CHAPTER XVII:  GEORGE TAKES HIS FATHER TO PRISON, AND THERE OBTAINS SOME 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 cautela 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.