Erewhon Revisited Twenty Years Later Part 13

Hanky smiled. "It would not be proved. The measurements of a man of twenty or thereabouts would not correspond with this man's. All we Professors should attend the inquest, and half Bridgeford is now in Sunch'ston. No matter though nine-tenths of the marks and measurements corresponded, so long as there is a tenth that does not do so, we should not be flesh and blood if we did not ignore the nine points and insist only on the tenth. After twenty years we shall find enough to serve our turn. Think of what all the learning of the country is committed to; think of the change in all our ideas and inst.i.tutions; think of the King and of Court influence. I need not enlarge. We shall not permit the body to be the Sunchild's. No matter what evidence you may produce, we shall sneer it down, and say we must have more before you can expect us to take you seriously; if you bring more, we shall pay no attention; and the more you bring the more we shall laugh at you. No doubt those among us who are by way of being candid will admit that your arguments ought to be considered, but you must not expect that it will be any part of their duty to consider them.

"And even though we admitted that the body had been proved up to the hilt to be the Sunchild's, do you think that such a trifle as that could affect Sunchildism? Hardly. Sunch'ston is no match for Bridgeford and the King; our only difficulty would lie in settling which was the most plausible way of the many plausible ways in which the death could be explained. We should hatch up twenty theories in less than twenty hours, and the last state of Sunchildism would be stronger than the first. For the people want it, and so long as they want it they will have it. At the same time the supposed identification of the body, even by some few ignorant people here, might lead to a local heresy that is as well avoided, and it will be better that your son should arrest the man before the dedication, if he can be found, and throw him into the Blue Pool without any one but ourselves knowing that he has been here at all."

I need not dwell on the deep disgust with which this speech was listened to, but the Mayor, and Yram, and George said not a word.

"But, Mayoress," said Panky, who had not opened his lips so far, "are you sure that you are not too hasty in believing this stranger to be the Sunchild? People are continually thinking that such and such another is the Sunchild come down again from the sun's palace and going to and fro among us. How many such stories, sometimes very plausibly told, have we not had during the last twenty years? They never take root, and die out of themselves as suddenly as they spring up. That the man is a poacher can hardly be doubted; I thought so the moment I saw him; but I think I can also prove to you that he is not a foreigner, and, therefore, that he is not the Sunchild. He quoted the Sunchild's prayer with a corruption that can have only reached him from an Erewhonian source--"

Here Hanky interrupted him somewhat brusquely. "The man, Panky," said he, "was the Sunchild; and he was not a poacher, for he had no idea that he was breaking the law; nevertheless, as you say, Sunchildism on the brain has been a common form of mania for several years. Several persons have even believed themselves to be the Sunchild. We must not forget this, if it should get about that Higgs has been here."

Then, turning to Yram, he said sternly, "But come what may, your son must take him to the Blue Pool at nightfall."

"Sir," said George, with perfect suavity, "you have spoken as though you doubted my readiness to do my duty. Let me a.s.sure you very solemnly that when the time comes for me to act, I shall act as duty may direct."

"I will answer for him," said Yram, with even more than her usual quick, frank smile, "that he will fulfil his instructions to the letter, unless," she added, "some black and white horses come down from heaven and s.n.a.t.c.h poor Higgs out of his grasp. Such things have happened before now."

"I should advise your son to shoot them if they do," said Hanky drily and sub-defiantly.

Here the conversation closed; but it was useless trying to talk of anything else, so the Professors asked Yram to excuse them if they retired early, in view of the fact that they had a fatiguing day before them. This excuse their hostess readily accepted.

"Do not let us talk any more now," said Yram as soon as they had left the room. "It will be quite time enough when the dedication is over. But I rather think the black and white horses will come."

"I think so too, my dear," said the Mayor laughing.

"They shall come," said George gravely; "but we have not yet got enough to make sure of bringing them. Higgs will perhaps be able to help me to- morrow."

"Now what," said Panky as they went upstairs, "does that woman mean--for she means something? Black and white horses indeed!"

"I do not know what she means to do," said the other, "but I know that she thinks she can best us."

"I wish we had not eaten those quails."

"Nonsense, Panky; no one saw us but Higgs, and the evidence of a foreign devil, in such straits as his, could not stand for a moment. We did not eat them. No, no; she has something that she thinks better than that.

Besides, it is absolutely impossible that she should have heard what happened. What I do not understand is, why she should have told us about the Sunchild's being here at all. Why not have left us to find it out or to know nothing about it? I do not understand it."

So true is it, as Euclid long since observed, that the less cannot comprehend that which is the greater. True, however, as this is, it is also sometimes true that the greater cannot comprehend the less. Hanky went musing to his own room and threw himself into an easy chair to think the position over. After a few minutes he went to a table on which he saw pen, ink, and paper, and wrote a short letter; then he rang the bell.

When the servant came he said, "I want to send this note to the manager of the new temple, and it is important that he should have it to-night.

Be pleased, therefore, to take it to him and deliver it into his own hands; but I had rather you said nothing about it to the Mayor or Mayoress, nor to any of your fellow-servants. Slip out unperceived if you can. When you have delivered the note, ask for an answer at once, and bring it to me."

So saying, he slipped a sum equal to about five shillings into the man's hand.

The servant returned in about twenty minutes, for the temple was quite near, and gave a note to Hanky, which ran, "Your wishes shall be attended to without fail."

"Good!" said Hanky to the man. "No one in the house knows of your having run this errand for me?"

"No one, sir."

"Thank you! I wish you a very good night."

CHAPTER XIII: A VISIT TO THE PROVINCIAL DEFORMATORY AT FAIRMEAD

Having finished his early dinner, and not fearing that he should be either recognised at Fairmead or again enquired after from Sunch'ston, my father went out for a stroll round the town, to see what else he could find that should be new and strange to him. He had not gone far before he saw a large building with an inscription saying that it was the Provincial Deformatory for Boys. Underneath the larger inscription there was a smaller one--one of those corrupt versions of my father's sayings, which, on dipping into the Sayings of the Sunchild, he had found to be so vexatiously common. The inscription ran:-

"When the righteous man turneth away from the righteousness that he hath committed, and doeth that which is a little naughty and wrong, he will generally be found to have gained in amiability what he has lost in righteousness." Sunchild Sayings, chap. xxii. v. 15.

The case of the little girl that he had watched earlier in the day had filled him with a great desire to see the working of one of these curious inst.i.tutions; he therefore resolved to call on the headmaster (whose name he found to be Turvey), and enquire about terms, alleging that he had a boy whose incorrigible rect.i.tude was giving him much anxiety. The information he had gained in the forenoon would be enough to save him from appearing to know nothing of the system. On having rung the bell, he announced himself to the servant as a Mr. Senoj, and asked if he could see the Princ.i.p.al.

Almost immediately he was ushered into the presence of a beaming, dapper- looking, little old gentleman, quick of speech and movement, in spite of some little portliness.

"Ts, ts, ts," he said, when my father had enquired about terms and asked whether he might see the system at work. "How unfortunate that you should have called on a Sat.u.r.day afternoon. We always have a half-holiday. But stay--yes--that will do very nicely; I will send for them into school as a means of stimulating their refractory system."

He called his servant and told him to ring the boys into school. Then, turning to my father he said, "Stand here, sir, by the window; you will see them all come trooping in. H'm, h'm, I am sorry to see them still come back as soon as they hear the bell. I suppose I shall ding some recalcitrancy into them some day, but it is uphill work. Do you see the head-boy--the third of those that are coming up the path? I shall have to get rid of him. Do you see him? he is going back to whip up the laggers--and now he has boxed a boy's ears: that boy is one of the most hopeful under my care. I feel sure he has been using improper language, and my head-boy has checked him instead of encouraging him." And so on till the boys were all in school.

"You see, my dear sir," he said to my father, "we are in an impossible position. We have to obey instructions from the Grand Council of Education at Bridgeford, and they have established these inst.i.tutions in consequence of the Sunchild's having said that we should aim at promoting the greatest happiness of the greatest number. This, no doubt, is a sound principle, and the greatest number are by nature somewhat dull, conceited, and unscrupulous. They do not like those who are quick, una.s.suming, and sincere; how, then, consistently with the first principles either of morality or political economy as revealed to us by the Sunchild, can we encourage such people if we can bring sincerity and modesty fairly home to them? We cannot do so. And we must correct the young as far as possible from forming habits which, unless indulged in with the greatest moderation, are sure to ruin them.

"I cannot pretend to consider myself very successful. I do my best, but I can only aim at making my school a reflection of the outside world. In the outside world we have to tolerate much that is prejudicial to the greatest happiness of the greatest number, partly because we cannot always discover in time who may be let alone as being genuinely insincere, and who are in reality masking sincerity under a garb of flippancy, and partly also because we wish to err on the side of letting the guilty escape, rather than of punishing the innocent. Thus many people who are perfectly well known to belong to the straightforward cla.s.ses are allowed to remain at large, and may be even seen hobn.o.bbing with the guardians of public immorality. Indeed it is not in the public interest that straightforwardness should be extirpated root and branch, for the presence of a small modic.u.m of sincerity acts as a wholesome irritant to the academicism of the greatest number, stimulating it to consciousness of its own happy state, and giving it something to look down upon. Moreover, we hold it useful to have a certain number of melancholy examples, whose notorious failure shall serve as a warning to those who neglect cultivating that power of immoral self-control which shall prevent them from saying, or even thinking, anything that shall not immediately and palpably minister to the happiness, and hence meet the approval, of the greatest number."

By this time the boys were all in school. "There is not one prig in the whole lot," said the headmaster sadly. "I wish there was, but only those boys come here who are notoriously too good to become current coin in the world unless they are hardened with an alloy of vice. I should have liked to show you our gambling, book-making, and speculation cla.s.s, but the a.s.sistant-master who attends to this branch of our curriculum is gone to Sunch'ston this afternoon. He has friends who have asked him to see the dedication of the new temple, and he will not be back till Monday. I really do not know what I can do better for you than examine the boys in Counsels of Imperfection."

So saying, he went into the schoolroom, over the fireplace of which my father's eye caught an inscription, "Resist good, and it will fly from you. Sunchild's Sayings, xvii. 2." Then, taking down a copy of the work just named from a shelf above his desk, he ran his eye over a few of its pages.

He called up a cla.s.s of about twenty boys.

"Now, my boys," he said, "Why is it so necessary to avoid extremes of truthfulness?"

"It is not necessary, sir," said one youngster, "and the man who says that it is so is a scoundrel."

"Come here, my boy, and hold out your hand." When he had done so, Mr.

Turvey gave him two sharp cuts with a cane. "There now, go down to the bottom of the cla.s.s and try not to be so extremely truthful in future."

Then, turning to my father, he said, "I hate caning them, but it is the only way to teach them. I really do believe that boy will know better than to say what he thinks another time."

He repeated his question to the cla.s.s, and the head-boy answered, "Because, sir, extremes meet, and extreme truth will be mixed with extreme falsehood."

"Quite right, my boy. Truth is like religion; it has only two enemies--the too much and the too little. Your answer is more satisfactory than some of your recent conduct had led me to expect."

"But, sir, you punished me only three weeks ago for telling you a lie."

"Oh yes; why, so I did; I had forgotten. But then you overdid it. Still it was a step in the right direction."

"And now, my boy," he said to a very frank and ingenuous youth about half way up the cla.s.s, "and how is truth best reached?"

"Through the falling out of thieves, sir."