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
“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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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