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.