第87章

"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. Ialso 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.