CHAPTER XXI:  YRAM, ON GETTING RID OF HER GUESTS, GOES TO THE PRISON TO SEE MY FATHER

Yram did not take the advice she had given her guests, but set about preparing a basket of the best cold dainties she could find, including a bottle of choice wine that she knew my father would like; thus loaded she went to the gaol, which she entered by her father’s private entrance.

It was now about half-past four, so that much more must have been said and done after luncheon at the Mayor’s than ever reached my father.  The wonder is that he was able to collect so much.  He, poor man, as soon as George left him, flung himself on to the bed that was in his cell and lay there wakeful, but not unquiet, till near the time when Yram reached the gaol.

The old gaoler came to tell him that she had come and would be glad to see him; much as he dreaded the meeting there was no avoiding it, and in a few minutes Yram stood before him.

Both were agitated, but Yram betrayed less of what she felt than my father.  He could only bow his head and cover his face with his hands.  Yram said, “We are old friends; take your hands from your face and let me see you.  There!  That is well.”

She took his right hand between both hers, looked at him with eyes full of kindness, and said softly—­

“You are not much changed, but you look haggard, worn, and ill; I am uneasy about you.  Remember, you are among friends, who will see that no harm befalls you.  There is a look in your eyes that frightens me.”

As she spoke she took the wine out of her basket, and poured him out a glass, but rather to give him some little thing to distract his attention, than because she expected him to drink it—­which he could not do.

She never asked him whether he found her altered, or turned the conversation ever such a little on to herself; all was for him; to soothe and comfort him, not in words alone, but in look, manner, and voice.  My father knew that he could thank her best by controlling himself, and letting himself be soothed and comforted—­at any rate so far as he could seem to be.

Up to this time they had been standing, but now Yram, seeing my father calmer, said, “Enough, let us sit down.”

So saying she seated herself at one end of the small table that was in the cell, and motioned my father to sit opposite to her.  “The light hurts you?” she said, for the sun was coming into the room.  “Change places with me, I am a sun worshipper.  No, we can move the table, and we can then see each other better.”

This done, she said, still very softly, “And now tell me what it is all about.  Why have you come here?”

“Tell me first,” said my father, “what befell you after I had been taken away.  Why did you not send me word when you found what had happened? or come after me?  You know I should have married you at once, unless they bound me in fetters.”

“I know you would; but you remember Mrs. Humdrum?  Yes, I see you do.  I told her everything; it was she who saved me.  We thought of you, but she saw that it would not do.  As I was to marry Mr. Strong, the more you were lost sight of the better, but with George ever with me I have not been able to forget you.  I might have been very happy with you, but I could not have been happier than I have been ever since that short dreadful time was over.  George must tell you the rest.  I cannot do so.  All is well.  I love my husband with my whole heart and soul, and he loves me with his.  As between him and me, he knows everything; George is his son, not yours; we have settled it so, though we both know otherwise; as between you and me, for this one hour, here, there is no use in pretending that you are not George’s father.  I have said all I need say.  Now, tell me what I asked you—­Why are you here?”

“I fear,” said my father, set at rest by the sweetness of Yram’s voice and manner—­he told me he had never seen any one to compare with her except my mother—­“I fear, to do as much harm now as I did before, and with as little wish to do any harm at all.”

He then told her all that the reader knows, and explained how he had thought he could have gone about the country as a peasant, and seen how she herself had fared, without her, or any one, even suspecting that he was in the country.

“You say your wife is dead, and that she left you with a son—­is he like George?”

“In mind and disposition, wonderfully; in appearance, no; he is dark and takes after his mother, and though he is handsome, he is not so good-looking as George.”

“No one,” said George’s mother, “ever was, or ever will be, and he is as good as he looks.”

“I should not have believed you if you had said he was not.”

“That is right.  I am glad you are proud of him.  He irradiates the lives of every one of us.”

“And the mere knowledge that he exists will irradiate the rest of mine.”

“Long may it do so.  Let us now talk about this morning—­did you mean to declare yourself?”

“I do not know what I meant; what I most cared about was the doing what I thought George would wish to see his father do.”

“You did that; but he says he told you not to say who you were.”

“So he did, but I knew what he would think right.  He was uppermost in my thoughts all the time.”

Yram smiled, and said, “George is a dangerous person; you were both of you very foolish; one as bad as the other.”

“I do not know.  I do not know anything.  It is beyond me; but I am at peace about it, and hope I shall do the like again to-morrow before the Mayor.”

“I heartily hope you will do nothing of the kind.  George tells me you have promised him to be good and to do as we bid you.”

“So I will; but he will not tell me to say that I am not what I am.”

“Yes, he will, and I will tell you why.  If we permit you to be Higgs the Sunchild, he must either throw his own father into the Blue Pool—­which he will not do—­or run great risk of being thrown into it himself, for not having Blue-Pooled a foreigner.  I am afraid we shall have to make you do a good deal that neither you nor we shall like.”

She then told him briefly of what had passed after luncheon at her house, and what it had been settled to do, leaving George to tell the details while escorting him towards the statues on the following evening.  She said that every one would be so completely in every one else’s power that there was no fear of any one’s turning traitor.  But she said nothing about George’s intention of setting out for the capital on Wednesday morning to tell the whole story to the King.

“Now,” she said, when she had told him as much as was necessary, “be good, and do as you said you would.”

“I will.  I will deny myself, not once, nor twice, but as often as is necessary.  I will kiss the reliquary, and when I meet Hanky and Panky at your table, I will be sworn brother to them—­so long, that is, as George is out of hearing; for I cannot lie well to them when he is listening.”

“Oh yes, you can.  He will understand all about it; he enjoys falsehood as well as we all do, and has the nicest sense of when to lie and when not to do so.”

“What gift can be more invaluable?”

My father, knowing that he might not have another chance of seeing Yram alone, now changed the conversation.

“I have something,” he said, “for George, but he must know nothing about it till after I am gone.”

As he spoke, he took from his pockets the nine small bags of nuggets that remained to him.

“But this,” said Yram, “being gold, is a large sum:  can you indeed spare it, and do you really wish George to have it all?”

“I shall be very unhappy if he does not, but he must know nothing about it till I am out of Erewhon.”

My father then explained to her that he was now very rich, and would have brought ten times as much, if he had known of George’s existence.  “Then,” said Yram, musing, “if you are rich, I accept and thank you heartily on his behalf.  I can see a reason for his not knowing what you are giving him at present, but it is too long to tell.”

The reason was, that if George knew of this gold before he saw the King, he would be sure to tell him of it, and the King might claim it, for George would never explain that it was a gift from father to son; whereas if the King had once pardoned him, he would not be so squeamish as to open up the whole thing again with a postscript to his confession.  But of this she said not a word.

My father then told her of the box of sovereigns that he had left in his saddle-bags.  “They are coined,” he said, “and George will have to melt them down, but he will find some way of doing this.  They will be worth rather more than these nine bags of nuggets.”

“The difficulty will be to get him to go down and fetch them, for it is against his oath to go far beyond the statues.  If you could be taken faint and say you wanted help, he would see you to your camping ground without a word, but he would be angry if he found he had been tricked into breaking his oath in order that money might be given him.  It would never do.  Besides, there would not be time, for he must be back here on Tuesday night.  No; if he breaks his oath he must do it with his eyes open—­and he will do it later on—­or I will go and fetch the money for him myself.  He is in love with a grand-daughter of Mrs. Humdrum’s, and this sum, together with what you are now leaving with me, will make him a well-to-do man.  I have always been unhappy about his having any of the Mayor’s money, and his salary was not quite enough for him to marry on.  What can I say to thank you?”

“Tell me, please, about Mrs. Humdrum’s grand-daughter.  You like her as a wife for George?”

“Absolutely.  She is just such another as her grandmother must have been.  She and George have been sworn lovers ever since he was ten, and she eight.  The only drawback is that her mother, Mrs. Humdrum’s second daughter, married for love, and there are many children, so that there will be no money with her; but what you are leaving will make everything quite easy, for he will sell the gold at once.  I am so glad about it.”

“Can you ask Mrs. Humdrum to bring her grand-daughter with her to-morrow evening?”

“I am afraid not, for we shall want to talk freely at dinner, and she must not know that you are the Sunchild; she shall come to my house in the afternoon and you can see her then.  You will be quite happy about her, but of course she must not know that you are her father-in-law that is to be.”

“One thing more.  As George must know nothing about the sovereigns, I must tell you how I will hide them.  They are in a silver box, which I will bind to the bough of some tree close to my camp; or if I can find a tree with a hole in it I will drop the box into the hole.  He cannot miss my camp; he has only to follow the stream that runs down from the pass till it gets near a large river, and on a small triangular patch of flat ground, he will see the ashes of my camp fire, a few yards away from the stream on his right hand as he descends.  In whatever tree I may hide the box, I will strew wood ashes for some yards in a straight line towards it.  I will then light another fire underneath, and blaze the tree with a knife that I have left at my camping ground.  He is sure to find it.”

Yram again thanked him, and then my father, to change the conversation, asked whether she thought that George really would have Blue-Pooled the Professors.

“There is no knowing,” said Yram.  “He is the gentlest creature living till some great provocation rouses him, and I never saw him hate and despise any one as he does the Professors.  Much of what he said was merely put on, for he knew the Professors must yield.  I do not like his ever having to throw any one into that horrid place, no more does he, but the Rangership is exactly the sort of thing to suit him, and the opening was too good to lose.  I must now leave you, and get ready for the Mayor’s banquet.  We shall meet again to-morrow evening.  Try and eat what I have brought you in this basket.  I hope you will like the wine.”  She put out her hand, which my father took, and in another moment she was gone, for she saw a look in his face as though he would fain have asked her to let him once more press his lips to hers.  Had he done this, without thinking about it, it is likely enough she would not have been ill pleased.  But who can say?

For the rest of the evening my father was left very much to his own not too comfortable reflections.  He spent part of it in posting up the notes from which, as well as from his own mouth, my story is in great part taken.  The good things that Yram had left with him, and his pipe, which she had told him he might smoke quite freely, occupied another part, and by ten o’clock he went to bed.