“I fear,” said my father, set at rest by the sweetness of Yram’s voice and manner—he told me he had never seen anyone 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 anyone, 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 tomorrow 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 everyone would be so completely in everyone else’s power that there was no fear of anyone’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 saddlebags. “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
