Erewhon Revisited Twenty Years Later, Both by the Original Discoverer of the Country and by His SonButler, Samuel
Philosophy
Erewhon Revisited Twenty Years Later, Both by the Original Discoverer of the Country and by His Son
Butler, Samuel
Satire; Utopian fiction; Utopias -- Fiction
“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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account