and Under-rangers shall be required to immediately kill without parley any foreign devil whom they may encounter coming from the other side of the mountains. They are to weight the body, and throw it into the Blue Pool under the waterfall shown on the plan hereto annexed; but on pain of imprisonment for life they shall not reserve to their own use any article belonging to the deceased. Neither shall they divulge what they have done to any one save the Head Ranger, who shall report the circumstances of the case fully and minutely to his Majesty.
“As regards any of his Majesty’s subjects who may be taken while trespassing on his Majesty’s preserves without a special permit signed by the Mayor of Sunchildston, or any who may be convicted of poaching on the said preserves, the Rangers shall forthwith arrest them and bring them before the Mayor of Sunchildston, who shall enquire into their antecedents, and punish them with such term of imprisonment, with hard labour, as he may think fit, provided that no such term be of less duration than twelve calendar months.
“For the further provisions of the said Act, those whom it may concern are referred to the Act in full, a copy of which may be seen at the official residence of the Mayor of Sunchildston.”
Then followed in MS. “XIX. xii. 29. Permit Professor Hanky, Royal Professor of Worldly Wisdom at Bridgeford, seat of learning, city of the people who are above suspicion, and Professor Panky, Royal Professor of Unworldly Wisdom in the said city, or either of them” [here the MS. ended, the rest of the permit being in print] “to pass freely during the space of forty-eight hours from the date hereof, over the King’s preserves, provided, under pain of imprisonment with hard labour for twelve months, that they do not kill, nor cause to be killed, nor eat, if another have killed, any one or more of his Majesty’s quails.”
The signature was such a scrawl that my father could not read it, but underneath was printed, “Mayor of Sunchildston, formerly called Coldharbour.”
What a mass of information did not my father gather as he read, but what a far greater mass did he not see that he must get hold of ere he could reconstruct his plans intelligently.
“The year three,” indeed; and XIX. xii. 29, in Roman and Arabic characters! There were no such characters when he was in Erewhon before. It flashed upon him that he had repeatedly shewn them to the Nosnibors, and had once even written them down. It could not be that … No, it was impossible; and yet there was the European dress, aimed at by the one Professor, and attained by the other. Again “XIX.” what was that? “xii.” might do for December, but it was now the 4th of December not the 29th. “Afforested” too? Then that was why he had seen no sheep tracks. And how about the quails he had so innocently killed? What would have happened if he had tried to sell them in Coldharbour? What other like fatal error might he not ignorantly commit? And why had Coldharbour become Sunchildston?
These thoughts raced through my poor father’s brain as he slowly perused the paper handed to him by the Professors. To give himself time he feigned to be a poor scholar, but when he had delayed as long as he dared, he returned it to the one who had given it him. Without changing a muscle he said—
“Your permit, sir, is quite regular. You can either stay here the night or go on to Sunchildston as you think fit. May I ask which of you two gentlemen is Professor Hanky, and which Professor Panky?”
“My name is Panky,” said the one who had the watch, who wore his clothes reversed, and who had thought my father might be a poacher.
“And mine Hanky,” said the other.
“What do you think, Panky,” he added, turning to his brother Professor, “had we not better stay here till sunrise? We are both of us tired, and this fellow can make us a good fire. It is very dark, and there will be no moon this two hours. We are hungry, but we can hold out till we get to Sunchildston; it cannot be more than eight or nine miles further down.”
Panky assented, but then, turning sharply to my father, he said, “My man, what are you doing in the forbidden dress? Why are you not in ranger’s uniform, and what is the meaning of all those quails?” For his seedling idea that my father was in reality a poacher was doing its best to grow.
Quick as thought my father answered, “The Head Ranger sent me a message this morning to deliver him three dozen quails at Sunchildston by to-morrow afternoon. As for the dress, we can run the quails down quicker in it, and he says nothing to us so long as we only wear out old clothes and put on our uniforms before we near the town. My uniform is in the ranger’s shelter an hour and a half higher up the valley.”
“See what comes,” said Panky, “of having a whippersnapper not yet twenty years old in the responsible post of Head Ranger. As for this fellow, he may be speaking the truth, but I distrust him.”
“The man is all right, Panky,” said Hanky, “and seems to be a decent fellow enough.” Then to my father, “How many brace have you got?” And he looked at them a little wistfully.
“I have been at it all day, sir, and I have only got eight brace. I must run down ten more brace to-morrow.”
“I see, I see.” Then, turning to Panky, he said, “Of course, they are wanted for the Mayor’s banquet on Sunday. By the way, we have not yet received our invitation; I suppose we shall find it when we get back to Sunchildston.”
“Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!” groaned my father inwardly; but he changed not a muscle of his face, and said stolidly to Professor Hanky, “I think you must be right, sir; but there was nothing said about it to me, I was only told to bring the birds.”
Thus tenderly did he water the Professor’s second seedling. But Panky had his seedling too, and, Cain-like, was jealous that Hanky’s should flourish while his own was withering.
“And what, pray, my man,” he said somewhat peremptorily to my father, “are those two plucked quails doing? Were you to deliver them plucked? And what bird did those bones belong to which I see lying by the fire with the flesh all eaten off them? Are the under-rangers allowed not only to wear the forbidden dress but to eat the King’s quails as well?”
The form in which the question was asked gave my father his cue. He laughed heartily, and said, “Why, sir, those plucked birds are landrails, not quails, and those bones are landrail bones. Look at this thigh-bone; was there ever a quail with such a bone as that?”
I cannot say whether or no Professor Panky was really deceived by the sweet effrontery with which my father proffered him the bone. If he was taken in, his answer was dictated simply by a donnish unwillingness to allow any one to be better informed on any subject than he was himself.
My father, when I suggested this to him, would not hear of it. “Oh no,” he said; “the man knew well enough that I was lying.” However this may be, the Professor’s manner changed.
“You are right,” he said, “I thought they were landrail bones, but was not sure till I had one in my hand. I see, too, that the plucked birds are landrails, but there is little light, and I have not often seen them without their feathers.”
“I think,” said my father to me, “that Hanky knew what his friend meant, for he said, ‘Panky, I am very hungry.’ ”
“Oh, Hanky, Hanky,” said the other, modulating his harsh voice till it was quite pleasant. “Don’t corrupt the poor man.”
“Panky, drop that; we are not at Bridgeford now; I am very hungry, and I believe half those birds are not quails but landrails.”
My father saw he was safe.
