thursday's issue."
+
+He laughed as he produced the paper--which my father brought home with
+him, and without which I should not have been able to report Hanky's
+sermon as fully as I have done.  But my father could not let things pass
+over thus lightly.
+
+"I thank you," he said, "but I have much more to thank you for, and know
+not how to do it."
+
+"Can you not trust me to take everything as said?"
+
+"Yes, but I cannot trust myself not to be haunted if I do not say--or at
+any rate try to say--some part of what I ought to say."
+
+"Very well; then I will say something myself.  I have a small joke, the
+only one I ever made, which I inflict periodically upon my wife.  You,
+and I suppose George, are the only two other people in the world to whom
+it can ever be told; let me see, then, if I cannot break the ice with it.
+It is this.  Some men have twin sons; George in this topsy turvey world
+of ours has twin fathers--you by luck, and me by cunning.  I see you
+smile; give me your hand."
+
+My father took the Mayor's hand between both his own.  "Had I been in
+your place," he said, "I should be glad to hope that I might have done as
+you did."
+
+"And I," said the Mayor, more readily than might have been expected of
+him, "fear that if I had been in yours--I should have made it the proper
+thing for you to do.  There!  The ice is well broken, and now for
+business.  You will lunch with us, and dine in the evening.  I have given
+it out that you are of good family, so there is nothing odd in this.  At
+lunch you will not be the Sunchild, for my younger children will be
+there; at dinner all present will know who you are, so we shall be free
+as soon as the servants are out of the room.
+
+"I am sorry, but I must send you away with George as soon as the streets
+are empty--say at midnight--for the excitement is too great to allow of
+your staying longer.  We must keep your rug and the things you cook with,
+but my wife will find you what will serve your turn.  There is no moon,
+so you and George will camp out as soon as you get well on to the
+preserves; the weather is hot, and you will neither of you take any harm.
+To-morrow by mid-day you will be at the statues, where George must bid
+you good-bye, for he must be at Sunch'ston to-morrow night.  You will
+doubtless get safely home; I wish with all my heart that I could hear of
+your having done so, but this, I fear, may not be."
+
+"So be it," replied my father, "but there is something I should yet say.
+The Mayoress has no doubt told you of some gold, coined and uncoined,
+that I am leaving for George.  She will also have told you that I am
+rich; this being so, I should have brought him much more, if I had known
+that there was any such person.  You have other children; if you leave
+him anything, you will be taking it away from your own flesh and blood;
+if you leave him nothing, it will be a slur upon him.  I must therefore
+send you enough gold, to provide for George as your other children will
+be provided for; you can settle it upon him at once, and make it clear
+that the settlement is instead of provision for him by will.  The
+difficulty is in the getting the gold into Erewhon, and until it is
+actually here, he must know nothing about it."
+
+I have no space for the discussion that followed.  In the end it was
+settled that George was to have 2000 pounds in gold, which the Mayor
+declared to be too much, and my father too little.  Both, however, were
+agreed that Erewhon would before long be compelled to enter into
+relations with foreign countries, in which case the value of gold would
+decline so much as to make 2000 pounds worth little more than it would be
+in England.  The Mayor proposed to buy land with it, which he would hand
+over to George as a gift from himself, and this my father at once acceded
+to.  All sorts of questions such as will occur to the reader were raised
+and settled, but I must beg him to be content with knowing that
+everything was arranged with the good sense that two such men were sure
+to bring to bear upon it.
+
+The getting the gold into Erewhon was to be managed thus.  George was to
+know nothing, but a promise was to be got from him that at noon on the
+following New Year's day, or whatever day might be agreed upon, he would
+be at the statues, where either my father or myself would meet him, spend
+a couple of hours with him, and then return.  Whoever met George was to
+bring the gold as though it were for the Mayor, and George could be
+trusted to be human enough to bring it down, when he saw that it would be
+left where it was if he did not do so.
+
+"He will kick a good deal," said the Mayor, "at first, but he will come
+round in the end."
+
+Luncheon was now announced.  My father was feeling faint and ill; more
+than once during the forenoon he had had a return of the strange
+giddiness and momentary loss of memory which had already twice attacked
+him, but he had recovered in each case so quickly that no one had seen he
+was unwell.  He, poor man, did not yet know what serious brain exhaustion
+these attacks betokened, and finding himself in his usual health as soon
+as they passed away, set them down as simply effects of fatigue and undue
+excitement.
+
+George did not lunch with the others.  Yram explained that he had to draw
+up a report which would occupy him till dinner time.  Her three other
+sons, and her three lovely daughters, were there.  My father was
+delighted with all of them, for they made friends with him at once.  He
+had feared that he would have been disgraced in their eyes, by his having
+just come from prison, but whatever they may have thought, no trace of
+anything but a little engaging timidity on the girls' part was to be
+seen.  The two elder boys--or rather young men, for they seemed fully
+grown, though, like George, not yet bearded--treated him as already an
+old acquaintance, while the youngest, a lad of fourteen, walked straight
+up to him, put out his hand, and said, "How do you do, sir?" with a
+pretty blush that went straight to my father's heart.
+
+"These boys," he said to Yram aside, "who have nothing to blush for--see
+how the blood mantles into their young cheeks, while I, who should blush
+at being spoken to by them, cannot do so."
+
+"Do not talk nonsense," said Yram, with mock severity.
+
+But it was no nonsense to my poor father.  He was awed at the goodness
+and beauty with which he found himself surrounded.  His thoughts were too
+full of what had been, what was, and what was yet to be, to let him
+devote himself to these young people as he would dearly have liked to do.
+He could only look at them, wonder at them, fall in love with them, and
+thank heaven that George had been brought up in such a household.
+
+When luncheon was over, Yram said, "I will now send you to a room where
+you can lie down and go to sleep for a few hours.  You will be out late
+to-night, and had better rest while you can.  Do you remember the drink
+you taught us to make of corn parched and ground?  You used to say you
+liked it.  A cup shall be brought to your room at about five, for you
+must try and sleep till then.  If you notice a little box on the dressing-
+table of your room, you will open it or no as you like.  About half-past
+five there will be a visitor, whose name you can guess, but I shall not
+let her stay long with you.  Here comes the servant to take you to your
+room."  On this she smiled, and turned somewhat hurriedly away.
+
+My father on reaching his room went to the dressing-table, where he saw a
+small unpretending box, which he immediately opened.  On the top was a
+paper with the words, "Look--say nothing--forget."  Beneath this was some
+cotton wool, and then--the two buttons and the lock of his own hair, that
+he had given Yram when he said good-bye to her.
+
+The ghost of the lock that Yram had then given him, rose from the dead,
+and smote him as with a whip across the face.  On what dust-heap had it
+not been thrown how many long years ago?  Then she had never forgotten
+him? to have been remembered all these years by such a woman as that, and
+never to have heeded it--never to have found out what she was though he
+had seen her day after day for months.  Ah! but she was then still
+budding.  That was no excuse.  If a loveable woman--aye, or any woman--has
+loved a man, even though he cannot marry her, or even wish to do so, at
+any rate let him not forget her--and he had forgotten Yram as completely
+until the last few days, as though he had never seen her.  He took her
+little missive, and under "Look," he wrote, "I have;" under "Say
+nothing," "I will;" under "forget," "never."  "And I never shall," he
+said to himself, as he replaced the box upon the table.  He then lay down
+to rest upon the bed, but he could get no sleep.
+
+When the servant brought him his imitation coffee--an imitation so
+successful that Yram made him a packet of it to replace the tea that he
+must leave behind him--he rose and presently came downstairs into the
+drawing-room, where he found Yram and Mrs. Humdrum's grand-daughter, of
+whom I will say nothing, for I have never seen her, and know nothing
+about her, except that my father found her a sweet-looking girl, of
+graceful figure and very attractive expression.  He was quite happy about
+her, but she was too young and shy to make it possible for him to do more
+than admire her appearance, and take Yram's word for it that she was as
+good as she looked.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV: AFTER DINNER, DR. DOWNIE AND THE PROFESSORS WOULD BE GLAD
+TO KNOW WHAT IS TO BE DONE ABOUT SUNCHILDISM
+
+
+It was about six when George's _fiancee_ left the house, and as soon as
+she had done so, Yram began to see about the rug and the best substitutes
+she could find for the billy and pannikin.  She had a basket packed with
+all that my father and George would want to eat and drink while on the
+preserves, and enough of everything, except meat, to keep my father going
+till he could reach the shepherd's hut of which I have already spoken.
+Meat would not keep, and my father could get plenty of flappers--i.e.
+ducks that cannot yet fly--when he was on the river-bed down below.
+
+The above preparations had not been made very long, before Mrs. Humdrum
+arrived, followed presently by Dr. Downie and in due course by the
+Professors, who were still staying in the house.  My father remembered
+Mrs. Humdrum's good honest face, but could not bring Dr. Downie to his
+recollection till the Doctor told him when and where they had met, and
+then he could only very uncertainly recall him, though he vowed that he
+could now do so perfectly well.
+
+"At any rate," said Hanky, advancing towards him with his best Bridgeford
+manner, "you will not have forgotten meeting my brother Professor and
+myself."
+
+"It has been rather a forgetting sort of a morning," said my father
+demurely, "but I can remember that much, and am delighted to renew my
+acquaintance with both of you."
+
+As he spoke he shook hands with both Professors.
+
+George was a little late, but when he came, dinner was announced.  My
+father sat on Yram's right-hand, Dr. Downie on her left.  George was next
+my father, with Mrs. Humdrum opposite to him.  The Professors sat one on
+either side of the Mayor.  During dinner the conversation turned almost
+entirely on my father's flight, his narrow escape from drowning, and his
+adventures on his return to England; about these last my father was very
+reticent, for he said nothing about his book, and antedated his accession
+of wealth by some fifteen years, but as he walked up towards the statues
+with George he told him everything.
+
+My father repeatedly tried to turn the conversation from himself, but
+Mrs. Humdrum and Yram wanted to know about Nna Haras, as they persisted
+in calling my mother--how she endured her terrible experiences in the
+balloon, when she and my father were married, all about my unworthy self,
+and England generally.  No matter how often he began to ask questions
+about the Nosnibors and other old acquaintances, both the ladies soon
+went back to his own adventures.  He succeeded, however, in learning that
+Mr. Nosnibor was dead, and Zulora, an old maid of the most unattractive
+kind, who had persistently refused to accept Sunchildism, while Mrs.
+Nosnibor was the recipient of honours hardly inferior to those conferred
+by the people at large on my father and mother, with whom, indeed, she
+believed herself to have frequent interviews by way of visionary
+revelations.  So intolerable were these revelations to Zulora, that a
+separate establishment had been provided for her.  George said to my
+father quietly--"Do you know I begin to think that Zulora must be rather
+a nice person."
+
+"Perhaps," said my father grimly, "but my wife and I did not find it
+out."
+
+When the ladies left the room, Dr. Downie took Yram's seat, and Hanky Dr.
+Downie's; the Mayor took Mrs. Humdrum's, leaving my father, George, and
+Panky, in their old places.  Almost immediately, Dr. Downie said, "And
+now, Mr, Higgs, tell us, as a man of the world, what we are to do about
+Sunchildism?"
+
+My father smiled at this.  "You know, my dear sir, as well as I do, that
+the proper thing would be to put me back in prison, and keep me there
+till you can send me down to the capital.  You should eat your oaths of
+this morning, as I would eat mine; tell every one here who I am; let them
+see that my hair has been dyed; get all who knew me when I was here
+before to come and see me; appoint an unimpeachable committee to examine
+the record of my marks and measurements, and compare it with those of my
+own body.  You should let me be seen in every town at which I lodged on
+my way down, and tell people that you had made a mistake.  When you get
+to the capital, hand me over to the King's tender mercies and say that
+our oaths were only taken this morning to prevent a ferment in the town.
+I will play my part very willingly.  The King can only kill me, and I
+should die like a gentleman."
+
+"They will not do it," said George quietly to my father, "and I am glad
+of it."
+
+He was right.  "This," said Dr. Downie, "is a counsel of perfection.
+Things have gone too far, and we are flesh and blood.  What would those
+who in your country come nearest to us Musical Bank Managers do, if they
+found they had made such a mistake as we have, and dared not own it?"
+
+"Do not ask me," said my father; "the story is too long, and too
+terrible."
+
+"At any rate, then, tell us what you would have us do that is within our
+reach."
+
+"I have done you harm enough, and if I preach, as likely as not I shall
+do more."
+
+Seeing, however, that Dr. Downie was anxious to hear what he thought, my
+father said--
+
+"Then I must tell you.  Our religion sets before us an ideal which we all
+cordially accept, but it also tells us of marvels like your chariot and
+horses, which we most of us reject.  Our best teachers insist on the
+ideal, and keep the marvels in the background.  If they could say
+outright that our age has outgrown them, they would say so, but this they
+may not do; nevertheless they contrive to let their opinions be
+sufficiently well known, and their hearers are content with this.
+
+"We have others who take a very different course, but of these I will not
+speak.  Roughly, then, if you cannot abolish me altogether, make me a peg
+on which to hang all your own best ethical and spiritual conceptions.  If
+you will do this, and wriggle out of that wretched relic, with that not
+less wretched picture--if you will make me out to be much better and
+abler than I was, or ever shall be, Sunchildism may serve your turn for
+many a long year to come.  Otherwise it will tumble about your heads
+before you think it will.
+
+"Am I to go on or stop?"
+
+"Go on," said George softly.  That was enough for my father, so on he
+went.
+
+"You are already doing part of what I wish.  I was delighted with the two
+passages I heard on Sunday, from what you call the Sunchild's Sayings.  I
+never said a word of either passage; I wish I had; I wish I could say
+anything half so good.  And I have read a pamphlet by President Gurgoyle,
+which I liked extremely; but I never said what he says I did.  Again, I
+wish I had.  Keep to this sort of thing, and I will be as good a
+Sunchildist as any of you.  But you must bribe some thief to steal that
+relic, and break it up to mend the roads with; and--for I believe that
+here as elsewhere fires sometimes get lighted through the carelessness of
+a workman--set the most careless workman you can find to do a plumbing
+job near that picture."
+
+Hanky looked black at this, and George trod lightly on my father's toe,
+but he told me that my father's face was innocence itself.
+
+"These are hard sayings," said Dr. Downie.
+
+"I know they are," replied my father, "and I do not like saying them, but
+there is no royal road to unlearning, and you have much to unlearn.
+Still, you Musical Bank people bear witness to the fact that beyond the
+kingdoms of this world there is another, within which the writs of this
+world's kingdoms do not run.  This is the great service which our church
+does for us in England, and hence many of us uphold it, though we have no
+sympathy with the party now dominant within it.  'Better,' we think, 'a
+corrupt church than none at all.'  Moreover, those who in my country
+would step into the church's shoes are as corrupt as the church, and more
+exacting.  They are also more dangerous, for the masses distrust the
+church, and are on their guard against aggression, whereas they do not
+suspect the doctrinaires and faddists, who, if they could, would
+interfere in every concern of our lives.
+
+"Let me return to yourselves.  You Musical Bank Managers are very much
+such a body of men as your country needs--but when I was here before you
+had no figurehead; I have unwittingly supplied you with one, and it is
+perhaps because you saw this, that you good people of Bridgeford took up
+with me.  Sunchildism is still young and plastic; if you will let the
+cock-and-bull stories about me tacitly drop, and invent no new ones,
+beyond saying what a delightful person I was, I really cannot see why I
+should not do for you as well as any one else.
+
+"There.  What I have said is nine-tenths of it rotten and wrong, but it
+is the most practicable rotten and wrong that I can suggest, seeing into
+what a rotten and wrong state of things you have drifted.  And now, Mr.
+Mayor, do you not think we may join the Mayoress and Mrs. Humdrum?"
+
+"As you please, Mr. Higgs," answered the Mayor.
+
+"Then let us go, for I have said too much already, and your son George
+tells me that we must be starting shortly."
+
+As they were leaving the room Panky sidled up to my father and said,
+"There is a point, Mr. Higgs, which you can settle for me, though I feel
+pretty certain how you will settle it.  I think that a corruption has
+crept into the text of the very beautiful--"
+
+At this moment, as my father, who saw what was coming, was wondering what
+in the world he could say, George came up to him and said, "Mr. Higgs, my
+mother wishes me to take you down into the store-room, to make sure that
+she has put everything for you as you would like it."  On this my father
+said he would return directly and answer what he knew would be Panky's
+question.
+
+When Yram had shewn what she had prepared--all of it, of course,
+faultless--she said, "And now, Mr. Higgs, about our leave-taking.  Of
+course we shall both of us feel much.  I shall; I know you will; George
+will have a few more hours with you than the rest of us, but his time to
+say good-bye will come, and it will be painful to both of you.  I am glad
+you came--I am glad you have seen George, and George you, and that you
+took to one another.  I am glad my husband has seen you; he has spoken to
+me about you very warmly, for he has taken to you much as George did.  I
+am very, very glad to have seen you myself, and to have learned what
+became of you--and of your wife.  I know you wish well to all of us; be
+sure that we all of us wish most heartily well to you and yours.  I sent
+for you and George, because I could not say all this unless we were
+alone; it is all I can do," she said, with a smile, "to say it now."
+
+Indeed it was, for the tears were in her eyes all the time, as they were
+also in my father's.
+
+"Let this," continued Yram, "be our leave-taking--for we must have
+nothing like a scene upstairs.  Just shake hands with us all, say the
+usual conventional things, and make it as short as you can; but I could
+not bear to send you away without a few warmer words than I could have
+said when others were in the room."
+
+"May heaven bless you and yours," said my father, "for ever and ever."
+
+"That will do," said George gently.  "Now, both of you shake hands, and
+come upstairs with me."
+
+* * * * *
+
+When all three of them had got calm, for George had been moved almost as
+much as his father and mother, they went upstairs, and Panky came for his
+answer.  "You are very possibly right," said my father--"the version you
+hold to be corrupt is the one in common use amongst ourselves, but it is
+only a translation, and very possibly only a translation of a
+translation, so that it may perhaps have been corrupted before it reached
+us."
+
+"That," said Panky, "will explain everything," and he went contentedly
+away.
+
+My father talked a little aside with Mrs. Humdrum about her
+grand-daughter and George, for Yram had told him that she knew all about
+the attachment, and then George, who saw that my father found the
+greatest difficulty in maintaining an outward calm, said, "Mr. Higgs, the
+streets are empty; we had better go."
+
+My father did as Yram had told him; shook hands with every one, said all
+that was usual and proper as briefly as he could, and followed George out
+of the room.  The Mayor saw them to the door, and saved my father from
+embarrassment by saying, "Mr. Higgs, you and I understand one another too
+well to make it necessary for us to say so.  Good-bye to you, and may no
+ill befall you ere you get home."
+
+My father grasped his hand in both his own.  "Again," he said, "I can say
+no more than that I thank you from the bottom of my heart."
+
+As he spoke he bowed his head, and went out with George into the night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV: GEORGE ESCORTS MY FATHER TO THE STATUES; THE TWO THEN PART
+
+
+The streets were quite deserted as George had said they would be, and
+very dark, save for an occasional oil lamp.
+
+"As soon as we can get within the preserves," said George, "we had better
+wait till morning.  I have a rug for myself as well as for you."
+
+"I saw you had two," answered my father; "you must let me carry them
+both; the provisions are much the heavier load.
+
+George fought as hard as a dog would do, till my father said that they
+must not quarrel during the very short time they had to be together.  On
+this George gave up one rug meekly enough, and my father yielded about
+the basket, and the other rug.
+
+It was about half-past eleven when they started, and it was after one
+before they reached the preserves.  For the first mile from the town they
+were not much hindered by the darkness, and my father told George about
+his book and many another matter; he also promised George to say nothing
+about this second visit.  Then the road became more rough, and when it
+dwindled away to be a mere lane--becoming presently only a foot
+track--they had to mind their footsteps, and got on but slowly.  The
+night was starlit, and warm, considering that they were more than three
+thousand feet above the sea, but it was very dark, so that my father was
+well enough pleased when George showed him the white stones that marked
+the boundary, and said they had better soon make themselves as
+comfortable as they could till morning.
+
+"We can stay here," he said, "till half-past three, there will be a
+little daylight then; we will rest half an hour for breakfast at about
+five, and by noon we shall be at the statues, where we will dine."
+
+This being settled, George rolled himself up in his rug, and in a few
+minutes went comfortably off to sleep.  Not so my poor father.  He wound
+up his watch, wrapped his rug round him, and lay down; but he could get
+no sleep.  After such a day, and such an evening, how could any one have
+slept?
+
+About three the first signs of dawn began to show, and half an hour later
+my father could see the sleeping face of his son--whom it went to his
+heart to wake.  Nevertheless he woke him, and in a few minutes the two
+were on their way--George as fresh as a lark--my poor father intent on
+nothing so much as on hiding from George how ill and unsound in body and
+mind he was feeling.
+
+They walked on, saying but little, till at five by my father's watch
+George proposed a halt for breakfast.  The spot he chose was a grassy
+oasis among the trees, carpeted with subalpine flowers, now in their
+fullest beauty, and close to a small stream that here came down from a
+side valley.  The freshness of the morning air, the extreme beauty of the
+place, the lovely birds that flitted from tree to tree, the exquisite
+shapes and colours of the flowers, still dew-bespangled, and above all,
+the tenderness with which George treated him, soothed my father, and when
+he and George had lit a fire and made some hot corn-coffee--with a view
+to which Yram had put up a bottle of milk--he felt so much restored as to
+look forward to the rest of his journey without alarm.  Moreover he had
+nothing to carry, for George had left his own rug at the place where they
+had slept, knowing that he should find it on his return; he had therefore
+insisted on carrying my father's.  My father fought as long as he could,
+but he had to give in.
+
+"Now tell me," said George, glad to change the subject, "what will those
+three men do about what you said to them last night?  Will they pay any
+attention to it?"
+
+My father laughed.  "My dear George, what a question--I do not know them
+well enough."
+
+"Oh yes, you do.  At any rate say what you think most likely."
+
+"Very well.  I think Dr. Downie will do much as I said.  He will not
+throw the whole thing over, through fear of schism, loyalty to a party
+from which he cannot well detach himself, and because he does not think
+that the public is quite tired enough of its toy.  He will neither preach
+nor write against it, but he will live lukewarmly against it, and this is
+what the Hankys hate.  They can stand either hot or cold, but they are
+afraid of lukewarm.  In England Dr. Downie would be a Broad Churchman."
+
+"Do you think we shall ever get rid of Sunchildism altogether?"
+
+"If they stick to the cock-and-bull stories they are telling now, and rub
+them in, as Hanky did on Sunday, it may go, and go soon.  It has taken
+root too quickly and easily; and its top is too heavy for its roots;
+still there are so many chances in its favour that it may last a long
+time."
+
+"And how about Hanky?"
+
+"He will brazen it out, relic, chariot, and all: and he will welcome more
+relics and more cock-and-bull stories; his single eye will be upon his
+own aggrandisement and that of his order.  Plausible, unscrupulous,
+heartless scoundrel that he is, he will play for the queen and the women
+of the court, as Dr. Downie will play for the king and the men.  He and
+his party will sleep neither night nor day, but they will have one
+redeeming feature--whoever they may deceive, they will not deceive
+themselves.  They believe every one else to be as bad as they are, and
+see no reason why they should not push their own wares in the way of
+business.  Hanky is everything that we in England rightly or wrongly
+believe a typical Jesuit to be."
+
+"And Panky--what about him?"
+
+"Panky must persuade himself of his own lies, before he is quite
+comfortable about telling them to other people.  Hanky keeps Hanky well
+out of it; Panky must have a base of operations in Panky.  Hanky will
+lead him by the nose, bit by bit, for his is the master spirit.  In
+England Panky would be what we call an extreme ritualist."
+
+"Then the real battle will be between Hanky and Dr. Downie.  Which will
+carry the day?"
+
+"For the present, probably Hanky.  He is the more vigilant, and
+energetic; in this case Sunchildism will have to go, and I am afraid your
+whole Musical Bank system will be swept away along with it."
+
+"And why not?"
+
+"Because, my dear boy, though false in the letter, if good counsels
+prevail, it may be made true enough in spirit.  If it were to go, its
+place would be soon filled by men who would be as false in letter as the
+others were, and much more false in spirit.  You want a heart to check
+your head, and a head to check your heart.  As in our English body
+politic there are two parties opposed to one another, neither of which
+can thrive if the other is unduly weakened, so in our spiritual and
+intellectual world two parties more or less antagonistic are equally
+necessary.  Those who are at the head of science provide us with the one
+party; those whom we call our churchmen are the other.  Both are corrupt,
+but we can spare neither, for each checks as far as it can the
+corruptions of the other."
+
+"Then you would have us uphold Sunchildism, knowing it to be untrue?"
+
+"Do what you will, you will not get perfect truth.  And if you can follow
+the lead which I believe Dr. Downie will give you, that is to say, get
+rid of cock-and-bull stories, idealise my unworthy self, and, as I said
+last night, make me a peg on which to hang your own best
+thoughts--Sunchildism will be as near truth as anything you are likely to
+get.  But if Hankyism triumphs, come what may you must get rid of it, for
+he and his school will tamper with the one sure and everlasting word of
+God revealed to us by human experience.  He who plays fast and loose with
+this is as one who would forge God's signature to a cheque drawn on God's
+own bank."
+
+"Are we to foster the belief that it was indeed the Sunchild who
+interrupted Hanky's sermon?"
+
+"Yes, where you safely can, but not otherwise; and commit the facts to
+writing as soon as you can find time.  Do nothing to jeopardise your own
+safety; you can do more by perfunctory acquiescence than by open dissent.
+And tell those friends whom you can trust, what these my parting words to
+you have been.  But above all I charge you solemnly, do nothing to
+jeopardise your own safety; you cannot play into Hanky's hands more
+certainly than by risking this.  Think how he and Panky would rejoice,
+and how Dr. Downie would grieve.  Be wise and wary; bide your time; do
+what you prudently can, and you will find you can do much; try to do
+more, and you will do nothing.  Be guided by the Mayor, by your
+mother--and by that dear old lady whose grandson you will--"
+
+"Then they have told you," interrupted the youth blushing scarlet.
+
+"My dearest boy, of course they have, and I have seen her, and am head
+over ears in love with her myself."
+
+He was all smiles and blushes, and vowed for a few minutes that it was a
+shame of them to tell me, but presently he said--
+
+"Then you like her."
+
+"Rather!" said my father vehemently, and shaking George by the hand.  But
+he said nothing about the nuggets and the sovereigns, knowing that Yram
+did not wish him to do so.  Neither did George say anything about his
+determination to start for the capital in the morning, and make a clean
+breast of everything to the King.  So soon does it become necessary even
+for those who are most cordially attached to hide things from one
+another.  My father, however, was made comfortable by receiving a promise
+from the youth that he would take no step of which the persons he had
+named would disapprove.
+
+When once Mrs. Humdrum's grand-daughter had been introduced there was no
+more talking about Hanky and Panky; for George began to bubble over with
+the subject that was nearest his heart, and how much he feared that it
+would be some time yet before he could be married.  Many a story did he
+tell of his early attachment and of its course for the last ten years,
+but my space will not allow me to inflict one of them on the reader.  My
+father saw that the more he listened and sympathised and encouraged, the
+fonder George became of him, and this was all he cared about.
+
+Thus did they converse hour after hour.  They passed the Blue Pool,
+without seeing it or even talking about it for more than a minute.  George
+kept an eye on the quails and declared them fairly plentiful and strong
+on the wing, but nothing now could keep him from pouring out his whole
+heart about Mrs. Humdrum's grand-daughter, until towards noon they caught
+sight of the statues, and a halt was made which gave my father the first
+pang he had felt that morning, for he knew that the statues would be the
+beginning of the end.
+
+There was no need to light a fire, for Yram had packed for them two
+bottles of a delicious white wine, something like White Capri, which went
+admirably with the many more solid good things that she had provided for
+them.  As soon as they had finished a hearty meal my father said to
+George, "You must have my watch for a keepsake; I see you are not wearing
+my boots.  I fear you did not find them comfortable, but I am glad you
+have not got them on, for I have set my heart on keeping yours."
+
+"Let us settle about the boots first.  I rather fancied that that was why
+you put me off when I wanted to get my own back again; and then I thought
+I should like yours for a keepsake, so I put on another pair last night,
+and they are nothing like so comfortable as yours were."
+
+"Now I wonder," said my father to me, "whether this was true, or whether
+it was only that dear fellow's pretty invention; but true or false I was
+as delighted as he meant me to be."
+
+I asked George about this when I saw him, and he confessed with an
+ingenuous blush that my father's boots had hurt him, and that he had
+never thought of making a keepsake of them, till my father's words
+stimulated his invention.
+
+As for the watch, which was only a silver one, but of the best make,
+George protested for a time, but when he had yielded, my father could see
+that he was overjoyed at getting it; for watches, though now permitted,
+were expensive and not in common use.
+
+Having thus bribed him, my father broached the possibility of his meeting
+him at the statues on that day twelvemonth, but of course saying nothing
+about why he was so anxious that he should come.
+
+"I will come," said my father, "not a yard farther than the statues, and
+if I cannot come I will send your brother.  And I will come at noon; but
+it is possible that the river down below may be in fresh, and I may not
+be able to hit off the day, though I will move heaven and earth to do so.
+Therefore if I do not meet you on the day appointed, do your best to come
+also at noon on the following day.  I know how inconvenient this will be
+for you, and will come true to the day if it is possible."
+
+To my father's surprise, George did not raise so many difficulties as he
+had expected.  He said it might be done, if neither he nor my father were
+to go beyond the statues.  "And difficult as it will be for you," said
+George, "you had better come a second day if necessary, as I will, for
+who can tell what might happen to make the first day impossible?"
+
+"Then," said my father, "we shall be spared that horrible feeling that we
+are parting without hope of seeing each other again.  I find it hard
+enough to say good-bye even now, but I do not know how I could have faced
+it if you had not agreed to our meeting again."
+
+"The day fixed upon will be our XXI. i. 3, and the hour noon as near as
+may be?"
+
+"So.  Let me write it down: 'XXI. i. 3, _i.e_. our December 9, 1891, I am
+to meet George at the statues, at twelve o'clock, and if he does not
+come, I am to be there again on the following day.'
+
+In like manner, George wrote down what he was to do: "XXI. i. 3, or
+failing this XXI. i. 4.  Statues.  Noon."
+
+"This," he said, "is a solemn covenant, is it not?"
+
+"Yes," said my father, "and may all good omens attend it!"
+
+The words were not out of his mouth before a mountain bird, something
+like our jackdaw, but smaller and of a bluer black, flew out of the
+hollow mouth of one of the statues, and with a hearty chuckle perched on
+the ground at his feet, attracted doubtless by the scraps of food that
+were lying about.  With the fearlessness of birds in that country, it
+looked up at him and George, gave another hearty chuckle, and flew back
+to its statue with the largest fragment it could find.
+
+They settled that this was an omen so propitious that they could part in
+good hope.  "Let us finish the wine," said my father, "and then, do what
+must be done!"
+
+They finished the wine to each other's good health; George drank also to
+mine, and said he hoped my father would bring me with him, while my
+father drank to Yram, the Mayor, their children, Mrs. Humdrum, and above
+all to Mrs. Humdrum's grand-daughter.  They then re-packed all that could
+be taken away; my father rolled his rug to his liking, slung it over his
+shoulder, gripped George's hand, and said, "My dearest boy, when we have
+each turned our backs upon one another, let us walk our several ways as
+fast as we can, and try not to look behind us."
+
+So saying he loosed his grip of George's hand, bared his head, lowered
+it, and turned away.
+
+George burst into tears, and followed him after he had gone two paces; he
+threw his arms round him, hugged him, kissed him on his lips, cheeks, and
+forehead, and then turning round, strode full speed towards Sunch'ston.
+My father never took his eyes off him till he was out of sight, but the
+boy did not look round.  When he could see him no more, my father with
+faltering gait, and feeling as though a prop had suddenly been taken from
+under him, began to follow the stream down towards his old camp.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI: MY FATHER REACHES HOME, AND DIES NOT LONG AFTERWARDS
+
+
+My father could walk but slowly, for George's boots had blistered his
+feet, and it seemed to him that the river-bed, of which he caught
+glimpses now and again, never got any nearer; but all things come to an
+end, and by seven o'clock on the night of Tuesday, he was on the spot
+which he had left on the preceding Friday morning.  Three entire days had
+intervened, but he felt that something, he knew not what, had seized him,
+and that whereas before these three days life had been one thing, what
+little might follow them, would be another--and a very different one.
+
+He soon caught sight of his horse which had strayed a mile lower down the
+river-bed, and in spite of his hobbles had crossed one ugly stream that
+my father dared not ford on foot.  Tired though he was, he went after
+him, bridle in hand, and when the friendly creature saw him, it recrossed
+the stream, and came to him of its own accord--either tired of his own
+company, or tempted by some bread my father held out towards him.  My
+father took off the hobbles, and rode him bare-backed to the camping
+ground, where he rewarded him with more bread and biscuit, and then
+hobbled him again for the night.
+
+"It was here," he said to me on one of the first days after his return,
+"that I first knew myself to be a broken man.  As for meeting George
+again, I felt sure that it would be all I could do to meet his brother;
+and though George was always in my thoughts, it was for you and not him
+that I was now yearning.  When I gave George my watch, how glad I was
+that I had left my gold one at home, for that is yours, and I could not
+have brought myself to give it him."
+
+"Never mind that, my dear father," said I, "but tell me how you got down
+the river, and thence home again."
+
+"My very dear boy," he said, "I can hardly remember, and I had no energy
+to make any more notes.  I remember putting a scrap of paper into the box
+of sovereigns, merely sending George my love along with the money; I
+remember also dropping the box into a hole in a tree, which I blazed, and
+towards which I drew a line of wood-ashes.  I seem to see a poor unhinged
+creature gazing moodily for hours into a fire which he heaps up now and
+again with wood.  There is not a breath of air; Nature sleeps so calmly
+that she dares not even breathe for fear of waking; the very river has
+hushed his flow.  Without, the starlit calm of a summer's night in a
+great wilderness; within, a hurricane of wild and incoherent thoughts
+battling with one another in their fury to fall upon him and rend him--and
+on the other side the great wall of mountain, thousands of children
+praying at their mother's knee to this poor dazed thing.  I suppose this
+half delirious wretch must have been myself.  But I must have been more
+ill when I left England than I thought I was, or Erewhon would not have
+broken me down as it did."
+
+No doubt he was right.  Indeed it was because Mr. Cathie and his doctor
+saw that he was out of health and in urgent need of change, that they
+left off opposing his wish to travel.  There is no use, however, in
+talking about this now.
+
+I never got from him how he managed to reach the shepherd's hut, but I
+learned some little from the shepherd, when I stayed with him both on
+going towards Erewhon, and on returning.
+
+"He did not seem to have drink in him," said the shepherd, "when he first
+came here; but he must have been pretty full of it, or he must have had
+some bottles in his saddle-bags; for he was awful when he came back.  He
+had got them worse than any man I ever saw, only that he was not awkward.
+He said there was a bird flying out of a giant's mouth and laughing at
+him, and he kept muttering about a blue pool, and hanky-panky of all
+sorts, and he said he knew it was all hanky-panky, at least I thought he
+said so, but it was no use trying to follow him, for it was all nothing
+but horrors.  He said I was to stop the people from trying to worship
+him.  Then he said the sky opened and he could see the angels going about
+and singing 'Hallelujah.'"
+
+"How long did he stay with you?" I asked.
+
+"About ten days, but the last three he was himself again, only too weak
+to move.  He thought he was cured except for weakness."
+
+"Do you know how he had been spending the last two days or so before he
+got down to your hut?"
+
+I said two days, because this was the time I supposed he would take to
+descend the river.
+
+"I should say drinking all the time.  He said he had fallen off his horse
+two or three times, till he took to leading him.  If he had had any other
+horse than old Doctor he would have been a dead man.  Bless you, I have
+known that horse ever since he was foaled, and I never saw one like him
+for sense.  He would pick fords better than that gentleman could, I know,
+and if the gentleman fell off him he would just stay stock still.  He was
+badly bruised, poor man, when he got here.  I saw him through the gorge
+when he left me, and he gave me a sovereign; he said he had only one
+other left to take him down to the port, or he would have made it more."
+
+"He was my father," said I, "and he is dead, but before he died he told
+me to give you five pounds which I have brought you.  I think you are
+wrong in saying that he had been drinking."
+
+"That is what they all say; but I take it very kind of him to have
+thought of me."
+
+My father's illness for the first three weeks after his return played
+with him as a cat plays with a mouse; now and again it would let him have
+a day or two's run, during which he was so cheerful and unclouded that
+his doctor was quite hopeful about him.  At various times on these
+occasions I got from him that when he left the shepherd's hut, he thought
+his illness had run itself out, and that he should now reach the port
+from which he was to sail for S. Francisco without misadventure.  This he
+did, and he was able to do all he had to do at the port, though
+frequently attacked with passing fits of giddiness.  I need not dwell
+upon his voyage to S. Francisco, and thence home; it is enough to say
+that he was able to travel by himself in spite of gradually, but
+continually, increasing failure.
+
+"When," he said, "I reached the port, I telegraphed as you know, for more
+money.  How puzzled you must have been.  I sold my horse to the man from
+whom I bought it, at a loss of only about 10 pounds, and I left with him
+my saddle, saddle-bags, small hatchet, my hobbles, and in fact everything
+that I had taken with me, except what they had impounded in Erewhon.
+Yram's rug I dropped into the river when I knew that I should no longer
+need it--as also her substitutes for my billy and pannikin; and I burned
+her basket.  The shepherd would have asked me questions.  You will find
+an order to deliver everything up to bearer.  You need therefore take
+nothing from England."
+
+At another time he said, "When you go, for it is plain I cannot, and go
+one or other of us must, try and get the horse I had: he will be nine
+years old, and he knows all about the rivers: if you leave everything to
+him, you may shut your eyes, but do not interfere with him.  Give the
+shepherd what I said and he will attend to you, but go a day or two too
+soon, for the margin of one day was not enough to allow in case of a
+fresh in the river; if the water is discoloured you must not cross it--not
+even with Doctor.  I could not ask George to come up three days running
+from Sunch'ston to the statues and back."
+
+Here he became exhausted.  Almost the last coherent string of sentences I
+got from him was as follows:-
+
+"About George's money if I send him 2000 pounds you will still have
+nearly 150,000 pounds left, and Mr. Cathie will not let you try to make
+it more.  I know you would give him four or five thousand, but the Mayor
+and I talked it over, and settled that 2000 pounds in gold would make him
+a rich man.  Consult our good friend Alfred" (meaning, of course, Mr.
+Cathie) "about the best way of taking the money.  I am afraid there is
+nothing for it but gold, and this will be a great weight for you to
+carry--about, I believe 36 lbs.  Can you do this?  I really think that if
+you lead your horse you . . . no--there will be the getting him down
+again--"
+
+"Don't worry about it, my dear father," said I, "I can do it easily if I
+stow the load rightly, and I will see to this.  I shall have nothing else
+to carry, for I shall camp down below both morning and evening.  But
+would you not like to send some present to the Mayor, Yram, their other
+children, and Mrs. Humdrum's grand-daughter?"
+
+"Do what you can," said my father.  And these were the last instructions
+he gave me about those adventures with which alone this work is
+concerned.
+
+The day before he died, he had a little flicker of intelligence, but all
+of a sudden his face became clouded as with great anxiety; he seemed to
+see some horrible chasm in front of him which he had to cross, or which
+he feared that I must cross, for he gasped out words, which, as near as I
+could catch them, were, "Look out!  John!  Leap!  Leap!  Le . . . " but
+he could not say all that he was trying to say and closed his eyes,
+having, as I then deemed, seen that he was on the brink of that gulf
+which lies between life and death; I took it that in reality he died at
+that moment; for there was neither struggle, nor hardly movement of any
+kind afterwards--nothing but a pulse which for the next several hours
+grew fainter and fainter so gradually, that it was not till some time
+after it had ceased to beat that we were certain of its having done so.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII: I MEET MY BROTHER GEORGE AT THE STATUES, ON THE TOP OF THE
+PASS INTO EREWHON
+
+
+This book has already become longer than I intended, but I will ask the
+reader to have patience while I tell him briefly of my own visit to the
+threshold of that strange country of which I fear that he may be already
+beginning to tire.
+
+The winding-up of my father's estate was a very simple matter, and by the
+beginning of September 1891 I should have been free to start; but about
+that time I became engaged, and naturally enough I did not want to be
+longer away than was necessary.  I should not have gone at all if I could
+have helped it.  I left, however, a fortnight later than my father had
+done.
+
+Before starting I bought a handsome gold repeater for the Mayor, and a
+brooch for Yram, of pearls and diamonds set in gold, for which I paid 200
+pounds.  For Yram's three daughters and for Mrs. Humdrum's grand-daughter
+I took four brooches each of which cost about 15 pounds, 15s., and for
+the boys I got three ten-guinea silver watches.  For George I only took a
+strong English knife of the best make, and the two thousand pounds worth
+of uncoined gold, which for convenience' sake I had had made into small
+bars.  I also had a knapsack made that would hold these and nothing
+else--each bar being strongly sewn into its place, so that none of them
+could shift.  Whenever I went on board ship, or went on shore, I put this
+on my back, so that no one handled it except myself--and I can assure the
+reader that I did not find it a light weight to handle.  I ought to have
+taken something for old Mrs. Humdrum, but I am ashamed to say that I
+forgot her.
+
+I went as directly as I could to the port of which my father had told me,
+and reached it on November 27, one day later than he had done in the
+preceding year.
+
+On the following day, which was a Saturday, I went to the livery stables
+from which my father had bought his horse, and found to my great delight
+that Doctor could be at my disposal, for, as it seemed to me, the very
+reasonable price of fifteen shillings a day.  I shewed the owner of the
+stables my father's order, and all the articles he had left were
+immediately delivered to me.  I was still wearing crape round one arm,
+and the horse-dealer, whose name was Baker, said he was afraid the other
+gentleman might be dead.
+
+"Indeed, he is so," said I, "and a great grief it is to me; he was my
+father."
+
+"Dear, dear," answered Mr. Baker, "that is a very serious thing for the
+poor gentleman.  He seemed quite unfit to travel alone, and I feared he
+was not long for this world, but he was bent on going."
+
+I had nothing now to do but to buy a blanket, pannikin, and billy, with
+some tea, tobacco, two bottles of brandy, some ship's biscuits, and
+whatever other few items were down on the list of requisites which my
+father had dictated to me.  Mr. Baker, seeing that I was what he called a
+new chum, shewed me how to pack my horse, but I kept my knapsack full of
+gold on my back, and though I could see that it puzzled him, he asked no
+questions.  There was no reason why I should not set out at once for the
+principal town of the colony, which was some ten miles inland; I,
+therefore, arranged at my hotel that the greater part of my luggage
+should await my return, and set out to climb the high hills that back the
+port.  From the top of these I had a magnificent view of the plains that
+I should have to cross, and of the long range of distant mountains which
+bounded them north and south as far as the eye could reach.  On some of
+the mountains I could still see streaks of snow, but my father had
+explained to me that the ranges I should here see, were not those
+dividing the English colony from Erewhon.  I also saw, some nine miles or
+so out upon the plains, the more prominent buildings of a large town
+which seemed to be embosomed in trees, and this I reached in about an
+hour and a half; for I had to descend at a foot's pace, and Doctor's many
+virtues did not comprise a willingness to go beyond an amble.
+
+At the town above referred to I spent the night, and began to strike
+across the plains on the following morning.  I might have crossed these
+in three days at twenty-five miles a day, but I had too much time on my
+hands, and my load of gold was so uncomfortable that I was glad to stay
+at one accommodation house after another, averaging about eighteen miles
+a day.  I have no doubt that if I had taken advice, I could have stowed
+my load more conveniently, but I could not unpack it, and made the best
+of it as it was.
+
+On the evening of Wednesday, December 2, I reached the river which I
+should have to follow up; it was here nearing the gorge through which it
+had to pass before the country opened out again at the back of the front
+range.  I came upon it quite suddenly on reaching the brink of a great
+terrace, the bank of which sloped almost precipitously down towards it,
+but was covered with grass.  The terrace was some three hundred feet
+above the river, and faced another similar one, which was from a mile and
+a half to two miles distant.  At the bottom of this huge yawning chasm,
+rolled the mighty river, and I shuddered at the thought of having to
+cross and recross it.  For it was angry, muddy, evidently in heavy fresh,
+and filled bank and bank for nearly a mile with a flood of seething
+waters.
+
+I followed along the northern edge of the terrace, till I reached the
+last accommodation house that could be said to be on the plains--which,
+by the way, were here some eight or nine hundred feet above sea level.
+When I reached this house, I was glad to learn that the river was not
+likely to remain high for more than a day or two, and that if what was
+called a Southerly Burster came up, as it might be expected to do at any
+moment, it would be quite low again before three days were over.
+
+At this house I stayed the night, and in the course of the evening a
+stray dog--a retriever, hardly full grown, and evidently very much down
+on his luck--took up with me; when I inquired about him, and asked if I
+might take him with me, the landlord said he wished I would, for he knew
+nothing about him and was trying to drive him from the house.  Knowing
+what a boon the companionship of this poor beast would be to me when I
+was camping out alone, I encouraged him, and next morning he followed me
+as a matter of course.
+
+In the night the Southerly Burster which my host anticipated had come up,
+cold and blustering, but invigorating after the hot, dry, wind that had
+been blowing hard during the daytime as I had crossed the plains.  A mile
+or two higher up I passed a large sheep-station, but did not stay there.
+One or two men looked at me with surprise, and asked me where I was
+going, whereon I said I was in search of rare plants and birds for the
+Museum of the town at which I had slept the night after my arrival.  This
+satisfied their curiosity, and I ambled on accompanied by the dog.  In
+passing I may say that I found Doctor not to excel at any pace except an
+amble, but for a long journey, especially for one who is carrying a
+heavy, awkward load, there is no pace so comfortable; and he ambled
+fairly fast.
+
+I followed the horse track which had been cut through the gorge, and in
+many places I disliked it extremely, for the river, still in fresh, was
+raging furiously; twice, for some few yards, where the gorge was wider
+and the stream less rapid, it covered the track, and I had no confidence
+that it might not have washed it away; on these occasions Doctor pricked
+his ears towards the water, and was evidently thinking exactly what his
+rider was.  He decided, however, that all would be sound, and took to the
+water without any urging on my part.  Seeing his opinion, I remembered my
+father's advice, and let him do what he liked, but in one place for three
+or four yards the water came nearly up to his belly, and I was in great
+fear for the watches that were in my saddle-bags.  As for the dog, I
+feared I had lost him, but after a time he rejoined me, though how he
+contrived to do so I cannot say.
+
+Nothing could be grander than the sight of this great river pent into a
+narrow compass, and occasionally becoming more like an immense waterfall
+than a river, but I was in continual fear of coming to more places where
+the water would be over the track, and perhaps of finding myself unable
+to get any farther.  I therefore failed to enjoy what was really far the
+most impressive sight in its way that I had ever seen.  "Give me," I said
+to myself, "the Thames at Richmond," and right thankful was I, when at
+about two o'clock I found that I was through the gorge and in a wide
+valley, the greater part of which, however, was still covered by the
+river.  It was here that I heard for the first time the curious sound of
+boulders knocking against each other underneath the great body of water
+that kept rolling them round and round.
+
+I now halted, and lit a fire, for there was much dead scrub standing that
+had remained after the ground had been burned for the first time some
+years previously.  I made myself some tea, and turned Doctor out for a
+couple of hours to feed.  I did not hobble him, for my father had told me
+that he would always come for bread.  When I had dined, and smoked, and
+slept for a couple of hours or so, I reloaded Doctor and resumed my
+journey towards the shepherd's hut, which I caught sight of about a mile
+before I reached it.  When nearly half a mile off it, I dismounted, and
+made a written note of the exact spot at which I did so.  I then turned
+for a couple of hundred yards to my right, at right angles to the track,
+where some huge rocks were lying--fallen ages since from the mountain
+that flanked this side of the valley.  Here I deposited my knapsack in a
+hollow underneath some of the rocks, and put a good sized stone in front
+of it, for I meant spending a couple of days with the shepherd to let the
+river go down.  Moreover, as it was now only December 3, I had too much
+time on my hands, but I had not dared to cut things finer.
+
+I reached the hut at about six o'clock, and introduced myself to the
+shepherd, who was a nice, kind old man, commonly called Harris, but his
+real name he told me was Horace--Horace Taylor.  I had the conversation
+with him of which I have already told the reader, adding that my father
+had been unable to give a coherent account of what he had seen, and that
+I had been sent to get the information he had failed to furnish.
+
+The old man said that I must certainly wait a couple of days before I
+went higher up the river.  He had made himself a nice garden, in which he
+took the greatest pride, and which supplied him with plenty of
+vegetables.  He was very glad to have company, and to receive the
+newspapers which I had taken care to bring him.  He had a real genius for
+simple cookery, and fed me excellently.  My father's 5 pounds, and the
+ration of brandy which I nightly gave him, made me a welcome guest, and
+though I was longing to be at any rate as far as the foot of the pass
+into Erewhon, I amused myself very well in an abundance of ways with
+which I need not trouble the reader.
+
+One of the first things that Harris said to me was, "I wish I knew what
+your father did with the nice red blanket he had with him when he went up
+the river.  He had none when he came down again; I have no horse here,
+but I borrowed one from a man who came up one day from down below, and
+rode to a place where I found what I am sure were the ashes of the last
+fire he made, but I could find neither the blanket nor the billy and
+pannikin he took away with him.  He said he supposed he must have left
+the things there, but he could remember nothing about it."
+
+"I am afraid," said I, "that I cannot help you."
+
+"At any rate," continued the shepherd, "I did not have my ride for
+nothing, for as I was coming back I found this rug half covered with sand
+on the river-bed."
+
+As he spoke he pointed to an excellent warm rug, on the spare bunk in his
+hut.  "It is none of our make," said he; "I suppose some foreign digger
+has come over from the next river down south and got drowned, for it had
+not been very long where I found it, at least I think not, for it was not
+much fly-blown, and no one had passed here to go up the river since your
+father."
+
+I knew what it was, but I held my tongue beyond saying that the rug was a
+very good one.
+
+The next day, December 4, was lovely, after a night that had been clear
+and cold, with frost towards early morning.  When the shepherd had gone
+for some three hours in the forenoon to see his sheep (that were now
+lambing), I walked down to the place where I had left my knapsack, and
+carried it a good mile above the hut, where I again hid it.  I could see
+the great range from one place, and the thick new fallen snow assured me
+that the river would be quite normal shortly.  Indeed, by evening it was
+hardly at all discoloured, but I waited another day, and set out on the
+morning of Sunday, December 6.  The river was now almost as low as in
+winter, and Harris assured me that if I used my eyes I could not miss
+finding a ford over one stream or another every half mile or so.  I had
+the greatest difficulty in preventing him from accompanying me on foot
+for some little distance, but I got rid of him in the end; he came with
+me beyond the place where I had hidden my knapsack, but when he had left
+me long enough, I rode back and got it.
+
+I see I am dwelling too long upon my own small adventures.  Suffice it
+that, accompanied by my dog, I followed the north bank of the river till
+I found I must cross one stream before I could get any farther.  This
+place would not do, and I had to ride half a mile back before I found one
+that seemed as if it might be safe.  I fancy my father must have done
+just the same thing, for Doctor seemed to know the ground, and took to
+the water the moment I brought him to it.  It never reached his belly,
+but I confess I did not like it.  By and by I had to recross, and so on,
+off and on, till at noon I camped for dinner.  Here the dog found me a
+nest of young ducks, nearly fledged, from which the parent birds tried
+with great success to decoy me.  I fully thought I was going to catch
+them, but the dog knew better and made straight for the nest, from which
+he returned immediately with a fine young duck in his mouth, which he
+laid at my feet, wagging his tail and barking.  I took another from the
+nest and left two for the old birds.
+
+The afternoon was much as the morning and towards seven I reached a place
+which suggested itself as a good camping ground.  I had hardly fixed on
+it and halted, before I saw a few pieces of charred wood, and felt sure
+that my father must have camped at this very place before me.  I hobbled
+Doctor, unloaded, plucked and singed a duck, and gave the dog some of the
+meat with which Harris had furnished me; I made tea, laid my duck on the
+embers till it was cooked, smoked, gave myself a nightcap of brandy and
+water, and by and by rolled myself round in my blanket, with the dog
+curled up beside me.  I will not dwell upon the strangeness of my
+feelings--nor the extreme beauty of the night.  But for the dog, and
+Doctor, I should have been frightened, but I knew that there were no
+savage creatures or venomous snakes in the country, and both the dog and
+Doctor were such good companionable creatures, that I did not feel so
+much oppressed by the solitude as I had feared I should be.  But the
+night was cold, and my blanket was not enough to keep me comfortably
+warm.
+
+The following day was delightfully warm as soon as the sun got to the
+bottom of the valley, and the fresh fallen snow disappeared so fast from
+the snowy range that I was afraid it would raise the river--which,
+indeed, rose in the afternoon and became slightly discoloured, but it
+cannot have been more than three or four inches deeper, for it never
+reached the bottom of my saddle-bags.  I believe Doctor knew exactly
+where I was going, for he wanted no guidance.  I halted again at midday,
+got two more ducks, crossed and recrossed the river, or some of its
+streams, several times, and at about six, caught sight, after a bend in
+the valley, of the glacier descending on to the river-bed.  This I knew
+to be close to the point at which I was to camp for the night, and from
+which I was to ascend the mountain.  After another hour's slow progress
+over the increasing roughness of the river-bed, I saw the triangular
+delta of which my father had told me, and the stream that had formed it,
+bounding down the mountain side.  Doctor went right up to the place where
+my father's fire had been, and I again found many pieces of charred wood
+and ashes.
+
+As soon as I had unloaded Doctor and hobbled him, I went to a tree hard
+by, on which I could see the mark of a blaze, and towards which I thought
+I could see a line of wood ashes running.  There I found a hole in which
+some bird had evidently been wont to build, and surmised correctly that
+it must be the one in which my father had hidden his box of sovereigns.
+There was no box in the hole now, and I began to feel that I was at last
+within measureable distance of Erewhon and the Erewhonians.
+
+I camped for the night here, and again found my single blanket
+insufficient.  The next day, i.e. Tuesday, December 8, I had to pass as I
+best could, and it occurred to me that as I should find the gold a great
+weight, I had better take it some three hours up the mountain side and
+leave it there, so as to make the following day less fatiguing, and this
+I did, returning to my camp for dinner; but I was panic-stricken all the
+rest of the day lest I should not have hidden it safely, or lest I should
+be unable to find it next day--conjuring up a hundred absurd fancies as
+to what might befall it.  And after all, heavy though it was, I could
+have carried it all the way.  In the afternoon I saddled Doctor and rode
+him up to the glaciers, which were indeed magnificent, and then I made
+the few notes of my journey from which this chapter has been taken.  I
+made excuses for turning in early, and at daybreak rekindled my fire and
+got my breakfast.  All the time the companionship of the dog was an
+unspeakable comfort to me.
+
+It was now the day my father had fixed for my meeting with George, and my
+excitement (with which I have not yet troubled the reader, though it had
+been consuming me ever since I had left Harris's hut) was beyond all
+bounds, so much so that I almost feared I was in a fever which would
+prevent my completing the little that remained of my task; in fact, I was
+in as great a panic as I had been about the gold that I had left.  My
+hands trembled as I took the watches, and the brooches for Yram and her
+daughters from my saddle-bags, which I then hung, probably on the very
+bough on which my father had hung them.  Needless to say, I also hung my
+saddle and bridle along with the saddle-bags.
+
+It was nearly seven before I started, and about ten before I reached the
+hiding-place of my knapsack.  I found it, of course, quite easily,
+shouldered it, and toiled on towards the statues.  At a quarter before
+twelve I reached them, and almost beside myself as I was, could not
+refrain from some disappointment at finding them a good deal smaller than
+I expected.  My father, correcting the measurement he had given in his
+book, said he thought that they were about four or five times the size of
+life; but really I do not think they were more than twenty feet high, any
+one of them.  In other respects my father's description of them is quite
+accurate.  There was no wind, and as a matter of course, therefore, they
+were not chanting.  I wiled away the quarter of an hour before the time
+when George became due, with wondering at them, and in a way admiring
+them, hideous though they were; but all the time I kept looking towards
+the part from which George should come.
+
+At last my watch pointed to noon, but there was no George.  A quarter
+past twelve, but no George.  Half-past, still no George.  One o'clock,
+and all the quarters till three o'clock, but still no George.  I tried to
+eat some of the ship's biscuits I had brought with me, but I could not.
+My disappointment was now as great as my excitement had been all the
+forenoon; at three o'clock I fairly cried, and for half an hour could
+only fling myself on the ground and give way to all the unreasonable
+spleen that extreme vexation could suggest.  True, I kept telling myself
+that for aught I knew George might be dead, or down with a fever; but
+this would not do; for in this last case he should have sent one of his
+brothers to meet me, and it was not likely that he was dead.  I am afraid
+I thought it most probable that he had been casual--of which unworthy
+suspicion I have long since been heartily ashamed.
+
+I put the brooches inside my knapsack, and hid it in a place where I was
+sure no one would find it; then, with a heavy heart, I trudged down again
+to my camp--broken in spirit, and hopeless for the morrow.
+
+I camped again, but it was some hours before I got a wink of sleep; and
+when sleep came it was accompanied by a strange dream.  I dreamed that I
+was by my father's bedside, watching his last flicker of intelligence,
+and vainly trying to catch the words that he was not less vainly trying
+to utter.  All of a sudden the bed seemed to be at my camping ground, and
+the largest of the statues appeared, quite small, high up the mountain
+side, but striding down like a giant in seven league boots till it stood
+over me and my father, and shouted out "Leap, John, leap."  In the horror
+of this vision I woke with a loud cry that woke my dog also, and made him
+shew such evident signs of fear, that it seemed to me as though he too
+must have shared my dream.
+
+Shivering with cold I started up in a frenzy, but there was nothing, save
+a night of such singular beauty that I did not even try to go to sleep
+again.  Naturally enough, on trying to keep awake I dropped asleep before
+many minutes were over.
+
+In the morning I again climbed up to the statues, without, to my
+surprise, being depressed with the idea that George would again fail to
+meet me.  On the contrary, without rhyme or reason, I had a strong
+presentiment that he would come.  And sure enough, as soon as I caught
+sight of the statues, which I did about a quarter to twelve, I saw a
+youth coming towards me, with a quick step, and a beaming face that had
+only to be seen to be fallen in love with.
+
+"You are my brother," said he to me.  "Is my father with you?"
+
+I pointed to the crape on my arm, and to the ground, but said nothing.
+
+He understood me, and bared his head.  Then he flung his arms about me
+and kissed my forehead according to Erewhonian custom.  I was a little
+surprised at his saying nothing to me about the way in which he had
+disappointed me on the preceding day; I resolved, however, to wait for
+the explanation that I felt sure he would give me presently.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII: GEORGE AND I SPEND A FEW HOURS TOGETHER AT THE STATUES,
+AND THEN PART--I REACH HOME--POSTSCRIPT
+
+
+I have said on an earlier page that George gained an immediate ascendancy
+over me, but ascendancy is not the word--he took me by storm; how, or
+why, I neither know nor want to know, but before I had been with him more
+than a few minutes I felt as though I had known and loved him all my
+life.  And the dog fawned upon him as though he felt just as I did.
+
+"Come to the statues," said he, as soon as he had somewhat recovered from
+the shock of the news I had given him.  "We can sit down there on the
+very stone on which our father and I sat a year ago.  I have brought a
+basket, which my mother packed for--for--him and me.  Did he talk to you
+about me?"
+
+"He talked of nothing so much, and he thought of nothing so much.  He had
+your boots put where he could see them from his bed until he died."
+
+Then followed the explanation about these boots, of which the reader has
+already been told.  This made us both laugh, and from that moment we were
+cheerful.
+
+I say nothing about our enjoyment of the luncheon with which Yram had
+provided us, and if I were to detail all that I told George about my
+father, and all the additional information that I got from him--(many a
+point did he clear up for me that I had not fully understood)--I should
+fill several chapters, whereas I have left myself only one.  Luncheon
+being over I said--
+
+"And are you married?"
+
+"Yes" (with a blush), "and are you?"
+
+I could not blush.  Why should I?  And yet young people--especially the
+most ingenuous among them--are apt to flush up on being asked if they
+are, or are going, to be married.  If I could have blushed, I would.  As
+it was I could only say that I was engaged and should marry as soon as I
+got back.
+
+"Then you have come all this way for me, when you were wanting to get
+married?"
+
+"Of course I have.  My father on his death-bed told me to do so, and to
+bring you something that I have brought you."
+
+"What trouble I have given!  How can I thank you?"
+
+"Shake hands with me."
+
+Whereon he gave my hand a stronger grip than I had quite bargained for.
+
+"And now," said I, "before I tell you what I have brought, you must
+promise me to accept it.  Your father said I was not to leave you till
+you had done so, and I was to say that he sent it with his dying
+blessing."
+
+After due demur George gave his promise, and I took him to the place
+where I had hidden my knapsack.
+
+"I brought it up yesterday," said I.
+
+"Yesterday? but why?"
+
+"Because yesterday--was it not?--was the first of the two days agreed
+upon between you and our father?"
+
+"No--surely to-day is the first day--I was to come XXI. i. 3, which would
+be your December 9."
+
+"But yesterday was December 9 with us--to-day is December 10."
+
+"Strange!  What day of the week do you make it?"
+
+"To-day is Thursday, December 10."
+
+"This is still stranger--we make it Wednesday; yesterday was Tuesday."
+
+Then I saw it.  The year XX. had been a leap year with the Erewhonians,
+and 1891 in England had not.  This, then, was what had crossed my
+father's brain in his dying hours, and what he had vainly tried to tell
+me.  It was also what my unconscious self had been struggling to tell my
+conscious one, during the past night, but which my conscious self had
+been too stupid to understand.  And yet my conscious self had caught it
+in an imperfect sort of a way after all, for from the moment that my
+dream had left me I had been composed, and easy in my mind that all would
+be well.  I wish some one would write a book about dreams and
+parthenogenesis--for that the two are part and parcel of the same story--a
+brood of folly without father bred--I cannot doubt.
+
+I did not trouble George with any of this rubbish, but only shewed him
+how the mistake had arisen.  When we had laughed sufficiently over my
+mistake--for it was I who had come up on the wrong day, not he--I fished
+my knapsack out of its hiding-place.
+
+"Do not unpack it," said I, "beyond taking out the brooches, or you will
+not be able to pack it so well; but you can see the ends of the bars of
+gold, and you can feel the weight; my father sent them for you.  The
+pearl brooch is for your mother, the smaller brooches are for your
+sisters, and your wife."
+
+I then told him how much gold there was, and from my pockets brought out
+the watches and the English knife.
+
+"This last," I said, "is the only thing that I am giving you; the rest is
+all from our father.  I have many many times as much gold myself, and
+this is legally your property as much as mine is mine."
+
+George was aghast, but he was powerless alike to express his feelings, or
+to refuse the gold.
+
+"Do you mean to say that my father left me this by his will?"
+
+"Certainly he did," said I, inventing a pious fraud.
+
+"It is all against my oath," said he, looking grave.
+
+"Your oath be hanged," said I.  "You must give the gold to the Mayor, who
+knows that it was coming, and it will appear to the world, as though he
+were giving it you now instead of leaving you anything."
+
+"But it is ever so much too much!"
+
+"It is not half enough.  You and the Mayor must settle all that between
+you.  He and our father talked it all over, and this was what they
+settled."
+
+"And our father planned all this, without saying a word to me about it
+while we were on our way up here?"
+
+"Yes.  There might have been some hitch in the gold's coming.  Besides
+the Mayor told him not to tell you."
+
+"And he never said anything about the other money he left for me--which
+enabled me to marry at once?  Why was this?"
+
+"Your mother said he was not to do so."
+
+"Bless my heart, how they have duped me all round.  But why would not my
+mother let your father tell me?  Oh yes--she was afraid I should tell the
+King about it, as I certainly should, when I told him all the rest."
+
+"Tell the King?" said I, "what have you been telling the King?"
+
+"Everything; except about the nuggets and the sovereigns, of which I knew
+nothing; and I have felt myself a blackguard ever since for not telling
+him about these when he came up here last autumn--but I let the Mayor and
+my mother talk me over, as I am afraid they will do again."
+
+"When did you tell the King?"
+
+Then followed all the details that I have told in the latter part of
+Chapter XXI.  When I asked how the King took the confession, George said--
+
+"He was so much flattered at being treated like a reasonable being, and
+Dr. Downie, who was chief spokesman, played his part so discreetly,
+without attempting to obscure even the most compromising issues, that
+though his Majesty made some show of displeasure at first, it was plain
+that he was heartily enjoying the whole story.
+
+"Dr. Downie shewed very well.  He took on himself the onus of having
+advised our action, and he gave me all the credit of having proposed that
+we should make a clean breast of everything.
+
+"The King, too, behaved with truly royal politeness; he was on the point
+of asking why I had not taken our father to the Blue Pool at once, and
+flung him into it on the Sunday afternoon, when something seemed to
+strike him: he gave me a searching look, on which he said in an
+undertone, 'Oh yes,' and did not go on with his question.  He never
+blamed me for anything, and when I begged him to accept my resignation of
+the Rangership, he said--
+
+"'No.  Stay where you are till I lose confidence in you, which will not,
+I think, be very soon.  I will come and have a few days' shooting about
+the middle of March, and if I have good sport I shall order your salary
+to be increased.  If any more foreign devils come over, do not Blue-Pool
+them; send them down to me, and I will see what I think of them; I am
+much disposed to encourage a few of them to settle here."
+
+"I am sure," continued George, "that he said this because he knew I was
+half a foreign devil myself.  Indeed he won my heart not only by the
+delicacy of his consideration, but by the obvious good will he bore me.  I
+do not know what he did with the nuggets, but he gave orders that the
+blanket and the rest of my father's kit should be put in the great
+Erewhonian Museum.  As regards my father's receipt, and the Professors'
+two depositions, he said he would have them carefully preserved in his
+secret archives.  'A document,' he said somewhat enigmatically, 'is a
+document--but, Professor Hanky, you can have this'--and as he spoke he
+handed him back his pocket-handkerchief.
+
+"Hanky during the whole interview was furious, at having to play so
+undignified a part, but even more so, because the King while he paid
+marked attention to Dr. Downie, and even to myself, treated him with
+amused disdain.  Nevertheless, angry though he was, he was impenitent,
+unabashed, and brazened it out at Bridgeford, that the King had received
+him with open arms, and had snubbed Dr. Downie and myself.  But for his
+(Hanky's) intercession, I should have been dismissed then and there from
+the Rangership.  And so forth.  Panky never opened his mouth.
+
+"Returning to the King, his Majesty said to Dr. Downie, 'I am afraid I
+shall not be able to canonize any of you gentlemen just yet.  We must let
+this affair blow over.  Indeed I am in half a mind to have this Sunchild
+bubble pricked; I never liked it, and am getting tired of it; you Musical
+Bank gentlemen are overdoing it.  I will talk it over with her Majesty.
+As for Professor Hanky, I do not see how I can keep one who has been so
+successfully hoodwinked, as my Professor of Worldly Wisdom; but I will
+consult her Majesty about this point also.  Perhaps I can find another
+post for him.  If I decide on having Sunchildism pricked, he shall apply
+the pin.  You may go.'
+
+"And glad enough," said George, "we all of us were to do so."
+
+"But did he," I asked, "try to prick the bubble of Sunchildism?"
+
+"Oh no.  As soon as he said he would talk it over with her Majesty, I
+knew the whole thing would end in smoke, as indeed to all outward
+appearance it shortly did; for Dr. Downie advised him not to be in too
+great a hurry, and whatever he did to do it gradually.  He therefore took
+no further action than to show marked favour to practical engineers and
+mechanicians.  Moreover he started an aeronautical society, which made
+Bridgeford furious; but so far, I am afraid it has done us no good, for
+the first ascent was disastrous, involving the death of the poor fellow
+who made it, and since then no one has ventured to ascend.  I am afraid
+we do not get on very fast."
+
+"Did the King," I asked, "increase your salary?"
+
+"Yes.  He doubled it."
+
+"And what do they say in Sunch'ston about our father's second visit?"
+
+George laughed, and shewed me the newspaper extract which I have already
+given.  I asked who wrote it.
+
+"I did," said he, with a demure smile; "I wrote it at night after I
+returned home, and before starting for the capital next morning.  I
+called myself 'the deservedly popular Ranger,' to avert suspicion.  No
+one found me out; you can keep the extract, I brought it here on
+purpose."
+
+"It does you great credit.  Was there ever any lunatic, and was he
+found?"
+
+"Oh yes.  That part was true, except that he had never been up our way."
+
+"Then the poacher is still at large?"
+
+"It is to be feared so."
+
+"And were Dr. Downie and the Professors canonized after all."
+
+"Not yet; but the Professors will be next month--for Hanky is still
+Professor.  Dr. Downie backed out of it.  He said it was enough to be a
+Sunchildist without being a Sunchild Saint.  He worships the jumping cat
+as much as the others, but he keeps his eye better on the cat, and sees
+sooner both when it will jump, and where it will jump to.  Then, without
+disturbing any one, he insinuates himself into the place which will be
+best when the jump is over.  Some say that the cat knows him and follows
+him; at all events when he makes a move the cat generally jumps towards
+him soon afterwards."
+
+"You give him a very high character."
+
+"Yes, but I have my doubts about his doing much in this matter; he is
+getting old, and Hanky burrows like a mole night and day.  There is no
+knowing how it will all end."
+
+"And the people at Sunch'ston?  Has it got well about among them, in
+spite of your admirable article, that it was the Sunchild himself who
+interrupted Hanky?"
+
+"It has, and it has not.  Many of us know the truth, but a story came
+down from Bridgeford that it was an evil spirit who had assumed the
+Sunchild's form, intending to make people sceptical about Sunchildism;
+Hanky and Panky cowed this spirit, otherwise it would never have
+recanted.  Many people swallow this."
+
+"But Hanky and Panky swore that they knew the man."
+
+"That does not matter."
+
+"And now please, how long have you been married?"
+
+"About ten months."
+
+"Any family?"
+
+"One boy about a fortnight old.  Do come down to Sunch'ston and see
+him--he is your own nephew.  You speak Erewhonian so perfectly that no
+human being would suspect you were a foreigner, and you look one of us
+from head to foot.  I can smuggle you through quite easily, and my mother
+would so like to see you."
+
+I should dearly have liked to have gone, but it was out of the question.
+I had nothing with me but the clothes I stood in; moreover I was longing
+to be back in England, and when once I was in Erewhon there was no
+knowing when I should be able to get away again; but George fought hard
+before he gave in.
+
+It was now nearing the time when this strange meeting between two
+brothers--as strange a one as the statues can ever have looked down
+upon--must come to an end.  I shewed George what the repeater would do,
+and what it would expect of its possessor.  I gave him six good
+photographs, of my father and myself--three of each.  He had never seen a
+photograph, and could hardly believe his eyes as he looked at those I
+shewed him.  I also gave him three envelopes addressed to myself, care of
+Alfred Emery Cathie, Esq., 15 Clifford's Inn, London, and implored him to
+write to me if he could ever find means of getting a letter over the
+range as far as the shepherd's hut.  At this he shook his head, but he
+promised to write if he could.  I also told him that I had written a full
+account of my father's second visit to Erewhon, but that it should never
+be published till I heard from him--at which he again shook his head, but
+added, "And yet who can tell?  For the King may have the country opened
+up to foreigners some day after all."
+
+Then he thanked me a thousand times over, shouldered the knapsack,
+embraced me as he had my father, and caressed the dog, embraced me again,
+and made no attempt to hide the tears that ran down his cheeks.
+
+"There," he said; "I shall wait here till you are out of sight."
+
+I turned away, and did not look back till I reached the place at which I
+knew that I should lose the statues.  I then turned round, waved my
+hand--as also did George, and went down the mountain side, full of sad
+thoughts, but thankful that my task had been so happily accomplished, and
+aware that my life henceforward had been enriched by something that I
+could never lose.
+
+For I had never seen, and felt as though I never could see, George's
+equal.  His absolute unconsciousness of self, the unhesitating way in
+which he took me to his heart, his fearless frankness, the happy genial
+expression that played on his face, and the extreme sweetness of his
+smile--these were the things that made me say to myself that the "blazon
+of beauty's best" could tell me nothing better than what I had found and
+lost within the last three hours.  How small, too, I felt by comparison!
+If for no other cause, yet for this, that I, who had wept so bitterly
+over my own disappointment the day before, could meet this dear fellow's
+tears with no tear of my own.
+
+But let this pass.  I got back to Harris's hut without adventure.  When
+there, in the course of the evening, I told Harris that I had a fancy for
+the rug he had found on the river-bed, and that if he would let me have
+it, I would give him my red one and ten shillings to boot.  The exchange
+was so obviously to his advantage that he made no demur, and next morning
+I strapped Yram's rug on to my horse, and took it gladly home to England,
+where I keep it on my own bed next to the counterpane, so that with care
+it may last me out my life.  I wanted him to take the dog and make a home
+for him, but he had two collies already, and said that a retriever would
+be of no use to him.  So I took the poor beast on with me to the port,
+where I was glad to find that Mr. Baker liked him and accepted him from
+me, though he was not mine to give.  He had been such an unspeakable
+comfort to me when I was alone, that he would have haunted me unless I
+had been able to provide for him where I knew he would be well cared for.
+As for Doctor, I was sorry to leave him, but I knew he was in good hands.
+
+"I see you have not brought your knapsack back, sir," said Mr. Baker.
+
+"No," said I, "and very thankful was I when I had handed it over to those
+for whom it was intended."
+
+"I have no doubt you were, sir, for I could see it was a desperate heavy
+load for you."
+
+"Indeed it was."  But at this point I brought the discussion to a close.
+
+Two days later I sailed, and reached home early in February 1892.  I was
+married three weeks later, and when the honeymoon was over, set about
+making the necessary, and some, I fear, unnecessary additions to this
+book--by far the greater part of which had been written, as I have
+already said, many months earlier.  I now leave it, at any rate for the
+present, April 22, 1892.
+
+* * * * *
+
+Postscript.--On the last day of November 1900, I received a letter
+addressed in Mr. Alfred Cathie's familiar handwriting, and on opening it
+found that it contained another, addressed to me in my own, and
+unstamped.  For the moment I was puzzled, but immediately knew that it
+must be from George.  I tore it open, and found eight closely written
+pages, which I devoured as I have seldom indeed devoured so long a
+letter.  It was dated XXIX. vii. 1, and, as nearly as I can translate it
+was as follows;-
+
+"Twice, my dearest brother, have I written to you, and twice in
+successive days in successive years, have I been up to the statues on the
+chance that you could meet me, as I proposed in my letters.  Do not think
+I went all the way back to Sunch'ston--there is a ranger's shelter now
+only an hour and a half below the statues, and here I passed the night.  I
+knew you had got neither of my letters, for if you had got them and could
+not come yourself, you would have sent some one whom you could trust with
+a letter.  I know you would, though I do not know how you would have
+contrived to do it.
+
+"I sent both letters through Bishop Kahabuka (or, as his inferior clergy
+call him, 'Chowbok'), head of the Christian Mission to Erewhemos, which,
+as your father has doubtless told you, is the country adjoining Erewhon,
+but inhabited by a coloured race having no affinity with our own.  Bishop
+Kahabuka has penetrated at times into Erewhon, and the King, wishing to
+be on good terms with his neighbours, has permitted him to establish two
+or three mission stations in the western parts of Erewhon.  Among the
+missionaries are some few of your own countrymen.  None of us like them,
+but one of them is teaching me English, which I find quite easy.
+
+"As I wrote in the letters that have never reached you, I am no longer
+Ranger.  The King, after some few years (in the course of which I told
+him of your visit, and what you had brought me), declared that I was the
+only one of his servants whom he could trust, and found high office for
+me, which kept me in close confidential communication with himself.
+
+"About three years ago, on the death of his Prime Minister, he appointed
+me to fill his place; and it was on this, that so many possibilities
+occurred to me concerning which I dearly longed for your opinion, that I
+wrote and asked you, if you could, to meet me personally or by proxy at
+the statues, which I could reach on the occasion of my annual visit to my
+mother--yes--and father--at Sunch'ston.
+
+"I sent both letters by way of Erewhemos, confiding them to Bishop
+Kahabuka, who is just such another as St. Hanky.  He tells me that our
+father was a very old and dear friend of his--but of course I did not say
+anything about his being my own father.  I only inquired about a Mr.
+Higgs, who was now worshipped in Erewhon as a supernatural being.  The
+Bishop said it was, "Oh, so very dreadful," and he felt it all the more
+keenly, for the reason that he had himself been the means of my father's
+going to Erewhon, by giving him the information that enabled him to find
+the pass over the range that bounded the country.
+
+"I did not like the man, but I thought I could trust him with a letter,
+which it now seems I could not do.  This third letter I have given him
+with a promise of a hundred pounds in silver for his new Cathedral, to be
+paid as soon as I get an answer from you.
+
+"We are all well at Sunch'ston; so are my wife and eight children--five
+sons and three daughters--but the country is at sixes and sevens.  St.
+Panky is dead, but his son Pocus is worse.  Dr. Downie has become very
+lethargic.  I can do less against St. Hankyism than when I was a private
+man.  A little indiscretion on my part would plunge the country in civil
+war.  Our engineers and so-called men of science are sturdily begging for
+endowments, and steadily claiming to have a hand in every pie that is
+baked from one end of the country to the other.  The missionaries are
+buying up all our silver, and a change in the relative values of gold and
+silver is in progress of which none of us foresee the end.
+
+"The King and I both think that annexation by England, or a British
+Protectorate, would be the saving of us, for we have no army worth the
+name, and if you do not take us over some one else soon will.  The King
+has urged me to send for you.  If you come (do! do! do!) you had better
+come by way of Erewhemos, which is now in monthly communication with
+Southampton.  If you will write me that you are coming I will meet you at
+the port, and bring you with me to our own capital, where the King will
+be overjoyed to see you."
+
+* * * * *
+
+The rest of the letter was filled with all sorts of news which interested
+me, but would require chapters of explanation before they could become
+interesting to the reader.
+
+The letter wound up:-
+
+   "You may publish now whatever you like, whenever you like.
+
+   "Write to me by way of Erewhemos, care of the Right Reverend the Lord
+   Bishop, and say which way you will come.  If you prefer the old road,
+   we are bound to be in the neighbourhood of the statues by the
+   beginning of March.  My next brother is now Ranger, and could meet you
+   at the statues with permit and luncheon, and more of that white wine
+   than ever you will be able to drink.  Only let me know what you will
+   do.
+
+   "I should tell you that the old railway which used to run from
+   Clearwater to the capital, and which, as you know, was allowed to go
+   to ruin, has been reconstructed at an outlay far less than might have
+   been expected--for the bridges had been maintained for ordinary
+   carriage traffic.  The journey, therefore, from Sunch'ston to the
+   capital can now be done in less than forty hours.  On the whole,
+   however, I recommend you to come by way of Erewhemos.  If you start,
+   as I think possible, without writing from England, Bishop Kahabuka's
+   palace is only eight miles from the port, and he will give you every
+   information about your further journey--a distance of less than a
+   couple of hundred miles.  But I should prefer to meet you myself.
+
+   "My dearest brother, I charge you by the memory of our common father,
+   and even more by that of those three hours that linked you to me for
+   ever, and which I would fain hope linked me also to yourself--come
+   over, if by any means you can do so--come over and help us.
+
+   "GEORGE STRONG."
+
+"My dear," said I to my wife who was at the other end of the breakfast
+table, "I shall have to translate this letter to you, and then you will
+have to help me to begin packing; for I have none too much time.  I must
+see Alfred, and give him a power of attorney.  He will arrange with some
+publisher about my book, and you can correct the press.  Break the news
+gently to the children; and get along without me, my dear, for six months
+as well as you can."
+
+* * * * *
+
+I write this at Southampton, from which port I sail to-morrow--i.e.
+November 15, 1900--for Erewhemos.
+
+
+
+
+Footnotes
+
+
+{1}  See Chapter X.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EREWHON REVISITED***
+
+
+******* This file should be named 1971.txt or 1971.zip *******
+
+
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/9/7/1971
+
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit:
+https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
diff --git a/old/1971.zip b/old/1971.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..deacc33
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/1971.zip
diff --git a/old/ervst10.txt b/old/ervst10.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..dd41600
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/ervst10.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,9531 @@
+The Project Gutenberg Etext Erewhon Revisited, by Samuel Butler
+#2 in our series by Samuel Butler
+
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check
+the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!!
+
+Please take a look at the important information in this header.
+We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an
+electronic path open for the next readers.  Do not remove this.
+
+
+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
+
+**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations*
+
+Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and
+further information is included below.  We need your donations.
+
+
+Erewhon Revisited
+
+by Samuel Butler
+
+November, 1999  [Etext #????]
+
+
+The Project Gutenberg Etext Erewhon Revisited, by Samuel Butler
+*****This file should be named ervst10.txt or ervst10.zip******
+
+Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, ervst11.txt
+VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, ervst10a.txt
+
+
+This etext was prepared by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
+from the 1916 A. C. Fifield edition.
+
+Project Gutenberg Etexts are usually created from multiple editions,
+all of which are in the Public Domain in the United States, unless a
+copyright notice is included.  Therefore, we do usually do NOT! keep
+these books in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+We are now trying to release all our books one month in advance
+of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing.
+
+Please note:  neither this list nor its contents are final till
+midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
+The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at
+Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month.  A
+preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
+and editing by those who wish to do so.  To be sure you have an
+up to date first edition [xxxxx10x.xxx] please check file sizes
+in the first week of the next month.  Since our ftp program has
+a bug in it that scrambles the date [tried to fix and failed] a
+look at the file size will have to do, but we will try to see a
+new copy has at least one byte more or less.
+
+
+Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)
+
+We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work.  The
+time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours
+to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
+searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc.  This
+projected audience is one hundred million readers.  If our value
+per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
+million dollars per hour this year as we release thirty-six text
+files per month, or 432 more Etexts in 1999 for a total of 2000+
+If these reach just 10% of the computerized population, then the
+total should reach over 200 billion Etexts given away this year.
+
+The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext
+Files by December 31, 2001.  [10,000 x 100,000,000 = 1 Trillion]
+This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
+which is only ~5% of the present number of computer users.
+
+At our revised rates of production, we will reach only one-third
+of that goal by the end of 2001, or about 3,333 Etexts unless we
+manage to get some real funding; currently our funding is mostly
+from Michael Hart's salary at Carnegie-Mellon University, and an
+assortment of sporadic gifts; this salary is only good for a few
+more years, so we are looking for something to replace it, as we
+don't want Project Gutenberg to be so dependent on one person.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+
+All donations should be made to "Project Gutenberg/CMU": and are
+tax deductible to the extent allowable by law.  (CMU = Carnegie-
+Mellon University).
+
+For these and other matters, please mail to:
+
+Project Gutenberg
+P. O. Box  2782
+Champaign, IL 61825
+
+When all other email fails. . .try our Executive Director:
+Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com>
+hart@pobox.com forwards to hart@prairienet.org and archive.org
+if your mail bounces from archive.org, I will still see it, if
+it bounces from prairienet.org, better resend later on. . . .
+
+We would prefer to send you this information by email.
+
+******
+
+To access Project Gutenberg etexts, use any Web browser
+to view http://promo.net/pg.  This site lists Etexts by
+author and by title, and includes information about how
+to get involved with Project Gutenberg.  You could also
+download our past Newsletters, or subscribe here.  This
+is one of our major sites, please email hart@pobox.com,
+for a more complete list of our various sites.
+
+To go directly to the etext collections, use FTP or any
+Web browser to visit a Project Gutenberg mirror (mirror
+sites are available on 7 continents; mirrors are listed
+at http://promo.net/pg).
+
+Mac users, do NOT point and click, typing works better.
+
+Example FTP session:
+
+ftp sunsite.unc.edu
+login: anonymous
+password: your@login
+cd pub/docs/books/gutenberg
+cd etext90 through etext99
+dir [to see files]
+get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files]
+GET GUTINDEX.??  [to get a year's listing of books, e.g., GUTINDEX.99]
+GET GUTINDEX.ALL [to get a listing of ALL books]
+
+***
+
+**Information prepared by the Project Gutenberg legal advisor**
+
+(Three Pages)
+
+
+***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START***
+Why is this "Small Print!" statement here?  You know: lawyers.
+They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
+your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from
+someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
+fault.  So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
+disclaims most of our liability to you.  It also tells you how
+you can distribute copies of this etext if you want to.
+
+*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT
+By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
+this "Small Print!" statement.  If you do not, you can receive
+a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by
+sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
+you got it from.  If you received this etext on a physical
+medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.
+
+ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS
+This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-
+tm etexts, is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor
+Michael S. Hart through the Project Gutenberg Association at
+Carnegie-Mellon University (the "Project").  Among other
+things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
+on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
+distribute it in the United States without permission and
+without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules, set forth
+below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext
+under the Project's "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.
+
+To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable
+efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
+works.  Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any
+medium they may be on may contain "Defects".  Among other
+things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
+disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer
+codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
+But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
+[1] the Project (and any other party you may receive this
+etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
+legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
+UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
+INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
+OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
+POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
+
+If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of
+receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
+you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
+time to the person you received it from.  If you received it
+on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
+such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
+copy.  If you received it electronically, such person may
+choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
+receive it electronically.
+
+THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS".  NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
+TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
+PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
+
+Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
+the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
+above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
+may have other legal rights.
+
+INDEMNITY
+You will indemnify and hold the Project, its directors,
+officers, members and agents harmless from all liability, cost
+and expense, including legal fees, that arise directly or
+indirectly from any of the following that you do or cause:
+[1] distribution of this etext, [2] alteration, modification,
+or addition to the etext, or [3] any Defect.
+
+DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
+You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by
+disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
+"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
+or:
+
+[1]  Only give exact copies of it.  Among other things, this
+     requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
+     etext or this "small print!" statement.  You may however,
+     if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable
+     binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
+     including any form resulting from conversion by word pro-
+     cessing or hypertext software, but only so long as
+     *EITHER*:
+
+     [*]  The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
+          does *not* contain characters other than those
+          intended by the author of the work, although tilde
+          (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
+          be used to convey punctuation intended by the
+          author, and additional characters may be used to
+          indicate hypertext links; OR
+
+     [*]  The etext may be readily converted by the reader at
+          no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
+          form by the program that displays the etext (as is
+          the case, for instance, with most word processors);
+          OR
+
+     [*]  You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
+          no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
+          etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
+          or other equivalent proprietary form).
+
+[2]  Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this
+     "Small Print!" statement.
+
+[3]  Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the
+     net profits you derive calculated using the method you
+     already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  If you
+     don't derive profits, no royalty is due.  Royalties are
+     payable to "Project Gutenberg Association/Carnegie-Mellon
+     University" within the 60 days following each
+     date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare)
+     your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return.
+
+WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
+The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time,
+scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty
+free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution
+you can think of.  Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg
+Association / Carnegie-Mellon University".
+
+*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*
+
+
+
+
+
+This etext was prepared by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
+from the 1916 A. C. Fifield edition.
+
+
+
+
+
+Erewhon Revisited
+
+by Samuel Butler
+
+
+
+
+
+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
+Sara ingannato, o vorra 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 naivete
+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 Ate.
+
+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 Sun-child'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 ranger-ship 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 viva 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
+pounds, 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 pounds, 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 day-break; 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 aerial 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 a 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 pounds, 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 pound, 10s. (silver), leaving him about
+3 pounds (silver), including the money for which he had sold the
+quails, to carry him on till Sunday afternoon.  He intended to
+spend say 2 pounds (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 resume 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 bona 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 was whether or no it would be sharp practice to
+know what she knew and say nothing about it.  Her husband hated
+finesse as much as she did, and they settled it that though the
+question was a nice one, the more proper thing to do would be to
+tell the Professors what it might so possibly concern one or both
+of them to know.
+
+On George's return without news of my father, they found he thought
+just as they did; so it was arranged that they should let the
+Professors dine in peace, but tell them about the Sunchild's being
+again in Erewhon as soon as dinner was over.
+
+"Happily," said George, "they will do no harm.  They will wish
+Higgs's presence to remain unknown as much as we do, and they will
+be glad that he should be got out of the country immediately."
+
+"Not so, my dear," said Yram.  "'Out of the country' will not do
+for those people.  Nothing short of 'out of the world' will satisfy
+them."
+
+"That," said George promptly, "must not be."
+
+"Certainly not, my dear, but that is what they will want.  I do not
+like having to tell them, but I am afraid we must."
+
+"Never mind," said the Mayor, laughing.  "Tell them, and let us see
+what happens."
+
+They then dressed for dinner, where Hanky and Panky were the only
+guests.  When dinner was over Yram sent away her other children,
+George alone remaining.  He sat opposite the Professors, while the
+Mayor and Yram were at the two ends of the table.
+
+"I am afraid, dear Professor Hanky," said Yram, "that I was not
+quite open with you last night, but I wanted time to think things
+over, and I know you will forgive me when you remember what a
+number of guests I had to attend to."  She then referred to what
+Hanky had told her about the supposed ranger, and shewed him how
+obvious it was that this man was a foreigner, who had been for some
+time in Erewhon more than seventeen years ago, but had had no
+communication with it since then.  Having pointed sufficiently, as
+she thought, to the Sunchild, she said, "You see who I believe this
+man to have been.  Have I said enough, or shall I say more?"
+
+"I understand you," said Hanky, "and I agree with you that the
+Sunchild will be in the temple to-morrow.  It is a serious
+business, but I shall not alter my sermon.  He must listen to what
+I may choose to say, and I wish I could tell him what a fool he was
+for coming here.  If he behaves himself, well and good:  your son
+will arrest him quietly after service, and by night he will be in
+the Blue Pool.  Your son is bound to throw him there as a foreign
+devil, without the formality of a trial.  It would be a most
+painful duty to me, but unless I am satisfied that that man has
+been thrown into the Blue Pool, I shall have no option but to
+report the matter at headquarters.  If, on the other hand, the poor
+wretch makes a disturbance, I can set the crowd on to tear him in
+pieces."
+
+George was furious, but he remained quite calm, and left everything
+to his mother.
+
+"I have nothing to do with the Blue Pool," said Yram drily.  "My
+son, I doubt not, will know how to do his duty; but if you let the
+people kill this man, his body will remain, and an inquest must be
+held, for the matter will have been too notorious to be hushed up.
+All Higgs's measurements and all marks on his body were recorded,
+and these alone would identify him.  My father, too, who is still
+master of the gaol, and many another, could swear to him.  Should
+the body prove, as no doubt it would, to be that of the Sunchild,
+what is to become of Sunchildism?"
+
+Hanky smiled.  "It would not be proved.  The measurements of a man
+of twenty or thereabouts would not correspond with this man's.  All
+we Professors should attend the inquest, and half Bridgeford is now
+in Sunch'ston.  No matter though nine-tenths of the marks and
+measurements corresponded, so long as there is a tenth that does
+not do so, we should not be flesh and blood if we did not ignore
+the nine points and insist only on the tenth.  After twenty years
+we shall find enough to serve our turn.  Think of what all the
+learning of the country is committed to; think of the change in all
+our ideas and institutions; think of the King and of Court
+influence.  I need not enlarge.  We shall not permit the body to be
+the Sunchild's.  No matter what evidence you may produce, we shall
+sneer it down, and say we must have more before you can expect us
+to take you seriously; if you bring more, we shall pay no
+attention; and the more you bring the more we shall laugh at you.
+No doubt those among us who are by way of being candid will admit
+that your arguments ought to be considered, but you must not expect
+that it will be any part of their duty to consider them.
+
+"And even though we admitted that the body had been proved up to
+the hilt to be the Sunchild's, do you think that such a trifle as
+that could affect Sunchildism?  Hardly.  Sunch'ston is no match for
+Bridgeford and the King; our only difficulty would lie in settling
+which was the most plausible way of the many plausible ways in
+which the death could be explained.  We should hatch up twenty
+theories in less than twenty hours, and the last state of
+Sunchildism would be stronger than the first.  For the people want
+it, and so long as they want it they will have it.  At the same
+time the supposed identification of the body, even by some few
+ignorant people here, might lead to a local heresy that is as well
+avoided, and it will be better that your son should arrest the man
+before the dedication, if he can be found, and throw him into the
+Blue Pool without any one but ourselves knowing that he has been
+here at all."
+
+I need not dwell on the deep disgust with which this speech was
+listened to, but the Mayor, and Yram, and George said not a word.
+
+"But, Mayoress," said Panky, who had not opened his lips so far,
+"are you sure that you are not too hasty in believing this stranger
+to be the Sunchild?  People are continually thinking that such and
+such another is the Sunchild come down again from the sun's palace
+and going to and fro among us.  How many such stories, sometimes
+very plausibly told, have we not had during the last twenty years?
+They never take root, and die out of themselves as suddenly as they
+spring up.  That the man is a poacher can hardly be doubted; I
+thought so the moment I saw him; but I think I can also prove to
+you that he is not a foreigner, and, therefore, that he is not the
+Sunchild.  He quoted the Sunchild's prayer with a corruption that
+can have only reached him from an Erewhonian source--"
+
+Here Hanky interrupted him somewhat brusquely.  "The man, Panky,"
+said he, "was the Sunchild; and he was not a poacher, for he had no
+idea that he was breaking the law; nevertheless, as you say,
+Sunchildism on the brain has been a common form of mania for
+several years.  Several persons have even believed themselves to be
+the Sunchild.  We must not forget this, if it should get about that
+Higgs has been here."
+
+Then, turning to Yram, he said sternly, "But come what may, your
+son must take him to the Blue Pool at nightfall."
+
+"Sir," said George, with perfect suavity, "you have spoken as
+though you doubted my readiness to do my duty.  Let me assure you
+very solemnly that when the time comes for me to act, I shall act
+as duty may direct."
+
+"I will answer for him," said Yram, with even more than her usual
+quick, frank smile, "that he will fulfil his instructions to the
+letter, unless," she added, "some black and white horses come down
+from heaven and snatch poor Higgs out of his grasp.  Such things
+have happened before now."
+
+"I should advise your son to shoot them if they do," said Hanky
+drily and sub-defiantly.
+
+Here the conversation closed; but it was useless trying to talk of
+anything else, so the Professors asked Yram to excuse them if they
+retired early, in view of the fact that they had a fatiguing day
+before them.  This excuse their hostess readily accepted.
+
+"Do not let us talk any more now," said Yram as soon as they had
+left the room.  "It will be quite time enough when the dedication
+is over.  But I rather think the black and white horses will come."
+
+"I think so too, my dear," said the Mayor laughing.
+
+"They shall come," said George gravely; "but we have not yet got
+enough to make sure of bringing them.  Higgs will perhaps be able
+to help me to-morrow."
+
+* * *
+
+"Now what," said Panky as they went upstairs, "does that woman
+mean--for she means something?  Black and white horses indeed!"
+
+"I do not know what she means to do," said the other, "but I know
+that she thinks she can best us."
+
+"I wish we had not eaten those quails."
+
+"Nonsense, Panky; no one saw us but Higgs, and the evidence of a
+foreign devil, in such straits as his, could not stand for a
+moment.  We did not eat them.  No, no; she has something that she
+thinks better than that.  Besides, it is absolutely impossible that
+she should have heard what happened.  What I do not understand is,
+why she should have told us about the Sunchild's being here at all.
+Why not have left us to find it out or to know nothing about it?  I
+do not understand it."
+
+So true is it, as Euclid long since observed, that the less cannot
+comprehend that which is the greater.  True, however, as this is,
+it is also sometimes true that the greater cannot comprehend the
+less.  Hanky went musing to his own room and threw himself into an
+easy chair to think the position over.  After a few minutes he went
+to a table on which he saw pen, ink, and paper, and wrote a short
+letter; then he rang the bell.
+
+When the servant came he said, "I want to send this note to the
+manager of the new temple, and it is important that he should have
+it to-night.  Be pleased, therefore, to take it to him and deliver
+it into his own hands; but I had rather you said nothing about it
+to the Mayor or Mayoress, nor to any of your fellow-servants.  Slip
+out unperceived if you can.  When you have delivered the note, ask
+for an answer at once, and bring it to me."
+
+So saying, he slipped a sum equal to about five shillings into the
+man's hand.
+
+The servant returned in about twenty minutes, for the temple was
+quite near, and gave a note to Hanky, which ran, "Your wishes shall
+be attended to without fail."
+
+"Good!" said Hanky to the man.  "No one in the house knows of your
+having run this errand for me?"
+
+"No one, sir."
+
+"Thank you!  I wish you a very good night."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII:  A VISIT TO THE PROVINCIAL DEFORMATORY AT FAIRMEAD
+
+
+
+Having finished his early dinner, and not fearing that he should be
+either recognised at Fairmead or again enquired after from
+Sunch'ston, my father went out for a stroll round the town, to see
+what else he could find that should be new and strange to him.  He
+had not gone far before he saw a large building with an inscription
+saying that it was the Provincial Deformatory for Boys.  Underneath
+the larger inscription there was a smaller one--one of those
+corrupt versions of my father's sayings, which, on dipping into the
+Sayings of the Sunchild, he had found to be so vexatiously common.
+The inscription ran:-
+
+
+"When the righteous man turneth away from the righteousness that he
+hath committed, and doeth that which is a little naughty and wrong,
+he will generally be found to have gained in amiability what he has
+lost in righteousness."  Sunchild Sayings, chap. xxii. v. 15.
+
+
+The case of the little girl that he had watched earlier in the day
+had filled him with a great desire to see the working of one of
+these curious institutions; he therefore resolved to call on the
+headmaster (whose name he found to be Turvey), and enquire about
+terms, alleging that he had a boy whose incorrigible rectitude was
+giving him much anxiety.  The information he had gained in the
+forenoon would be enough to save him from appearing to know nothing
+of the system.  On having rung the bell, he announced himself to
+the servant as a Mr. Senoj, and asked if he could see the
+Principal.
+
+Almost immediately he was ushered into the presence of a beaming,
+dapper-looking, little old gentleman, quick of speech and movement,
+in spite of some little portliness.
+
+"Ts, ts, ts," he said, when my father had enquired about terms and
+asked whether he might see the system at work.  "How unfortunate
+that you should have called on a Saturday afternoon.  We always
+have a half-holiday.  But stay--yes--that will do very nicely; I
+will send for them into school as a means of stimulating their
+refractory system."
+
+He called his servant and told him to ring the boys into school.
+Then, turning to my father he said, "Stand here, sir, by the
+window; you will see them all come trooping in.  H'm, h'm, I am
+sorry to see them still come back as soon as they hear the bell.  I
+suppose I shall ding some recalcitrancy into them some day, but it
+is uphill work.  Do you see the head-boy--the third of those that
+are coming up the path?  I shall have to get rid of him.  Do you
+see him? he is going back to whip up the laggers--and now he has
+boxed a boy's ears:  that boy is one of the most hopeful under my
+care.  I feel sure he has been using improper language, and my
+head-boy has checked him instead of encouraging him."  And so on
+till the boys were all in school.
+
+"You see, my dear sir," he said to my father, "we are in an
+impossible position.  We have to obey instructions from the Grand
+Council of Education at Bridgeford, and they have established these
+institutions in consequence of the Sunchild's having said that we
+should aim at promoting the greatest happiness of the greatest
+number.  This, no doubt, is a sound principle, and the greatest
+number are by nature somewhat dull, conceited, and unscrupulous.
+They do not like those who are quick, unassuming, and sincere; how,
+then, consistently with the first principles either of morality or
+political economy as revealed to us by the Sunchild, can we
+encourage such people if we can bring sincerity and modesty fairly
+home to them?  We cannot do so.  And we must correct the young as
+far as possible from forming habits which, unless indulged in with
+the greatest moderation, are sure to ruin them.
+
+"I cannot pretend to consider myself very successful.  I do my
+best, but I can only aim at making my school a reflection of the
+outside world.  In the outside world we have to tolerate much that
+is prejudicial to the greatest happiness of the greatest number,
+partly because we cannot always discover in time who may be let
+alone as being genuinely insincere, and who are in reality masking
+sincerity under a garb of flippancy, and partly also because we
+wish to err on the side of letting the guilty escape, rather than
+of punishing the innocent.  Thus many people who are perfectly well
+known to belong to the straightforward classes are allowed to
+remain at large, and may be even seen hobnobbing with the guardians
+of public immorality.  Indeed it is not in the public interest that
+straightforwardness should be extirpated root and branch, for the
+presence of a small modicum of sincerity acts as a wholesome
+irritant to the academicism of the greatest number, stimulating it
+to consciousness of its own happy state, and giving it something to
+look down upon.  Moreover, we hold it useful to have a certain
+number of melancholy examples, whose notorious failure shall serve
+as a warning to those who neglect cultivating that power of immoral
+self-control which shall prevent them from saying, or even
+thinking, anything that shall not immediately and palpably minister
+to the happiness, and hence meet the approval, of the greatest
+number."
+
+By this time the boys were all in school.  "There is not one prig
+in the whole lot," said the headmaster sadly.  "I wish there was,
+but only those boys come here who are notoriously too good to
+become current coin in the world unless they are hardened with an
+alloy of vice.  I should have liked to show you our gambling, book-
+making, and speculation class, but the assistant-master who attends
+to this branch of our curriculum is gone to Sunch'ston this
+afternoon.  He has friends who have asked him to see the dedication
+of the new temple, and he will not be back till Monday.  I really
+do not know what I can do better for you than examine the boys in
+Counsels of Imperfection.
+
+So saying, he went into the schoolroom, over the fireplace of which
+my father's eye caught an inscription, "Resist good, and it will
+fly from you.  Sunchild's Sayings, xvii. 2."  Then, taking down a
+copy of the work just named from a shelf above his desk, he ran his
+eye over a few of its pages.
+
+He called up a class of about twenty boys.
+
+"Now, my boys," he said, "Why is it so necessary to avoid extremes
+of truthfulness?"
+
+"It is not necessary, sir," said one youngster, "and the man who
+says that it is so is a scoundrel."
+
+"Come here, my boy, and hold out your hand."  When he had done so,
+Mr. Turvey gave him two sharp cuts with a cane.  "There now, go
+down to the bottom of the class and try not to be so extremely
+truthful in future."  Then, turning to my father, he said, "I hate
+caning them, but it is the only way to teach them.  I really do
+believe that boy will know better than to say what he thinks
+another time."
+
+He repeated his question to the class, and the head-boy answered,
+"Because, sir, extremes meet, and extreme truth will be mixed with
+extreme falsehood."
+
+"Quite right, my boy.  Truth is like religion; it has only two
+enemies--the too much and the too little.  Your answer is more
+satisfactory than some of your recent conduct had led me to
+expect."
+
+"But, sir, you punished me only three weeks ago for telling you a
+lie."
+
+"Oh yes; why, so I did; I had forgotten.  But then you overdid it.
+Still it was a step in the right direction."
+
+"And now, my boy," he said to a very frank and ingenuous youth
+about half way up the class, "and how is truth best reached?"
+
+"Through the falling out of thieves, sir."
+
+"Quite so.  Then it will be necessary that the more earnest,
+careful, patient, self-sacrificing, enquirers after truth should
+have a good deal of the thief about them, though they are very
+honest people at the same time.  Now what does the man" (who on
+enquiry my father found to be none other than Mr. Turvey himself)
+"say about honesty?"
+
+"He says, sir, that honesty does not consist in never stealing, but
+in knowing how and where it will be safe to do so."
+
+"Remember," said Mr. Turvey to my father, "how necessary it is that
+we should have a plentiful supply of thieves, if honest men are
+ever to come by their own."
+
+He spoke with the utmost gravity, evidently quite easy in his mind
+that his scheme was the only one by which truth could be
+successfully attained.
+
+"But pray let me have any criticism you may feel inclined to make."
+
+"I have none," said my father.  "Your system commends itself to
+common sense; it is the one adopted in the law courts, and it lies
+at the very foundation of party government.  If your academic
+bodies can supply the country with a sufficient number of thieves--
+which I have no doubt they can--there seems no limit to the amount
+of truth that may be attained.  If, however, I may suggest the only
+difficulty that occurs to me, it is that academic thieves shew no
+great alacrity in falling out, but incline rather to back each
+other up through thick and thin."
+
+"Ah, yes," said Mr. Turvey, "there is that difficulty; nevertheless
+circumstances from time to time arise to get them by the ears in
+spite of themselves.  But from whatever point of view you may look
+at the question, it is obviously better to aim at imperfection than
+perfection; for if we aim steadily at imperfection, we shall
+probably get it within a reasonable time, whereas to the end of our
+days we should never reach perfection.  Moreover, from a worldly
+point of view, there is no mistake so great as that of being always
+right."  He then turned to his class and said -
+
+"And now tell me what did the Sunchild tell us about God and
+Mammon?"
+
+The head-boy answered:  "He said that we must serve both, for no
+man can serve God well and truly who does not serve Mammon a little
+also; and no man can serve Mammon effectually unless he serve God
+largely at the same time."
+
+"What were his words?"
+
+"He said, 'Cursed be they that say, "Thou shalt not serve God and
+Mammon, for it is the whole duty of man to know how to adjust the
+conflicting claims of these two deities."'
+
+Here my father interposed.  "I knew the Sunchild; and I more than
+once heard him speak of God and Mammon.  He never varied the form
+of the words he used, which were to the effect that a man must
+serve either God or Mammon, but that he could not serve both."
+
+"Ah!" said Mr. Turvey, "that no doubt was his exoteric teaching,
+but Professors Hanky and Panky have assured me most solemnly that
+his esoteric teaching was as I have given it.  By the way, these
+gentlemen are both, I understand, at Sunch'ston, and I think it
+quite likely that I shall have a visit from them this afternoon.
+If you do not know them I should have great pleasure in introducing
+you to them; I was at Bridgeford with both of them."
+
+"I have had the pleasure of meeting them already," said my father,
+"and as you are by no means certain that they will come, I will ask
+you to let me thank you for all that you have been good enough to
+shew me, and bid you good-afternoon.  I have a rather pressing
+engagement--"
+
+"My dear sir, you must please give me five minutes more.  I shall
+examine the boys in the Musical Bank Catechism."  He pointed to one
+of them and said, "Repeat your duty towards your neighbour."
+
+"My duty towards my neighbour," said the boy, "is to be quite sure
+that he is not likely to borrow money of me before I let him speak
+to me at all, and then to have as little to do with him as--"
+
+At this point there was a loud ring at the door bell.  "Hanky and
+Panky come to see me, no doubt," said Mr. Turvey.  "I do hope it is
+so.  You must stay and see them."
+
+"My dear sir," said my father, putting his handkerchief up to his
+face, "I am taken suddenly unwell and must positively leave you."
+He said this in so peremptory a tone that Mr. Turvey had to yield.
+My father held his handkerchief to his face as he went through the
+passage and hall, but when the servant opened the door he took it
+down, for there was no Hanky or Panky--no one, in fact, but a poor,
+wizened old man who had come, as he did every other Saturday
+afternoon, to wind up the Deformatory clocks.
+
+Nevertheless, he had been scared, and was in a very wicked-fleeth-
+when-no-man-pursueth frame of mind.  He went to his inn, and shut
+himself up in his room for some time, taking notes of all that had
+happened to him in the last three days.  But even at his inn he no
+longer felt safe.  How did he know but that Hanky and Panky might
+have driven over from Sunch'ston to see Mr. Turvey, and might put
+up at this very house? or they might even be going to spend the
+night here.  He did not venture out of his room till after seven by
+which time he had made rough notes of as much of the foregoing
+chapters as had come to his knowledge so far.  Much of what I have
+told as nearly as I could in the order in which it happened, he did
+not learn till later.  After giving the merest outline of his
+interview with Mr. Turvey, he wrote a note as follows:- "I suppose
+I must have held forth about the greatest happiness of the greatest
+number, but I had quite forgotten it, though I remember repeatedly
+quoting my favourite proverb, 'Every man for himself, and the devil
+take the hindmost.'  To this they have paid no attention."
+
+By seven his panic about Hanky and Panky ended, for if they had not
+come by this time, they were not likely to do so.  Not knowing that
+they were staying at the Mayor's, he had rather settled it that
+they would now stroll up to the place where they had left their
+hoard and bring it down as soon as night had fallen.  And it is
+quite possible that they might have found some excuse for doing
+this, when dinner was over, if their hostess had not undesignedly
+hindered them by telling them about the Sunchild.  When the
+conversation recorded in the preceding chapter was over, it was too
+late for them to make any plausible excuse for leaving the house;
+we may be sure, therefore, that much more had been said than Yram
+and George were able to remember and report to my father.
+
+After another stroll about Fairmead, during which he saw nothing
+but what on a larger scale he had already seen at Sunch'ston, he
+returned to his inn at about half-past eight, and ordered supper in
+a public room that corresponded with the coffee-room of an English
+hotel.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV:  MY FATHER MAKES THE ACQUAINTANCE OF MR BALMY, AND
+WALKS WITH HIM NEXT DAY TO SUNCH'STON
+
+
+
+Up to this point, though he had seen enough to shew him the main
+drift of the great changes that had taken place in Erewhonian
+opinions, my father had not been able to glean much about the
+history of the transformation.  He could see that it had all grown
+out of the supposed miracle of his balloon ascent, and he could
+understand that the ignorant masses had been so astounded by an
+event so contrary to all their experience, that their faith in
+experience was utterly routed and demoralised.  It a man and a
+woman might rise from the earth and disappear into the sky, what
+else might not happen?  If they had been wrong in thinking such a
+thing impossible, in how much else might they not be mistaken also?
+The ground was shaken under their very feet. understand that a
+single incontrovertible miracle of the first magnitude should
+uproot the hedges of caution in the minds of the common people, but
+he could not understand how such men as Hanky and Panky, who
+evidently did not believe that there had been any miracle at all,
+had been led to throw themselves so energetically into a movement
+so subversive of all their traditions, when, as it seemed to him,
+if they had held out they might have pricked the balloon bubble
+easily enough, and maintained everything in statu quo.
+
+How, again, had they converted the King--if they had converted him?
+The Queen had had full knowledge of all the preparations for the
+ascent.  The King had had everything explained to him.  The workmen
+and workwomen who had made the balloon and the gas could testify
+that none but natural means had been made use of--means which, if
+again employed any number of times, would effect a like result.
+How could it be that when the means of resistance were so ample and
+so easy, the movement should nevertheless have been irresistible?
+For had it not been irresistible, was it to be believed that astute
+men like Hanky and Panky would have let themselves be drawn into
+it?
+
+What then had been its inner history?  My father had so fully
+determined to make his way back on the following evening, that he
+saw no chance of getting to know the facts--unless, indeed, he
+should be able to learn something from Hanky's sermon; he was
+therefore not sorry to find an elderly gentleman of grave but
+kindly aspect seated opposite to him when he sat down to supper.
+
+The expression on this man's face was much like that of the early
+Christians as shewn in the S. Giovanni Laterano bas-reliefs at
+Rome, and again, though less aggressively self-confident, like that
+on the faces of those who have joined the Salvation Army.  If he
+had been in England, my father would have set him down as a
+Swedenborgian; this being impossible, he could only note that the
+stranger bowed his head, evidently saying a short grace before he
+began to eat, as my father had always done when he was in Erewhon
+before.  I will not say that my father had never omitted to say
+grace during the whole of the last twenty years, but he said it
+now, and unfortunately forgetting himself, he said it in the
+English language, not loud, but nevertheless audibly.
+
+My father was alarmed at what he had done, but there was no need,
+for the stranger immediately said, "I hear, sir, that you have the
+gift of tongues.  The Sunchild often mentioned it to us, as having
+been vouchsafed long since to certain of the people, to whom, for
+our learning, he saw fit to feign that he belonged.  He thus
+foreshadowed prophetically its manifestation also among ourselves.
+All which, however, you must know as well as I do.  Can you
+interpret?"
+
+My father was much shocked, but he remembered having frequently
+spoken of the power of speaking in unknown tongues which was
+possessed by many of the early Christians, and he also remembered
+that in times of high religious enthusiasm this power had
+repeatedly been imparted, or supposed to be imparted, to devout
+believers in the middle ages.  It grated upon him to deceive one
+who was so obviously sincere, but to avoid immediate discomfiture
+he fell in with what the stranger had said.
+
+"Alas! sir," said he, "that rarer and more precious gift has been
+withheld from me; nor can I speak in an unknown tongue, unless as
+it is borne in upon me at the moment.  I could not even repeat the
+words that have just fallen from me."
+
+"That," replied the stranger, "is almost invariably the case.
+These illuminations of the spirit are beyond human control.  You
+spoke in so low a tone that I cannot interpret what you have just
+said, but should you receive a second inspiration later, I shall
+doubtless be able to interpret it for you.  I have been singularly
+gifted in this respect--more so, perhaps, than any other
+interpreter in Erewhon."
+
+My father mentally vowed that no second inspiration should be
+vouchsafed to him, but presently remembering how anxious he was for
+information on the points touched upon at the beginning of this
+chapter, and seeing that fortune had sent him the kind of man who
+would be able to enlighten him, he changed his mind; nothing, he
+reflected, would be more likely to make the stranger talk freely
+with him, than the affording him an opportunity for showing off his
+skill as an interpreter.
+
+Something, therefore, he would say, but what?  No one could talk
+more freely when the train of his thoughts, or the conversation of
+others, gave him his cue, but when told to say an unattached
+"something," he could not even think of "How do you do this
+morning? it is a very fine day;" and the more he cudgelled his
+brains for "something," the more they gave no response.  He could
+not even converse further with the stranger beyond plain "yes" and
+"no"; so he went on with his supper, and in thinking of what he was
+eating and drinking for the moment forgot to ransack his brain.  No
+sooner had he left off ransacking it, than it suggested something--
+not, indeed, a very brilliant something, but still something.  On
+having grasped it, he laid down his knife and fork, and with the
+air of one distraught he said -
+
+
+"My name is Norval, on the Grampian Hills
+My father feeds his flock--a frugal swain."
+
+
+"I heard you," exclaimed the stranger, "and I can interpret every
+word of what you have said, but it would not become me to do so,
+for you have conveyed to me a message more comforting than I can
+bring myself to repeat even to him who has conveyed it."
+
+Having said this he bowed his head, and remained for some time
+wrapped in meditation.  My father kept a respectful silence, but
+after a little time he ventured to say in a low tone, how glad he
+was to have been the medium through whom a comforting assurance had
+been conveyed.  Presently, on finding himself encouraged to renew
+the conversation, he threw out a deferential feeler as to the
+causes that might have induced Mr. Balmy to come to Fairmead.
+"Perhaps," he said, "you, like myself, have come to these parts in
+order to see the dedication of the new temple; I could not get a
+lodging in Sunch'ston, so I walked down here this morning."
+
+This, it seemed, had been Mr. Balmy's own case, except that he had
+not yet been to Sunch'ston.  Having heard that it was full to
+overflowing, he had determined to pass the night at Fairmead, and
+walk over in the morning--starting soon after seven, so as to
+arrive in good time for the dedication ceremony.  When my father
+heard this, he proposed that they should walk together, to which
+Mr. Balmy gladly consented; it was therefore arranged that they
+should go to bed early, breakfast soon after six, and then walk to
+Sunch'ston.  My father then went to his own room, where he again
+smoked a surreptitious pipe up the chimney.
+
+Next morning the two men breakfasted together, and set out as the
+clock was striking seven.  The day was lovely beyond the power of
+words, and still fresh--for Fairmead was some 2500 feet above the
+sea, and the sun did not get above the mountains that overhung it
+on the east side, till after eight o'clock.  Many persons were also
+starting for Sunch'ston, and there was a procession got up by the
+Musical Bank Managers of the town, who walked in it, robed in rich
+dresses of scarlet and white embroidered with much gold thread.
+There was a banner displaying an open chariot in which the Sunchild
+and his bride were seated, beaming with smiles, and in attitudes
+suggesting that they were bowing to people who were below them.
+The chariot was, of course, drawn by the four black and white
+horses of which the reader has already heard, and the balloon had
+been ignored.  Readers of my father's book will perhaps remember
+that my mother was not seen at all--she was smuggled into the car
+of the balloon along with sundry rugs, under which she lay
+concealed till the balloon had left the earth.  All this went for
+nothing.  It has been said that though God cannot alter the past,
+historians can; it is perhaps because they can be useful to Him in
+this respect that He tolerates their existence.  Painters, my
+father now realised, can do all that historians can, with even
+greater effect.
+
+Women headed the procession--the younger ones dressed in white,
+with veils and chaplets of roses, blue cornflower, and pheasant's
+eye Narcissus, while the older women were more soberly attired.
+The Bank Managers and the banner headed the men, who were mostly
+peasants, but among them were a few who seemed to be of higher
+rank, and these, for the most part, though by no means all of them,
+wore their clothes reversed--as I have forgotten to say was done
+also by Mr. Balmy.  Both men and women joined in singing a litany
+the words of which my father could not catch; the tune was one he
+had been used to play on his apology for a flute when he was in
+prison, being, in fact, none other than "Home, Sweet Home."  There
+was no harmony; they never got beyond the first four bars, but
+these they must have repeated, my father thought, at least a
+hundred times between Fairmead and Sunch'ston.  "Well," said he to
+himself, "however little else I may have taught them, I at any rate
+gave them the diatonic scale."
+
+He now set himself to exploit his fellow-traveller, for they soon
+got past the procession.
+
+"The greatest miracle," said he, "in connection with this whole
+matter, has been--so at least it seems to me--not the ascent of the
+Sunchild with his bride, but the readiness with which the people
+generally acknowledged its miraculous character.  I was one of
+those that witnessed the ascent, but I saw no signs that the crowd
+appreciated its significance.  They were astounded, but they did
+not fall down and worship."
+
+"Ah," said the other, "but you forget the long drought and the rain
+that the Sunchild immediately prevailed on the air-god to send us.
+He had announced himself as about to procure it for us; it was on
+this ground that the King assented to the preparation of those
+material means that were necessary before the horses of the sun
+could attach themselves to the chariot into which the balloon was
+immediately transformed.  Those horses might not be defiled by
+contact with this gross earth.  I too witnessed the ascent; at the
+moment, I grant you, I saw neither chariot nor horses, and almost
+all those present shared my own temporary blindness; the whole
+action from the moment when the balloon left the earth, moved so
+rapidly, that we were flustered, and hardly knew what it was that
+we were really seeing.  It was not till two or three years later
+that I found the scene presenting itself to my soul's imaginary
+sight in the full splendour which was no doubt witnessed, but not
+apprehended, by my bodily vision."
+
+"There," said my father, "you confirm an opinion that I have long
+held.--Nothing is so misleading as the testimony of eye-witnesses."
+
+"A spiritual enlightenment from within," returned Mr. Balmy, "is
+more to be relied on than any merely physical affluence from
+external objects.  Now, when I shut my eyes, I see the balloon
+ascend a little way, but almost immediately the heavens open, the
+horses descend, the balloon is transformed, and the glorious
+pageant careers onward till it vanishes into the heaven of heavens.
+Hundreds with whom I have conversed assure me that their experience
+has been the same as mine.  Has yours been different?"
+
+"Oh no, not at all; but I always see some storks circling round the
+balloon before I see any horses."
+
+"How strange!  I have heard others also say that they saw the
+storks you mention; but let me do my utmost I cannot force them
+into my mental image of the scene.  This shows, as you were saying
+just now, how incomplete the testimony of an eye-witness often is.
+It is quite possible that the storks were there, but the horses and
+the chariot have impressed themselves more vividly on my mind than
+anything else has."
+
+"Quite so; and I am not without hope that even at this late hour
+some further details may yet be revealed to us."
+
+"It is possible, but we should be as cautious in accepting any
+fresh details as in rejecting them.  Should some heresy obtain wide
+acceptance, visions will perhaps be granted to us that may be
+useful in refuting it, but otherwise I expect nothing more."
+
+"Neither do I, but I have heard people say that inasmuch as the
+Sunchild said he was going to interview the air-god in order to
+send us rain, he was more probably son to the air-god than to the
+sun.  Now here is a heresy which--"
+
+"But, my dear sir," said Mr. Balmy, interrupting him with great
+warmth, "he spoke of his father in heaven as endowed with
+attributes far exceeding any that can be conceivably ascribed to
+the air-god.  The power of the air-god does not extend beyond our
+own atmosphere."
+
+"Pray believe me," said my father, who saw by the ecstatic gleam in
+his companion's eye that there was nothing to be done but to agree
+with him, "that I accept--"
+
+"Hear me to the end," replied Mr. Balmy.  "Who ever heard the
+Sunchild claim relationship with the air-god?  He could command the
+air-god, and evidently did so, halting no doubt for this beneficent
+purpose on his journey towards his ultimate destination.  Can we
+suppose that the air-god, who had evidently intended withholding
+the rain from us for an indefinite period, should have so
+immediately relinquished his designs against us at the intervention
+of any less exalted personage than the sun's own offspring?
+Impossible!"
+
+"I quite agree with you," exclaimed my father, "it is out of the--"
+
+"Let me finish what I have to say.  When the rain came so copiously
+for days, even those who had not seen the miraculous ascent found
+its consequences come so directly home to them, that they had no
+difficulty in accepting the report of others.  There was not a
+farmer or cottager in the land but heaved a sigh of relief at
+rescue from impending ruin, and they all knew it was the Sunchild
+who had promised the King that he would make the air-god send it.
+So abundantly, you will remember, did it come, that we had to pray
+to him to stop it, which in his own good time he was pleased to
+do."
+
+"I remember," said my father, who was at last able to edge in a
+word, "that it nearly flooded me out of house and home.  And yet,
+in spite of all this, I hear that there are many at Bridgeford who
+are still hardened unbelievers."
+
+"Alas! you speak too truly.  Bridgeford and the Musical Banks for
+the first three years fought tooth and nail to blind those whom it
+was their first duty to enlighten.  I was a Professor of the
+hypothetical language, and you may perhaps remember how I was
+driven from my chair on account of the fearlessness with which I
+expounded the deeper mysteries of Sunchildism."
+
+"Yes, I remember well how cruelly--" but my father was not allowed
+to get beyond "cruelly."
+
+"It was I who explained why the Sunchild had represented himself as
+belonging to a people in many respects analogous to our own, when
+no such people can have existed.  It was I who detected that the
+supposed nation spoken of by the Sunchild was an invention designed
+in order to give us instruction by the light of which we might more
+easily remodel our institutions.  I have sometimes thought that my
+gift of interpretation was vouchsafed to me in recognition of the
+humble services that I was hereby allowed to render.  By the way,
+you have received no illumination this morning, have you?"
+
+"I never do, sir, when I am in the company of one whose
+conversation I find supremely interesting.  But you were telling me
+about Bridgeford:  I live hundreds of miles from Bridgeford, and
+have never understood the suddenness, and completeness, with which
+men like Professors Hanky and Panky and Dr. Downie changed front.
+Do they believe as you and I do, or did they merely go with the
+times?  I spent a couple of hours with Hanky and Panky only two
+evenings ago, and was not so much impressed as I could have wished
+with the depth of their religious fervour."
+
+"They are sincere now--more especially Hanky--but I cannot think I
+am judging them harshly, if I say that they were not so at first.
+Even now, I fear, that they are more carnally than spiritually
+minded.  See how they have fought for the aggrandisement of their
+own order.  It is mainly their doing that the Musical Banks have
+usurped the spiritual authority formerly exercised by the
+straighteners."
+
+"But the straighteners," said my father, "could not co-exist with
+Sunchildism, and it is hard to see how the claims of the Banks can
+be reasonably gainsaid."
+
+"Perhaps; and after all the Banks are our main bulwark against the
+evils that I fear will follow from the repeal of the laws against
+machinery.  This has already led to the development of a
+materialism which minimizes the miraculous element in the
+Sunchild's ascent, as our own people minimize the material means
+that were the necessary prologue to the miraculous."
+
+Thus did they converse; but I will not pursue their conversation
+further.  It will be enough to say that in further floods of talk
+Mr. Balmy confirmed what George had said about the Banks having
+lost their hold upon the masses.  That hold was weak even in the
+time of my father's first visit; but when the people saw the
+hostility of the Banks to a movement which far the greater number
+of them accepted, it seemed as though both Bridgeford and the Banks
+were doomed, for Bridgeford was heart and soul with the Banks.
+Hanky, it appeared, though under thirty, and not yet a Professor,
+grasped the situation, and saw that Bridgeford must either move
+with the times, or go.  He consulted some of the most sagacious
+Heads of Houses and Professors, with the result that a committee of
+enquiry was appointed, which in due course reported that the
+evidence for the Sunchild's having been the only child of the sun
+was conclusive.  It was about this time--that is to say some three
+years after his ascent--that "Higgsism," as it had been hitherto
+called, became "Sunchildism," and "Higgs" the "Sunchild."
+
+My father also learned the King's fury at his escape (for he would
+call it nothing else) with my mother.  This was so great that
+though he had hitherto been, and had ever since proved himself to
+be, a humane ruler, he ordered the instant execution of all who had
+been concerned in making either the gas or the balloon; and his
+cruel orders were carried out within a couple of hours.  At the
+same time he ordered the destruction by fire of the Queen's
+workshops, and of all remnants of any materials used in making the
+balloon.  It is said the Queen was so much grieved and outraged
+(for it was her doing that the material ground-work, so to speak,
+had been provided for the miracle) that she wept night and day
+without ceasing three whole months, and never again allowed her
+husband to embrace her, till he had also embraced Sunchildism.
+
+When the rain came, public indignation at the King's action was
+raised almost to revolution pitch, and the King was frightened at
+once by the arrival of the promised downfall and the displeasure of
+his subjects.  But he still held out, and it was only after
+concessions on the part of the Bridgeford committee, that he at
+last consented to the absorption of Sunchildism into the Musical
+Bank system, and to its establishment as the religion of the
+country.  The far-reaching changes in Erewhonian institutions with
+which the reader is already acquainted followed as a matter of
+course.
+
+"I know the difficulty," said my father presently, "with which the
+King was persuaded to allow the way in which the Sunchild's dress
+should be worn to be a matter of opinion, not dogma.  I see we have
+adopted different fashions.  Have you any decided opinions upon the
+subject?"
+
+"I have; but I will ask you not to press me for them.  Let this
+matter remain as the King has left it."
+
+My father thought that he might now venture on a shot.  So he said,
+"I have always understood, too, that the King forced the repeal of
+the laws against machinery on the Bridgeford committee, as another
+condition of his assent?"
+
+"Certainly.  He insisted on this, partly to gratify the Queen, who
+had not yet forgiven him, and who had set her heart on having a
+watch, and partly because he expected that a development of the
+country's resources, in consequence of a freer use of machinery,
+would bring more money into his exchequer.  Bridgeford fought hard
+and wisely here, but they had gained so much by the Musical Bank
+Managers being recognised as the authorised exponents of
+Sunchildism, that they thought it wise to yield--apparently with a
+good grace--and thus gild the pill which his Majesty was about to
+swallow.  But even then they feared the consequences that are
+already beginning to appear, all which, if I mistake not, will
+assume far more serious proportions in the future."
+
+"See," said my father suddenly, "we are coming to another
+procession, and they have got some banners, let us walk a little
+quicker and overtake it."
+
+"Horrible!" replied Mr. Balmy fiercely.  "You must be short-
+sighted, or you could never have called my attention to it.  Let us
+get it behind us as fast as possible, and not so much as look at
+it."
+
+"Oh yes, yes," said my father, "it is indeed horrible, I had not
+seen what it was."
+
+He had not the faintest idea what the matter was, but he let Mr.
+Balmy walk a little ahead of him, so that he could see the banners,
+the most important of which he found to display a balloon pure and
+simple, with one figure in the car.  True, at the top of the banner
+there was a smudge which might be taken for a little chariot, and
+some very little horses, but the balloon was the only thing
+insisted on.  As for the procession, it consisted entirely of men,
+whom a smaller banner announced to be workmen from the Fairmead
+iron and steel works.  There was a third banner, which said,
+"Science as well as Sunchildism."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV:  THE TEMPLE IS DEDICATED TO MY FATHER, AND CERTAIN
+EXTRACTS ARE READ FROM HIS SUPPOSED SAYINGS
+
+
+
+"It is enough to break one's heart," said Mr. Balmy when he had
+outstripped the procession, and my father was again beside him.
+"'As well as,' indeed!  We know what that means.  Wherever there is
+a factory there is a hot-bed of unbelief.  'As well as'!  Why it is
+a defiance."
+
+"What, I wonder," said my father innocently, "must the Sunchild's
+feelings be, as he looks down on this procession.  For there can be
+little doubt that he is doing so."
+
+"There can be no doubt at all," replied Mr. Balmy, "that he is
+taking note of it, and of all else that is happening this day in
+Erewhon.  Heaven grant that he be not so angered as to chastise the
+innocent as well as the guilty."
+
+"I doubt," said my father, "his being so angry even with this
+procession, as you think he is."
+
+Here, fearing an outburst of indignation, he found an excuse for
+rapidly changing the conversation.  Moreover he was angry with
+himself for playing upon this poor good creature.  He had not done
+so of malice prepense; he had begun to deceive him, because he
+believed himself to be in danger if he spoke the truth; and though
+he knew the part to be an unworthy one, he could not escape from
+continuing to play it, if he was to discover things that he was not
+likely to discover otherwise.
+
+Often, however, he had checked himself.  It had been on the tip of
+his tongue to be illuminated with the words,
+
+
+Sukoh and Sukop were two pretty men,
+They lay in bed till the clock struck ten,
+
+
+and to follow it up with,
+
+
+Now with the drops of this most Yknarc time
+My love looks fresh,
+
+
+in order to see how Mr. Balmy would interpret the assertion here
+made about the Professors, and what statement he would connect with
+his own Erewhonian name; but he had restrained himself.
+
+The more he saw, and the more he heard, the more shocked he was at
+the mischief he had done.  See how he had unsettled the little mind
+this poor, dear, good gentleman had ever had, till he was now a
+mere slave to preconception.  And how many more had he not in like
+manner brought to the verge of idiocy?  How many again had he not
+made more corrupt than they were before, even though he had not
+deceived them--as for example, Hanky and Panky.  And the young? how
+could such a lie as that a chariot and four horses came down out of
+the clouds enter seriously into the life of any one, without
+distorting his mental vision, if not ruining it?
+
+And yet, the more he reflected, the more he also saw that he could
+do no good by saying who he was.  Matters had gone so far that
+though he spoke with the tongues of men and angels he would not be
+listened to; and even if he were, it might easily prove that he had
+added harm to that which he had done already.  No.  As soon as he
+had heard Hanky's sermon, he would begin to work his way back, and
+if the Professors had not yet removed their purchase, he would
+recover it; but he would pin a bag containing about five pounds
+worth of nuggets on to the tree in which they had hidden it, and,
+if possible, he would find some way of sending the rest to George.
+
+He let Mr. Balmy continue talking, glad that this gentleman
+required little more than monosyllabic answers, and still more
+glad, in spite of some agitation, to see that they were now nearing
+Sunch'ston, towards which a great concourse of people was hurrying
+from Clearwater, and more distant towns on the main road.  Many
+whole families were coming,--the fathers and mothers carrying the
+smaller children, and also their own shoes and stockings, which
+they would put on when nearing the town.  Most of the pilgrims
+brought provisions with them.  All wore European costumes, but only
+a few of them wore it reversed, and these were almost invariably of
+higher social status than the great body of the people, who were
+mainly peasants.
+
+When they reached the town, my father was relieved at finding that
+Mr. Balmy had friends on whom he wished to call before going to the
+temple.  He asked my father to come with him, but my father said
+that he too had friends, and would leave him for the present, while
+hoping to meet him again later in the day.  The two, therefore,
+shook hands with great effusion, and went their several ways.  My
+father's way took him first into a confectioner's shop, where he
+bought a couple of Sunchild buns, which he put into his pocket, and
+refreshed himself with a bottle of Sunchild cordial and water.  All
+shops except those dealing in refreshments were closed, and the
+town was gaily decorated with flags and flowers, often festooned
+into words or emblems proper for the occasion.
+
+My father, it being now a quarter to eleven, made his way towards
+the temple, and his heart was clouded with care as he walked along.
+Not only was his heart clouded, but his brain also was oppressed,
+and he reeled so much on leaving the confectioner's shop, that he
+had to catch hold of some railings till the faintness and giddiness
+left him.  He knew the feeling to be the same as what he had felt
+on the Friday evening, but he had no idea of the cause, and as soon
+as the giddiness left him he thought there was nothing the matter
+with him.
+
+Turning down a side street that led into the main square of the
+town, he found himself opposite the south end of the temple, with
+its two lofty towers that flanked the richly decorated main
+entrance.  I will not attempt to describe the architecture, for my
+father could give me little information on this point.  He only saw
+the south front for two or three minutes, and was not impressed by
+it, save in so far as it was richly ornamented--evidently at great
+expense--and very large.  Even if he had had a longer look, I doubt
+whether I should have got more out of him, for he knew nothing of
+architecture, and I fear his test whether a building was good or
+bad, was whether it looked old and weather-beaten or no.  No matter
+what a building was, if it was three or four hundred years old he
+liked it, whereas, if it was new, he would look to nothing but
+whether it kept the rain out.  Indeed I have heard him say that the
+mediaeval sculpture on some of our great cathedrals often only
+pleases us because time and weather have set their seals upon it,
+and that if we could see it as it was when it left the mason's
+hands, we should find it no better than much that is now turned out
+in the Euston Road.
+
+The ground plan here given will help the reader to understand the
+few following pages more easily.
+
+                +--------------------+
+  N            /          a           \
+ W+E          /                 b      \------------+
+  S          /       G          H       \           |
+            |             C             |    N      |
++-----------+---------------------------+-----------+------+
+|                  ------------------- I                   |
+|                  -------------------                     |
+|                  -------------------                     |
+|          o'                                o'            |
+|                                                          |
+|  E |||||||||||||||                 ||||||||||||||||| F   |
+|    |||||||||||||||                 |||||||||||||||||     |
+|                                                          |
+| e  A     o'     B               C          o'    D       | f
+|    ---          ---             ---              ---     |
+|    ---          ---             ---              ---     |
+|    ---          ---             ---              ---     |
+|    ---   o'     ---             ---        o'    ---     |
+|    ---          ---             ---              ---     |
+|    ---          ---             ---              ---     |
+|    ---          ---             ---              ---     |
+|    ---   o'     ---             ---        o'    ---     |
+|                                                          |
+|                                                          |
+|                                                          |
+|          o'                                o'            |
+|                                                          |
+|                                                          |
+| g                                                        |  h
+|           o'                               o'            |
++-----------+--------------------------------+-------------+
+|           |--------------------------------|             |
+|           |-------------M------------------|             |
+|    K      |--------------------------------|     L       |
+|           |--------------------------------|             |
+|           |--------------------------------|             |
+|           |                                |             |
++-----------+                                +-------------+
+
+
+a.  Table with cashier's seat on either side, and alms-box in
+front.  The picture is exhibited on a scaffolding behind it.
+
+b.  The reliquary.
+
+c.  The President's chair.
+
+d.  Pulpit and lectern.
+
+e.  }
+f.  } Side doors.
+g.  }
+h.  }
+
+i.  Yram's seat.
+
+k.  Seats of George and the Sunchild.
+
+o'  Pillars.
+
+A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, blocks of seats.
+
+I.  Steps leading from the apse to the nave.
+
+K and L.  Towers.
+
+M.  Steps and main entrance.
+
+N.  Robing-room.
+
+The building was led up to by a flight of steps (M), and on
+entering it my father found it to consist of a spacious nave, with
+two aisles and an apse which was raised some three feet above the
+nave and aisles.  There were no transepts.  In the apse there was
+the table (a), with the two bowls of Musical Bank money mentioned
+on an earlier page, as also the alms-box in front of it.
+
+At some little distance in front of the table stood the President's
+chair (c), or I might almost call it throne.  It was so placed that
+his back would be turned towards the table, which fact again shews
+that the table was not regarded as having any greater sanctity than
+the rest of the temple.
+
+Behind the table, the picture already spoken of was raised aloft.
+There was no balloon; some clouds that hung about the lower part of
+the chariot served to conceal the fact that the painter was
+uncertain whether it ought to have wheels or no.  The horses were
+without driver, and my father thought that some one ought to have
+had them in hand, for they were in far too excited a state to be
+left safely to themselves.  They had hardly any harness, but what
+little there was was enriched with gold bosses.  My mother was in
+Erewhonian costume, my father in European, but he wore his clothes
+reversed.  Both he and my mother seemed to be bowing graciously to
+an unseen crowd beneath them, and in the distance, near the bottom
+of the picture, was a fairly accurate representation of the
+Sunch'ston new temple.  High up, on the right hand, was a disc,
+raised and gilt, to represent the sun; on it, in low relief, there
+was an indication of a gorgeous palace, in which, no doubt, the sun
+was supposed to live; though how they made it all out my father
+could not conceive.
+
+On the right of the table there was a reliquary (b) of glass, much
+adorned with gold, or more probably gilding, for gold was so scarce
+in Erewhon that gilding would be as expensive as a thin plate of
+gold would be in Europe:  but there is no knowing.  The reliquary
+was attached to a portable stand some five feet high, and inside it
+was the relic already referred to.  The crowd was so great that my
+father could not get near enough to see what it contained, but I
+may say here, that when, two days later, circumstances compelled
+him to have a close look at it, he saw that it consisted of about a
+dozen fine coprolites, deposited by some antediluvian creature or
+creatures, which, whatever else they may have been, were certainly
+not horses.
+
+In the apse there were a few cross benches (G and H) on either
+side, with an open space between them, which was partly occupied by
+the President's seat already mentioned.  Those on the right, as one
+looked towards the apse, were for the Managers and Cashiers of the
+Bank, while those on the left were for their wives and daughters.
+
+In the centre of the nave, only a few feet in front of the steps
+leading to the apse, was a handsome pulpit and lectern (d).  The
+pulpit was raised some feet above the ground, and was so roomy that
+the preacher could walk about in it.  On either side of it there
+were cross benches with backs (E and F); those on the right were
+reserved for the Mayor, civic functionaries, and distinguished
+visitors, while those on the left were for their wives and
+daughters.
+
+Benches with backs (A, B, C, D) were placed about half-way down
+both nave and aisles--those in the nave being divided so as to
+allow a free passage between them.  The rest of the temple was open
+space, about which people might walk at their will.  There were
+side doors (e, j, and f, h) at the upper and lower end of each
+aisle.  Over the main entrance was a gallery in which singers were
+placed.
+
+As my father was worming his way among the crowd, which was now
+very dense, he was startled at finding himself tapped lightly on
+the shoulder, and turning round in alarm was confronted by the
+beaming face of George.
+
+"How do you do, Professor Panky?" said the youth--who had decided
+thus to address him.  "What are you doing here among the common
+people?  Why have you not taken your place in one of the seats
+reserved for our distinguished visitors?  I am afraid they must be
+all full by this time, but I will see what I can do for you.  Come
+with me."
+
+"Thank you," said my father.  His heart beat so fast that this was
+all he could say, and he followed meek as a lamb.
+
+With some difficulty the two made their way to the right-hand
+corner seats of block C, for every seat in the reserved block was
+taken.  The places which George wanted for my father and for
+himself were already occupied by two young men of about eighteen
+and nineteen, both of them well-grown, and of prepossessing
+appearance.  My father saw by the truncheons they carried that they
+were special constables, but he took no notice of this, for there
+were many others scattered about the crowd.  George whispered a few
+words to one of them, and to my father's surprise they both gave up
+their seats, which appear on the plan as (k).
+
+It afterwards transpired that these two young men were George's
+brothers, who by his desire had taken the seats some hours ago, for
+it was here that George had determined to place himself and my
+father if he could find him.  He chose these places because they
+would be near enough to let his mother (who was at i, in the middle
+of the front row of block E, to the left of the pulpit) see my
+father without being so near as to embarrass him; he could also see
+and be seen by Hanky, and hear every word of his sermon; but
+perhaps his chief reason had been the fact that they were not far
+from the side-door at the upper end of the right-hand aisle, while
+there was no barrier to interrupt rapid egress should this prove
+necessary.
+
+It was now high time that they should sit down, which they
+accordingly did.  George sat at the end of the bench, and thus had
+my father on his left.  My father was rather uncomfortable at
+seeing the young men whom they had turned out, standing against a
+column close by, but George said that this was how it was to be,
+and there was nothing to be done but to submit.  The young men
+seemed quite happy, which puzzled my father, who of course had no
+idea that their action was preconcerted.
+
+Panky was in the first row of block F, so that my father could not
+see his face except sometimes when he turned round.  He was sitting
+on the Mayor's right hand, while Dr. Downie was on his left; he
+looked at my father once or twice in a puzzled way, as though he
+ought to have known him, but my father did not think he recognised
+him.  Hanky was still with President Gurgoyle and others in the
+robing-room, N; Yram had already taken her seat:  my father knew
+her in a moment, though he pretended not to do so when George
+pointed her out to him.  Their eyes met for a second; Yram turned
+hers quickly away, and my father could not see a trace of
+recognition in her face.  At no time during the whole ceremony did
+he catch her looking at him again.
+
+"Why, you stupid man," she said to him later on in the day with a
+quick, kindly smile, "I was looking at you all the time.  As soon
+as the President or Hanky began to talk about you I knew you would
+stare at him, and then I could look.  As soon as they left off
+talking about you I knew you would be looking at me, unless you
+went to sleep--and as I did not know which you might be doing, I
+waited till they began to talk about you again."
+
+My father had hardly taken note of his surroundings when the choir
+began singing, accompanied by a few feeble flutes and lutes, or
+whatever the name of the instrument should be, but with no violins,
+for he knew nothing of the violin, and had not been able to teach
+the Erewhonians anything about it.  The voices were all in unison,
+and the tune they sang was one which my father had taught Yram to
+sing; but he could not catch the words.
+
+As soon as the singing began, a procession, headed by the venerable
+Dr. Gurgoyle, President of the Musical Banks of the province, began
+to issue from the robing-room, and move towards the middle of the
+apse.  The President was sumptuously dressed, but he wore no mitre,
+nor anything to suggest an English or European Bishop.  The Vice-
+President, Head Manager, Vice-Manager, and some Cashiers of the
+Bank, now ranged themselves on either side of him, and formed an
+impressive group as they stood, gorgeously arrayed, at the top of
+the steps leading from the apse to the nave.  Here they waited till
+the singers left off singing.
+
+When the litany, or hymn, or whatever it should be called, was
+over, the Head Manager left the President's side and came down to
+the lectern in the nave, where he announced himself as about to
+read some passages from the Sunchild's Sayings.  Perhaps because it
+was the first day of the year according to their new calendar, the
+reading began with the first chapter, the whole of which was read.
+My father told me that he quite well remembered having said the
+last verse, which he still held as true; hardly a word of the rest
+was ever spoken by him, though he recognised his own influence in
+almost all of it.  The reader paused, with good effect, for about
+five seconds between each paragraph, and read slowly and very
+clearly.  The chapter was as follows:-
+
+
+These are the words of the Sunchild about God and man.  He said -
+
+1.  God is the baseless basis of all thoughts, things, and deeds.
+
+2.  So that those who say that there is a God, lie, unless they
+also mean that there is no God; and those who say that there is no
+God, lie, unless they also mean that there is a God.
+
+3.  It is very true to say that man is made after the likeness of
+God; and yet it is very untrue to say this.
+
+4.  God lives and moves in every atom throughout the universe.
+Therefore it is wrong to think of Him as 'Him' and 'He,' save as by
+the clutching of a drowning man at a straw.
+
+5.  God is God to us only so long as we cannot see Him.  When we
+are near to seeing Him He vanishes, and we behold Nature in His
+stead.
+
+6.  We approach Him most nearly when we think of Him as our
+expression for Man's highest conception, of goodness, wisdom, and
+power.  But we cannot rise to Him above the level of our own
+highest selves.
+
+7.  We remove ourselves most far from Him when we invest Him with
+human form and attributes.
+
+8.  My father the sun, the earth, the moon, and all planets that
+roll round my father, are to God but as a single cell in our bodies
+to ourselves.
+
+9.  He is as much above my father, as my father is above men and
+women.
+
+10.  The universe is instinct with the mind of God.  The mind of
+God is in all that has mind throughout all worlds.  There is no God
+but the Universe, and man, in this world is His prophet.
+
+11.  God's conscious life, nascent, so far as this world is
+concerned, in the infusoria, adolescent in the higher mammals,
+approaches maturity on this earth in man.  All these living beings
+are members one of another, and of God.
+
+12.  Therefore, as man cannot live without God in the world, so
+neither can God live in this world without mankind.
+
+13.  If we speak ill of God in our ignorance it may be forgiven us;
+but if we speak ill of His Holy Spirit indwelling in good men and
+women it may not be forgiven us."
+
+
+The Head Manager now resumed his place by President Gurgoyle's
+side, and the President in the name of his Majesty the King
+declared the temple to be hereby dedicated to the contemplation of
+the Sunchild and the better exposition of his teaching.  This was
+all that was said.  The reliquary was then brought forward and
+placed at the top of the steps leading from the apse to the nave;
+but the original intention of carrying it round the temple was
+abandoned for fear of accidents through the pressure round it of
+the enormous multitudes who were assembled.  More singing followed
+of a simple but impressive kind; during this I am afraid I must own
+that my father, tired with his walk, dropped off into a refreshing
+slumber, from which he did not wake till George nudged him and told
+him not to snore, just as the Vice-Manager was going towards the
+lectern to read another chapter of the Sunchild's Sayings--which
+was as follows:-
+
+
+The Sunchild also spoke to us a parable about the unwisdom of the
+children yet unborn, who though they know so much, yet do not know
+as much as they think they do.
+
+
+He said:-
+
+
+"The unborn have knowledge of one another so long as they are
+unborn, and this without impediment from walls or material
+obstacles.  The unborn children in any city form a population
+apart, who talk with one another and tell each other about their
+developmental progress.
+
+"They have no knowledge, and cannot even conceive the existence of
+anything that is not such as they are themselves.  Those who have
+been born are to them what the dead are to us.  They can see no
+life in them, and know no more about them than they do of any stage
+in their own past development other than the one through which they
+are passing at the moment.  They do not even know that their
+mothers are alive--much less that their mothers were once as they
+now are.  To an embryo, its mother is simply the environment, and
+is looked upon much as our inorganic surroundings are by ourselves.
+
+"The great terror of their lives is the fear of birth,--that they
+shall have to leave the only thing that they can think of as life,
+and enter upon a dark unknown which is to them tantamount to
+annihilation.
+
+"Some, indeed, among them have maintained that birth is not the
+death which they commonly deem it, but that there is a life beyond
+the womb of which they as yet know nothing, and which is a million
+fold more truly life than anything they have yet been able even to
+imagine.  But the greater number shake their yet unfashioned heads
+and say they have no evidence for this that will stand a moment's
+examination.
+
+"'Nay,' answer the others, 'so much work, so elaborate, so wondrous
+as that whereon we are now so busily engaged must have a purpose,
+though the purpose is beyond our grasp.'
+
+"'Never,' reply the first speakers; 'our pleasure in the work is
+sufficient justification for it.  Who has ever partaken of this
+life you speak of, and re-entered into the womb to tell us of it?
+Granted that some few have pretended to have done this, but how
+completely have their stories broken down when subjected to the
+tests of sober criticism.  No.  When we are born we are born, and
+there is an end of us.'
+
+"But in the hour of birth, when they can no longer re-enter the
+womb and tell the others, Behold! they find that it is not so."
+
+
+Here the reader again closed his book and resumed his place in the
+apse.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI:  PROFESSOR HANKY PREACHES A SERMON, IN THE COURSE OF
+WHICH MY FATHER DECLARES HIMSELF TO BE THE SUNCHILD
+
+
+
+Professor Hanky then went up into the pulpit, richly but soberly
+robed in vestments the exact nature of which I cannot determine.
+His carriage was dignified, and the harsh lines on his face gave it
+a strong individuality, which, though it did not attract, conveyed
+an impression of power that could not fail to interest.  As soon as
+he had given attention time to fix itself upon him, he began his
+sermon without text or preliminary matter of any kind, and
+apparently without notes.
+
+He spoke clearly and very quietly, especially at the beginning; he
+used action whenever it could point his meaning, or give it life
+and colour, but there was no approach to staginess or even
+oratorical display.  In fact, he spoke as one who meant what he was
+saying, and desired that his hearers should accept his meaning,
+fully confident in his good faith.  His use of pause was effective.
+After the word "mistake," at the end of the opening sentence, he
+held up his half-bent hand and paused for full three seconds,
+looking intently at his audience as he did so.  Every one felt the
+idea to be here enounced that was to dominate the sermon.
+
+The sermon--so much of it as I can find room for--was as follows:-
+
+
+"My friends, let there be no mistake.  At such a time, as this, it
+is well we should look back upon the path by which we have
+travelled, and forward to the goal towards which we are tending.
+As it was necessary that the material foundations of this building
+should be so sure that there shall be no subsidence in the
+superstructure, so is it not less necessary to ensure that there
+shall be no subsidence in the immaterial structure that we have
+raised in consequence of the Sunchild's sojourn among us.
+Therefore, my friends, I again say, 'Let there be no mistake.'
+Each stone that goes towards the uprearing of this visible fane,
+each human soul that does its part in building the invisible temple
+of our national faith, is bearing witness to, and lending its
+support to, that which is either the truth of truths, or the
+baseless fabric of a dream.
+
+"My friends, this is the only possible alternative.  He in whose
+name we are here assembled, is either worthy of more reverential
+honour than we can ever pay him, or he is worthy of no more honour
+than any other honourable man among ourselves.  There can be no
+halting between these two opinions.  The question of questions is,
+was he the child of the tutelary god of this world--the sun, and is
+it to the palace of the sun that he returned when he left us, or
+was he, as some amongst us still do not hesitate to maintain, a
+mere man, escaping by unusual but strictly natural means to some
+part of this earth with which we are unacquainted.  My friends,
+either we are on a right path or on a very wrong one, and in a
+matter of such supreme importance--there must be no mistake.
+
+"I need not remind those of you whose privilege it is to live in
+Sunch'ston, of the charm attendant on the Sunchild's personal
+presence and conversation, nor of his quick sympathy, his keen
+intellect, his readiness to adapt himself to the capacities of all
+those who came to see him while he was in prison.  He adored
+children, and it was on them that some of his most conspicuous
+miracles were performed.  Many a time when a child had fallen and
+hurt itself, was he known to make the place well by simply kissing
+it.  Nor need I recall to your minds the spotless purity of his
+life--so spotless that not one breath of slander has ever dared to
+visit it.  I was one of the not very many who had the privilege of
+being admitted to the inner circle of his friends during the later
+weeks that he was amongst us.  I loved him dearly, and it will ever
+be the proudest recollection of my life that he deigned to return
+me no small measure of affection."
+
+My father, furious as he was at finding himself dragged into
+complicity with this man's imposture, could not resist a smile at
+the effrontery with which he lowered his tone here, and appeared
+unwilling to dwell on an incident which he could not recall without
+being affected almost to tears, and mere allusion to which, had
+involved an apparent self-display that was above all things
+repugnant to him.  What a difference between the Hanky of Thursday
+evening with its "never set eyes on him and hope I never shall,"
+and the Hanky of Sunday morning, who now looked as modest as
+Cleopatra might have done had she been standing godmother to a
+little blue-eyed girl--Bellerophon's first-born baby.
+
+Having recovered from his natural, but promptly repressed, emotion,
+the Professor continued:-
+
+"I need not remind you of the purpose for which so many of us, from
+so many parts of our kingdom, are here assembled.  We know what we
+have come hither to do:  we are come each one of us to sign and
+seal by his presence the bond of his assent to those momentous
+changes, which have found their first great material expression in
+the temple that you see around you.
+
+"You all know how, in accordance with the expressed will of the
+Sunchild, the Presidents and Vice-Presidents of the Musical Banks
+began as soon as he had left us to examine, patiently, carefully,
+earnestly, and without bias of any kind, firstly the evidences in
+support of the Sunchild's claim to be the son of the tutelar deity
+of this world, and secondly the precise nature of his instructions
+as regards the future position and authority of the Musical Banks.
+
+"My friends, it is easy to understand why the Sunchild should have
+given us these instructions.  With that foresight which is the
+special characteristic of divine, as compared with human, wisdom,
+he desired that the evidences in support of his superhuman
+character should be collected, sifted, and placed on record, before
+anything was either lost through the death of those who could alone
+substantiate it, or unduly supplied through the enthusiasm of over-
+zealous visionaries.  The greater any true miracle has been, the
+more certainly will false ones accrete round it; here, then, we
+find the explanation of the command the Sunchild gave to us to
+gather, verify, and record, the facts of his sojourn here in
+Erewhon.  For above all things he held it necessary to ensure that
+there should be neither mistake, nor even possibility of mistake.
+
+"Consider for a moment what differences of opinion would infallibly
+have arisen, if the evidences for the miraculous character of the
+Sunchild's mission had been conflicting--if they had rested on
+versions each claiming to be equally authoritative, but each
+hopelessly irreconcilable on vital points with every single other.
+What would future generations have said in answer to those who bade
+them fling all human experience to the winds, on the strength of
+records written they knew not certainly by whom, nor how long after
+the marvels that they recorded, and of which all that could be
+certainly said was that no two of them told the same story?
+
+"Who that believes either in God or man--who with any self-respect,
+or respect for the gift of reason with which God had endowed him,
+either would, or could, believe that a chariot and four horses had
+come down from heaven, and gone back again with human or quasi-
+human occupants, unless the evidences for the fact left no loophole
+for escape?  If a single loophole were left him, he would be
+unpardonable, not for disbelieving the story, but for believing it.
+The sin against God would lie not in want of faith, but in faith.
+
+"My friends, there are two sins in matters of belief.  There is
+that of believing on too little evidence, and that of requiring too
+much before we are convinced.  The guilt of the latter is incurred,
+alas! by not a few amongst us at the present day, but if the
+testimony to the truth of the wondrous event so faithfully depicted
+on the picture that confronts you had been less contemporaneous,
+less authoritative, less unanimous, future generations--and it is
+for them that we should now provide--would be guilty of the first-
+named, and not less heinous sin if they believed at all.
+
+"Small wonder, then, that the Sunchild, having come amongst us for
+our advantage, not his own, would not permit his beneficent designs
+to be endangered by the discrepancies, mythical developments,
+idiosyncracies, and a hundred other defects inevitably attendant on
+amateur and irresponsible recording.  Small wonder, then, that he
+should have chosen the officials of the Musical Banks, from the
+Presidents and Vice-Presidents downwards to be the authoritative
+exponents of his teaching, the depositaries of his traditions, and
+his representatives here on earth till he shall again see fit to
+visit us.  For he will come.  Nay it is even possible that he may
+be here amongst us at this very moment, disguised so that none may
+know him, and intent only on watching our devotion towards him.  If
+this be so, let me implore him, in the name of the sun his father,
+to reveal himself."
+
+Now Hanky had already given my father more than one look that had
+made him uneasy.  He had evidently recognised him as the supposed
+ranger of last Thursday evening.  Twice he had run his eye like a
+searchlight over the front benches opposite to him, and when the
+beam had reached my father there had been no more searching.  It
+was beginning to dawn upon my father that George might have
+discovered that he was not Professor Panky; was it for this reason
+that these two young special constables, though they gave up their
+places, still kept so close to him?  Was George only waiting his
+opportunity to arrest him--not of course even suspecting who he
+was--but as a foreign devil who had tried to pass himself off as
+Professor Panky?  Had this been the meaning of his having followed
+him to Fairmead?  And should he have to be thrown into the Blue
+Pool by George after all?  "It would serve me," said he to himself,
+"richly right."
+
+These fears which had been taking shape for some few minutes were
+turned almost to certainties by the half-contemptuous glance Hanky
+threw towards him as he uttered what was obviously intended as a
+challenge.  He saw that all was over, and was starting to his feet
+to declare himself, and thus fall into the trap that Hanky was
+laying for him, when George gripped him tightly by the knee and
+whispered, "Don't--you are in great danger."  And he smiled kindly
+as he spoke.
+
+My father sank back dumbfounded.  "You know me?" he whispered in
+reply.
+
+"Perfectly.  So does Hanky, so does my mother; say no more," and he
+again smiled.
+
+George, as my father afterwards learned, had hoped that he would
+reveal himself, and had determined in spite of his mother's
+instructions, to give him an opportunity of doing so.  It was for
+this reason that he had not arrested him quietly, as he could very
+well have done, before the service began.  He wished to discover
+what manner of man his father was, and was quite happy as soon as
+he saw that he would have spoken out if he had not been checked.
+He had not yet caught Hanky's motive in trying to goad my father,
+but on seeing that he was trying to do this, he knew that a trap
+was being laid, and that my father must not be allowed to speak.
+
+Almost immediately, however, he perceived that while his eyes had
+been turned on Hanky, two burly vergers had wormed their way
+through the crowd and taken their stand close to his two brothers.
+Then he understood, and understood also how to frustrate.
+
+As for my father, George's ascendancy over him--quite felt by
+George--was so absolute that he could think of nothing now but the
+exceeding great joy of finding his fears groundless, and of
+delivering himself up to his son's guidance in the assurance that
+the void in his heart was filled, and that his wager not only would
+be held as won, but was being already paid.  How they had found
+out, why he was not to speak as he would assuredly have done--for
+he was in a white heat of fury--what did it all matter now that he
+had found that which he had feared he should fail to find?  He gave
+George a puzzled smile, and composed himself as best he could to
+hear the continuation of Hanky's sermon, which was as follows:-
+
+"Who could the Sunchild have chosen, even though he had been gifted
+with no more than human sagacity, but the body of men whom he
+selected?  It becomes me but ill to speak so warmly in favour of
+that body of whom I am the least worthy member, but what other is
+there in Erewhon so above all suspicion of slovenliness, self-
+seeking, preconceived bias, or bad faith?  If there was one set of
+qualities more essential than another for the conduct of the
+investigations entrusted to us by the Sunchild, it was those that
+turn on meekness and freedom from all spiritual pride.  I believe I
+can say quite truly that these are the qualities for which
+Bridgeford is more especially renowned.  The readiness of her
+Professors to learn even from those who at first sight may seem
+least able to instruct them--the gentleness with which they correct
+an opponent if they feel it incumbent upon them to do so, the
+promptitude with which they acknowledge error when it is pointed
+out to them and quit a position no matter how deeply they have been
+committed to it, at the first moment in which they see that they
+cannot hold it righteously, their delicate sense of honour, their
+utter immunity from what the Sunchild used to call log-rolling or
+intrigue, the scorn with which they regard anything like hitting
+below the belt--these I believe I may truly say are the virtues for
+which Bridgeford is pre-eminently renowned."
+
+The Professor went on to say a great deal more about the fitness of
+Bridgeford and the Musical Bank managers for the task imposed on
+them by the Sunchild, but here my father's attention flagged--nor,
+on looking at the verbatim report of the sermon that appeared next
+morning in the leading Sunch'ston journal, do I see reason to
+reproduce Hanky's words on this head.  It was all to shew that
+there had been no possibility of mistake.
+
+Meanwhile George was writing on a scrap of paper as though he was
+taking notes of the sermon.  Presently he slipped this into my
+father's hand.  It ran:-
+
+"You see those vergers standing near my brothers, who gave up their
+seats to us.  Hanky tried to goad you into speaking that they might
+arrest you, and get you into the Bank prisons.  If you fall into
+their hands you are lost.  I must arrest you instantly on a charge
+of poaching on the King's preserves, and make you my prisoner.  Let
+those vergers catch sight of the warrant which I shall now give
+you.  Read it and return it to me.  Come with me quietly after
+service.  I think you had better not reveal yourself at all."
+
+As soon as he had given my father time to read the foregoing,
+George took a warrant out of his pocket.  My father pretended to
+read it and returned it.  George then laid his hand on his
+shoulder, and in an undertone arrested him.  He then wrote on
+another scrap of paper and passed it on to the elder of his two
+brothers.  It was to the effect that he had now arrested my father,
+and that if the vergers attempted in any way to interfere between
+him and his prisoner, his brothers were to arrest both of them,
+which, as special constables, they had power to do.
+
+Yram had noted Hanky's attempt to goad my father, and had not been
+prepared for his stealing a march upon her by trying to get my
+father arrested by Musical Bank officials, rather than by her son.
+On the preceding evening this last plan had been arranged on; and
+she knew nothing of the note that Hanky had sent an hour or two
+later to the Manager of the temple--the substance of which the
+reader can sufficiently guess.  When she had heard Hanky's words
+and saw the vergers, she was for a few minutes seriously alarmed,
+but she was reassured when she saw George give my father the
+warrant, and her two sons evidently explaining the position to the
+vergers.
+
+Hanky had by this time changed his theme, and was warning his
+hearers of the dangers that would follow on the legalization of the
+medical profession, and the repeal of the edicts against machines.
+Space forbids me to give his picture of the horrible tortures that
+future generations would be put to by medical men, if these were
+not duly kept in check by the influence of the Musical Banks; the
+horrors of the inquisition in the middle ages are nothing to what
+he depicted as certain to ensue if medical men were ever to have
+much money at their command.  The only people in whose hands money
+might be trusted safely were those who presided over the Musical
+Banks.  This tirade was followed by one not less alarming about the
+growth of materialistic tendencies among the artisans employed in
+the production of mechanical inventions.  My father, though his
+eyes had been somewhat opened by the second of the two processions
+he had seen on his way to Sunch'ston, was not prepared to find that
+in spite of the superficially almost universal acceptance of the
+new faith, there was a powerful, and it would seem growing,
+undercurrent of scepticism, with a desire to reduce his escape with
+my mother to a purely natural occurence.
+
+"It is not enough," said Hanky, "that the Sunchild should have
+ensured the preparation of authoritative evidence of his
+supernatural character.  The evidences happily exist in
+overwhelming strength, but they must be brought home to minds that
+as yet have stubbornly refused to receive them.  During the last
+five years there has been an enormous increase in the number of
+those whose occupation in the manufacture of machines inclines them
+to a materialistic explanation even of the most obviously
+miraculous events, and the growth of this class in our midst
+constituted, and still constitutes, a grave danger to the state.
+
+"It was to meet this that the society was formed on behalf of which
+I appeal fearlessly to your generosity.  It is called, as most of
+you doubtless know, the Sunchild Evidence Society; and his Majesty
+the King graciously consented to become its Patron.  This society
+not only collects additional evidences--indeed it is entirely due
+to its labours that the precious relic now in this temple was
+discovered--but it is its beneficent purpose to lay those that have
+been authoritatively investigated before men who, if left to
+themselves, would either neglect them altogether, or worse still
+reject them.
+
+"For the first year or two the efforts of the society met with but
+little success among those for whose benefit they were more
+particularly intended, but during the present year the working
+classes in some cities and towns (stimulated very much by the
+lectures of my illustrious friend Professor Panky) have shewn a
+most remarkable and zealous interest in Sunchild evidences, and
+have formed themselves into local branches for the study and
+defence of Sunchild truth.
+
+"Yet in spite of all this need--of all this patient labour and
+really very gratifying success--the subscriptions to the society no
+longer furnish it with its former very modest income--an income
+which is deplorably insufficient if the organization is to be kept
+effective, and the work adequately performed.  In spite of the most
+rigid economy, the committee have been compelled to part with a
+considerable portion of their small reserve fund (provided by a
+legacy) to tide over difficulties.  But this method of balancing
+expenditure and income is very unsatisfactory, and cannot be long
+continued.
+
+"I am led to plead for the society with especial insistence at the
+present time, inasmuch as more than one of those whose unblemished
+life has made them fitting recipients of such a signal favour, have
+recently had visions informing them that the Sunchild will again
+shortly visit us.  We know not when he will come, but when he
+comes, my friends, let him not find us unmindful of, nor ungrateful
+for, the inestimable services he has rendered us.  For come he
+surely will.  Either in winter, what time icicles hang by the wall
+and milk comes frozen home in the pail--or in summer when days are
+at their longest and the mowing grass is about--there will be an
+hour, either at morn, or eve, or in the middle day, when he will
+again surely come.  May it be mine to be among those who are then
+present to receive him."
+
+Here he again glared at my father, whose blood was boiling.  George
+had not positively forbidden him to speak out; he therefore sprang
+to his feet, "You lying hound," he cried, "I am the Sunchild, and
+you know it."
+
+George, who knew that he had my father in his own hands, made no
+attempt to stop him, and was delighted that he should have declared
+himself though he had felt it his duty to tell him not to do so.
+Yram turned pale.  Hanky roared out, "Tear him in pieces--leave not
+a single limb on his body.  Take him out and burn him alive."  The
+vergers made a dash for him--but George's brothers seized them.
+The crowd seemed for a moment inclined to do as Hanky bade them,
+but Yram rose from her place, and held up her hand as one who
+claimed attention.  She advanced towards George and my father as
+unconcernedly as though she were merely walking out of church, but
+she still held her hand uplifted.  All eyes were turned on her, as
+well as on George and my father, and the icy calm of her self-
+possession chilled those who were inclined for the moment to take
+Hanky's words literally.  There was not a trace of fluster in her
+gait, action, or words, as she said -
+
+"My friends, this temple, and this day, must not be profaned with
+blood.  My son will take this poor madman to the prison.  Let him
+be judged and punished according to law.  Make room, that he and my
+son may pass."
+
+Then, turning to my father, she said, "Go quietly with the Ranger."
+
+Having so spoken, she returned to her seat as unconcernedly as she
+had left it.
+
+Hanky for a time continued to foam at the mouth and roar out, "Tear
+him to pieces! burn him alive!" but when he saw that there was no
+further hope of getting the people to obey him, he collapsed on to
+a seat in his pulpit, mopped his bald head, and consoled himself
+with a great pinch of a powder which corresponds very closely to
+our own snuff.
+
+George led my father out by the side door at the north end of the
+western aisle; the people eyed him intently, but made way for him
+without demonstration.  One voice alone was heard to cry out, "Yes,
+he is the Sunchild!"  My father glanced at the speaker, and saw
+that he was the interpreter who had taught him the Erewhonian
+language when he was in prison.
+
+George, seeing a special constable close by, told him to bid his
+brothers release the vergers, and let them arrest the interpreter--
+this the vergers, foiled as they had been in the matter of my
+father's arrest, were very glad to do.  So the poor interpreter, to
+his dismay, was lodged at once in one of the Bank prison-cells,
+where he could do no further harm.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII:  GEORGE TAKES HIS FATHER TO PRISON, AND THERE OBTAINS
+SOME USEFUL INFORMATION
+
+
+
+By this time George had got my father into the open square, where
+he was surprised to find that a large bonfire had been made and
+lighted.  There had been nothing of the kind an hour before; the
+wood, therefore, must have been piled and lighted while people had
+been in church.  He had no time at the moment to enquire why this
+had been done, but later on he discovered that on the Sunday
+morning the Manager of the new temple had obtained leave from the
+Mayor to have the wood piled in the square, representing that this
+was Professor Hanky's contribution to the festivities of the day.
+There had, it seemed, been no intention of lighting it until
+nightfall; but it had accidentally caught fire through the
+carelessness of a workman, much about the time when Hanky began to
+preach.  No one for a moment believed that there had been any
+sinister intention, or that Professor Hanky when he urged the crowd
+to burn my father alive, even knew that there was a pile of wood in
+the square at all--much less that it had been lighted--for he could
+hardly have supposed that the wood had been got together so soon.
+Nevertheless both George and my father, when they knew all that had
+passed, congratulated themselves on the fact that my father had not
+fallen into the hands of the vergers, who would probably have tried
+to utilise the accidental fire, though in no case is it likely they
+would have succeeded.
+
+As soon as they were inside the gaol, the old Master recognised my
+father.  "Bless my heart--what?  You here, again, Mr. Higgs?  Why,
+I thought you were in the palace of the sun your father."
+
+"I wish I was," answered my father, shaking hands with him, but he
+could say no more.
+
+"You are as safe here as if you were," said George laughing, "and
+safer."  Then turning to his grandfather, he said, "You have the
+record of Mr. Higgs's marks and measurements?  I know you have:
+take him to his old cell; it is the best in the prison; and then
+please bring me the record."
+
+The old man took George and my father to the cell which he had
+occupied twenty years earlier--but I cannot stay to describe his
+feelings on finding himself again within it.  The moment his
+grandfather's back was turned, George said to my father, "And now
+shake hands also with your son."
+
+As he spoke he took my father's hand and pressed it warmly between
+both his own.
+
+"Then you know you are my son," said my father as steadily as the
+strong emotion that mastered him would permit.
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"But you did not know this when I was walking with you on Friday?"
+
+"Of course not.  I thought you were Professor Panky; if I had not
+taken you for one of the two persons named in your permit, I should
+have questioned you closely, and probably ended by throwing you
+into the Blue Pool."  He shuddered as he said this.
+
+"But you knew who I was when you called me Panky in the temple?"
+
+"Quite so.  My mother told me everything on Friday evening."
+
+"And that is why you tried to find me at Fairmead?"
+
+"Yes, but where in the world were you?"
+
+"I was inside the Musical Bank of the town, resting and reading."
+
+George laughed, and said, "On purpose to hide?"
+
+"Oh no; pure chance.  But on Friday evening?  How could your mother
+have found out by that time that I was in Erewhon?  Am I on my head
+or my heels?"
+
+"On your heels, my father, which shall take you back to your own
+country as soon as we can get you out of this."
+
+"What have I done to deserve so much goodwill?  I have done you
+nothing but harm?"  Again he was quite overcome.
+
+George patted him gently on the hand, and said, "You made a bet and
+you won it.  During the very short time that we can be together,
+you shall be paid in full, and may heaven protect us both."
+
+As soon as my father could speak he said, "But how did your mother
+find out that I was in Erewhon?"
+
+"Hanky and Panky were dining with her, and they told her some
+things that she thought strange.  She cross-questioned them, put
+two and two together, learned that you had got their permit out of
+them, saw that you intended to return on Friday, and concluded that
+you would be sleeping in Sunch'ston.  She sent for me, told me all,
+bade me scour Sunch'ston to find you, intending that you should be
+at once escorted safely over the preserves by me.  I found your
+inn, but you had given us the slip.  I tried first Fairmead and
+then Clearwater, but did not find you till this morning.  For
+reasons too long to repeat, my mother warned Hanky and Panky that
+you would be in the temple; whereon Hanky tried to get you into his
+clutches.  Happily he failed, but if I had known what he was doing
+I should have arrested you before the service.  I ought to have
+done this, but I wanted you to win your wager, and I shall get you
+safely away in spite of them.  My mother will not like my having
+let you hear Hanky's sermon and declare yourself."
+
+"You half told me not to say who I was."
+
+"Yes, but I was delighted when you disobeyed me."
+
+"I did it very badly.  I never rise to great occasions, I always
+fall to them, but these things must come as they come."
+
+"You did it as well as it could be done, and good will come of it."
+
+"And now," he continued, "describe exactly all that passed between
+you and the Professors.  On which side of Panky did Hanky sit, and
+did they sit north and south or east and west?  How did you get--oh
+yes, I know that--you told them it would be of no further use to
+them.  Tell me all else you can."
+
+My father said that the Professors were sitting pretty well east
+and west, so that Hanky, who was on the east side, nearest the
+mountains, had Panky, who was on the Sunch'ston side, on his right
+hand.  George made a note of this.  My father then told what the
+reader already knows, but when he came to the measurement of the
+boots, George said, "Take your boots off," and began taking off his
+own.  "Foot for foot," said he, "we are not father and son, but
+brothers.  Yours will fit me; they are less worn than mine, but I
+daresay you will not mind that."
+
+On this George ex abundanti cautela knocked a nail out of the right
+boot that he had been wearing and changed boots with my father; but
+he thought it more plausible not to knock out exactly the same nail
+that was missing on my father's boot.  When the change was made,
+each found--or said he found--the other's boots quite comfortable.
+
+My father all the time felt as though he were a basket given to a
+dog.  The dog had got him, was proud of him, and no one must try to
+take him away.  The promptitude with which George took to him, the
+obvious pleasure he had in "running" him, his quick judgement,
+verging as it should towards rashness, his confidence that my
+father trusted him without reserve, the conviction of perfect
+openness that was conveyed by the way in which his eyes never
+budged from my father's when he spoke to him, his genial, kindly,
+manner, perfect physical health, and the air he had of being on the
+best possible terms with himself and every one else--the
+combination of all this so overmastered my poor father (who indeed
+had been sufficiently mastered before he had been five minutes in
+George's company) that he resigned himself as gratefully to being a
+basket, as George had cheerfully undertaken the task of carrying
+him.
+
+In passing I may say that George could never get his own boots back
+again, though he tried more than once to do so.  My father always
+made some excuse.  They were the only memento of George that he
+brought home with him; I wonder that he did not ask for a lock of
+his hair, but he did not.  He had the boots put against a wall in
+his bedroom, where he could see them from his bed, and during his
+illness, while consciousness yet remained with him, I saw his eyes
+continually turn towards them.  George, in fact, dominated him as
+long as anything in this world could do so.  Nor do I wonder; on
+the contrary, I love his memory the better; for I too, as will
+appear later, have seen George, and whatever little jealousy I may
+have felt, vanished on my finding him almost instantaneously gain
+the same ascendancy over me his brother, that he had gained over
+his and my father.  But of this no more at present.  Let me return
+to the gaol in Sunch'ston.
+
+"Tell me more," said George, "about the Professors."
+
+My father told him about the nuggets, the sale of his kit, the
+receipt he had given for the money, and how he had got the nuggets
+back from a tree, the position of which he described.
+
+"I know the tree; have you got the nuggets here?"
+
+"Here they are, with the receipt, and the pocket handkerchief
+marked with Hanky's name.  The pocket handkerchief was found
+wrapped round some dried leaves that we call tea, but I have not
+got these with me."  As he spoke he gave everything to George, who
+showed the utmost delight in getting possession of them.
+
+"I suppose the blanket and the rest of the kit are still in the
+tree?"
+
+"Unless Hanky and Panky have got them away, or some one has found
+them."
+
+"This is not likely.  I will now go to my office, but I will come
+back very shortly.  My grandfather shall bring you something to eat
+at once.  I will tell him to send enough for two"--which he
+accordingly did.
+
+On reaching the office, he told his next brother (whom he had made
+an under-ranger) to go to the tree he described, and bring back the
+bundle he should find concealed therein.  "You can go there and
+back," he said, "in an hour and a half, and I shall want the bundle
+by that time."
+
+The brother, whose name I never rightly caught, set out at once.
+As soon as he was gone, George took from a drawer the feathers and
+bones of quails, that he had shown my father on the morning when he
+met him.  He divided them in half, and made them into two bundles,
+one of which he docketed, "Bones of quails eaten, XIX. xii. 29, by
+Professor Hanky, P.O.W.W., &c."  And he labelled Panky's quail
+bones in like fashion.
+
+Having done this, he returned to the gaol, but on his way he looked
+in at the Mayor's, and left a note saying that he should be at the
+gaol, where any message would reach him, but that he did not wish
+to meet Professors Hanky and Panky for another couple of hours.  It
+was now about half-past twelve, and he caught sight of a crowd
+coming quietly out of the temple, whereby he knew that Hanky would
+soon be at the Mayor's house.
+
+Dinner was brought in almost at the moment when George returned to
+the gaol.  As soon as it was over George said:-
+
+"Are you quite sure you have made no mistake about the way in which
+you got the permit out of the Professors?"
+
+"Quite sure.  I told them they would not want it, and said I could
+save them trouble if they gave it me.  They never suspected why I
+wanted it.  Where do you think I may be mistaken?"
+
+"You sold your nuggets for rather less than a twentieth part of
+their value, and you threw in some curiosities, that would have
+fetched about half as much as you got for the nuggets.  You say you
+did this because you wanted money to keep you going till you could
+sell some of your nuggets.  This sounds well at first, but the
+sacrifice is too great to be plausible when considered.  It looks
+more like a case of good honest manly straightforward corruption."
+
+"But surely you believe me?"
+
+"Of course I do.  I believe every syllable that comes from your
+mouth, but I shall not be able to make out that the story was as it
+was not, unless I am quite certain what it really was."
+
+"It was exactly as I have told you."
+
+"That is enough.  And now, may I tell my mother that you will put
+yourself in her, and the Mayor's, and my, hands, and will do
+whatever we tell you?"
+
+"I will be obedience itself--but you will not ask me to do anything
+that will make your mother or you think less well of me?"
+
+"If we tell you what you are to do, we shall not think any the
+worse of you for doing it.  Then I may say to my mother that you
+will be good and give no trouble--not even though we bid you shake
+hands with Hanky and Panky?"
+
+"I will embrace them and kiss them on both cheeks, if you and she
+tell me to do so.  But what about the Mayor?"
+
+"He has known everything, and condoned everything, these last
+twenty years.  He will leave everything to my mother and me."
+
+"Shall I have to see him?"
+
+"Certainly.  You must be brought up before him to-morrow morning."
+
+"How can I look him in the face?"
+
+"As you would me, or any one else.  It is understood among us that
+nothing happened.  Things may have looked as though they had
+happened, but they did not happen."
+
+"And you are not yet quite twenty?"
+
+"No, but I am son to my mother--and," he added, "to one who can
+stretch a point or two in the way of honesty as well as other
+people."
+
+Having said this with a laugh, he again took my father's hand
+between both his, and went back to his office--where he set himself
+to think out the course he intended to take when dealing with the
+Professors.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII:  YRAM INVITES DR. DOWNIE AND MRS. HUMDRUM TO
+LUNCHEON--A PASSAGE AT ARMS BETWEEN HER AND HANKY IS AMICABLY
+ARRANGED
+
+
+
+The disturbance caused by my father's outbreak was quickly
+suppressed, for George got him out of the temple almost
+immediately; it was bruited about, however, that the Sunchild had
+come down from the palace of the sun, but had disappeared as soon
+as any one had tried to touch him.  In vain did Hanky try to put
+fresh life into his sermon; its back had been broken, and large
+numbers left the church to see what they could hear outside, or
+failing information, to discourse more freely with one another.
+
+Hanky did his best to quiet his hearers when he found that he could
+not infuriate them,--
+
+"This poor man," he said, "is already known to me, as one of those
+who have deluded themselves into believing that they are the
+Sunchild.  I have known of his so declaring himself, more than
+once, in the neighbourhood of Bridgeford, and others have not
+infrequently done the same; I did not at first recognize him, and
+regret that the shock of horror his words occasioned me should have
+prompted me to suggest violence against him.  Let this unfortunate
+affair pass from your minds, and let me again urge upon you the
+claims of the Sunchild Evidence Society."
+
+The audience on hearing that they were to be told more about the
+Sunchild Evidence Society melted away even more rapidly than
+before, and the sermon fizzled out to an ignominious end quite
+unworthy of its occasion.
+
+About half-past twelve, the service ended, and Hanky went to the
+robing-room to take off his vestments.  Yram, the Mayor, and Panky,
+waited for him at the door opposite to that through which my father
+had been taken; while waiting, Yram scribbled off two notes in
+pencil, one to Dr. Downie, and another to Mrs. Humdrum, begging
+them to come to lunch at once--for it would be one o'clock before
+they could reach the Mayor's.  She gave these notes to the Mayor,
+and bade him bring both the invited guests along with him.
+
+The Mayor left just as Hanky was coming towards her.  "This,
+Mayoress," he said with some asperity, "is a very serious business.
+It has ruined my collection.  Half the people left the temple
+without giving anything at all.  You seem," he added in a tone the
+significance of which could not be mistaken, "to be very fond,
+Mayoress, of this Mr. Higgs."
+
+"Yes," said Yram, "I am; I always liked him, and I am sorry for
+him; but he is not the person I am most sorry for at this moment--
+he, poor man, is not going to be horsewhipped within the next
+twenty minutes."  And she spoke the "he" in italics.
+
+"I do not understand you, Mayoress."
+
+"My husband will explain, as soon as I have seen him."
+
+"Hanky," said Panky, "you must withdraw, and apologise at once."
+
+Hanky was not slow to do this, and when he had disavowed
+everything, withdrawn everything, apologised for everything, and
+eaten humble pie to Yram's satisfaction, she smiled graciously, and
+held out her hand, which Hanky was obliged to take.
+
+"And now, Professor," she said, "let me return to your remark that
+this is a very serious business, and let me also claim a woman's
+privilege of being listened to whenever she chooses to speak.  I
+propose, then, that we say nothing further about this matter till
+after luncheon.  I have asked Dr. Downie and Mrs. Humdrum to join
+us--"
+
+"Why Mrs. Humdrum?" interrupted Hanky none too pleasantly, for he
+was still furious about the duel that had just taken place between
+himself and his hostess.
+
+"My dear Professor," said Yram good-humouredly, "pray say all you
+have to say and I will continue."
+
+Hanky was silent.
+
+"I have asked," resumed Yram, "Dr. Downie and Mrs. Humdrum to join,
+us, and after luncheon we can discuss the situation or no as you
+may think proper.  Till then let us say no more.  Luncheon will be
+over by two o'clock or soon after, and the banquet will not begin
+till seven, so we shall have plenty of time."
+
+Hanky looked black and said nothing.  As for Panky he was morally
+in a state of collapse, and did not count.
+
+Hardly had they reached the Mayor's house when the Mayor also
+arrived with Dr. Downie and Mrs. Humdrum, both of whom had seen and
+recognised my father in spite of his having dyed his hair.  Dr.
+Downie had met him at supper in Mr. Thims's rooms when he had
+visited Bridgeford, and naturally enough had observed him closely.
+Mrs. Humdrum, as I have already said, had seen him more than once
+when he was in prison.  She and Dr. Downie were talking earnestly
+over the strange reappearance of one whom they had believed long
+since dead, but Yram imposed on them the same silence that she had
+already imposed on the Professors.
+
+"Professor Hanky," said she to Mrs. Humdrum, in Hanky's hearing,
+"is a little alarmed at my having asked you to join our secret
+conclave.  He is not married, and does not know how well a woman
+can hold her tongue when she chooses.  I should have told you all
+that passed, for I mean to follow your advice, so I thought you had
+better hear everything yourself."
+
+Hanky still looked black, but he said nothing.  Luncheon was
+promptly served, and done justice to in spite of much
+preoccupation; for if there is one thing that gives a better
+appetite than another, it is a Sunday morning's service with a
+charity sermon to follow.  As the guests might not talk on the
+subject they wanted to talk about, and were in no humour to speak
+of anything else, they gave their whole attention to the good
+things that were before them, without so much as a thought about
+reserving themselves for the evening's banquet.  Nevertheless, when
+luncheon was over, the Professors were in no more genial,
+manageable, state of mind than they had been when it began.
+
+When the servants had left the room, Yram said to Hanky, "You saw
+the prisoner, and he was the man you met on Thursday night?"
+
+"Certainly, he was wearing the forbidden dress and he had many
+quails in his possession.  There is no doubt also that he was a
+foreign devil."
+
+At this point, it being now nearly half-past two, George came in,
+and took a seat next to Mrs. Humdrum--between her and his mother--
+who of course sat at the head of the table with the Mayor opposite
+to her.  On one side of the table sat the Professors, and on the
+other Dr. Downie, Mrs. Humdrum, and George, who had heard the last
+few words that Hanky had spoken.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX:  A COUNCIL IS HELD AT THE MAYOR'S, IN THE COURSE OF
+WHICH GEORGE TURNS THE TABLES ON THE PROFESSORS
+
+
+
+"Now who," said Yram, "is this unfortunate creature to be, when he
+is brought up to-morrow morning, on the charge of poaching?"
+
+"It is not necessary," said Hanky severely, "that he should be
+brought up for poaching.  He is a foreign devil, and as such your
+son is bound to fling him without trial into the Blue Pool.  Why
+bring a smaller charge when you must inflict the death penalty on a
+more serious one?  I have already told you that I shall feel it my
+duty to report the matter at headquarters, unless I am satisfied
+that the death penalty has been inflicted."
+
+"Of course," said George, "we must all of us do our duty, and I
+shall not shrink from mine--but I have arrested this man on a
+charge of poaching, and must give my reasons; the case cannot be
+dropped, and it must be heard in public.  Am I, or am I not, to
+have the sworn depositions of both you gentlemen to the fact that
+the prisoner is the man you saw with quails in his possession?  If
+you can depose to this he will be convicted, for there can be no
+doubt he killed the birds himself.  The least penalty my father can
+inflict is twelve months' imprisonment with hard labour; and he
+must undergo this sentence before I can Blue-Pool him.
+
+"Then comes the question whether or no he is a foreign devil.  I
+may decide this in private, but I must have depositions on oath
+before I do so, and at present I have nothing but hearsay.  Perhaps
+you gentlemen can give me the evidence I shall require, but the
+case is one of such importance that were the prisoner proved never
+so clearly to be a foreign devil, I should not Blue-Pool him till I
+had taken the King's pleasure concerning him.  I shall rejoice,
+therefore, if you gentlemen can help me to sustain the charge of
+poaching, and thus give me legal standing-ground for deferring
+action which the King might regret, and which once taken cannot be
+recalled."
+
+Here Yram interposed.  "These points," she said, "are details.
+Should we not first settle, not what, but who, we shall allow the
+prisoner to be, when he is brought up to-morrow morning?  Settle
+this, and the rest will settle itself.  He has declared himself to
+be the Sunchild, and will probably do so again.  I am prepared to
+identify him, so is Dr. Downie, so is Mrs. Humdrum, the
+interpreter, and doubtless my father.  Others of known
+respectability will also do so, and his marks and measurements are
+sure to correspond quite sufficiently.  The question is, whether
+all this is to be allowed to appear on evidence, or whether it is
+to be established, as it easily may, if we give our minds to it,
+that he is not the Sunchild."
+
+"Whatever else he is," said Hanky, "he must not be the Sunchild.
+He must, if the charge of poaching cannot be dropped, be a poacher
+and a foreign devil.  I was doubtless too hasty when I said that I
+believed I recognized the man as one who had more than once
+declared himself to be the Sunchild--"
+
+"But, Hanky," interrupted Panky, "are you sure that you can swear
+to this man's being the man we met on Thursday night?  We only saw
+him by firelight, and I doubt whether I should feel justified in
+swearing to him."
+
+"Well, well:  on second thoughts I am not sure, Panky, but what you
+may be right after all; it is possible that he may be what I said
+he was in my sermon."
+
+"I rejoice to hear you say so," said George, "for in this case the
+charge of poaching will fall through.  There will be no evidence
+against the prisoner.  And I rejoice also to think that I shall
+have nothing to warrant me in believing him to be a foreign devil.
+For if he is not to be the Sunchild, and not to be your poacher, he
+becomes a mere monomaniac.  If he apologises for having made a
+disturbance in the temple, and promises not to offend again, a
+fine, and a few days' imprisonment, will meet the case, and he may
+be discharged."
+
+"I see, I see," said Hanky very angrily.  "You are determined to
+get this man off if you can."
+
+"I shall act," said George, "in accordance with sworn evidence, and
+not otherwise.  Choose whether you will have the prisoner to be
+your poacher or no:  give me your sworn depositions one way or the
+other, and I shall know how to act.  If you depose on oath to the
+identity of the prisoner and your poacher, he will be convicted and
+imprisoned.  As to his being a foreign devil, if he is the
+Sunchild, of course he is one; but otherwise I cannot Blue-Pool him
+even when his sentence is expired, without testimony deposed to me
+on oath in private, though no open trial is required.  A case for
+suspicion was made out in my hearing last night, but I must have
+depositions on oath to all the leading facts before I can decide
+what my duty is.  What will you swear to?"
+
+"All this," said Hanky, in a voice husky with passion, "shall be
+reported to the King."
+
+"I intend to report every word of it; but that is not the point:
+the question is what you gentlemen will swear to?"
+
+"Very well.  I will settle it thus.  We will swear that the
+prisoner is the poacher we met on Thursday night, and that he is
+also a foreign devil:  his wearing the forbidden dress; his foreign
+accent; the foot-tracks we found in the snow, as of one coming over
+from the other side; his obvious ignorance of the Afforesting Act,
+as shown by his having lit a fire and making no effort to conceal
+his quails till our permit shewed him his blunder; the cock-and-
+bull story he told us about your orders, and that other story about
+his having killed a foreign devil--if these facts do not satisfy
+you, they will satisfy the King that the prisoner is a foreign
+devil as well as a poacher."
+
+"Some of these facts," answered George, "are new to me.  How do you
+know that the foot-tracks were made by the prisoner?"
+
+Panky brought out his note-book and read the details he had noted.
+
+"Did you examine the man's boots?"
+
+"One of them, the right foot; this, with the measurements, was
+quite enough."
+
+"Hardly.  Please to look at both soles of my own boots; you will
+find that those tracks were mine.  I will have the prisoner's boots
+examined; in the meantime let me tell you that I was up at the
+statues on Thursday morning, walked three or four hundred yards
+beyond them, over ground where there was less snow, returned over
+the snow, and went two or three times round them, as it is the
+Ranger's duty to do once a year in order to see that none of them
+are beginning to lean."
+
+He showed the soles of his boots, and the Professors were obliged
+to admit that the tracks were his.  He cautioned them as to the
+rest of the points on which they relied.  Might they not be as
+mistaken, as they had just proved to be about the tracks?  He could
+not, however, stir them from sticking to it that there was enough
+evidence to prove my father to be a foreign devil, and declaring
+their readiness to depose to the facts on oath.  In the end Hanky
+again fiercely accused him of trying to shield the prisoner.
+
+"You are quite right," said George, "and you will see my reasons
+shortly."
+
+"I have no doubt," said Hanky significantly, "that they are such as
+would weigh with any man of ordinary feeling."
+
+"I understand, then," said George, appearing to take no notice of
+Hanky's innuendo, "that you will swear to the facts as you have
+above stated them?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"Then kindly wait while I write them on the form that I have
+brought with me; the Mayor can administer the oath and sign your
+depositions.  I shall then be able to leave you, and proceed with
+getting up the case against the prisoner."
+
+So saying, he went to a writing-table in another part of the room,
+and made out the depositions.
+
+Meanwhile the Mayor, Mrs. Humdrum, and Dr. Downie (who had each of
+them more than once vainly tried to take part in the above
+discussion) conversed eagerly in an undertone among themselves.
+Hanky was blind with rage, for he had a sense that he was going to
+be outwitted; the Mayor, Yram, and Mrs. Humdrum had already seen
+that George thought he had all the trumps in his own hand, but they
+did not know more.  Dr. Downie was frightened, and Panky so muddled
+as to be hors de combat.
+
+George now rejoined the Professors, and read the depositions:  the
+Mayor administered the oath according to Erewhonian custom; the
+Professors signed without a word, and George then handed the
+document to his father to countersign.
+
+The Mayor examined it, and almost immediately said, "My dear
+George, you have made a mistake; these depositions are on a form
+reserved for deponents who are on the point of death."
+
+"Alas!" answered George, "there is no help for it.  I did my utmost
+to prevent their signing.  I knew that those depositions were their
+own death warrant,-- and that is why, though I was satisfied that
+the prisoner is a foreign devil, I had hoped to be able to shut my
+eyes.  I can now no longer do so, and as the inevitable
+consequence, I must Blue-Pool both the Professors before midnight.
+What man of ordinary feeling would not under these circumstances
+have tried to dissuade them from deposing as they have done?"
+
+By this time the Professors had started to their feet, and there
+was a look of horrified astonishment on the faces of all present,
+save that of George, who seemed quite happy.
+
+"What monstrous absurdity is this?" shouted Hanky; "do you mean to
+murder us?"
+
+"Certainly not.  But you have insisted that I should do my duty,
+and I mean to do it.  You gentlemen have now been proved to my
+satisfaction to have had traffic with a foreign devil; and under
+section 37 of the Afforesting Act, I must at once Blue-Pool any
+such persons without public trial."
+
+"Nonsense, nonsense, there was nothing of the kind on our permit,
+and as for trafficking with this foreign devil, we spoke to him,
+but we neither bought nor sold.  Where is the Act?"
+
+"Here.  On your permit you were referred to certain other clauses
+not set out therein, which might be seen at the Mayor's office.
+Clause 37 is as follows:-
+
+
+"It is furthermore enacted that should any of his Majesty's
+subjects be found, after examination by the Head Ranger, to have
+had traffic of any kind by way of sale or barter with any foreign
+devil, the said Ranger, on being satisfied that such traffic has
+taken place, shall forthwith, with or without the assistance of his
+under-rangers, convey such subjects of his Majesty to the Blue
+Pool, bind them, weight them, and fling them into it, without the
+formality of a trial, and shall report the circumstances of the
+case to his Majesty."
+
+
+"But we never bought anything from the prisoner.  What evidence can
+you have of this but the word of a foreign devil in such straits
+that he would swear to anything?"
+
+"The prisoner has nothing to do with it.  I am convinced by this
+receipt in Professor Panky's handwriting which states that he and
+you jointly purchased his kit from the prisoner, and also this bag
+of gold nuggets worth about 100 pounds in silver, for the absurdly
+small sum of 4 pounds, 10s. in silver.  I am further convinced by
+this handkerchief marked with Professor Hanky's name, in which was
+found a broken packet of dried leaves that are now at my office
+with the rest of the prisoner's kit."
+
+"Then we were watched and dogged," said Hanky, "on Thursday
+evening."
+
+"That, sir," replied George, "is my business, not yours."
+
+Here Panky laid his arms on the table, buried his head in them, and
+burst into tears.  Every one seemed aghast, but the Mayor, Yram,
+and Mrs. Humdrum saw that George was enjoying it all far too keenly
+to be serious.  Dr. Downie was still frightened (for George's
+surface manner was Rhadamanthine) and did his utmost to console
+Panky.  George pounded away ruthlessly at his case.
+
+"I say nothing about your having bought quails from the prisoner
+and eaten them.  As you justly remarked just now, there is no
+object in preferring a smaller charge when one must inflict the
+death penalty on a more serious one.  Still, Professor Hanky, these
+are bones of the quails you ate as you sate opposite the prisoner
+on the side of the fire nearest Sunch'ston; these are Professor
+Panky's bones, with which I need not disturb him.  This is your
+permit, which was found upon the prisoner, and which there can be
+no doubt you sold him, having been bribed by the offer of the
+nuggets for--"
+
+"Monstrous, monstrous!  Infamous falsehood!  Who will believe such
+a childish trumped up story!"
+
+"Who, sir, will believe anything else?  You will hardly contend
+that you did not know the nuggets were gold, and no one will
+believe you mean enough to have tried to get this poor man's
+property out of him for a song--you knowing its value, and he not
+knowing the same.  No one will believe that you did not know the
+man to be a foreign devil, or that he could hoodwink two such
+learned Professors so cleverly as to get their permit out of them.
+Obviously he seduced you into selling him your permit, and--I
+presume because he wanted a little of our money--he made you pay
+him for his kit.  I am satisfied that you have not only had traffic
+with a foreign devil, but traffic of a singularly atrocious kind,
+and this being so, I shall Blue-Pool both of you as soon as I can
+get you up to the Pool itself.  The sooner we start the better.  I
+shall gag you, and drive you up in a close carriage as far as the
+road goes; from that point you can walk up, or be dragged up as you
+may prefer, but you will probably find walking more comfortable."
+
+"But," said Hanky, "come what may, I must be at the banquet.  I am
+set down to speak."
+
+"The Mayor will explain that you have been taken somewhat suddenly
+unwell."
+
+Here Yram, who had been talking quietly with her husband, Dr.
+Downie, and Mrs. Humdrum, motioned her son to silence.
+
+"I feared," she said, "that difficulties might arise, though I did
+not foresee how seriously they would affect my guests.  Let Mrs.
+Humdrum on our side, and Dr. Downie on that of the Professors, go
+into the next room and talk the matter quietly over; let us then
+see whether we cannot agree to be bound by their decision.  I do
+not doubt but they will find some means of averting any catastrophe
+more serious--No, Professor Hanky, the doors are locked--than a
+little perjury in which we shall all share and share alike."
+
+"Do what you like," said Hanky, looking for all the world like a
+rat caught in a trap.  As he spoke he seized a knife from the
+table, whereon George pulled a pair of handcuffs from his pocket
+and slipped them on to his wrists before he well knew what was
+being done to him.
+
+"George," said the Mayor, "this is going too far.  Do you mean to
+Blue-Pool the Professors or no?"
+
+"Not if they will compromise.  If they will be reasonable, they
+will not be Blue-Pooled; if they think they can have everything
+their own way, the eels will be at them before morning."
+
+A voice was heard from the head of Panky which he had buried in his
+arms upon the table.  "Co-co-co-compromise," it said; and the
+effect was so comic that every one except Hanky smiled.  Meanwhile
+Yram had conducted Dr. Downie and Mrs. Humdrum into an adjoining
+room.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX:  MRS. HUMDRUM AND DR. DOWNIE PROPOSE A COMPROMISE,
+WHICH, AFTER AN AMENDMENT BY GEORGE, IS CARRIED NEM.  CON.
+
+
+
+They returned in about ten minutes, and Dr. Downie asked Mrs.
+Humdrum to say what they had agreed to recommend.
+
+"We think," said she very demurely, "that the strict course would
+be to drop the charge of poaching, and Blue-Pool both the
+Professors and the prisoner without delay.
+
+"We also think that the proper thing would be to place on record
+that the prisoner is the Sunchild--about which neither Dr. Downie
+nor I have a shadow of doubt.
+
+"These measures we hold to be the only legal ones, but at the same
+time we do not recommend them.  We think it would offend the public
+conscience if it came to be known, as it certainly would, that the
+Sunchild was violently killed, on the very day that had seen us
+dedicate a temple in his honour, and perhaps at the very hour when
+laudatory speeches were being made about him at the Mayor's
+banquet; we think also that we should strain a good many points
+rather than Blue-Pool the Professors.
+
+"Nothing is perfect, and Truth makes her mistakes like other
+people; when she goes wrong and reduces herself to such an
+absurdity as she has here done, those who love her must save her
+from herself, correct her, and rehabilitate her.
+
+"Our conclusion, therefore, is this:-
+
+"The prisoner must recant on oath his statement that he is the
+Sunchild.  The interpreter must be squared, or convinced of his
+mistake.  The Mayoress, Dr. Downie, I, and the gaoler (with the
+interpreter if we can manage him), must depose on oath that the
+prisoner is not Higgs.  This must be our contribution to the
+rehabilitation of Truth.
+
+"The Professors must contribute as follows:  They must swear that
+the prisoner is not the man they met with quails in his possession
+on Thursday night.  They must further swear that they have one or
+both of them known him, off and on, for many years past, as a
+monomaniac with Sunchildism on the brain but otherwise harmless.
+If they will do this, no proceedings are to be taken against them.
+
+"The Mayor's contribution shall be to reprimand the prisoner, and
+order him to repeat his recantation in the new temple before the
+Manager and Head Cashier, and to confirm his statement on oath by
+kissing the reliquary containing the newly found relic.
+
+"The Ranger and the Master of the Gaol must contribute that the
+prisoner's measurements, and the marks found on his body, negative
+all possibility of his identity with the Sunchild, and that all the
+hair on the covered as well as the uncovered parts of his body was
+found to be jet black.
+
+"We advise further that the prisoner should have his nuggets and
+his kit returned to him, and that the receipt given by the
+Professors together with Professor Hanky's handkerchief be given
+back to the Professors.
+
+"Furthermore, seeing that we should all of us like to have a quiet
+evening with the prisoner, we should petition the Mayor and
+Mayoress to ask him to meet all here present at dinner to-morrow
+evening, after his discharge, on the plea that Professors Hanky and
+Panky and Dr. Downie may give him counsel, convince him of his
+folly, and if possible free him henceforth from the monomania under
+which he now suffers.
+
+"The prisoner shall give his word of honour, never to return to
+Erewhon, nor to encourage any of his countrymen to do so.  After
+the dinner to which we hope the Mayoress Will invite us, the
+Ranger, if the night is fair, shall escort the prisoner as far as
+the statues, whence he will find his own way home.
+
+"Those who are in favour of this compromise hold up their hands."
+
+The Mayor and Yram held up theirs.  "Will you hold up yours,
+Professor Hanky," said George, "if I release you?"
+
+"Yes," said Hanky with a gruff laugh, whereon George released him
+and he held up both his hands.
+
+Panky did not hold up his, whereon Hanky said, "Hold up your hands,
+Panky, can't you?  We are really very well out of it."
+
+Panky, hardly lifting his head, sobbed out, "I think we ought to
+have our f-f-fo-fo-four pounds ten returned to us."
+
+"I am afraid, sir," said George, "that the prisoner must have spent
+the greater part of this money."
+
+Every one smiled, indeed it was all George could do to prevent
+himself from laughing outright.  The Mayor brought out his purse,
+counted the money, and handed it good-humouredly to Panky, who
+gratefully received it, and said he would divide it with Hanky.  He
+then held up his hands, "But," he added, turning to his brother
+Professor, "so long as I live, Hanky, I will never go out anywhere
+again with you."
+
+George then turned to Hanky and said, "I am afraid I must now
+trouble you and Professor Panky to depose on oath to the facts
+which Mrs. Humdrum and Dr. Downie propose you should swear to in
+open court to-morrow.  I knew you would do so, and have brought an
+ordinary form, duly filled up, which declares that the prisoner is
+not the poacher you met on Thursday; and also, that he has been
+long known to both of you as a harmless monomaniac."
+
+As he spoke he brought out depositions to the above effect which he
+had just written in his office; he shewed the Professors that the
+form was this time an innocent one, whereon they made no demur to
+signing and swearing in the presence of the Mayor, who attested.
+
+"The former depositions," said Hanky, "had better be destroyed at
+once."
+
+"That," said George, "may hardly be, but so long as you stick to
+what you have just sworn to, they will not be used against you."
+
+Hanky scowled, but knew that he was powerless and said no more.
+
+* * *
+
+The knowledge of what ensued did not reach me from my father.
+George and his mother, seeing how ill he looked, and what a shock
+the events of the last few days had given him, resolved that he
+should not know of the risk that George was about to run; they
+therefore said nothing to him about it.  What I shall now tell, I
+learned on the occasion already referred to when I had the
+happiness to meet George.  I am in some doubt whether it is more
+fitly told here, or when I come to the interview between him and
+me; on the whole, however, I suppose chronological order is least
+outraged by dealing with it here.
+
+As soon as the Professors had signed the second depositions, George
+said, "I have not yet held up my hands, but I will hold them up if
+Mrs. Humdrum and Dr. Downie will approve of what I propose.  Their
+compromise does not go far enough, for swear as we may, it is sure
+to get noised abroad, with the usual exaggerations, that the
+Sunchild has been here, and that he has been spirited away either
+by us, or by the sun his father.  For one person whom we know of as
+having identified him, there will be five, of whom we know nothing,
+and whom we cannot square.  Reports will reach the King sooner or
+later, and I shall be sent for.  Meanwhile the Professors will be
+living in fear of intrigue on my part, and I, however unreasonably,
+shall fear the like on theirs.  This should not be.  I mean,
+therefore, on the day following my return from escorting the
+prisoner, to set out for the capital, see the King, and make a
+clean breast of the whole matter.  To this end I must have the
+nuggets, the prisoner's kit, his receipt, Professor Hanky's
+handkerchief, and, of course, the two depositions just sworn to by
+the Professors.  I hope and think that the King will pardon us all
+round; but whatever he may do I shall tell him everything."
+
+Hanky was up in arms at once.  "Sheer madness," he exclaimed.  Yram
+and the Mayor looked anxious; Dr. Downie eyed George as though he
+were some curious creature, which he heard of but had never seen,
+and was rather disposed to like.  Mrs. Humdrum nodded her head
+approvingly.
+
+"Quite right, George," said she, "tell his Majesty everything."
+
+Dr. Downie then said, "Your son, Mayoress, is a very sensible
+fellow.  I will go with him, and with the Professors--for they had
+better come too:  each will hear what the other says, and we will
+tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.  I am,
+as you know, a persona grata at Court; I will say that I advised
+your son's action.  The King has liked him ever since he was a boy,
+and I am not much afraid about what he will do.  In public, no
+doubt we had better hush things up, but in private the King must be
+told."
+
+Hanky fought hard for some time, but George told him that it did
+not matter whether he agreed or no.  "You can come," he said, "or
+stop away, just as you please.  If you come, you can hear and
+speak; if you do not, you will not hear, but these two depositions
+will speak for you.  Please yourself."
+
+"Very well," he said at last, "I suppose we had better go."
+
+Every one having now understood what his or her part was to be,
+Yram said they had better shake hands all round and take a couple
+of hours' rest before getting ready for the banquet.  George said
+that the Professors did not shake hands with him very cordially,
+but the farce was gone through.  When the hand-shaking was over,
+Dr. Downie and Mrs. Humdrum left the house, and the Professors
+retired grumpily to their own room.
+
+I will say here that no harm happened either to George or the
+Professors in consequence of his having told the King, but will
+reserve particulars for my concluding chapter.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI:  YRAM, ON GETTING RID OF HER GUESTS, GOES TO THE
+PRISON TO SEE MY FATHER
+
+
+
+Yram did not take the advice she had given her guests, but set
+about preparing a basket of the best cold dainties she could find,
+including a bottle of choice wine that she knew my father would
+like; thus loaded she went to the gaol, which she entered by her
+father's private entrance.
+
+It was now about half-past four, so that much more must have been
+said and done after luncheon at the Mayor's than ever reached my
+father.  The wonder is that he was able to collect so much.  He,
+poor man, as soon as George left him, flung himself on to the bed
+that was in his cell and lay there wakeful, but not unquiet, till
+near the time when Yram reached the gaol.
+
+The old gaoler came to tell him that she had come and would be glad
+to see him; much as he dreaded the meeting there was no avoiding
+it, and in a few minutes Yram stood before him.
+
+Both were agitated, but Yram betrayed less of what she felt than my
+father.  He could only bow his head and cover his face with his
+hands.  Yram said, "We are old friends; take your hands from your
+face and let me see you.  There!  That is well."
+
+She took his right hand between both hers, looked at him with eyes
+full of kindness, and said softly -
+
+"You are not much changed, but you look haggard, worn, and ill; I
+am uneasy about you.  Remember, you are among friends, who will see
+that no harm befalls you.  There is a look in your eyes that
+frightens me."
+
+As she spoke she took the wine out of her basket, and poured him
+out a glass, but rather to give him some little thing to distract
+his attention, than because she expected him to drink it--which he
+could not do.
+
+She never asked him whether he found her altered, or turned the
+conversation ever such a little on to herself; all was for him; to
+soothe and comfort him, not in words alone, but in look, manner,
+and voice.  My father knew that he could thank her best by
+controlling himself, and letting himself be soothed and comforted--
+at any rate so far as he could seem to be.
+
+Up to this time they had been standing, but now Yram, seeing my
+father calmer, said, "Enough, let us sit down."
+
+So saying she seated herself at one end of the small table that was
+in the cell, and motioned my father to sit opposite to her.  "The
+light hurts you?" she said, for the sun was coming into the room.
+"Change places with me, I am a sun worshipper.  No, we can move the
+table, and we can then see each other better."
+
+This done, she said, still very softly, "And now tell me what it is
+all about.  Why have you come here?"
+
+"Tell me first," said my father, "what befell you after I had been
+taken away.  Why did you not send me word when you found what had
+happened? or come after me?  You know I should have married you at
+once, unless they bound me in fetters."
+
+"I know you would; but you remember Mrs. Humdrum?  Yes, I see you
+do.  I told her everything; it was she who saved me.  We thought of
+you, but she saw that it would not do.  As I was to marry Mr.
+Strong, the more you were lost sight of the better, but with George
+ever with me I have not been able to forget you.  I might have been
+very happy with you, but I could not have been happier than I have
+been ever since that short dreadful time was over.  George must
+tell you the rest.  I cannot do so.  All is well.  I love my
+husband with my whole heart and soul, and he loves me with his.  As
+between him and me, he knows everything; George is his son, not
+yours; we have settled it so, though we both know otherwise; as
+between you and me, for this one hour, here, there is no use in
+pretending that you are not George's father.  I have said all I
+need say.  Now, tell me what I asked you--Why are you here?"
+
+"I fear," said my father, set at rest by the sweetness of Yram's
+voice and manner--he told me he had never seen any one to compare
+with her except my mother--"I fear, to do as much harm now as I did
+before, and with as little wish to do any harm at all."
+
+He then told her all that the reader knows, and explained how he
+had thought he could have gone about the country as a peasant, and
+seen how she herself had fared, without her, or any one, even
+suspecting that he was in the country.
+
+"You say your wife is dead, and that she left you with a son--is he
+like George?"
+
+"In mind and disposition, wonderfully; in appearance, no; he is
+dark and takes after his mother, and though he is handsome, he is
+not so good-looking as George."
+
+"No one," said George's mother, "ever was, or ever will be, and he
+is as good as he looks."
+
+"I should not have believed you if you had said he was not."
+
+"That is right.  I am glad you are proud of him.  He irradiates the
+lives of every one of us."
+
+"And the mere knowledge that he exists will irradiate the rest of
+mine."
+
+"Long may it do so.  Let us now talk about this morning--did you
+mean to declare yourself?"
+
+"I do not know what I meant; what I most cared about was the doing
+what I thought George would wish to see his father do."
+
+"You did that; but he says he told you not to say who you were."
+
+"So he did, but I knew what he would think right.  He was uppermost
+in my thoughts all the time."
+
+Yram smiled, and said, "George is a dangerous person; you were both
+of you very foolish; one as bad as the other."
+
+"I do not know.  I do not know anything.  It is beyond me; but I am
+at peace about it, and hope I shall do the like again to-morrow
+before the Mayor."
+
+"I heartily hope you will do nothing of the kind.  George tells me
+you have promised him to be good and to do as we bid you."
+
+"So I will; but he will not tell me to say that I am not what I
+am."
+
+"Yes, he will, and I will tell you why.  If we permit you to be
+Higgs the Sunchild, he must either throw his own father into the
+Blue Pool--which he will not do--or run great risk of being thrown
+into it himself, for not having Blue-Pooled a foreigner.  I am
+afraid we shall have to make you do a good deal that neither you
+nor we shall like."
+
+She then told him briefly of what had passed after luncheon at her
+house, and what it had been settled to do, leaving George to tell
+the details while escorting him towards the statues on the
+following evening.  She said that every one would be so completely
+in every one else's power that there was no fear of any one's
+turning traitor.  But she said nothing about George's intention of
+setting out for the capital on Wednesday morning to tell the whole
+story to the King.
+
+"Now," she said, when she had told him as much as was necessary,
+"be good, and do as you said you would."
+
+"I will.  I will deny myself, not once, nor twice, but as often as
+is necessary.  I will kiss the reliquary, and when I meet Hanky and
+Panky at your table, I will be sworn brother to them--so long, that
+is, as George is out of hearing; for I cannot lie well to them when
+he is listening."
+
+"Oh yes, you can.  He will understand all about it; he enjoys
+falsehood as well as we all do, and has the nicest sense of when to
+lie and when not to do so."
+
+"What gift can be more invaluable?"
+
+My father, knowing that he might not have another chance of seeing
+Yram alone, now changed the conversation.
+
+"I have something," he said, "for George, but he must know nothing
+about it till after I am gone."
+
+As he spoke, he took from his pockets the nine small bags of
+nuggets that remained to him.
+
+"But this," said Yram, "being gold, is a large sum:  can you indeed
+spare it, and do you really wish George to have it all?"
+
+"I shall be very unhappy if he does not, but he must know nothing
+about it till I am out of Erewhon."
+
+My father then explained to her that he was now very rich, and
+would have brought ten times as much, if he had known of George's
+existence.  "Then," said Yram, musing, "if you are rich, I accept
+and thank you heartily on his behalf.  I can see a reason for his
+not knowing what you are giving him at present, but it is too long
+to tell."
+
+The reason was, that if George knew of this gold before he saw the
+King, he would be sure to tell him of it, and the King might claim
+it, for George would never explain that it was a gift from father
+to son; whereas if the King had once pardoned him, he would not be
+so squeamish as to open up the whole thing again with a postscript
+to his confession.  But of this she said not a word.
+
+My father then told her of the box of sovereigns that he had left
+in his saddle-bags.  "They are coined," he said, "and George will
+have to melt them down, but he will find some way of doing this.
+They will be worth rather more than these nine bags of nuggets."
+
+"The difficulty will be to get him to go down and fetch them, for
+it is against his oath to go far beyond the statues.  If you could
+be taken faint and say you wanted help, he would see you to your
+camping ground without a word, but he would be angry if he found he
+had been tricked into breaking his oath in order that money might
+be given him.  It would never do.  Besides, there would not be
+time, for he must be back here on Tuesday night.  No; if he breaks
+his oath he must do it with his eyes open--and he will do it later
+on--or I will go and fetch the money for him myself.  He is in love
+with a grand-daughter of Mrs. Humdrum's, and this sum, together
+with what you are now leaving with me, will make him a well-to-do
+man.  I have always been unhappy about his having any of the
+Mayor's money, and his salary was not quite enough for him to marry
+on.  What can I say to thank you?"
+
+"Tell me, please, about Mrs. Humdrum's grand-daughter.  You like
+her as a wife for George?"
+
+"Absolutely.  She is just such another as her grandmother must have
+been.  She and George have been sworn lovers ever since he was ten,
+and she eight.  The only drawback is that her mother, Mrs.
+Humdrum's second daughter, married for love, and there are many
+children, so that there will be no money with her; but what you are
+leaving will make everything quite easy, for he will sell the gold
+at once.  I am so glad about it."
+
+"Can you ask Mrs. Humdrum to bring her grand-daughter with her to-
+morrow evening?"
+
+"I am afraid not, for we shall want to talk freely at dinner, and
+she must not know that you are the Sunchild; she shall come to my
+house in the afternoon and you can see her then.  You will be quite
+happy about her, but of course she must not know that you are her
+father-in-law that is to be."
+
+"One thing more.  As George must know nothing about the sovereigns,
+I must tell you how I will hide them.  They are in a silver box,
+which I will bind to the bough of some tree close to my camp; or if
+I can find a tree with a hole in it I will drop the box into the
+hole.  He cannot miss my camp; he has only to follow the stream
+that runs down from the pass till it gets near a large river, and
+on a small triangular patch of flat ground, he will see the ashes
+of my camp fire, a few yards away from the stream on his right hand
+as he descends.  In whatever tree I may hide the box, I will strew
+wood ashes for some yards in a straight line towards it.  I will
+then light another fire underneath, and blaze the tree with a knife
+that I have left at my camping ground.  He is sure to find it."
+
+Yram again thanked him, and then my father, to change the
+conversation, asked whether she thought that George really would
+have Blue-Pooled the Professors.
+
+"There is no knowing," said Yram.  "He is the gentlest creature
+living till some great provocation rouses him, and I never saw him
+hate and despise any one as he does the Professors.  Much of what
+he said was merely put on, for he knew the Professors must yield.
+I do not like his ever having to throw any one into that horrid
+place, no more does he, but the Rangership is exactly the sort of
+thing to suit him, and the opening was too good to lose.  I must
+now leave you, and get ready for the Mayor's banquet.  We shall
+meet again to-morrow evening.  Try and eat what I have brought you
+in this basket.  I hope you will like the wine."  She put out her
+hand, which my father took, and in another moment she was gone, for
+she saw a look in his face as though he would fain have asked her
+to let him once more press his lips to hers.  Had he done this,
+without thinking about it, it is likely enough she would not have
+been ill pleased.  But who can say?
+
+For the rest of the evening my father was left very much to his own
+not too comfortable reflections.  He spent part of it in posting up
+the notes from which, as well as from his own mouth, my story is in
+great part taken.  The good things that Yram had left with him, and
+his pipe, which she had told him he might smoke quite freely,
+occupied another part, and by ten o'clock he went to bed.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII:  MAINLY OCCUPIED WITH A VERACIOUS EXTRACT FROM A
+SUNCH'STONIAN JOURNAL
+
+
+
+While my father was thus wiling away the hours in his cell, the
+whole town was being illuminated in his honour, and not more than a
+couple of hundred yards off, at the Mayor's banquet, he was being
+extolled as a superhuman being.
+
+The banquet, which was at the town hall, was indeed a very
+brilliant affair, but the little space that is left me forbids my
+saying more than that Hanky made what was considered the speech of
+the evening, and betrayed no sign of ill effects from the bad
+quarter of an hour which he had spent so recently.  Not a trace was
+to be seen of any desire on his part to change his tone as regards
+Sunchildism--as, for example, to minimize the importance of the
+relic, or to remind his hearers that though the chariot and horses
+had undoubtedly come down from the sky and carried away my father
+and mother, yet that the earlier stage of the ascent had been made
+in a balloon.  It almost seemed, so George told my father, as
+though he had resolved that he would speak lies, all lies, and
+nothing but lies.
+
+Panky, who was also to have spoken, was excused by the Mayor on the
+ground that the great heat and the excitement of the day's
+proceedings had quite robbed him of his voice.
+
+Dr. Downie had a jumping cat before his mental vision.  He spoke
+quietly and sensibly, dwelling chiefly on the benefits that had
+already accrued to the kingdom through the abolition of the edicts
+against machinery, and the great developments which he foresaw as
+probable in the near future.  He held up the Sunchild's example,
+and his ethical teaching, to the imitation and admiration of his
+hearers, but he said nothing about the miraculous element in my
+father's career, on which he declared that his friend Professor
+Hanky had already so eloquently enlarged as to make further
+allusion to it superfluous.
+
+The reader knows what was to happen on the following morning.  The
+programme concerted at the Mayor's was strictly adhered to.  The
+following account, however, which appeared in the Sunch'ston bi-
+weekly newspaper two days after my father had left, was given me by
+George a year later, on the occasion of that interview to which I
+have already more than once referred.  There were other accounts in
+other papers, but the one I am giving departs the least widely from
+the facts.  It ran:-
+
+"THE CLOSE OF A DISAGREEABLE INCIDENT.--Our readers will remember
+that on Sunday last during the solemn inauguration of the temple
+now dedicated to the Sunchild, an individual on the front bench of
+those set apart for the public suddenly interrupted Professor
+Hanky's eloquent sermon by declaring himself to be the Sunchild,
+and saying that he had come down from the sun to sanctify by his
+presence the glorious fane which the piety of our fellow-citizens
+and others has erected in his honour.
+
+"Wild rumours obtained credence throughout the congregation to the
+effect that this person was none other than the Sunchild himself,
+and in spite of the fact that his complexion and the colour of his
+hair showed this to be impossible, more than one person was carried
+away by the excitement of the moment, and by some few points of
+resemblance between the stranger and the Sunchild.  Under the
+influence of this belief, they were preparing to give him the
+honour which they supposed justly due to him, when to the surprise
+of every one he was taken into custody by the deservedly popular
+Ranger of the King's preserves, and in the course of the afternoon
+it became generally known that he had been arrested on the charge
+of being one of a gang of poachers who have been known for some
+time past to be making much havoc among the quails on the
+preserves.
+
+"This offence, at all times deplored by those who desire that his
+Majesty should enjoy good sport when he honours us with a visit, is
+doubly deplorable during the season when, on the higher parts of
+the preserves, the young birds are not yet able to shift for
+themselves; the Ranger, therefore, is indefatigable in his efforts
+to break up the gang, and with this end in view, for the last
+fortnight has been out night and day on the remoter sections of the
+forest--little suspecting that the marauders would venture so near
+Sunch'ston as it now seems they have done.  It is to his extreme
+anxiety to detect and punish these miscreants that we must ascribe
+the arrest of a man, who, however foolish, and indeed guilty, he is
+in other respects, is innocent of the particular crime imputed to
+him.  The circumstances that led to his arrest have reached us from
+an exceptionally well-informed source, and are as follows:-
+
+"Our distinguished guests, Professors Hanky and Panky, both of them
+justly celebrated archaeologists, had availed themselves of the
+opportunity afforded them by their visit to Sunch'ston, to inspect
+the mysterious statues at the head of the stream that comes down
+near this city, and which have hitherto baffled all those who have
+tried to ascertain their date and purpose.
+
+"On their descent after a fatiguing day the Professors were
+benighted, and lost their way.  Seeing the light of a small fire
+among some trees near them, they made towards it, hoping to be
+directed rightly, and found a man, respectably dressed, sitting by
+the fire with several brace of quails beside him, some of them
+plucked.  Believing that in spite of his appearance, which would
+not have led them to suppose that he was a poacher, he must
+unquestionably be one, they hurriedly enquired their way, intending
+to leave him as soon as they had got their answer; he, however,
+attacked them, or made as though he would do so, and said he would
+show them a way which they should be in no fear of losing, whereon
+Professor Hanky, with a well-directed blow, felled him to the
+ground.  The two Professors, fearing that other poachers might come
+to his assistance, made off as nearly as they could guess in the
+direction of Sunch'ston.  When they had gone a mile or two onward
+at haphazard, they sat down under a large tree, and waited till day
+began to break; they then resumed their journey, and before long
+struck a path which led them to a spot from which they could see
+the towers of the new temple.
+
+"Fatigued though they were, they waited before taking the rest of
+which they stood much in need, till they had reported their
+adventure at the Ranger's office.  The Ranger was still out on the
+preserves, but immediately on his return on Saturday morning he
+read the description of the poacher's appearance and dress, about
+which last, however, the only remarkable feature was that it was
+better than a poacher might be expected to possess, and gave an air
+of respectability to the wearer that might easily disarm suspicion.
+
+"The Ranger made enquiries at all the inns in Sunch'ston, and at
+length succeeded in hearing of a stranger who appeared to
+correspond with the poacher whom the Professors had seen; but the
+man had already left, and though the Ranger did his best to trace
+him he did not succeed.  On Sunday morning, however, he observed
+the prisoner, and found that he answered the description given by
+the Professors; he therefore arrested him quietly in the temple,
+but told him that he should not take him to prison till the service
+was over.  The man said he would come quietly inasmuch as he should
+easily be able to prove his innocence.  In the meantime, however,
+he professed the utmost anxiety to hear Professor Hanky's sermon,
+which he said he believed would concern him nearly.  The Ranger
+paid no attention to this, and was as much astounded as the rest of
+the congregation were, when immediately after one of Professor
+Hanky's most eloquent passages, the man started up and declared
+himself to be the Sunchild.  On this the Ranger took him away at
+once, and for the man's own protection hurried him off to prison.
+
+"Professor Hanky was so much shocked at such outrageous conduct,
+that for the moment he failed to recognise the offender; after a
+few seconds, however, he grasped the situation, and knew him to be
+one who on previous occasions, near Bridgeford, had done what he
+was now doing.  It seems that he is notorious in the neighbourhood
+of Bridgeford, as a monomaniac who is so deeply impressed with the
+beauty of the Sunchild's character--and we presume also of his own-
+-as to believe that he is himself the Sunchild.
+
+"Recovering almost instantly from the shock the interruption had
+given him, the learned Professor calmed his hearers by acquainting
+them with the facts of the case, and continued his sermon to the
+delight of all who heard it.  We should say, however, that the
+gentleman who twenty years ago instructed the Sunchild in the
+Erewhonian language, was so struck with some few points of
+resemblance between the stranger, and his former pupil, that he
+acclaimed him, and was removed forcibly by the vergers.
+
+"On Monday morning the prisoner was brought up before the Mayor.
+We cannot say whether it was the sobering effect of prison walls,
+or whether he had been drinking before he entered the temple, and
+had now had time enough to recover himself--at any rate for some
+reason or other he was abjectly penitent when his case came on for
+hearing.  The charge of poaching was first gone into, but was
+immediately disposed of by the evidence of the two Professors, who
+stated that the prisoner bore no resemblance to the poacher they
+had seen, save that he was about the same height and age, and was
+respectably dressed.
+
+"The charge of disturbing the congregation by declaring himself the
+Sunchild was then proceeded with, and unnecessary as it may appear
+to be, it was thought advisable to prevent all possibility of the
+man's assertion being accepted by the ignorant as true, at some
+later date, when those who could prove its falsehood were no longer
+living.  The prisoner, therefore, was removed to his cell, and
+there measured by the Master of the Gaol, and the Ranger in the
+presence of the Mayor, who attested the accuracy of the
+measurements.  Not one single one of them corresponded with those
+recorded of the Sunchild himself, and a few marks such as moles,
+and permanent scars on the Sunchild's body were not found on the
+prisoner's.  Furthermore the prisoner was shaggy-breasted, with
+much coarse jet black hair on the fore-arms and from the knees
+downwards, whereas the Sunchild had little hair save on his head,
+and what little there was, was fine, and very light in colour.
+
+"Confronted with these discrepancies, the gentleman who had taught
+the Sunchild our language was convinced of his mistake, though he
+still maintained that there was some superficial likeness between
+his former pupil and the prisoner.  Here he was confirmed by the
+Master of the Gaol, the Mayoress, Mrs. Humdrum, and Professors
+Hanky and Panky, who all of them could see what the interpreter
+meant, but denied that the prisoner could be mistaken for the
+Sunchild for more than a few seconds.  No doubt the prisoner's
+unhappy delusion has been fostered, if not entirely caused, by his
+having been repeatedly told that he was like the Sunchild.  The
+celebrated Dr. Downie, who well remembers the Sunchild, was also
+examined, and gave his evidence with so much convincing detail as
+to make it unnecessary to call further witnesses.
+
+"It having been thus once for all officially and authoritatively
+placed on record that the prisoner was not the Sunchild, Professors
+Hanky and Panky then identified him as a well known monomaniac on
+the subject of Sunchildism, who in other respects was harmless.  We
+withhold his name and place of abode, out of consideration for the
+well known and highly respectable family to which he belongs.  The
+prisoner admitted with much contrition that he had made a
+disturbance in the temple, but pleaded that he had been carried
+away by the eloquence of Professor Hanky; he promised to avoid all
+like offence in future, and threw himself on the mercy of the
+court.
+
+"The Mayor, unwilling that Sunday's memorable ceremony should be
+the occasion of a serious punishment to any of those who took part
+in it, reprimanded the prisoner in a few severe but not unkindly
+words, inflicted a fine of forty shillings, and ordered that the
+prisoner should be taken directly to the temple, where he should
+confess his folly to the Manager and Head Cashier, and confirm his
+words by kissing the reliquary in which the newly found relic has
+been placed.  The prisoner being unable to pay the fine, some of
+the ladies and gentlemen in court kindly raised the amount amongst
+them, in pity for the poor creature's obvious contrition, rather
+than see him sent to prison for a month in default of payment.
+
+"The prisoner was then conducted to the temple, followed by a
+considerable number of people.  Strange to say, in spite of the
+overwhelming evidence that they had just heard, some few among the
+followers, whose love of the marvellous overpowered their reason,
+still maintained that the prisoner was the Sunchild.  Nothing could
+be more decorous than the prisoner's behaviour when, after hearing
+the recantation that was read out to him by the Manager, he signed
+the document with his name and address, which we again withhold,
+and kissed the reliquary in confirmation of his words.
+
+"The Mayor then declared the prisoner to be at liberty.  When he
+had done so he said, 'I strongly urge you to place yourself under
+my protection for the present, that you may be freed from the
+impertinent folly and curiosity of some whose infatuation might
+lead you from that better mind to which I believe you are now
+happily restored.  I wish you to remain for some few hours secluded
+in the privacy of my own study, where Dr. Downie and the two
+excellent Professors will administer that ghostly counsel to you,
+which will be likely to protect you from any return of your unhappy
+delusion.'
+
+"The man humbly bowed assent, and was taken by the Mayor's younger
+sons to the Mayor's own house, where he was duly cared for.  About
+midnight, when all was quiet, he was conducted to the outskirts of
+the town towards Clearwater, and furnished with enough money to
+provide for his more pressing necessities till he could reach some
+relatives who reside three or four days' walk down on the road
+towards the capital.  He desired the man who accompanied him to
+repeat to the Mayor his heartfelt thanks for the forbearance and
+generosity with which he had been treated.  The remembrance of
+this, he said, should be ever present with him, and he was
+confident would protect him if his unhappy monomania shewed any
+signs of returning.
+
+"Let us now, however, remind our readers that the poacher who
+threatened Professors Hanky and Panky's life on Thursday evening
+last is still at large.  He is evidently a man of desperate
+character, and it is to be hoped that our fellow-citizens will give
+immediate information at the Ranger's office if they see any
+stranger in the neighbourhood of the preserves whom they may have
+reasonable grounds for suspecting.
+
+"P.S.--As we are on the point of going to press we learn that a
+dangerous lunatic, who has been for some years confined in the
+Clearwater asylum, succeeded in escaping on the night of Wednesday
+last, and it is surmised with much probability, that this was the
+man who threatened the two Professors on Thursday evening.  His
+being alone, his having dared to light a fire, probably to cook
+quails which he had been driven to kill from stress of hunger, the
+respectability of his dress, and the fury with which he would have
+attacked the two Professors single-handed, but for Professor
+Hanky's presence of mind in giving him a knock-down blow, all point
+in the direction of thinking that he was no true poacher, but, what
+is even more dangerous--a madman at large.  We have not received
+any particulars as to the man's appearance, nor the clothes he was
+wearing, but we have little doubt that these will confirm the
+surmise to which we now give publicity.  If it is correct it
+becomes doubly incumbent on all our fellow-citizens to be both on
+the watch, and on their guard.
+
+"We may add that the man was fully believed to have taken the
+direction towards the capital; hence no attempts were made to look
+for him in the neighbourhood of Sunch'ston, until news of the
+threatened attack on the Professors led the keeper of the asylum to
+feel confident that he had hitherto been on a wrong scent."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII:  MY FATHER IS ESCORTED TO THE MAYOR'S HOUSE, AND IS
+INTRODUCED TO A FUTURE DAUGHTER-IN-LAW
+
+
+
+My father said he was followed to the Mayor's house by a good many
+people, whom the Mayor's sons in vain tried to get rid of.  One or
+two of these still persisted in saying he was the Sunchild--whereon
+another said, "But his hair is black."
+
+"Yes," was the answer, "but a man can dye his hair, can he not?
+look at his blue eyes and his eye-lashes?"
+
+My father was doubting whether he ought not to again deny his
+identity out of loyalty to the Mayor and Yram, when George's next
+brother said, "Pay no attention to them, but step out as fast as
+you can."  This settled the matter, and in a few minutes they were
+at the Mayor's, where the young men took him into the study; the
+elder said with a smile, "We should like to stay and talk to you,
+but my mother said we were not to do so."  Whereon they left him
+much to his regret, but he gathered rightly that they had not been
+officially told who he was, and were to be left to think what they
+liked, at any rate for the present.
+
+In a few minutes the Mayor entered, and going straight up to my
+father shook him cordially by the hand.
+
+"I have brought you this morning's paper," said he.  "You will find
+a full report of Professor Hanky's sermon, and of the speeches at
+last night's banquet.  You see they pass over your little
+interruption with hardly a word, but I dare say they will have made
+up their minds about it all by Thursday's issue."
+
+He laughed as he produced the paper--which my father brought home
+with him, and without which I should not have been able to report
+Hanky's sermon as fully as I have done.  But my father could not
+let things pass over thus lightly.
+
+"I thank you," he said, "but I have much more to thank you for, and
+know not how to do it."
+
+"Can you not trust me to take everything as said?"
+
+"Yes, but I cannot trust myself not to be haunted if I do not say--
+or at any rate try to say--some part of what I ought to say."
+
+"Very well; then I will say something myself.  I have a small joke,
+the only one I ever made, which I inflict periodically upon my
+wife.  You, and I suppose George, are the only two other people in
+the world to whom it can ever be told; let me see, then, if I
+cannot break the ice with it.  It is this.  Some men have twin
+sons; George in this topsy turvey world of ours has twin fathers--
+you by luck, and me by cunning.  I see you smile; give me your
+hand."
+
+My father took the Mayor's hand between both his own.  "Had I been
+in your place," he said, "I should be glad to hope that I might
+have done as you did."
+
+"And I," said the Mayor, more readily than might have been expected
+of him, "fear that if I had been in yours--I should have made it
+the proper thing for you to do.  There!  The ice is well broken,
+and now for business.  You will lunch with us, and dine in the
+evening.  I have given it out that you are of good family, so there
+is nothing odd in this.  At lunch you will not be the Sunchild, for
+my younger children will be there; at dinner all present will know
+who you are, so we shall be free as soon as the servants are out of
+the room.
+
+"I am sorry, but I must send you away with George as soon as the
+streets are empty--say at midnight--for the excitement is too great
+to allow of your staying longer.  We must keep your rug and the
+things you cook with, but my wife will find you what will serve
+your turn.  There is no moon, so you and George will camp out as
+soon as you get well on to the preserves; the weather is hot, and
+you will neither of you take any harm.  To-morrow by mid-day you
+will be at the statues, where George must bid you good-bye, for he
+must be at Sunch'ston to-morrow night.  You will doubtless get
+safely home; I wish with all my heart that I could hear of your
+having done so, but this, I fear, may not be."
+
+"So be it," replied my father, "but there is something I should yet
+say.  The Mayoress has no doubt told you of some gold, coined and
+uncoined, that I am leaving for George.  She will also have told
+you that I am rich; this being so, I should have brought him much
+more, if I had known that there was any such person.  You have
+other children; if you leave him anything, you will be taking it
+away from your own flesh and blood; if you leave him nothing, it
+will be a slur upon him.  I must therefore send you enough gold, to
+provide for George as your other children will be provided for; you
+can settle it upon him at once, and make it clear that the
+settlement is instead of provision for him by will.  The difficulty
+is in the getting the gold into Erewhon, and until it is actually
+here, he must know nothing about it."
+
+I have no space for the discussion that followed.  In the end it
+was settled that George was to have 2000 pounds in gold, which the
+Mayor declared to be too much, and my father too little.  Both,
+however, were agreed that Erewhon would before long be compelled to
+enter into relations with foreign countries, in which case the
+value of gold would decline so much as to make 2000 pounds worth
+little more than it would be in England.  The Mayor proposed to buy
+land with it, which he would hand over to George as a gift from
+himself, and this my father at once acceded to.  All sorts of
+questions such as will occur to the reader were raised and settled,
+but I must beg him to be content with knowing that everything was
+arranged with the good sense that two such men were sure to bring
+to bear upon it.
+
+The getting the gold into Erewhon was to be managed thus.  George
+was to know nothing, but a promise was to be got from him that at
+noon on the following New Year's day, or whatever day might be
+agreed upon, he would be at the statues, where either my father or
+myself would meet him, spend a couple of hours with him, and then
+return.  Whoever met George was to bring the gold as though it were
+for the Mayor, and George could be trusted to be human enough to
+bring it down, when he saw that it would be left where it was if he
+did not do so.
+
+"He will kick a good deal," said the Mayor, "at first, but he will
+come round in the end."
+
+Luncheon was now announced.  My father was feeling faint and ill;
+more than once during the forenoon he had had a return of the
+strange giddiness and momentary loss of memory which had already
+twice attacked him, but he had recovered in each case so quickly
+that no one had seen he was unwell.  He, poor man, did not yet know
+what serious brain exhaustion these attacks betokened, and finding
+himself in his usual health as soon as they passed away, set them
+down as simply effects of fatigue and undue excitement.
+
+George did not lunch with the others.  Yram explained that he had
+to draw up a report which would occupy him till dinner time.  Her
+three other sons, and her three lovely daughters, were there.  My
+father was delighted with all of them, for they made friends with
+him at once.  He had feared that he would have been disgraced in
+their eyes, by his having just come from prison, but whatever they
+may have thought, no trace of anything but a little engaging
+timidity on the girls' part was to be seen.  The two elder boys--or
+rather young men, for they seemed fully grown, though, like George,
+not yet bearded--treated him as already an old acquaintance, while
+the youngest, a lad of fourteen, walked straight up to him, put out
+his hand, and said, "How do you do, sir?" with a pretty blush that
+went straight to my father's heart.
+
+"These boys," he said to Yram aside, "who have nothing to blush
+for--see how the blood mantles into their young cheeks, while I,
+who should blush at being spoken to by them, cannot do so."
+
+"Do not talk nonsense," said Yram, with mock severity.
+
+But it was no nonsense to my poor father.  He was awed at the
+goodness and beauty with which he found himself surrounded.  His
+thoughts were too full of what had been, what was, and what was yet
+to be, to let him devote himself to these young people as he would
+dearly have liked to do.  He could only look at them, wonder at
+them, fall in love with them, and thank heaven that George had been
+brought up in such a household.
+
+When luncheon was over, Yram said, "I will now send you to a room
+where you can lie down and go to sleep for a few hours.  You will
+be out late to-night, and had better rest while you can.  Do you
+remember the drink you taught us to make of corn parched and
+ground?  You used to say you liked it.  A cup shall be brought to
+your room at about five, for you must try and sleep till then.  If
+you notice a little box on the dressing-table of your room, you
+will open it or no as you like.  About half-past five there will be
+a visitor, whose name you can guess, but I shall not let her stay
+long with you.  Here comes the servant to take you to your room."
+On this she smiled, and turned somewhat hurriedly away.
+
+My father on reaching his room went to the dressing-table, where he
+saw a small unpretending box, which he immediately opened.  On the
+top was a paper with the words, "Look--say nothing--forget."
+Beneath this was some cotton wool, and then--the two buttons and
+the lock of his own hair, that he had given Yram when he said good-
+bye to her.
+
+The ghost of the lock that Yram had then given him, rose from the
+dead, and smote him as with a whip across the face.  On what dust-
+heap had it not been thrown how many long years ago?  Then she had
+never forgotten him? to have been remembered all these years by
+such a woman as that, and never to have heeded it--never to have
+found out what she was though he had seen her day after day for
+months.  Ah! but she was then still budding.  That was no excuse.
+If a loveable woman--aye, or any woman--has loved a man, even
+though he cannot marry her, or even wish to do so, at any rate let
+him not forget her--and he had forgotten Yram as completely until
+the last few days, as though he had never seen her.  He took her
+little missive, and under "Look," he wrote, "I have;" under "Say
+nothing," "I will;" under "forget," "never."  "And I never shall,"
+he said to himself, as he replaced the box upon the table.  He then
+lay down to rest upon the bed, but he could get no sleep.
+
+When the servant brought him his imitation coffee--an imitation so
+successful that Yram made him a packet of it to replace the tea
+that he must leave behind him--he rose and presently came
+downstairs into the drawing-room, where he found Yram and Mrs.
+Humdrum's grand-daughter, of whom I will say nothing, for I have
+never seen her, and know nothing about her, except that my father
+found her a sweet-looking girl, of graceful figure and very
+attractive expression.  He was quite happy about her, but she was
+too young and shy to make it possible for him to do more than
+admire her appearance, and take Yram's word for it that she was as
+good as she looked.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV:  AFTER DINNER, DR. DOWNIE AND THE PROFESSORS WOULD BE
+GLAD TO KNOW WHAT IS TO BE DONE ABOUT SUNCHILDISM
+
+
+
+It was about six when George's fiancee left the house, and as soon
+as she had done so, Yram began to see about the rug and the best
+substitutes she could find for the billy and pannikin.  She had a
+basket packed with all that my father and George would want to eat
+and drink while on the preserves, and enough of everything, except
+meat, to keep my father going till he could reach the shepherd's
+hut of which I have already spoken.  Meat would not keep, and my
+father could get plenty of flappers--i.e. ducks that cannot yet
+fly--when he was on the river-bed down below.
+
+The above preparations had not been made very long, before Mrs.
+Humdrum arrived, followed presently by Dr. Downie and in due course
+by the Professors, who were still staying in the house.  My father
+remembered Mrs. Humdrum's good honest face, but could not bring Dr.
+Downie to his recollection till the Doctor told him when and where
+they had met, and then he could only very uncertainly recall him,
+though he vowed that he could now do so perfectly well.
+
+"At any rate," said Hanky, advancing towards him with his best
+Bridgeford manner, "you will not have forgotten meeting my brother
+Professor and myself."
+
+"It has been rather a forgetting sort of a morning," said my father
+demurely, "but I can remember that much, and am delighted to renew
+my acquaintance with both of you."
+
+As he spoke he shook hands with both Professors.
+
+George was a little late, but when he came, dinner was announced.
+My father sat on Yram's right-hand, Dr. Downie on her left.  George
+was next my father, with Mrs. Humdrum opposite to him.  The
+Professors sat one on either side of the Mayor.  During dinner the
+conversation turned almost entirely on my father's flight, his
+narrow escape from drowning, and his adventures on his return to
+England; about these last my father was very reticent, for he said
+nothing about his book, and antedated his accession of wealth by
+some fifteen years, but as he walked up towards the statues with
+George he told him everything.
+
+My father repeatedly tried to turn the conversation from himself,
+but Mrs. Humdrum and Yram wanted to know about Nna Haras, as they
+persisted in calling my mother--how she endured her terrible
+experiences in the balloon, when she and my father were married,
+all about my unworthy self, and England generally.  No matter how
+often he began to ask questions about the Nosnibors and other old
+acquaintances, both the ladies soon went back to his own
+adventures.  He succeeded, however, in learning that Mr. Nosnibor
+was dead, and Zulora, an old maid of the most unattractive kind,
+who had persistently refused to accept Sunchildism, while Mrs.
+Nosnibor was the recipient of honours hardly inferior to those
+conferred by the people at large on my father and mother, with
+whom, indeed, she believed herself to have frequent interviews by
+way of visionary revelations.  So intolerable were these
+revelations to Zulora, that a separate establishment had been
+provided for her.  George said to my father quietly--"Do you know I
+begin to think that Zulora must be rather a nice person."
+
+"Perhaps," said my father grimly, "but my wife and I did not find
+it out."
+
+When the ladies left the room, Dr. Downie took Yram's seat, and
+Hanky Dr. Downie's; the Mayor took Mrs. Humdrum's, leaving my
+father, George, and Panky, in their old places.  Almost
+immediately, Dr. Downie said, "And now, Mr, Higgs, tell us, as a
+man of the world, what we are to do about Sunchildism?"
+
+My father smiled at this.  "You know, my dear sir, as well as I do,
+that the proper thing would be to put me back in prison, and keep
+me there till you can send me down to the capital.  You should eat
+your oaths of this morning, as I would eat mine; tell every one
+here who I am; let them see that my hair has been dyed; get all who
+knew me when I was here before to come and see me; appoint an
+unimpeachable committee to examine the record of my marks and
+measurements, and compare it with those of my own body.  You should
+let me be seen in every town at which I lodged on my way down, and
+tell people that you had made a mistake.  When you get to the
+capital, hand me over to the King's tender mercies and say that our
+oaths were only taken this morning to prevent a ferment in the
+town.  I will play my part very willingly.  The King can only kill
+me, and I should die like a gentleman."
+
+"They will not do it," said George quietly to my father, "and I am
+glad of it."
+
+He was right.  "This," said Dr. Downie, "is a counsel of
+perfection.  Things have gone too far, and we are flesh and blood.
+What would those who in your country come nearest to us Musical
+Bank Managers do, if they found they had made such a mistake as we
+have, and dared not own it?"
+
+"Do not ask me," said my father; "the story is too long, and too
+terrible."
+
+"At any rate, then, tell us what you would have us do that is
+within our reach."
+
+"I have done you harm enough, and if I preach, as likely as not I
+shall do more."
+
+Seeing, however, that Dr. Downie was anxious to hear what he
+thought, my father said -
+
+"Then I must tell you.  Our religion sets before us an ideal which
+we all cordially accept, but it also tells us of marvels like your
+chariot and horses, which we most of us reject.  Our best teachers
+insist on the ideal, and keep the marvels in the background.  If
+they could say outright that our age has outgrown them, they would
+say so, but this they may not do; nevertheless they contrive to let
+their opinions be sufficiently well known, and their hearers are
+content with this.
+
+"We have others who take a very different course, but of these I
+will not speak.  Roughly, then, if you cannot abolish me
+altogether, make me a peg on which to hang all your own best
+ethical and spiritual conceptions.  If you will do this, and
+wriggle out of that wretched relic, with that not less wretched
+picture--if you will make me out to be much better and abler than I
+was, or ever shall be, Sunchildism may serve your turn for many a
+long year to come.  Otherwise it will tumble about your heads
+before you think it will.
+
+"Am I to go on or stop?"
+
+"Go on," said George softly.  That was enough for my father, so on
+he went.
+
+"You are already doing part of what I wish.  I was delighted with
+the two passages I heard on Sunday, from what you call the
+Sunchild's Sayings.  I never said a word of either passage; I wish
+I had; I wish I could say anything half so good.  And I have read a
+pamphlet by President Gurgoyle, which I liked extremely; but I
+never said what he says I did.  Again, I wish I had.  Keep to this
+sort of thing, and I will be as good a Sunchildist as any of you.
+But you must bribe some thief to steal that relic, and break it up
+to mend the roads with; and--for I believe that here as elsewhere
+fires sometimes get lighted through the carelessness of a workman--
+set the most careless workman you can find to do a plumbing job
+near that picture."
+
+Hanky looked black at this, and George trod lightly on my father's
+toe, but he told me that my father's face was innocence itself.
+
+"These are hard sayings," said Dr. Downie.
+
+"I know they are," replied my father, "and I do not like saying
+them, but there is no royal road to unlearning, and you have much
+to unlearn.  Still, you Musical Bank people bear witness to the
+fact that beyond the kingdoms of this world there is another,
+within which the writs of this world's kingdoms do not run.  This
+is the great service which our church does for us in England, and
+hence many of us uphold it, though we have no sympathy with the
+party now dominant within it.  'Better,' we think, 'a corrupt
+church than none at all.'  Moreover, those who in my country would
+step into the church's shoes are as corrupt as the church, and more
+exacting.  They are also more dangerous, for the masses distrust
+the church, and are on their guard against aggression, whereas they
+do not suspect the doctrinaires and faddists, who, if they could,
+would interfere in every concern of our lives.
+
+"Let me return to yourselves.  You Musical Bank Managers are very
+much such a body of men as your country needs--but when I was here
+before you had no figurehead; I have unwittingly supplied you with
+one, and it is perhaps because you saw this, that you good people
+of Bridgeford took up with me.  Sunchildism is still young and
+plastic; if you will let the cock-and-bull stories about me tacitly
+drop, and invent no new ones, beyond saying what a delightful
+person I was, I really cannot see why I should not do for you as
+well as any one else.
+
+"There.  What I have said is nine-tenths of it rotten and wrong,
+but it is the most practicable rotten and wrong that I can suggest,
+seeing into what a rotten and wrong state of things you have
+drifted.  And now, Mr. Mayor, do you not think we may join the
+Mayoress and Mrs. Humdrum?"
+
+"As you please, Mr. Higgs," answered the Mayor.
+
+"Then let us go, for I have said too much already, and your son
+George tells me that we must be starting shortly."
+
+As they were leaving the room Panky sidled up to my father and
+said, "There is a point, Mr. Higgs, which you can settle for me,
+though I feel pretty certain how you will settle it.  I think that
+a corruption has crept into the text of the very beautiful--"
+
+At this moment, as my father, who saw what was coming, was
+wondering what in the world he could say, George came up to him and
+said, "Mr. Higgs, my mother wishes me to take you down into the
+store-room, to make sure that she has put everything for you as you
+would like it."  On this my father said he would return directly
+and answer what he knew would be Panky's question.
+
+When Yram had shewn what she had prepared--all of it, of course,
+faultless--she said, "And now, Mr. Higgs, about our leave-taking.
+Of course we shall both of us feel much.  I shall; I know you will;
+George will have a few more hours with you than the rest of us, but
+his time to say good-bye will come, and it will be painful to both
+of you.  I am glad you came--I am glad you have seen George, and
+George you, and that you took to one another.  I am glad my husband
+has seen you; he has spoken to me about you very warmly, for he has
+taken to you much as George did.  I am very, very glad to have seen
+you myself, and to have learned what became of you--and of your
+wife.  I know you wish well to all of us; be sure that we all of us
+wish most heartily well to you and yours.  I sent for you and
+George, because I could not say all this unless we were alone; it
+is all I can do," she said, with a smile, "to say it now."
+
+Indeed it was, for the tears were in her eyes all the time, as they
+were also in my father's.
+
+"Let this," continued Yram, "be our leave-taking--for we must have
+nothing like a scene upstairs.  Just shake hands with us all, say
+the usual conventional things, and make it as short as you can; but
+I could not bear to send you away without a few warmer words than I
+could have said when others were in the room."
+
+"May heaven bless you and yours," said my father, "for ever and
+ever."
+
+"That will do," said George gently.  "Now, both of you shake hands,
+and come upstairs with me."
+
+* * *
+
+When all three of them had got calm, for George had been moved
+almost as much as his father and mother, they went upstairs, and
+Panky came for his answer.  "You are very possibly right," said my
+father--"the version you hold to be corrupt is the one in common
+use amongst ourselves, but it is only a translation, and very
+possibly only a translation of a translation, so that it may
+perhaps have been corrupted before it reached us."
+
+"That," said Panky, "will explain everything," and he went
+contentedly away.
+
+My father talked a little aside with Mrs. Humdrum about her grand-
+daughter and George, for Yram had told him that she knew all about
+the attachment, and then George, who saw that my father found the
+greatest difficulty in maintaining an outward calm, said, "Mr.
+Higgs, the streets are empty; we had better go."
+
+My father did as Yram had told him; shook hands with every one,
+said all that was usual and proper as briefly as he could, and
+followed George out of the room.  The Mayor saw them to the door,
+and saved my father from embarrassment by saying, "Mr. Higgs, you
+and I understand one another too well to make it necessary for us
+to say so.  Good-bye to you, and may no ill befall you ere you get
+home."
+
+My father grasped his hand in both his own.  "Again," he said, "I
+can say no more than that I thank you from the bottom of my heart."
+
+As he spoke he bowed his head, and went out with George into the
+night.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV:  GEORGE ESCORTS MY FATHER TO THE STATUES; THE TWO THEN
+PART
+
+
+
+The streets were quite deserted as George had said they would be,
+and very dark, save for an occasional oil lamp.
+
+"As soon as we can get within the preserves," said George, "we had
+better wait till morning.  I have a rug for myself as well as for
+you."
+
+"I saw you had two," answered my father; "you must let me carry
+them both; the provisions are much the heavier load.
+
+George fought as hard as a dog would do, till my father said that
+they must not quarrel during the very short time they had to be
+together.  On this George gave up one rug meekly enough, and my
+father yielded about the basket, and the other rug.
+
+It was about half-past eleven when they started, and it was after
+one before they reached the preserves.  For the first mile from the
+town they were not much hindered by the darkness, and my father
+told George about his book and many another matter; he also
+promised George to say nothing about this second visit.  Then the
+road became more rough, and when it dwindled away to be a mere
+lane--becoming presently only a foot track--they had to mind their
+footsteps, and got on but slowly.  The night was starlit, and warm,
+considering that they were more than three thousand feet above the
+sea, but it was very dark, so that my father was well enough
+pleased when George showed him the white stones that marked the
+boundary, and said they had better soon make themselves as
+comfortable as they could till morning.
+
+"We can stay here," he said, "till half-past three, there will be a
+little daylight then; we will rest half an hour for breakfast at
+about five, and by noon we shall be at the statues, where we will
+dine."
+
+This being settled, George rolled himself up in his rug, and in a
+few minutes went comfortably off to sleep.  Not so my poor father.
+He wound up his watch, wrapped his rug round him, and lay down; but
+he could get no sleep.  After such a day, and such an evening, how
+could any one have slept?
+
+About three the first signs of dawn began to show, and half an hour
+later my father could see the sleeping face of his son--whom it
+went to his heart to wake.  Nevertheless he woke him, and in a few
+minutes the two were on their way--George as fresh as a lark--my
+poor father intent on nothing so much as on hiding from George how
+ill and unsound in body and mind he was feeling.
+
+They walked on, saying but little, till at five by my father's
+watch George proposed a halt for breakfast.  The spot he chose was
+a grassy oasis among the trees, carpeted with subalpine flowers,
+now in their fullest beauty, and close to a small stream that here
+came down from a side valley.  The freshness of the morning air,
+the extreme beauty of the place, the lovely birds that flitted from
+tree to tree, the exquisite shapes and colours of the flowers,
+still dew-bespangled, and above all, the tenderness with which
+George treated him, soothed my father, and when he and George had
+lit a fire and made some hot corn-coffee--with a view to which Yram
+had put up a bottle of milk--he felt so much restored as to look
+forward to the rest of his journey without alarm.  Moreover he had
+nothing to carry, for George had left his own rug at the place
+where they had slept, knowing that he should find it on his return;
+he had therefore insisted on carrying my father's.  My father
+fought as long as he could, but he had to give in.
+
+"Now tell me," said George, glad to change the subject, "what will
+those three men do about what you said to them last night?  Will
+they pay any attention to it?"
+
+My father laughed.  "My dear George, what a question--I do not know
+them well enough."
+
+"Oh yes, you do.  At any rate say what you think most likely."
+
+"Very well.  I think Dr. Downie will do much as I said.  He will
+not throw the whole thing over, through fear of schism, loyalty to
+a party from which he cannot well detach himself, and because he
+does not think that the public is quite tired enough of its toy.
+He will neither preach nor write against it, but he will live
+lukewarmly against it, and this is what the Hankys hate.  They can
+stand either hot or cold, but they are afraid of lukewarm.  In
+England Dr. Downie would be a Broad Churchman."
+
+"Do you think we shall ever get rid of Sunchildism altogether?"
+
+"If they stick to the cock-and-bull stories they are telling now,
+and rub them in, as Hanky did on Sunday, it may go, and go soon.
+It has taken root too quickly and easily; and its top is too heavy
+for its roots; still there are so many chances in its favour that
+it may last a long time."
+
+"And how about Hanky?"
+
+"He will brazen it out, relic, chariot, and all:  and he will
+welcome more relics and more cock-and-bull stories; his single eye
+will be upon his own aggrandisement and that of his order.
+Plausible, unscrupulous, heartless scoundrel that he is, he will
+play for the queen and the women of the court, as Dr. Downie will
+play for the king and the men.  He and his party will sleep neither
+night nor day, but they will have one redeeming feature--whoever
+they may deceive, they will not deceive themselves.  They believe
+every one else to be as bad as they are, and see no reason why they
+should not push their own wares in the way of business.  Hanky is
+everything that we in England rightly or wrongly believe a typical
+Jesuit to be."
+
+"And Panky--what about him?"
+
+"Panky must persuade himself of his own lies, before he is quite
+comfortable about telling them to other people.  Hanky keeps Hanky
+well out of it; Panky must have a base of operations in Panky.
+Hanky will lead him by the nose, bit by bit, for his is the master
+spirit.  In England Panky would be what we call an extreme
+ritualist."
+
+"Then the real battle will be between Hanky and Dr. Downie.  Which
+will carry the day?"
+
+"For the present, probably Hanky.  He is the more vigilant, and
+energetic; in this case Sunchildism will have to go, and I am
+afraid your whole Musical Bank system will be swept away along with
+it."
+
+"And why not?"
+
+"Because, my dear boy, though false in the letter, if good counsels
+prevail, it may be made true enough in spirit.  If it were to go,
+its place would be soon filled by men who would be as false in
+letter as the others were, and much more false in spirit.  You want
+a heart to check your head, and a head to check your heart.  As in
+our English body politic there are two parties opposed to one
+another, neither of which can thrive if the other is unduly
+weakened, so in our spiritual and intellectual world two parties
+more or less antagonistic are equally necessary.  Those who are at
+the head of science provide us with the one party; those whom we
+call our churchmen are the other.  Both are corrupt, but we can
+spare neither, for each checks as far as it can the corruptions of
+the other."
+
+"Then you would have us uphold Sunchildism, knowing it to be
+untrue?"
+
+"Do what you will, you will not get perfect truth.  And if you can
+follow the lead which I believe Dr. Downie will give you, that is
+to say, get rid of cock-and-bull stories, idealise my unworthy
+self, and, as I said last night, make me a peg on which to hang
+your own best thoughts--Sunchildism will be as near truth as
+anything you are likely to get.  But if Hankyism triumphs, come
+what may you must get rid of it, for he and his school will tamper
+with the one sure and everlasting word of God revealed to us by
+human experience.  He who plays fast and loose with this is as one
+who would forge God's signature to a cheque drawn on God's own
+bank."
+
+"Are we to foster the belief that it was indeed the Sunchild who
+interrupted Hanky's sermon?"
+
+"Yes, where you safely can, but not otherwise; and commit the facts
+to writing as soon as you can find time.  Do nothing to jeopardise
+your own safety; you can do more by perfunctory acquiescence than
+by open dissent.  And tell those friends whom you can trust, what
+these my parting words to you have been.  But above all I charge
+you solemnly, do nothing to jeopardise your own safety; you cannot
+play into Hanky's hands more certainly than by risking this.  Think
+how he and Panky would rejoice, and how Dr. Downie would grieve.
+Be wise and wary; bide your time; do what you prudently can, and
+you will find you can do much; try to do more, and you will do
+nothing.  Be guided by the Mayor, by your mother--and by that dear
+old lady whose grandson you will--"
+
+"Then they have told you," interrupted the youth blushing scarlet.
+
+"My dearest boy, of course they have, and I have seen her, and am
+head over ears in love with her myself."
+
+He was all smiles and blushes, and vowed for a few minutes that it
+was a shame of them to tell me, but presently he said -
+
+"Then you like her."
+
+"Rather!" said my father vehemently, and shaking George by the
+hand.  But he said nothing about the nuggets and the sovereigns,
+knowing that Yram did not wish him to do so.  Neither did George
+say anything about his determination to start for the capital in
+the morning, and make a clean breast of everything to the King.  So
+soon does it become necessary even for those who are most cordially
+attached to hide things from one another.  My father, however, was
+made comfortable by receiving a promise from the youth that he
+would take no step of which the persons he had named would
+disapprove.
+
+When once Mrs. Humdrum's grand-daughter had been introduced there
+was no more talking about Hanky and Panky; for George began to
+bubble over with the subject that was nearest his heart, and how
+much he feared that it would be some time yet before he could be
+married.  Many a story did he tell of his early attachment and of
+its course for the last ten years, but my space will not allow me
+to inflict one of them on the reader.  My father saw that the more
+he listened and sympathised and encouraged, the fonder George
+became of him, and this was all he cared about.
+
+Thus did they converse hour after hour.  They passed the Blue Pool,
+without seeing it or even talking about it for more than a minute.
+George kept an eye on the quails and declared them fairly plentiful
+and strong on the wing, but nothing now could keep him from pouring
+out his whole heart about Mrs. Humdrum's grand-daughter, until
+towards noon they caught sight of the statues, and a halt was made
+which gave my father the first pang he had felt that morning, for
+he knew that the statues would be the beginning of the end.
+
+There was no need to light a fire, for Yram had packed for them two
+bottles of a delicious white wine, something like White Capri,
+which went admirably with the many more solid good things that she
+had provided for them.  As soon as they had finished a hearty meal
+my father said to George, "You must have my watch for a keepsake; I
+see you are not wearing my boots.  I fear you did not find them
+comfortable, but I am glad you have not got them on, for I have set
+my heart on keeping yours."
+
+"Let us settle about the boots first.  I rather fancied that that
+was why you put me off when I wanted to get my own back again; and
+then I thought I should like yours for a keepsake, so I put on
+another pair last night, and they are nothing like so comfortable
+as yours were."
+
+"Now I wonder," said my father to me, "whether this was true, or
+whether it was only that dear fellow's pretty invention; but true
+or false I was as delighted as he meant me to be."
+
+I asked George about this when I saw him, and he confessed with an
+ingenuous blush that my father's boots had hurt him, and that he
+had never thought of making a keepsake of them, till my father's
+words stimulated his invention.
+
+As for the watch, which was only a silver one, but of the best
+make, George protested for a time, but when he had yielded, my
+father could see that he was overjoyed at getting it; for watches,
+though now permitted, were expensive and not in common use.
+
+Having thus bribed him, my father broached the possibility of his
+meeting him at the statues on that day twelvemonth, but of course
+saying nothing about why he was so anxious that he should come.
+
+"I will come," said my father, "not a yard farther than the
+statues, and if I cannot come I will send your brother.  And I will
+come at noon; but it is possible that the river down below may be
+in fresh, and I may not be able to hit off the day, though I will
+move heaven and earth to do so.  Therefore if I do not meet you on
+the day appointed, do your best to come also at noon on the
+following day.  I know how inconvenient this will be for you, and
+will come true to the day if it is possible."
+
+To my father's surprise, George did not raise so many difficulties
+as he had expected.  He said it might be done, if neither he nor my
+father were to go beyond the statues.  "And difficult as it will be
+for you," said George, "you had better come a second day if
+necessary, as I will, for who can tell what might happen to make
+the first day impossible?"
+
+"Then," said my father, "we shall be spared that horrible feeling
+that we are parting without hope of seeing each other again.  I
+find it hard enough to say good-bye even now, but I do not know how
+I could have faced it if you had not agreed to our meeting again."
+
+"The day fixed upon will be our XXI. i. 3, and the hour noon as
+near as may be?"
+
+"So.  Let me write it down:  'XXI. i. 3, i.e. our December 9, 1891,
+I am to meet George at the statues, at twelve o'clock, and if he
+does not come, I am to be there again on the following day.'
+
+In like manner, George wrote down what he was to do:  "XXI. i. 3,
+or failing this XXI. i. 4.  Statues.  Noon."
+
+"This," he said, "is a solemn covenant, is it not?"
+
+"Yes," said my father, "and may all good omens attend it!"
+
+The words were not out of his mouth before a mountain bird,
+something like our jackdaw, but smaller and of a bluer black, flew
+out of the hollow mouth of one of the statues, and with a hearty
+chuckle perched on the ground at his feet, attracted doubtless by
+the scraps of food that were lying about.  With the fearlessness of
+birds in that country, it looked up at him and George, gave another
+hearty chuckle, and flew back to its statue with the largest
+fragment it could find.
+
+They settled that this was an omen so propitious that they could
+part in good hope.  "Let us finish the wine," said my father, "and
+then, do what must be done!"
+
+They finished the wine to each other's good health; George drank
+also to mine, and said he hoped my father would bring me with him,
+while my father drank to Yram, the Mayor, their children, Mrs.
+Humdrum, and above all to Mrs. Humdrum's grand-daughter.  They then
+re-packed all that could be taken away; my father rolled his rug to
+his liking, slung it over his shoulder, gripped George's hand, and
+said, "My dearest boy, when we have each turned our backs upon one
+another, let us walk our several ways as fast as we can, and try
+not to look behind us."
+
+So saying he loosed his grip of George's hand, bared his head,
+lowered it, and turned away.
+
+George burst into tears, and followed him after he had gone two
+paces; he threw his arms round him, hugged him, kissed him on his
+lips, cheeks, and forehead, and then turning round, strode full
+speed towards Sunch'ston.  My father never took his eyes off him
+till he was out of sight, but the boy did not look round.  When he
+could see him no more, my father with faltering gait, and feeling
+as though a prop had suddenly been taken from under him, began to
+follow the stream down towards his old camp.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI:  MY FATHER REACHES HOME, AND DIES NOT LONG AFTERWARDS
+
+
+
+My father could walk but slowly, for George's boots had blistered
+his feet, and it seemed to him that the river-bed, of which he
+caught glimpses now and again, never got any nearer; but all things
+come to an end, and by seven o'clock on the night of Tuesday, he
+was on the spot which he had left on the preceding Friday morning.
+Three entire days had intervened, but he felt that something, he
+knew not what, had seized him, and that whereas before these three
+days life had been one thing, what little might follow them, would
+be another--and a very different one.
+
+He soon caught sight of his horse which had strayed a mile lower
+down the river-bed, and in spite of his hobbles had crossed one
+ugly stream that my father dared not ford on foot.  Tired though he
+was, he went after him, bridle in hand, and when the friendly
+creature saw him, it recrossed the stream, and came to him of its
+own accord--either tired of his own company, or tempted by some
+bread my father held out towards him.  My father took off the
+hobbles, and rode him bare-backed to the camping ground, where he
+rewarded him with more bread and biscuit, and then hobbled him
+again for the night.
+
+"It was here," he said to me on one of the first days after his
+return, "that I first knew myself to be a broken man.  As for
+meeting George again, I felt sure that it would be all I could do
+to meet his brother; and though George was always in my thoughts,
+it was for you and not him that I was now yearning.  When I gave
+George my watch, how glad I was that I had left my gold one at
+home, for that is yours, and I could not have brought myself to
+give it him."
+
+"Never mind that, my dear father," said I, "but tell me how you got
+down the river, and thence home again."
+
+"My very dear boy," he said, "I can hardly remember, and I had no
+energy to make any more notes.  I remember putting a scrap of paper
+into the box of sovereigns, merely sending George my love along
+with the money; I remember also dropping the box into a hole in a
+tree, which I blazed, and towards which I drew a line of wood-
+ashes.  I seem to see a poor unhinged creature gazing moodily for
+hours into a fire which he heaps up now and again with wood.  There
+is not a breath of air; Nature sleeps so calmly that she dares not
+even breathe for fear of waking; the very river has hushed his
+flow.  Without, the starlit calm of a summer's night in a great
+wilderness; within, a hurricane of wild and incoherent thoughts
+battling with one another in their fury to fall upon him and rend
+him--and on the other side the great wall of mountain, thousands of
+children praying at their mother's knee to this poor dazed thing.
+I suppose this half delirious wretch must have been myself.  But I
+must have been more ill when I left England than I thought I was,
+or Erewhon would not have broken me down as it did."
+
+No doubt he was right.  Indeed it was because Mr. Cathie and his
+doctor saw that he was out of health and in urgent need of change,
+that they left off opposing his wish to travel.  There is no use,
+however, in talking about this now.
+
+I never got from him how he managed to reach the shepherd's hut,
+but I learned some little from the shepherd, when I stayed with him
+both on going towards Erewhon, and on returning.
+
+"He did not seem to have drink in him," said the shepherd, "when he
+first came here; but he must have been pretty full of it, or he
+must have had some bottles in his saddle-bags; for he was awful
+when he came back.  He had got them worse than any man I ever saw,
+only that he was not awkward.  He said there was a bird flying out
+of a giant's mouth and laughing at him, and he kept muttering about
+a blue pool, and hanky-panky of all sorts, and he said he knew it
+was all hanky-panky, at least I thought he said so, but it was no
+use trying to follow him, for it was all nothing but horrors.  He
+said I was to stop the people from trying to worship him.  Then he
+said the sky opened and he could see the angels going about and
+singing 'Hallelujah.'"
+
+"How long did he stay with you?" I asked.
+
+"About ten days, but the last three he was himself again, only too
+weak to move.  He thought he was cured except for weakness."
+
+"Do you know how he had been spending the last two days or so
+before he got down to your hut?"
+
+I said two days, because this was the time I supposed he would take
+to descend the river.
+
+"I should say drinking all the time.  He said he had fallen off his
+horse two or three times, till he took to leading him.  If he had
+had any other horse than old Doctor he would have been a dead man.
+Bless you, I have known that horse ever since he was foaled, and I
+never saw one like him for sense.  He would pick fords better than
+that gentleman could, I know, and if the gentleman fell off him he
+would just stay stock still.  He was badly bruised, poor man, when
+he got here.  I saw him through the gorge when he left me, and he
+gave me a sovereign; he said he had only one other left to take him
+down to the port, or he would have made it more."
+
+"He was my father," said I, "and he is dead, but before he died he
+told me to give you five pounds which I have brought you.  I think
+you are wrong in saying that he had been drinking."
+
+"That is what they all say; but I take it very kind of him to have
+thought of me."
+
+My father's illness for the first three weeks after his return
+played with him as a cat plays with a mouse; now and again it would
+let him have a day or two's run, during which he was so cheerful
+and unclouded that his doctor was quite hopeful about him.  At
+various times on these occasions I got from him that when he left
+the shepherd's hut, he thought his illness had run itself out, and
+that he should now reach the port from which he was to sail for S.
+Francisco without misadventure.  This he did, and he was able to do
+all he had to do at the port, though frequently attacked with
+passing fits of giddiness.  I need not dwell upon his voyage to S.
+Francisco, and thence home; it is enough to say that he was able to
+travel by himself in spite of gradually, but continually,
+increasing failure.
+
+"When," he said, "I reached the port, I telegraphed as you know,
+for more money.  How puzzled you must have been.  I sold my horse
+to the man from whom I bought it, at a loss of only about 10
+pounds, and I left with him my saddle, saddlebags, small hatchet,
+my hobbles, and in fact everything that I had taken with me, except
+what they had impounded in Erewhon.  Yram's rug I dropped into the
+river when I knew that I should no longer need it--as also her
+substitutes for my billy and pannikin; and I burned her basket.
+The shepherd would have asked me questions.  You will find an order
+to deliver everything up to bearer.  You need therefore take
+nothing from England."
+
+At another time he said, "When you go, for it is plain I cannot,
+and go one or other of us must, try and get the horse I had:  he
+will be nine years old, and he knows all about the rivers:  if you
+leave everything to him, you may shut your eyes, but do not
+interfere with him.  Give the shepherd what I said and he will
+attend to you, but go a day or two too soon, for the margin of one
+day was not enough to allow in case of a fresh in the river; if the
+water is discoloured you must not cross it--not even with Doctor.
+I could not ask George to come up three days running from
+Sunch'ston to the statues and back."
+
+Here he became exhausted.  Almost the last coherent string of
+sentences I got from him was as follows:-
+
+"About George's money if I send him 2000 pounds you will still have
+nearly 150,000 pounds left, and Mr. Cathie will not let you try to
+make it more.  I know you would give him four or five thousand, but
+the Mayor and I talked it over, and settled that 2000 pounds in
+gold would make him a rich man.  Consult our good friend Alfred"
+(meaning, of course, Mr. Cathie) "about the best way of taking the
+money.  I am afraid there is nothing for it but gold, and this will
+be a great weight for you to carry--about, I believe 36 lbs.  Can
+you do this?  I really think that if you lead your horse you . . .
+no--there will be the getting him down again--"
+
+"Don't worry about it, my dear father," said I, "I can do it easily
+if I stow the load rightly, and I will see to this.  I shall have
+nothing else to carry, for I shall camp down below both morning and
+evening.  But would you not like to send some present to the Mayor,
+Yram, their other children, and Mrs. Humdrum's grand-daughter?"
+
+"Do what you can," said my father.  And these were the last
+instructions he gave me about those adventures with which alone
+this work is concerned.
+
+The day before he died, he had a little flicker of intelligence,
+but all of a sudden his face became clouded as with great anxiety;
+he seemed to see some horrible chasm in front of him which he had
+to cross, or which he feared that I must cross, for he gasped out
+words, which, as near as I could catch them, were, "Look out!
+John!  Leap!  Leap!  Le . . . " but he could not say all that he
+was trying to say and closed his eyes, having, as I then deemed,
+seen that he was on the brink of that gulf which lies between life
+and death; I took it that in reality he died at that moment; for
+there was neither struggle, nor hardly movement of any kind
+afterwards--nothing but a pulse which for the next several hours
+grew fainter and fainter so gradually, that it was not till some
+time after it had ceased to beat that we were certain of its having
+done so.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII:  I MEET MY BROTHER GEORGE AT THE STATUES, ON THE TOP
+OF THE PASS INTO EREWHON
+
+
+
+This book has already become longer than I intended, but I will ask
+the reader to have patience while I tell him briefly of my own
+visit to the threshold of that strange country of which I fear that
+he may be already beginning to tire.
+
+The winding-up of my father's estate was a very simple matter, and
+by the beginning of September 1891 I should have been free to
+start; but about that time I became engaged, and naturally enough I
+did not want to be longer away than was necessary.  I should not
+have gone at all if I could have helped it.  I left, however, a
+fortnight later than my father had done.
+
+Before starting I bought a handsome gold repeater for the Mayor,
+and a brooch for Yram, of pearls and diamonds set in gold, for
+which I paid 200 pounds.  For Yram's three daughters and for Mrs.
+Humdrum's grand-daughter I took four brooches each of which cost
+about 15 pounds, 15s., and for the boys I got three ten-guinea
+silver watches.  For George I only took a strong English knife of
+the best make, and the two thousand pounds worth of uncoined gold,
+which for convenience' sake I had had made into small bars.  I also
+had a knapsack made that would hold these and nothing else--each
+bar being strongly sewn into its place, so that none of them could
+shift.  Whenever I went on board ship, or went on shore, I put this
+on my back, so that no one handled it except myself--and I can
+assure the reader that I did not find it a light weight to handle.
+I ought to have taken something for old Mrs. Humdrum, but I am
+ashamed to say that I forgot her.
+
+I went as directly as I could to the port of which my father had
+told me, and reached it on November 27, one day later than he had
+done in the preceding year.
+
+On the following day, which was a Saturday, I went to the livery
+stables from which my father had bought his horse, and found to my
+great delight that Doctor could be at my disposal, for, as it
+seemed to me, the very reasonable price of fifteen shillings a day.
+I shewed the owner of the stables my father's order, and all the
+articles he had left were immediately delivered to me.  I was still
+wearing crape round one arm, and the horse-dealer, whose name was
+Baker, said he was afraid the other gentleman might be dead.
+
+"Indeed, he is so," said I, "and a great grief it is to me; he was
+my father."
+
+"Dear, dear," answered Mr. Baker, "that is a very serious thing for
+the poor gentleman.  He seemed quite unfit to travel alone, and I
+feared he was not long for this world, but he was bent on going."
+
+I had nothing now to do but to buy a blanket, pannikin, and billy,
+with some tea, tobacco, two bottles of brandy, some ship's
+biscuits, and whatever other few items were down on the list of
+requisites which my father had dictated to me.  Mr. Baker, seeing
+that I was what he called a new chum, shewed me how to pack my
+horse, but I kept my knapsack full of gold on my back, and though I
+could see that it puzzled him, he asked no questions.  There was no
+reason why I should not set out at once for the principal town of
+the colony, which was some ten miles inland; I, therefore, arranged
+at my hotel that the greater part of my luggage should await my
+return, and set out to climb the high hills that back the port.
+From the top of these I had a magnificent view of the plains that I
+should have to cross, and of the long range of distant mountains
+which bounded them north and south as far as the eye could reach.
+On some of the mountains I could still see streaks of snow, but my
+father had explained to me that the ranges I should here see, were
+not those dividing the English colony from Erewhon.  I also saw,
+some nine miles or so out upon the plains, the more prominent
+buildings of a large town which seemed to be embosomed in trees,
+and this I reached in about an hour and a half; for I had to
+descend at a foot's pace, and Doctor's many virtues did not
+comprise a willingness to go beyond an amble.
+
+At the town above referred to I spent the night, and began to
+strike across the plains on the following morning.  I might have
+crossed these in three days at twenty-five miles a day, but I had
+too much time on my hands, and my load of gold was so uncomfortable
+that I was glad to stay at one accommodation house after another,
+averaging about eighteen miles a day.  I have no doubt that if I
+had taken advice, I could have stowed my load more conveniently,
+but I could not unpack it, and made the best of it as it was.
+
+On the evening of Wednesday, December 2, I reached the river which
+I should have to follow up; it was here nearing the gorge through
+which it had to pass before the country opened out again at the
+back of the front range.  I came upon it quite suddenly on reaching
+the brink of a great terrace, the bank of which sloped almost
+precipitously down towards it, but was covered with grass.  The
+terrace was some three hundred feet above the river, and faced
+another similar one, which was from a mile and a half to two miles
+distant.  At the bottom of this huge yawning chasm, rolled the
+mighty river, and I shuddered at the thought of having to cross and
+recross it.  For it was angry, muddy, evidently in heavy fresh, and
+filled bank and bank for nearly a mile with a flood of seething
+waters.
+
+I followed along the northern edge of the terrace, till I reached
+the last accommodation house that could be said to be on the
+plains--which, by the way, were here some eight or nine hundred
+feet above sea level.  When I reached this house, I was glad to
+learn that the river was not likely to remain high for more than a
+day or two, and that if what was called a Southerly Burster came
+up, as it might be expected to do at any moment, it would be quite
+low again before three days were over.
+
+At this house I stayed the night, and in the course of the evening
+a stray dog--a retriever, hardly full grown, and evidently very
+much down on his luck--took up with me; when I inquired about him,
+and asked if I might take him with me, the landlord said he wished
+I would, for he knew nothing about him and was trying to drive him
+from the house.  Knowing what a boon the companionship of this poor
+beast would be to me when I was camping out alone, I encouraged
+him, and next morning he followed me as a matter of course.
+
+In the night the Southerly Burster which my host anticipated had
+come up, cold and blustering, but invigorating after the hot, dry,
+wind that had been blowing hard during the daytime as I had crossed
+the plains.  A mile or two higher up I passed a large sheep-
+station, but did not stay there.  One or two men looked at me with
+surprise, and asked me where I was going, whereon I said I was in
+search of rare plants and birds for the Museum of the town at which
+I had slept the night after my arrival.  This satisfied their
+curiosity, and I ambled on accompanied by the dog.  In passing I
+may say that I found Doctor not to excel at any pace except an
+amble, but for a long journey, especially for one who is carrying a
+heavy, awkward load, there is no pace so comfortable; and he ambled
+fairly fast.
+
+I followed the horse track which had been cut through the gorge,
+and in many places I disliked it extremely, for the river, still in
+fresh, was raging furiously; twice, for some few yards, where the
+gorge was wider and the stream less rapid, it covered the track,
+and I had no confidence that it might not have washed it away; on
+these occasions Doctor pricked his ears towards the water, and was
+evidently thinking exactly what his rider was.  He decided,
+however, that all would be sound, and took to the water without any
+urging on my part.  Seeing his opinion, I remembered my father's
+advice, and let him do what he liked, but in one place for three or
+four yards the water came nearly up to his belly, and I was in
+great fear for the watches that were in my saddlebags.  As for the
+dog, I feared I had lost him, but after a time he rejoined me,
+though how he contrived to do so I cannot say.
+
+Nothing could be grander than the sight of this great river pent
+into a narrow compass, and occasionally becoming more like an
+immense waterfall than a river, but I was in continual fear of
+coming to more places where the water would be over the track, and
+perhaps of finding myself unable to get any farther.  I therefore
+failed to enjoy what was really far the most impressive sight in
+its way that I had ever seen.  "Give me," I said to myself, "the
+Thames at Richmond," and right thankful was I, when at about two
+o'clock I found that I was through the gorge and in a wide valley,
+the greater part of which, however, was still covered by the river.
+It was here that I heard for the first time the curious sound of
+boulders knocking against each other underneath the great body of
+water that kept rolling them round and round.
+
+I now halted, and lit a fire, for there was much dead scrub
+standing that had remained after the ground had been burned for the
+first time some years previously.  I made myself some tea, and
+turned Doctor out for a couple of hours to feed.  I did not hobble
+him, for my father had told me that he would always come for bread.
+When I had dined, and smoked, and slept for a couple of hours or
+so, I reloaded Doctor and resumed my journey towards the shepherd's
+hut, which I caught sight of about a mile before I reached it.
+When nearly half a mile off it, I dismounted, and made a written
+note of the exact spot at which I did so.  I then turned for a
+couple of hundred yards to my right, at right angles to the track,
+where some huge rocks were lying--fallen ages since from the
+mountain that flanked this side of the valley.  Here I deposited my
+knapsack in a hollow underneath some of the rocks, and put a good
+sized stone in front of it, for I meant spending a couple of days
+with the shepherd to let the river go down.  Moreover, as it was
+now only December 3, I had too much time on my hands, but I had not
+dared to cut things finer.
+
+I reached the hut at about six o'clock, and introduced myself to
+the shepherd, who was a nice, kind old man, commonly called Harris,
+but his real name he told me was Horace--Horace Taylor.  I had the
+conversation with him of which I have already told the reader,
+adding that my father had been unable to give a coherent account of
+what he had seen, and that I had been sent to get the information
+he had failed to furnish.
+
+The old man said that I must certainly wait a couple of days before
+I went higher up the river.  He had made himself a nice garden, in
+which he took the greatest pride, and which supplied him with
+plenty of vegetables.  He was very glad to have company, and to
+receive the newspapers which I had taken care to bring him.  He had
+a real genius for simple cookery, and fed me excellently.  My
+father's 5 pounds, and the ration of brandy which I nightly gave
+him, made me a welcome guest, and though I was longing to be at any
+rate as far as the foot of the pass into Erewhon, I amused myself
+very well in an abundance of ways with which I need not trouble the
+reader.
+
+One of the first things that Harris said to me was, "I wish I knew
+what your father did with the nice red blanket he had with him when
+he went up the river.  He had none when he came down again; I have
+no horse here, but I borrowed one from a man who came up one day
+from down below, and rode to a place where I found what I am sure
+were the ashes of the last fire he made, but I could find neither
+the blanket nor the billy and pannikin he took away with him.  He
+said he supposed he must have left the things there, but he could
+remember nothing about it."
+
+"I am afraid," said I, "that I cannot help you."
+
+"At any rate," continued the shepherd, "I did not have my ride for
+nothing, for as I was coming back I found this rug half covered
+with sand on the river-bed."
+
+As he spoke he pointed to an excellent warm rug, on the spare bunk
+in his hut.  "It is none of our make," said he; "I suppose some
+foreign digger has come over from the next river down south and got
+drowned, for it had not been very long where I found it, at least I
+think not, for it was not much fly-blown, and no one had passed
+here to go up the river since your father."
+
+I knew what it was, but I held my tongue beyond saying that the rug
+was a very good one.
+
+The next day, December 4, was lovely, after a night that had been
+clear and cold, with frost towards early morning.  When the
+shepherd had gone for some three hours in the forenoon to see his
+sheep (that were now lambing), I walked down to the place where I
+had left my knapsack, and carried it a good mile above the hut,
+where I again hid it.  I could see the great range from one place,
+and the thick new fallen snow assured me that the river would be
+quite normal shortly.  Indeed, by evening it was hardly at all
+discoloured, but I waited another day, and set out on the morning
+of Sunday, December 6.  The river was now almost as low as in
+winter, and Harris assured me that if I used my eyes I could not
+miss finding a ford over one stream or another every half mile or
+so.  I had the greatest difficulty in preventing him from
+accompanying me on foot for some little distance, but I got rid of
+him in the end; he came with me beyond the place where I had hidden
+my knapsack, but when he had left me long enough, I rode back and
+got it.
+
+I see I am dwelling too long upon my own small adventures.  Suffice
+it that, accompanied by my dog, I followed the north bank of the
+river till I found I must cross one stream before I could get any
+farther.  This place would not do, and I had to ride half a mile
+back before I found one that seemed as if it might be safe.  I
+fancy my father must have done just the same thing, for Doctor
+seemed to know the ground, and took to the water the moment I
+brought him to it.  It never reached his belly, but I confess I did
+not like it.  By and by I had to recross, and so on, off and on,
+till at noon I camped for dinner.  Here the dog found me a nest of
+young ducks, nearly fledged, from which the parent birds tried with
+great success to decoy me.  I fully thought I was going to catch
+them, but the dog knew better and made straight for the nest, from
+which he returned immediately with a fine young duck in his mouth,
+which he laid at my feet, wagging his tail and barking.  I took
+another from the nest and left two for the old birds.
+
+The afternoon was much as the morning and towards seven I reached a
+place which suggested itself as a good camping ground.  I had
+hardly fixed on it and halted, before I saw a few pieces of charred
+wood, and felt sure that my father must have camped at this very
+place before me.  I hobbled Doctor, unloaded, plucked and singed a
+duck, and gave the dog some of the meat with which Harris had
+furnished me; I made tea, laid my duck on the embers till it was
+cooked, smoked, gave myself a nightcap of brandy and water, and by
+and by rolled myself round in my blanket, with the dog curled up
+beside me.  I will not dwell upon the strangeness of my feelings--
+nor the extreme beauty of the night.  But for the dog, and Doctor,
+I should have been frightened, but I knew that there were no savage
+creatures or venomous snakes in the country, and both the dog and
+Doctor were such good companionable creatures, that I did not feel
+so much oppressed by the solitude as I had feared I should be.  But
+the night was cold, and my blanket was not enough to keep me
+comfortably warm.
+
+The following day was delightfully warm as soon as the sun got to
+the bottom of the valley, and the fresh fallen snow disappeared so
+fast from the snowy range that I was afraid it would raise the
+river--which, indeed, rose in the afternoon and became slightly
+discoloured, but it cannot have been more than three or four inches
+deeper, for it never reached the bottom of my saddle-bags.  I
+believe Doctor knew exactly where I was going, for he wanted no
+guidance.  I halted again at midday, got two more ducks, crossed
+and recrossed the river, or some of its streams, several times, and
+at about six, caught sight, after a bend in the valley, of the
+glacier descending on to the river-bed.  This I knew to be close to
+the point at which I was to camp for the night, and from which I
+was to ascend the mountain.  After another hour's slow progress
+over the increasing roughness of the river-bed, I saw the
+triangular delta of which my father had told me, and the stream
+that had formed it, bounding down the mountain side.  Doctor went
+right up to the place where my father's fire had been, and I again
+found many pieces of charred wood and ashes.
+
+As soon as I had unloaded Doctor and hobbled him, I went to a tree
+hard by, on which I could see the mark of a blaze, and towards
+which I thought I could see a line of wood ashes running.  There I
+found a hole in which some bird had evidently been wont to build,
+and surmised correctly that it must be the one in which my father
+had hidden his box of sovereigns.  There was no box in the hole
+now, and I began to feel that I was at last within measureable
+distance of Erewhon and the Erewhonians.
+
+I camped for the night here, and again found my single blanket
+insufficient.  The next day, i.e. Tuesday, December 8, I had to
+pass as I best could, and it occurred to me that as I should find
+the gold a great weight, I had better take it some three hours up
+the mountain side and leave it there, so as to make the following
+day less fatiguing, and this I did, returning to my camp for
+dinner; but I was panic-stricken all the rest of the day lest I
+should not have hidden it safely, or lest I should be unable to
+find it next day--conjuring up a hundred absurd fancies as to what
+might befall it.  And after all, heavy though it was, I could have
+carried it all the way.  In the afternoon I saddled Doctor and rode
+him up to the glaciers, which were indeed magnificent, and then I
+made the few notes of my journey from which this chapter has been
+taken.  I made excuses for turning in early, and at daybreak
+rekindled my fire and got my breakfast.  All the time the
+companionship of the dog was an unspeakable comfort to me.
+
+It was now the day my father had fixed for my meeting with George,
+and my excitement (with which I have not yet troubled the reader,
+though it had been consuming me ever since I had left Harris's hut)
+was beyond all bounds, so much so that I almost feared I was in a
+fever which would prevent my completing the little that remained of
+my task; in fact, I was in as great a panic as I had been about the
+gold that I had left.  My hands trembled as I took the watches, and
+the brooches for Yram and her daughters from my saddle-bags, which
+I then hung, probably on the very bough on which my father had hung
+them.  Needless to say, I also hung my saddle and bridle along with
+the saddle-bags.
+
+It was nearly seven before I started, and about ten before I
+reached the hiding-place of my knapsack.  I found it, of course,
+quite easily, shouldered it, and toiled on towards the statues.  At
+a quarter before twelve I reached them, and almost beside myself as
+I was, could not refrain from some disappointment at finding them a
+good deal smaller than I expected.  My father, correcting the
+measurement he had given in his book, said he thought that they
+were about four or five times the size of life; but really I do not
+think they were more than twenty feet high, any one of them.  In
+other respects my father's description of them is quite accurate.
+There was no wind, and as a matter of course, therefore, they were
+not chanting.  I wiled away the quarter of an hour before the time
+when George became due, with wondering at them, and in a way
+admiring them, hideous though they were; but all the time I kept
+looking towards the part from which George should come.
+
+At last my watch pointed to noon, but there was no George.  A
+quarter past twelve, but no George.  Half-past, still no George.
+One o'clock, and all the quarters till three o'clock, but still no
+George.  I tried to eat some of the ship's biscuits I had brought
+with me, but I could not.  My disappointment was now as great as my
+excitement had been all the forenoon; at three o'clock I fairly
+cried, and for half an hour could only fling myself on the ground
+and give way to all the unreasonable spleen that extreme vexation
+could suggest.  True, I kept telling myself that for aught I knew
+George might be dead, or down with a fever; but this would not do;
+for in this last case he should have sent one of his brothers to
+meet me, and it was not likely that he was dead.  I am afraid I
+thought it most probable that he had been casual--of which unworthy
+suspicion I have long since been heartily ashamed.
+
+I put the brooches inside my knapsack, and hid it in a place where
+I was sure no one would find it; then, with a heavy heart, I
+trudged down again to my camp--broken in spirit, and hopeless for
+the morrow.
+
+I camped again, but it was some hours before I got a wink of sleep;
+and when sleep came it was accompanied by a strange dream.  I
+dreamed that I was by my father's bedside, watching his last
+flicker of intelligence, and vainly trying to catch the words that
+he was not less vainly trying to utter.  All of a sudden the bed
+seemed to be at my camping ground, and the largest of the statues
+appeared, quite small, high up the mountain side, but striding down
+like a giant in seven league boots till it stood over me and my
+father, and shouted out "Leap, John, leap."  In the horror of this
+vision I woke with a loud cry that woke my dog also, and made him
+shew such evident signs of fear, that it seemed to me as though he
+too must have shared my dream.
+
+Shivering with cold I started up in a frenzy, but there was
+nothing, save a night of such singular beauty that I did not even
+try to go to sleep again.  Naturally enough, on trying to keep
+awake I dropped asleep before many minutes were over.
+
+In the morning I again climbed up to the statues, without, to my
+surprise, being depressed with the idea that George would again
+fail to meet me.  On the contrary, without rhyme or reason, I had a
+strong presentiment that he would come.  And sure enough, as soon
+as I caught sight of the statues, which I did about a quarter to
+twelve, I saw a youth coming towards me, with a quick step, and a
+beaming face that had only to be seen to be fallen in love with.
+
+"You are my brother," said he to me.  "Is my father with you?"
+
+I pointed to the crape on my arm, and to the ground, but said
+nothing.
+
+He understood me, and bared his head.  Then he flung his arms about
+me and kissed my forehead according to Erewhonian custom.  I was a
+little surprised at his saying nothing to me about the way in which
+he had disappointed me on the preceding day; I resolved, however,
+to wait for the explanation that I felt sure he would give me
+presently.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII:  GEORGE AND I SPEND A FEW HOURS TOGETHER AT THE
+STATUES, AND THEN PART--I REACH HOME--POSTSCRIPT
+
+
+
+I have said on an earlier page that George gained an immediate
+ascendancy over me, but ascendancy is not the word--he took me by
+storm; how, or why, I neither know nor want to know, but before I
+had been with him more than a few minutes I felt as though I had
+known and loved him all my life.  And the dog fawned upon him as
+though he felt just as I did.
+
+"Come to the statues," said he, as soon as he had somewhat
+recovered from the shock of the news I had given him.  "We can sit
+down there on the very stone on which our father and I sat a year
+ago.  I have brought a basket, which my mother packed for--for--him
+and me.  Did he talk to you about me?"
+
+"He talked of nothing so much, and he thought of nothing so much.
+He had your boots put where he could see them from his bed until he
+died."
+
+Then followed the explanation about these boots, of which the
+reader has already been told.  This made us both laugh, and from
+that moment we were cheerful.
+
+I say nothing about our enjoyment of the luncheon with which Yram
+had provided us, and if I were to detail all that I told George
+about my father, and all the additional information that I got from
+him--(many a point did he clear up for me that I had not fully
+understood)--I should fill several chapters, whereas I have left
+myself only one.  Luncheon being over I said -
+
+"And are you married?"
+
+"Yes" (with a blush), "and are you?"
+
+I could not blush.  Why should I?  And yet young people--especially
+the most ingenuous among them--are apt to flush up on being asked
+if they are, or are going, to be married.  If I could have blushed,
+I would.  As it was I could only say that I was engaged and should
+marry as soon as I got back.
+
+"Then you have come all this way for me, when you were wanting to
+get married?"
+
+"Of course I have.  My father on his death-bed told me to do so,
+and to bring you something that I have brought you."
+
+"What trouble I have given!  How can I thank you?"
+
+"Shake hands with me."
+
+Whereon he gave my hand a stronger grip than I had quite bargained
+for.
+
+"And now," said I, "before I tell you what I have brought, you must
+promise me to accept it.  Your father said I was not to leave you
+till you had done so, and I was to say that he sent it with his
+dying blessing."
+
+After due demur George gave his promise, and I took him to the
+place where I had hidden my knapsack.
+
+"I brought it up yesterday," said I.
+
+"Yesterday? but why?"
+
+"Because yesterday--was it not?--was the first of the two days
+agreed upon between you and our father?"
+
+"No--surely to-day is the first day--I was to come XXI. i. 3, which
+would be your December 9."
+
+"But yesterday was December 9 with us--to-day is December 10."
+
+"Strange!  What day of the week do you make it?"
+
+"To-day is Thursday, December 10."
+
+"This is still stranger--we make it Wednesday; yesterday was
+Tuesday."
+
+Then I saw it.  The year XX. had been a leap year with the
+Erewhonians, and 1891 in England had not.  This, then, was what had
+crossed my father's brain in his dying hours, and what he had
+vainly tried to tell me.  It was also what my unconscious self had
+been struggling to tell my conscious one, during the past night,
+but which my conscious self had been too stupid to understand.  And
+yet my conscious self had caught it in an imperfect sort of a way
+after all, for from the moment that my dream had left me I had been
+composed, and easy in my mind that all would be well.  I wish some
+one would write a book about dreams and parthenogenesis--for that
+the two are part and parcel of the same story--a brood of folly
+without father bred--I cannot doubt.
+
+I did not trouble George with any of this rubbish, but only shewed
+him how the mistake had arisen.  When we had laughed sufficiently
+over my mistake--for it was I who had come up on the wrong day, not
+he--I fished my knapsack out of its hiding-place.
+
+"Do not unpack it," said I, "beyond taking out the brooches, or you
+will not be able to pack it so well; but you can see the ends of
+the bars of gold, and you can feel the weight; my father sent them
+for you.  The pearl brooch is for your mother, the smaller brooches
+are for your sisters, and your wife."
+
+I then told him how much gold there was, and from my pockets
+brought out the watches and the English knife.
+
+"This last," I said, "is the only thing that I am giving you; the
+rest is all from our father.  I have many many times as much gold
+myself, and this is legally your property as much as mine is mine."
+
+George was aghast, but he was powerless alike to express his
+feelings, or to refuse the gold.
+
+"Do you mean to say that my father left me this by his will?"
+
+"Certainly he did," said I, inventing a pious fraud.
+
+"It is all against my oath," said he, looking grave.
+
+"Your oath be hanged," said I.  "You must give the gold to the
+Mayor, who knows that it was coming, and it will appear to the
+world, as though he were giving it you now instead of leaving you
+anything."
+
+"But it is ever so much too much!"
+
+"It is not half enough.  You and the Mayor must settle all that
+between you.  He and our father talked it all over, and this was
+what they settled."
+
+"And our father planned all this, without saying a word to me about
+it while we were on our way up here?"
+
+"Yes.  There might have been some hitch in the gold's coming.
+Besides the Mayor told him not to tell you."
+
+"And he never said anything about the other money he left for me--
+which enabled me to marry at once?  Why was this?"
+
+"Your mother said he was not to do so."
+
+"Bless my heart, how they have duped me all round.  But why would
+not my mother let your father tell me?  Oh yes--she was afraid I
+should tell the King about it, as I certainly should, when I told
+him all the rest."
+
+"Tell the King?" said I, "what have you been telling the King?"
+
+"Everything; except about the nuggets and the sovereigns, of which
+I knew nothing; and I have felt myself a blackguard ever since for
+not telling him about these when he came up here last autumn--but I
+let the Mayor and my mother talk me over, as I am afraid they will
+do again."
+
+"When did you tell the King?"
+
+Then followed all the details that I have told in the latter part
+of Chapter XXI.  When I asked how the King took the confession,
+George said -
+
+"He was so much flattered at being treated like a reasonable being,
+and Dr. Downie, who was chief spokesman, played his part so
+discreetly, without attempting to obscure even the most
+compromising issues, that though his Majesty made some show of
+displeasure at first, it was plain that he was heartily enjoying
+the whole story.
+
+"Dr. Downie shewed very well.  He took on himself the onus of
+having advised our action, and he gave me all the credit of having
+proposed that we should make a clean breast of everything.
+
+"The King, too, behaved with truly royal politeness; he was on the
+point of asking why I had not taken our father to the Blue Pool at
+once, and flung him into it on the Sunday afternoon, when something
+seemed to strike him:  he gave me a searching look, on which he
+said in an undertone, 'Oh yes,' and did not go on with his
+question.  He never blamed me for anything, and when I begged him
+to accept my resignation of the Rangership, he said -
+
+"'No.  Stay where you are till I lose confidence in you, which will
+not, I think, be very soon.  I will come and have a few days'
+shooting about the middle of March, and if I have good sport I
+shall order your salary to be increased.  If any more foreign
+devils come over, do not Blue-Pool them; send them down to me, and
+I will see what I think of them; I am much disposed to encourage a
+few of them to settle here."
+
+"I am sure," continued George, "that he said this because he knew I
+was half a foreign devil myself.  Indeed he won my heart not only
+by the delicacy of his consideration, but by the obvious good will
+he bore me.  I do not know what he did with the nuggets, but he
+gave orders that the blanket and the rest of my father's kit should
+be put in the great Erewhonian Museum.  As regards my father's
+receipt, and the Professors' two depositions, he said he would have
+them carefully preserved in his secret archives.  'A document,' he
+said somewhat enigmatically, 'is a document--but, Professor Hanky,
+you can have this'--and as he spoke he handed him back his pocket-
+handkerchief.
+
+"Hanky during the whole interview was furious, at having to play so
+undignified a part, but even more so, because the King while he
+paid marked attention to Dr. Downie, and even to myself, treated
+him with amused disdain.  Nevertheless, angry though he was, he was
+impenitent, unabashed, and brazened it out at Bridgeford, that the
+King had received him with open arms, and had snubbed Dr. Downie
+and myself.  But for his (Hanky's) intercession, I should have been
+dismissed then and there from the Rangership.  And so forth.  Panky
+never opened his mouth.
+
+"Returning to the King, his Majesty said to Dr. Downie, 'I am
+afraid I shall not be able to canonize any of you gentlemen just
+yet.  We must let this affair blow over.  Indeed I am in half a
+mind to have this Sunchild bubble pricked; I never liked it, and am
+getting tired of it; you Musical Bank gentlemen are overdoing it.
+I will talk it over with her Majesty.  As for Professor Hanky, I do
+not see how I can keep one who has been so successfully hoodwinked,
+as my Professor of Worldly Wisdom; but I will consult her Majesty
+about this point also.  Perhaps I can find another post for him.
+If I decide on having Sunchildism pricked, he shall apply the pin.
+You may go.'
+
+"And glad enough," said George, "we all of us were to do so."
+
+"But did he," I asked, "try to prick the bubble of Sunchildism?"
+
+"Oh no.  As soon as he said he would talk it over with her Majesty,
+I knew the whole thing would end in smoke, as indeed to all outward
+appearance it shortly did; for Dr. Downie advised him not to be in
+too great a hurry, and whatever he did to do it gradually.  He
+therefore took no further action than to show marked favour to
+practical engineers and mechanicians.  Moreover he started an
+aeronautical society, which made Bridgeford furious; but so far, I
+am afraid it has done us no good, for the first ascent was
+disastrous, involving the death of the poor fellow who made it, and
+since then no one has ventured to ascend.  I am afraid we do not
+get on very fast."
+
+"Did the King," I asked, "increase your salary?"
+
+"Yes.  He doubled it."
+
+"And what do they say in Sunch'ston about our father's second
+visit?"
+
+George laughed, and shewed me the newspaper extract which I have
+already given.  I asked who wrote it.
+
+"I did," said he, with a demure smile; "I wrote it at night after I
+returned home, and before starting for the capital next morning.  I
+called myself 'the deservedly popular Ranger,' to avert suspicion.
+No one found me out; you can keep the extract, I brought it here on
+purpose."
+
+"It does you great credit.  Was there ever any lunatic, and was he
+found?"
+
+"Oh yes.  That part was true, except that he had never been up our
+way."
+
+"Then the poacher is still at large?"
+
+"It is to be feared so."
+
+"And were Dr. Downie and the Professors canonized after all."
+
+"Not yet; but the Professors will be next month--for Hanky is still
+Professor.  Dr. Downie backed out of it.  He said it was enough to
+be a Sunchildist without being a Sunchild Saint.  He worships the
+jumping cat as much as the others, but he keeps his eye better on
+the cat, and sees sooner both when it will jump, and where it will
+jump to.  Then, without disturbing any one, he insinuates himself
+into the place which will be best when the jump is over.  Some say
+that the cat knows him and follows him; at all events when he makes
+a move the cat generally jumps towards him soon afterwards."
+
+"You give him a very high character."
+
+"Yes, but I have my doubts about his doing much in this matter; he
+is getting old, and Hanky burrows like a mole night and day.  There
+is no knowing how it will all end."
+
+"And the people at Sunch'ston?  Has it got well about among them,
+in spite of your admirable article, that it was the Sunchild
+himself who interrupted Hanky?"
+
+"It has, and it has not.  Many of us know the truth, but a story
+came down from Bridgeford that it was an evil spirit who had
+assumed the Sunchild's form, intending to make people sceptical
+about Sunchildism; Hanky and Panky cowed this spirit, otherwise it
+would never have recanted.  Many people swallow this."
+
+"But Hanky and Panky swore that they knew the man."
+
+"That does not matter."
+
+"And now please, how long have you been married?"
+
+"About ten months."
+
+"Any family?"
+
+"One boy about a fortnight old.  Do come down to Sunch'ston and see
+him--he is your own nephew.  You speak Erewhonian so perfectly that
+no human being would suspect you were a foreigner, and you look one
+of us from head to foot.  I can smuggle you through quite easily,
+and my mother would so like to see you."
+
+I should dearly have liked to have gone, but it was out of the
+question.  I had nothing with me but the clothes I stood in;
+moreover I was longing to be back in England, and when once I was
+in Erewhon there was no knowing when I should be able to get away
+again; but George fought hard before he gave in.
+
+It was now nearing the time when this strange meeting between two
+brothers--as strange a one as the statues can ever have looked down
+upon--must come to an end.  I shewed George what the repeater would
+do, and what it would expect of its possessor.  I gave him six good
+photographs, of my father and myself--three of each.  He had never
+seen a photograph, and could hardly believe his eyes as he looked
+at those I shewed him.  I also gave him three envelopes addressed
+to myself, care of Alfred Emery Cathie, Esq., 15 Clifford's Inn,
+London, and implored him to write to me if he could ever find means
+of getting a letter over the range as far as the shepherd's hut.
+At this he shook his head, but he promised to write if he could.  I
+also told him that I had written a full account of my father's
+second visit to Erewhon, but that it should never be published till
+I heard from him--at which he again shook his head, but added, "And
+yet who can tell?  For the King may have the country opened up to
+foreigners some day after all."
+
+Then he thanked me a thousand times over, shouldered the knapsack,
+embraced me as he had my father, and caressed the dog, embraced me
+again, and made no attempt to hide the tears that ran down his
+cheeks.
+
+"There," he said; "I shall wait here till you are out of sight."
+
+I turned away, and did not look back till I reached the place at
+which I knew that I should lose the statues.  I then turned round,
+waved my hand--as also did George, and went down the mountain side,
+full of sad thoughts, but thankful that my task had been so happily
+accomplished, and aware that my life henceforward had been enriched
+by something that I could never lose.
+
+For I had never seen, and felt as though I never could see,
+George's equal.  His absolute unconsciousness of self, the
+unhesitating way in which he took me to his heart, his fearless
+frankness, the happy genial expression that played on his face, and
+the extreme sweetness of his smile--these were the things that made
+me say to myself that the "blazon of beauty's best" could tell me
+nothing better than what I had found and lost within the last three
+hours.  How small, too, I felt by comparison!  If for no other
+cause, yet for this, that I, who had wept so bitterly over my own
+disappointment the day before, could meet this dear fellow's tears
+with no tear of my own.
+
+But let this pass.  I got back to Harris's hut without adventure.
+When there, in the course of the evening, I told Harris that I had
+a fancy for the rug he had found on the river-bed, and that if he
+would let me have it, I would give him my red one and ten shillings
+to boot.  The exchange was so obviously to his advantage that he
+made no demur, and next morning I strapped Yram's rug on to my
+horse, and took it gladly home to England, where I keep it on my
+own bed next to the counterpane, so that with care it may last me
+out my life.  I wanted him to take the dog and make a home for him,
+but he had two collies already, and said that a retriever would be
+of no use to him.  So I took the poor beast on with me to the port,
+where I was glad to find that Mr. Baker liked him and accepted him
+from me, though he was not mine to give.  He had been such an
+unspeakable comfort to me when I was alone, that he would have
+haunted me unless I had been able to provide for him where I knew
+he would be well cared for.  As for Doctor, I was sorry to leave
+him, but I knew he was in good hands.
+
+"I see you have not brought your knapsack back, sir," said Mr.
+Baker.
+
+"No," said I, "and very thankful was I when I had handed it over to
+those for whom it was intended."
+
+"I have no doubt you were, sir, for I could see it was a desperate
+heavy load for you."
+
+"Indeed it was."  But at this point I brought the discussion to a
+close.
+
+Two days later I sailed, and reached home early in February 1892.
+I was married three weeks later, and when the honeymoon was over,
+set about making the necessary, and some, I fear, unnecessary
+additions to this book--by far the greater part of which had been
+written, as I have already said, many months earlier.  I now leave
+it, at any rate for the present, April 22, 1892.
+
+* * *
+
+Postscript.--On the last day of November 1900, I received a letter
+addressed in Mr. Alfred Cathie's familiar handwriting, and on
+opening it found that it contained another, addressed to me in my
+own, and unstamped.  For the moment I was puzzled, but immediately
+knew that it must be from George.  I tore it open, and found eight
+closely written pages, which I devoured as I have seldom indeed
+devoured so long a letter.  It was dated XXIX. vii. 1, and, as
+nearly as I can translate it was as follows;-
+
+"Twice, my dearest brother, have I written to you, and twice in
+successive days in successive years, have I been up to the statues
+on the chance that you could meet me, as I proposed in my letters.
+Do not think I went all the way back to Sunch'ston--there is a
+ranger's shelter now only an hour and a half below the statues, and
+here I passed the night.  I knew you had got neither of my letters,
+for if you had got them and could not come yourself, you would have
+sent some one whom you could trust with a letter.  I know you
+would, though I do not know how you would have contrived to do it.
+
+"I sent both letters through Bishop Kahabuka (or, as his inferior
+clergy call him, 'Chowbok'), head of the Christian Mission to
+Erewhemos, which, as your father has doubtless told you, is the
+country adjoining Erewhon, but inhabited by a coloured race having
+no affinity with our own.  Bishop Kahabuka has penetrated at times
+into Erewhon, and the King, wishing to be on good terms with his
+neighbours, has permitted him to establish two or three mission
+stations in the western parts of Erewhon.  Among the missionaries
+are some few of your own countrymen.  None of us like them, but one
+of them is teaching me English, which I find quite easy.
+
+"As I wrote in the letters that have never reached you, I am no
+longer Ranger.  The King, after some few years (in the course of
+which I told him of your visit, and what you had brought me),
+declared that I was the only one of his servants whom he could
+trust, and found high office for me, which kept me in close
+confidential communication with himself.
+
+"About three years ago, on the death of his Prime Minister, he
+appointed me to fill his place; and it was on this, that so many
+possibilities occurred to me concerning which I dearly longed for
+your opinion, that I wrote and asked you, if you could, to meet me
+personally or by proxy at the statues, which I could reach on the
+occasion of my annual visit to my mother--yes--and father--at
+Sunch'ston.
+
+"I sent both letters by way of Erewhemos, confiding them to Bishop
+Kahabuka, who is just such another as St. Hanky.  He tells me that
+our father was a very old and dear friend of his--but of course I
+did not say anything about his being my own father.  I only
+inquired about a Mr. Higgs, who was now worshipped in Erewhon as a
+supernatural being.  The Bishop said it was, "Oh, so very
+dreadful," and he felt it all the more keenly, for the reason that
+he had himself been the means of my father's going to Erewhon, by
+giving him the information that enabled him to find the pass over
+the range that bounded the country.
+
+"I did not like the man, but I thought I could trust him with a
+letter, which it now seems I could not do.  This third letter I
+have given him with a promise of a hundred pounds in silver for his
+new Cathedral, to be paid as soon as I get an answer from you.
+
+"We are all well at Sunch'ston; so are my wife and eight children--
+five sons and three daughters--but the country is at sixes and
+sevens.  St. Panky is dead, but his son Pocus is worse.  Dr. Downie
+has become very lethargic.  I can do less against St. Hankyism than
+when I was a private man.  A little indiscretion on my part would
+plunge the country in civil war.  Our engineers and so-called men
+of science are sturdily begging for endowments, and steadily
+claiming to have a hand in every pie that is baked from one end of
+the country to the other.  The missionaries are buying up all our
+silver, and a change in the relative values of gold and silver is
+in progress of which none of us foresee the end.
+
+"The King and I both think that annexation by England, or a British
+Protectorate, would be the saving of us, for we have no army worth
+the name, and if you do not take us over some one else soon will.
+The King has urged me to send for you.  If you come (do! do! do!)
+you had better come by way of Erewhemos, which is now in monthly
+communication with Southampton.  If you will write me that you are
+coming I will meet you at the port, and bring you with me to our
+own capital, where the King will be overjoyed to see you."
+
+* * *
+
+The rest of the letter was filled with all sorts of news which
+interested me, but would require chapters of explanation before
+they could become interesting to the reader.
+
+The letter wound up:-
+
+"You may publish now whatever you like, whenever you like.
+
+"Write to me by way of Erewhemos, care of the Right Reverend the
+Lord Bishop, and say which way you will come.  If you prefer the
+old road, we are bound to be in the neighbourhood of the statues by
+the beginning of March.  My next brother is now Ranger, and could
+meet you at the statues with permit and luncheon, and more of that
+white wine than ever you will be able to drink.  Only let me know
+what you will do.
+
+"I should tell you that the old railway which used to run from
+Clearwater to the capital, and which, as you know, was allowed to
+go to ruin, has been reconstructed at an outlay far less than might
+have been expected--for the bridges had been maintained for
+ordinary carriage traffic.  The journey, therefore, from Sunch'ston
+to the capital can now be done in less than forty hours.  On the
+whole, however, I recommend you to come by way of Erewhemos.  If
+you start, as I think possible, without writing from England,
+Bishop Kahabuka's palace is only eight miles from the port, and he
+will give you every information about your further journey--a
+distance of less than a couple of hundred miles.  But I should
+prefer to meet you myself.
+
+"My dearest brother, I charge you by the memory of our common
+father, and even more by that of those three hours that linked you
+to me for ever, and which I would fain hope linked me also to
+yourself--come over, if by any means you can do so--come over and
+help us.
+
+"GEORGE STRONG."
+
+
+"My dear," said I to my wife who was at the other end of the
+breakfast table, "I shall have to translate this letter to you, and
+then you will have to help me to begin packing; for I have none too
+much time.  I must see Alfred, and give him a power of attorney.
+He will arrange with some publisher about my book, and you can
+correct the press.  Break the news gently to the children; and get
+along without me, my dear, for six months as well as you can."
+
+* * *
+
+I write this at Southampton, from which port I sail to-morrow--i.e.
+November 15, 1900--for Erewhemos.
+
+
+
+Footnotes:
+
+{1}  See Chapter X.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext Erewhon Revisited, by Samuel Butler
+
diff --git a/old/ervst10.zip b/old/ervst10.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8eda9ee
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/ervst10.zip