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.