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.