第80章

Bless you, I have known that horse ever since he was foaled, and Inever saw one like him for sense. He would pick fords better than that gentleman could, I know, and if the gentleman fell off him he would just stay stock still. He was badly bruised, poor man, when he got here. I saw him through the gorge when he left me, and he gave me a sovereign; he said he had only one other left to take him down to the port, or he would have made it more.""He was my father," said I, "and he is dead, but before he died he told me to give you five pounds which I have brought you. I think you are wrong in saying that he had been drinking.""That is what they all say; but I take it very kind of him to have thought of me."My father's illness for the first three weeks after his return played with him as a cat plays with a mouse; now and again it would let him have a day or two's run, during which he was so cheerful and unclouded that his doctor was quite hopeful about him. At various times on these occasions I got from him that when he left the shepherd's hut, he thought his illness had run itself out, and that he should now reach the port from which he was to sail for S.

Francisco without misadventure. This he did, and he was able to do all he had to do at the port, though frequently attacked with passing fits of giddiness. I need not dwell upon his voyage to S.

Francisco, and thence home; it is enough to say that he was able to travel by himself in spite of gradually, but continually, increasing failure.

"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 10pounds, and I left with him my saddle, saddlebags, 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 pounds you will still have nearly 150,000 pounds 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 pounds 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.

The day before he died, he had a little flicker of intelligence, but all of a sudden his face became clouded as with great anxiety;he seemed to see some horrible chasm in front of him which he had to cross, or which he feared that I must cross, for he gasped out words, which, as near as I could catch them, were, "Look out!

John! Leap! Leap! Le . . . " but he could not say all that he was trying to say and closed his eyes, having, as I then deemed, seen that he was on the brink of that gulf which lies between life and death; I took it that in reality he died at that moment; for there was neither struggle, nor hardly movement of any kind afterwards--nothing but a pulse which for the next several hours grew fainter and fainter so gradually, that it was not till some time after it had ceased to beat that we were certain of its having done so.