Erewhon Revisited Twenty Years Later Part 29

"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 wors.h.i.+ps 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 a.s.sumed 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 pa.s.s. 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 s.h.i.+llings 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 pa.s.sed 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, wis.h.i.+ng 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 wors.h.i.+pped 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 pa.s.s 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 st.u.r.dily 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:-