Erewhon Revisited | Page 7

enough; he had been so stricken almost from the first year of his
marriage; on her death he was haunted by the wrong he accused himself--as it seems to
me very unjustly--of having done her, for it was neither his fault nor hers--it was Ate.
His unrest soon assumed the form of a burning desire to revisit the country in which he
and my mother had been happier together than perhaps they ever again were. I had often
heard him betray a hankering after a return to Erewhon, disguised so that no one should
recognise him; but as long as my mother lived he would not leave her. When death had
taken her from him, he so evidently stood in need of a complete change of scene, that
even those friends who had most strongly dissuaded him from what they deemed a
madcap enterprise, thought it better to leave him to himself. It would have mattered little
how much they tried to dissuade him, for before long his passionate longing for the
journey became so overmastering that nothing short of restraint in prison or a madhouse
could have stayed his going; but we were not easy about him. "He had better go," said Mr.
Cathie to me, when I was at home for the Easter vacation, "and get it over. He is not well,
but he is still in the prime of life; doubtless he will come back with renewed health and

will settle down to a quiet home life again."
This, however, was not said till it had become plain that in a few days my father would be
on his way. He had made a new will, and left an ample power of attorney with Mr.
Cathie--or, as we always called him, Alfred--who was to supply me with whatever money
I wanted; he had put all other matters in order in case anything should happen to prevent
his ever returning, and he set out on October 1, 1890, more composed and cheerful than I
had seen him for some time past.
I had not realised how serious the danger to my father would be if he were recognised
while he was in Erewhon, for I am ashamed to say that I had not yet read his book. I had
heard over and over again of his flight with my mother in the balloon, and had long since
read his few opening chapters, but I had found, as a boy naturally would, that the
succeeding pages were a little dull, and soon put the book aside. My father, indeed,
repeatedly urged me not to read it, for he said there was much in it--more especially in
the earlier chapters, which I had alone found interesting--that he would gladly cancel if
he could. "But there!" he had said with a laugh, "what does it matter?"
He had hardly left, before I read his book from end to end, and, on having done so, not
only appreciated the risks that he would have to run, but was struck with the wide
difference between his character as he had himself portrayed it, and the estimate I had
formed of it from personal knowledge. When, on his return, he detailed to me his
adventures, the account he gave of what he had said and done corresponded with my own
ideas concerning him; but I doubt not the reader will see that the twenty years between
his first and second visit had modified him even more than so long an interval might be
expected to do.
I heard from him repeatedly during the first two months of his absence, and was surprised
to find that he had stayed for a week or ten days at more than one place of call on his
outward journey. On November 26 he wrote from the port whence he was to start for
Erewhon, seemingly in good health and spirits; and on December 27, 1891, he
telegraphed for a hundred pounds to be wired out to him at this same port. This puzzled
both Mr. Cathie and myself, for the interval between November 26 and December 27
seemed too short to admit of his having paid his visit to Erewhon and returned; as,
moreover, he had added the words, "Coming home," we rather hoped that he had
abandoned his intention of going there.
We were also surprised at his wanting so much money, for he had taken a hundred
pounds in gold, which from some fancy, he had stowed in a small silver jewel-box that he
had given my mother not long before she died. He had also taken a hundred pounds
worth of gold nuggets, which he had intended to sell in Erewhon so as to provide himself
with money when he got there.
I should explain that