第85章

I have said on an earlier page that George gained an immediate ascendancy over me, but ascendancy is not the word--he took me by storm; how, or why, I neither know nor want to know, but before Ihad been with him more than a few minutes I felt as though I had known and loved him all my life. And the dog fawned upon him as though he felt just as I did.

"Come to the statues," said he, as soon as he had somewhat recovered from the shock of the news I had given him. "We can sit down there on the very stone on which our father and I sat a year ago. I have brought a basket, which my mother packed for--for--him and me. Did he talk to you about me?""He talked of nothing so much, and he thought of nothing so much.

He had your boots put where he could see them from his bed until he died."Then followed the explanation about these boots, of which the reader has already been told. This made us both laugh, and from that moment we were cheerful.

I say nothing about our enjoyment of the luncheon with which Yram had provided us, and if I were to detail all that I told George about my father, and all the additional information that I got from him--(many a point did he clear up for me that I had not fully understood)--I should fill several chapters, whereas I have left myself only one. Luncheon being over I said -"And are you married?"

"Yes" (with a blush), "and are you?"

I could not blush. Why should I? And yet young people--especially the most ingenuous among them--are apt to flush up on being asked if they are, or are going, to be married. If I could have blushed, I would. As it was I could only say that I was engaged and should marry as soon as I got back.

"Then you have come all this way for me, when you were wanting to get married?""Of course I have. My father on his death-bed told me to do so, and to bring you something that I have brought you.""What trouble I have given! How can I thank you?""Shake hands with me."

Whereon he gave my hand a stronger grip than I had quite bargained for.

"And now," said I, "before I tell you what I have brought, you must promise me to accept it. Your father said I was not to leave you till you had done so, and I was to say that he sent it with his dying blessing."After due demur George gave his promise, and I took him to the place where I had hidden my knapsack.

"I brought it up yesterday," said I.

"Yesterday? but why?"

"Because yesterday--was it not?--was the first of the two days agreed upon between you and our father?""No--surely to-day is the first day--I was to come XXI. i. 3, which would be your December 9.""But yesterday was December 9 with us--to-day is December 10.""Strange! What day of the week do you make it?""To-day is Thursday, December 10."

"This is still stranger--we make it Wednesday; yesterday was Tuesday."Then I saw it. The year XX. had been a leap year with the Erewhonians, and 1891 in England had not. This, then, was what had crossed my father's brain in his dying hours, and what he had vainly tried to tell me. It was also what my unconscious self had been struggling to tell my conscious one, during the past night, but which my conscious self had been too stupid to understand. And yet my conscious self had caught it in an imperfect sort of a way after all, for from the moment that my dream had left me I had been composed, and easy in my mind that all would be well. I wish some one would write a book about dreams and parthenogenesis--for that the two are part and parcel of the same story--a brood of folly without father bred--I cannot doubt.

I did not trouble George with any of this rubbish, but only shewed him how the mistake had arisen. When we had laughed sufficiently over my mistake--for it was I who had come up on the wrong day, not he--I fished my knapsack out of its hiding-place.

"Do not unpack it," said I, "beyond taking out the brooches, or you will not be able to pack it so well; but you can see the ends of the bars of gold, and you can feel the weight; my father sent them for you. The pearl brooch is for your mother, the smaller brooches are for your sisters, and your wife."I then told him how much gold there was, and from my pockets brought out the watches and the English knife.

"This last," I said, "is the only thing that I am giving you; the rest is all from our father. I have many many times as much gold myself, and this is legally your property as much as mine is mine."George was aghast, but he was powerless alike to express his feelings, or to refuse the gold.

"Do you mean to say that my father left me this by his will?""Certainly he did," said I, inventing a pious fraud.

"It is all against my oath," said he, looking grave.

"Your oath be hanged," said I. "You must give the gold to the Mayor, who knows that it was coming, and it will appear to the world, as though he were giving it you now instead of leaving you anything.""But it is ever so much too much!"

"It is not half enough. You and the Mayor must settle all that between you. He and our father talked it all over, and this was what they settled.""And our father planned all this, without saying a word to me about it while we were on our way up here?""Yes. There might have been some hitch in the gold's coming.

Besides the Mayor told him not to tell you."

"And he never said anything about the other money he left for me--which enabled me to marry at once? Why was this?""Your mother said he was not to do so."

"Bless my heart, how they have duped me all round. But why would not my mother let your father tell me? Oh yes--she was afraid Ishould tell the King about it, as I certainly should, when I told him all the rest.""Tell the King?" said I, "what have you been telling the King?""Everything; except about the nuggets and the sovereigns, of which I knew nothing; and I have felt myself a blackguard ever since for not telling him about these when he came up here last autumn--but Ilet the Mayor and my mother talk me over, as I am afraid they will do again.""When did you tell the King?"