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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Fixed Period, by Anthony Trollope
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Fixed Period
+
+
+Author: Anthony Trollope
+
+
+
+Release Date: October 27, 2008  [eBook #27067]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FIXED PERIOD***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D., and Delphine Lettau
+
+
+
+THE FIXED PERIOD
+
+by
+
+ANTHONY TROLLOPE
+
+First published anonymously in _Blackwood's Magazine_ in 1882.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+   VOLUME I.
+
+         I. INTRODUCTION.
+
+        II. GABRIEL CRASWELLER.
+
+       III. THE FIRST BREAK-DOWN.
+
+        IV. JACK NEVERBEND.
+
+         V. THE CRICKET-MATCH.
+
+        VI. THE COLLEGE.
+
+   VOLUME II.
+
+       VII. COLUMBUS AND GALILEO.
+
+      VIII. THE "JOHN BRIGHT."
+
+        IX. THE NEW GOVERNOR.
+
+         X. THE TOWN-HALL.
+
+        XI. FAREWELL!
+
+       XII. OUR VOYAGE TO ENGLAND.
+
+
+
+
+VOLUME I.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+It may be doubted whether a brighter, more prosperous, and specially
+a more orderly colony than Britannula was ever settled by British
+colonists. But it had its period of separation from the mother
+country, though never of rebellion,--like its elder sister New
+Zealand. Indeed, in that respect it simply followed the lead given
+her by the Australias, which, when they set up for themselves, did so
+with the full co-operation of England. There was, no doubt, a special
+cause with us which did not exist in Australia, and which was only,
+in part, understood by the British Government when we Britannulists
+were allowed to stand by ourselves. The great doctrine of a "Fixed
+Period" was received by them at first with ridicule, and then
+with dismay; but it was undoubtedly the strong faith which we of
+Britannula had in that doctrine which induced our separation. Nothing
+could have been more successful than our efforts to live alone during
+the thirty years that we remained our own masters. We repudiated no
+debt,--as have done some of our neighbours; and no attempts have
+been made towards communism,--as has been the case with others.
+We have been laborious, contented, and prosperous; and if we have
+been reabsorbed by the mother country, in accordance with what I
+cannot but call the pusillanimous conduct of certain of our elder
+Britannulists, it has not been from any failure on the part of the
+island, but from the opposition with which the Fixed Period has been
+regarded.
+
+I think I must begin my story by explaining in moderate language a
+few of the manifest advantages which would attend the adoption of the
+Fixed Period in all countries. As far as the law went it was adopted
+in Britannula. Its adoption was the first thing discussed by our
+young Assembly, when we found ourselves alone; and though there were
+disputes on the subject, in none of them was opposition made to the
+system. I myself, at the age of thirty, had been elected Speaker of
+that Parliament. But I was, nevertheless, able to discuss the merits
+of the bills in committee, and I did so with some enthusiasm. Thirty
+years have passed since, and my "period" is drawing nigh. But I am
+still as energetic as ever, and as assured that the doctrine will
+ultimately prevail over the face of the civilised world, though I
+will acknowledge that men are not as yet ripe for it.
+
+The Fixed Period has been so far discussed as to make it almost
+unnecessary for me to explain its tenets, though its advantages may
+require a few words of argument in a world that is at present dead to
+its charms. It consists altogether of the abolition of the miseries,
+weakness, and _faineant_ imbecility of old age, by the prearranged
+ceasing to live of those who would otherwise become old. Need I
+explain to the inhabitants of England, for whom I chiefly write, how
+extreme are those sufferings, and how great the costliness of that
+old age which is unable in any degree to supply its own wants? Such
+old age should not, we Britannulists maintain, be allowed to be. This
+should be prevented, in the interests both of the young and of those
+who do become old when obliged to linger on after their "period" of
+work is over. Two mistakes have been made by mankind in reference to
+their own race,--first, in allowing the world to be burdened with the
+continued maintenance of those whose cares should have been made to
+cease, and whose troubles should be at an end. Does not the Psalmist
+say the same?--"If by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet
+is their strength labour and sorrow." And the second, in requiring
+those who remain to live a useless and painful life. Both these
+errors have come from an ill-judged and a thoughtless tenderness,--a
+tenderness to the young in not calling upon them to provide for
+the decent and comfortable departure of their progenitors; and a
+tenderness to the old lest the man, when uninstructed and unconscious
+of good and evil, should be unwilling to leave the world for which
+he is not fitted. But such tenderness is no better than unpardonable
+weakness. Statistics have told us that the sufficient sustenance of
+an old man is more costly than the feeding of a young one,--as is
+also the care, nourishment, and education of the as yet unprofitable
+child. Statistics also have told us that the unprofitable young and
+the no less unprofitable old form a third of the population. Let the
+reader think of the burden with which the labour of the world is thus
+saddled. To these are to be added all who, because of illness cannot
+work, and because of idleness will not. How are a people to thrive
+when so weighted? And for what good? As for the children, they are
+clearly necessary. They have to be nourished in order that they may
+do good work as their time shall come. But for whose good are the old
+and effete to be maintained amid all these troubles and miseries? Had
+there been any one in our Parliament capable of showing that they
+could reasonably desire it, the bill would not have been passed.
+Though to me the politico-economical view of the subject was always
+very strong, the relief to be brought to the aged was the one
+argument to which no reply could be given.
+
+It was put forward by some who opposed the movement, that the old
+themselves would not like it. I never felt sure of that, nor do I
+now. When the colony had become used to the Fixed Period system,
+the old would become accustomed as well as the young. It is to be
+understood that a euthanasia was to be prepared for them;--and how
+many, as men now are, does a euthanasia await? And they would depart
+with the full respect of all their fellow-citizens. To how many does
+that lot now fall? During the last years of their lives they were to
+be saved from any of the horrors of poverty. How many now lack the
+comforts they cannot earn for themselves? And to them there would be
+no degraded feeling that they were the recipients of charity. They
+would be prepared for their departure, for the benefit of their
+country, surrounded by all the comforts to which, at their time of
+life, they would be susceptible, in a college maintained at the
+public expense; and each, as he drew nearer to the happy day, would
+be treated with still increasing honour. I myself had gone most
+closely into the question of expense, and had found that by the use
+of machinery the college could almost be made self-supporting. But
+we should save on an average L50 for each man and woman who had
+departed. When our population should have become a million, presuming
+that one only in fifty would have reached the desired age, the sum
+actually saved to the colony would amount to L1,000,000 a-year. It
+would keep us out of debt, make for us our railways, render all our
+rivers navigable, construct our bridges, and leave us shortly the
+richest people on God's earth! And this would be effected by a
+measure doing more good to the aged than to any other class of the
+community!
+
+Many arguments were used against us, but were vain and futile in
+their conception. In it religion was brought to bear; and in talking
+of this the terrible word "murder" was brought into common use. I
+remember startling the House by forbidding any member to use a phrase
+so revolting to the majesty of the people. Murder! Did any one who
+attempted to deter us by the use of foul language, bethink himself
+that murder, to be murder, must be opposed to the law? This thing was
+to be done by the law. There can be no other murder. If a murderer
+be hanged,--in England, I mean, for in Britannula we have no capital
+punishment,--is that murder? It is not so, only because the law
+enacts it. I and a few others did succeed at last in stopping the use
+of that word. Then they talked to us of Methuselah, and endeavoured
+to draw an argument from the age of the patriarchs. I asked them in
+committee whether they were prepared to prove that the 969 years, as
+spoken of in Genesis, were the same measure of time as 969 years now,
+and told them that if the sanitary arrangements of the world would
+again permit men to live as long as the patriarchs, we would gladly
+change the Fixed Period.
+
+In fact, there was not a word to be said against us except that
+which referred to the feelings of the young and old. Feelings are
+changeable, I told them at that great and glorious meeting which
+we had at Gladstonopolis, and though naturally governed only by
+instinct, would be taught at last to comply with reason. I had lately
+read how feelings had been allowed in England to stand in the way of
+the great work of cremation. A son will not like, you say, to lead
+his father into the college. But ought he not to like to do so? and
+if so, will not reason teach him to like to do what he ought? I can
+conceive with rapture the pride, the honour, the affection with
+which, when the Fixed Period had come, I could have led my father
+into the college, there to enjoy for twelve months that preparation
+for euthanasia which no cares for this world would be allowed to
+disturb. All the existing ideas of the grave would be absent. There
+would be no further struggles to prolong the time of misery which
+nature had herself produced. That temptation to the young to begrudge
+to the old the costly comforts which they could not earn would be no
+longer fostered. It would be a pride for the young man to feel that
+his parent's name had been enrolled to all coming time in the bright
+books of the college which was to be established for the Fixed
+Period. I have a son of my own, and I have carefully educated him to
+look forward to the day in which he shall deposit me there as the
+proudest of his life. Circumstances, as I shall relate in this story,
+have somewhat interfered with him; but he will, I trust, yet come
+back to the right way of thinking. That I shall never spend that last
+happy year within the walls of the college, is to me, from a selfish
+point of view, the saddest part of England's reassuming our island as
+a colony.
+
+My readers will perceive that I am an enthusiast. But there are
+reforms so great that a man cannot but be enthusiastic when he has
+received into his very soul the truth of any human improvement. Alas
+me! I shall never live to see carried out the glory of this measure
+to which I have devoted the best years of my existence. The college,
+which has been built under my auspices as a preparation for the happy
+departure, is to be made a Chamber of Commerce. Those aged men who
+were awaiting, as I verily believe, in impatience the coming day of
+their perfected dignity, have been turned loose in the world, and
+allowed to grovel again with mundane thoughts amidst the idleness of
+years that are useless. Our bridges, our railways, our Government are
+not provided for. Our young men are again becoming torpid beneath
+the weight imposed upon them. I was, in truth, wrong to think that
+so great a reform could be brought to perfection within the days of
+the first reformers. A divine idea has to be made common to men's
+minds by frequent ventilation before it will be seen to be fit
+for humanity. Did not the first Christians all suffer affliction,
+poverty, and martyrdom? How many centuries has it taken in the
+history of the world to induce it to denounce the not yet abolished
+theory of slavery? A throne, a lord, and a bishop still remain to
+encumber the earth! What right had I, then, as the first of the
+Fixed-Periodists, to hope that I might live to see my scheme carried
+out, or that I might be allowed to depart as among the first glorious
+recipients of its advantages?
+
+It would appear absurd to say that had there been such a law in
+force in England, England would not have prevented its adoption in
+Britannula. That is a matter of course. But it has been because the
+old men are still alive in England that the young in Britannula are
+to be afflicted,--the young and the old as well. The Prime Minister
+in Downing Street was seventy-two when we were debarred from carrying
+out our project, and the Secretary for the Colonies was sixty-nine.
+Had they been among us, and had we been allowed to use our wisdom
+without interference from effete old age, where would they have been?
+I wish to speak with all respect of Sir William Gladstone. When we
+named our metropolis after him, we were aware of his good qualities.
+He has not the eloquence of his great-grandfather, but he is, they
+tell us, a safe man. As to the Minister for the Crown Colonies,--of
+which, alas! Britannula has again become one,--I do not, I own, look
+upon him as a great statesman. The present Duke of Hatfield has none
+of the dash, if he has more than the prudence, of his grandfather.
+He was elected to the present Upper Chamber as a strong anti-Church
+Liberal, but he never has had the spirit to be a true reformer. It is
+now due to the "feelings" which fill no doubt the bosoms of these two
+anti-Fixed-Period seniors, that the doctrine of the Fixed Period has
+for a time been quenched in Britannula. It is sad to think that the
+strength and intellect and spirit of manhood should thus be conquered
+by that very imbecility which it is their desire to banish from the
+world.
+
+Two years since I had become the President of that which we gloried
+to call the rising Empire of the South Pacific. And in spite of all
+internal opposition, the college of the Fixed Period was already
+completed. I then received violent notice from the British Government
+that Britannula had ceased to be independent, and had again been
+absorbed by the mother country among the Crown Colonies. How that
+information was received, and with what weakness on the part of the
+Britannulists, I now proceed to tell.
+
+I confess that I for one was not at first prepared to obey. We were
+small, but we were independent, and owed no more of submission to
+Great Britain than we do to the Salomon Islands or to Otaheite.
+It was for us to make our own laws, and we had hitherto made them
+in conformity with the institutions, and, I must say, with the
+prejudices of so-called civilisation. We had now made a first attempt
+at progress beyond these limits, and we were immediately stopped by
+the fatuous darkness of the old men whom, had Great Britain known
+her own interest, she would already have silenced by a Fixed Period
+law on her own account. No greater instance of uncalled-for tyranny
+is told of in the history of the world as already written. But my
+brother Britannulists did not agree with me that, in the interest of
+the coming races, it was our duty rather to die at our posts than
+yield to the menaces of the Duke of Hatfield. One British gunboat,
+they declared, in the harbour of Gladstonopolis, would reduce us--to
+order. What order? A 250-ton steam-swiveller could no doubt crush
+us, and bring our Fixed Period college in premature ruin about our
+ears. But, as was said, the captain of the gunboat would never dare
+to touch the wire that should commit so wide a destruction. An
+Englishman would hesitate to fire a shot that would send perhaps five
+thousand of his fellow-creatures to destruction before their Fixed
+Period. But even in Britannula fear still remains. It was decided, I
+will confess by the common voice of the island, that we should admit
+this Governor, and swear fealty again to the British Crown. Sir
+Ferdinando Brown was allowed to land, and by the rejoicing made at
+the first Government House ball, as I have already learned since I
+left the island, it appeared that the Britannulists rejoiced rather
+than otherwise at their thraldom.
+
+Two months have passed since that time, and I, being a worn-out old
+man, and fitted only for the glory of the college, have nothing left
+me but to write this story, so that coming ages may see how noble
+were our efforts. But in truth, the difficulties which lay in our
+way were very stern. The philosophical truth on which the system is
+founded was too strong, too mighty, too divine, to be adopted by man
+in the immediate age of its first appearance. But it has appeared;
+and I perhaps should be contented and gratified, during the years
+which I am doomed to linger through impotent imbecility, to think
+that I have been the first reformer of my time, though I shall be
+doomed to perish without having enjoyed its fruits.
+
+I must now explain before I begin my story certain details of our
+plan, which created much schism among ourselves. In the first place,
+what should be the Fixed Period? When a party of us, three or four
+hundred in number, first emigrated from New Zealand to Britannula,
+we were, almost all of us, young people. We would not consent to
+measures in regard to their public debt which the Houses in New
+Zealand threatened to take; and as this island had been discovered,
+and a part of it cultivated, thither we determined to go. Our
+resolution was very popular, not only with certain parties in New
+Zealand, but also in the mother country. Others followed us, and we
+settled ourselves with great prosperity. But we were essentially
+a young community. There were not above ten among us who had then
+reached any Fixed Period; and not above twenty others who could be
+said to be approaching it. There never could arrive a time or a
+people when, or among whom, the system could be tried with so good a
+hope of success. It was so long before we had been allowed to stand
+on our bottom, that the Fixed Period became a matter of common
+conversation in Britannula. There were many who looked forward to
+it as the creator of a new idea of wealth and comfort; and it was
+in those days that the calculation was made as to the rivers and
+railways. I think that in England they thought that a few, and but
+a few, among us were dreamers of a dream. Had they believed that
+the Fixed Period would ever have become law, they would not have
+permitted us to be law-makers. I acknowledge that. But when we were
+once independent, then again to reduce us to submission by a 250-ton
+steam-swiveller was an act of gross tyranny.
+
+What should be the Fixed Period? That was the first question which
+demanded an immediate answer. Years were named absurd in their
+intended leniency;--eighty and even eighty-five! Let us say a
+hundred, said I, aloud, turning upon them all the battery of my
+ridicule. I suggested sixty; but the term was received with silence.
+I pointed out that the few old men now on the island might be
+exempted, and that even those above fifty-five might be allowed to
+drag out their existences if they were weak enough to select for
+themselves so degrading a position. This latter proposition was
+accepted at once, and the exempt showed no repugnance even when it
+was proved to them that they would be left alone in the community and
+entitled to no honour, and never allowed even to enter the pleasant
+gardens of the college. I think now that sixty was too early an age,
+and that sixty-five, to which I gracefully yielded, is the proper
+Fixed Period for the human race. Let any man look among his friends
+and see whether men of sixty-five are not in the way of those who are
+still aspiring to rise in the world. A judge shall be deaf on the
+bench when younger men below him can hear with accuracy. His voice
+shall have descended to a poor treble, or his eyesight shall be dim
+and failing. At any rate, his limbs will have lost all that robust
+agility which is needed for the adequate performance of the work of
+the world. It is self-evident that at sixty-five a man has done all
+that he is fit to do. He should be troubled no longer with labour,
+and therefore should be troubled no longer with life. "It is all
+vanity and vexation of spirit," such a one would say, if still brave,
+and still desirous of honour. "Lead me into the college, and there
+let me prepare myself for that brighter life which will require
+no mortal strength." My words did avail with many, and then they
+demanded that seventy should be the Fixed Period.
+
+How long we fought over this point need not now be told. But we
+decided at last to divide the interval. Sixty-seven and a half was
+named by a majority of the Assembly as the Fixed Period. Surely the
+colony was determined to grow in truth old before it could go into
+the college. But then there came a further dispute. On which side
+of the Fixed Period should the year of grace be taken? Our debates
+even on this subject were long and animated. It was said that the
+seclusion within the college would be tantamount to penal departure,
+and that the old men should thus have the last lingering drops of
+breath allowed them, without, in the world at large. It was at last
+decided that men and women should be brought into the college at
+sixty-seven, and that before their sixty-eighth birthday they should
+have departed. Then the bells were rung, and the whole community
+rejoiced, and banquets were eaten, and the young men and women called
+each other brother and sister, and it was felt that a great reform
+had been inaugurated among us for the benefit of mankind at large.
+
+Little was thought about it at home in England when the bill was
+passed. There was, I suppose, in the estimation of Englishmen, time
+enough to think about it. The idea was so strange to them that it
+was considered impossible that we should carry it out. They heard of
+the bill, no doubt; but I maintain that, as we had been allowed to
+separate ourselves and stand alone, it was no more their concern than
+if it had been done in Arizona or Idaho, or any of those Western
+States of America which have lately formed themselves into a new
+union. It was from them, no doubt, that we chiefly expected that
+sympathy which, however, we did not receive. The world was clearly
+not yet alive to the grand things in store for it. We received,
+indeed, a violent remonstrance from the old-fashioned Government at
+Washington; but in answer to that we stated that we were prepared
+to stand and fall by the new system--that we expected glory rather
+than ignominy, and to be followed by mankind rather than repudiated.
+We had a lengthened correspondence also with New Zealand and with
+Australia; but England at first did not believe us; and when she was
+given to understand that we were in earnest, she brought to bear upon
+us the one argument that could have force, and sent to our harbour
+her 250-ton steam-swiveller. The 250-ton swiveller, no doubt, was
+unanswerable--unless we were prepared to die for our system. I was
+prepared, but I could not carry the people of my country with me.
+
+I have now given the necessary prelude to the story which I have to
+tell. I cannot but think that, in spite of the isolated manners of
+Great Britain, readers in that country generally must have become
+acquainted with the views of the Fixed-Periodists. It cannot but
+be that a scheme with such power to change,--and, I may say, to
+improve,--the manners and habits of mankind, should be known in a
+country in which a portion of the inhabitants do, at any rate, read
+and write. They boast, indeed, that not a man or a woman in the
+British Islands is now ignorant of his letters; but I am informed
+that the knowledge seldom approaches to any literary taste. It may be
+that a portion of the masses should have been ignorant of what was
+being done within the empire of the South Pacific. I have therefore
+written this preliminary chapter to explain to them what was the
+condition of Britannula in regard to the Fixed Period just twelve
+months before England had taken possession of us, and once more
+made us her own. Sir Ferdinando Brown now rules us, I must say, not
+with a rod of iron, but very much after his own good will. He makes
+us flowery speeches, and thinks that they will stand in lieu of
+independence. He collects his revenue, and informs us that to be
+taxed is the highest privilege of an ornate civilisation. He pointed
+to the gunboat in the bay when it came, and called it the divine
+depository of beneficent power. For a time, no doubt, British
+"tenderness" will prevail. But I shall have wasted my thoughts, and
+in vain poured out my eloquence as to the Fixed Period, if, in the
+course of years, it does not again spring to the front, and prove
+itself to be necessary before man can accomplish all that he is
+destined to achieve.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+GABRIEL CRASWELLER.
+
+
+I will now begin my tale. It is above thirty years since I commenced
+my agitation in Britannula. We were a small people, and had not
+then been blessed by separation; but we were, I think, peculiarly
+intelligent. We were the very cream, as it were, that had been
+skimmed from the milk-pail of the people of a wider colony,
+themselves gifted with more than ordinary intelligence. We were the
+_elite_ of the selected population of New Zealand. I think I may say
+that no race so well informed ever before set itself down to form a
+new nation. I am now nearly sixty years old,--very nearly fit for the
+college which, alas! will never be open for me,--and I was nearly
+thirty when I began to be in earnest as to the Fixed Period. At
+that time my dearest friend and most trusted coadjutor was Gabriel
+Crasweller. He was ten years my senior then, and is now therefore
+fit for deposition in the college were the college there to receive
+him. He was one of those who brought with them merino sheep into the
+colony. At great labour and expense he exported from New Zealand a
+small flock of choice animals, with which he was successful from the
+first. He took possession of the lands of Little Christchurch, five
+or six miles from Gladstonopolis, and showed great judgment in the
+selection. A prettier spot, as it turned out, for the fattening of
+both beef and mutton and for the growth of wool, it would have been
+impossible to have found. Everything that human nature wants was
+there at Little Christchurch. The streams which watered the land were
+bright and rapid, and always running. The grasses were peculiarly
+rich, and the old English fruit-trees, which we had brought with
+us from New Zealand, throve there with an exuberant fertility, of
+which the mother country, I am told, knows nothing. He had imported
+pheasants' eggs, and salmon-spawn, and young deer, and black-cock
+and grouse, and those beautiful little Alderney cows no bigger than
+good-sized dogs, which, when milked, give nothing but cream. All
+these things throve with him uncommonly, so that it may be declared
+of him that his lines had fallen in pleasant places. But he had
+no son; and therefore in discussing with him, as I did daily, the
+question of the Fixed Period, I promised him that it should be my lot
+to deposit him in the sacred college when the day of his withdrawal
+should have come. He had been married before we left New Zealand, and
+was childless when he made for himself and his wife his homestead at
+Little Christchurch. But there, after a few years, a daughter was
+born to him, and I ought to have remembered, when I promised to him
+that last act of friendship, that it might become the duty of that
+child's husband to do for him with filial reverence the loving work
+which I had undertaken to perform.
+
+Many and most interesting were the conversations held between
+Crasweller and myself on the great subject which filled our hearts.
+He undoubtedly was sympathetic, and took delight in expatiating on
+all those benefits that would come to the world from the race of
+mankind which knew nothing of the debility of old age. He saw the
+beauty of the theory as well as did I myself, and would speak often
+of the weakness of that pretended tenderness which would fear to
+commence a new operation in regard to the feelings of the men and
+women of the old world. "Can any man love another better than I do
+you?" I would say to him with energy; "and yet would I scruple for a
+moment to deposit you in the college when the day had come? I should
+lead you in with that perfect reverence which it is impossible
+that the young should feel for the old when they become feeble and
+incapable." I doubt now whether he relished these allusions to his
+own seclusion. He would run away from his own individual case, and
+generalise widely about some future time. And when the time for
+voting came, he certainly did vote for seventy-five. But I took no
+offence at his vote. Gabriel Crasweller was almost my dearest friend,
+and as his girl grew up it was a matter of regret to me that my only
+son was not quite old enough to be her husband.
+
+Eva Crasweller was, I think, the most perfect piece I ever beheld of
+youthful feminine beauty. I have not yet seen those English beauties
+of which so much is said in their own romances, but whom the
+young men from New York and San Francisco who make their way to
+Gladstonopolis do not seem to admire very much. Eva was perfect in
+symmetry, in features, in complexion, and in simplicity of manners.
+All languages are the same to her; but that accomplishment has become
+so common in Britannula that but little is thought of it. I do not
+know whether she ravished our ears most with the old-fashioned piano
+and the nearly obsolete violin, or with the modern mousometor, or the
+more perfect melpomeneon. It was wonderful to hear the way with which
+she expressed herself at the meeting held about the rising buildings
+of the college when she was only sixteen. But I think she touched me
+most with just a roly-poly pudding which she made with her own fair
+hands for our dinner one Sunday at Little Christchurch. And once when
+I saw her by chance take a kiss from her lover behind the door, I
+felt that it was a pity indeed that a man should ever become old.
+Perhaps, however, in the eyes of some her brightest charm lay in the
+wealth which her father possessed. His sheep had greatly increased in
+number; the valleys were filled with his cattle; and he could always
+sell his salmon for half-a-crown a pound and his pheasants for
+seven-and-sixpence a brace. Everything had thriven with Crasweller,
+and everything must belong to Eva as soon as he should have been led
+into the college. Eva's mother was now dead, and no other child had
+been born. Crasweller had also embarked his money largely in the wool
+trade, and had become a sleeping-partner in the house of Grundle &
+Grabbe. He was an older man by ten years than either of his partners,
+but yet Grundle's eldest son Abraham was older than Eva when
+Crasweller lent his money to the firm. It was soon known who was to
+be the happiest man in the empire. It was young Abraham, by whom Eva
+was kissed behind the door that Sunday when we ate the roly-poly
+pudding. Then she came into the room, and, with her eyes raised to
+heaven, and with a halo of glory almost round her head as she poured
+forth her voice, she touched the mousometor, and gave us the Old
+Hundredth psalm.
+
+She was a fine girl at all points, and had been quite alive to the
+dawn of the Fixed Period system. But at this time, on the memorable
+occasion of the eating of that dinner, it first began to strike me
+that my friend Crasweller was getting very near his Fixed Period, and
+it occurred to me to ask myself questions as to what might be the
+daughter's wishes. It was the state of her feelings rather that would
+push itself into my mind. Quite lately he had said nothing about
+it,--nor had she. On that Sunday morning when he and his girl were
+at church,--for Crasweller had stuck to the old habit of saying his
+prayers in a special place on a special day,--I had discussed the
+matter with young Grundle. Nobody had been into the college as yet.
+Three or four had died naturally, but Crasweller was about to be
+the first. We were arranging that he should be attended by pleasant
+visitors till within the last week or two, and I was making special
+allusion to the law which required that he should abandon all control
+of his property immediately on his entering the college. "I suppose
+he would do that," said Grundle, expressing considerable interest by
+the tone of his voice.
+
+"Oh, certainly," said I; "he must do that in accordance with the
+law. But he can make his will up to the very moment in which he is
+deposited." He had then about twelve months to run. I suppose there
+was not a man or woman in the community who was not accurately aware
+of the very day of Crasweller's birth. We had already introduced the
+habit of tattooing on the backs of the babies the day on which they
+were born; and we had succeeded in operating also on many of the
+children who had come into the world before the great law. Some there
+were who would not submit on behalf of themselves or their children;
+and we did look forward to some little confusion in this matter. A
+register had of course been commenced, and there were already those
+who refused to state their exact ages; but I had been long on the
+lookout for this, and had a little book of my own in which were
+inscribed the "periods" of all those who had come to Britannula with
+us; and since I had first thought of the Fixed Period I had been very
+careful to note faithfully the births as they occurred. The reader
+will see how important, as time went on, it would become to have an
+accurate record, and I already then feared that there might be some
+want of fidelity after I myself had been deposited. But my friend
+Crasweller was the first on the list, and there was no doubt in the
+empire as to the exact day on which he was born. All Britannula knew
+that he would be the first, and that he was to be deposited on the
+13th of June 1980. In conversation with my friend I had frequently
+alluded to the very day,--to the happy day, as I used to call it
+before I became acquainted with his actual feelings,--and he never
+ventured to deny that on that day he would become sixty-seven.
+
+I have attempted to describe his daughter Eva, and I must say a word
+as to the personal qualities of her father. He too was a remarkably
+handsome man, and though his hair was beautifully white, had fewer of
+the symptoms of age than any old man I had before known. He was tall,
+robust, and broad, and there was no beginning even of a stoop about
+him. He spoke always clearly and audibly, and he was known for the
+firm voice with which he would perform occasionally at some of our
+decimal readings. We had fixed our price at a decimal in order that
+the sum so raised might be used for the ornamentation of the college.
+Our population at Gladstonopolis was so thriving that we found it
+as easy to collect ten pennies as one. At these readings Gabriel
+Crasweller was the favourite performer, and it had begun to be
+whispered by some caitiffs who would willingly disarrange the whole
+starry system for their own immediate gratification, that Crasweller
+should not be deposited because of the beauty of his voice. And then
+the difficulty was somewhat increased by the care and precision with
+which he attended to his own business. He was as careful as ever
+about his flocks, and at shearing-time would stand all day in the
+wool-shed to see to the packing of his wool and the marking of his
+bales.
+
+"It would be a pity," said to me a Britannulist one day,--a man
+younger than myself,--"to lock up old Crasweller, and let the
+business go into the hands of young Grundle. Young Grundle will
+never know half as much about sheep, in spite of his conceit; and
+Crasweller is a deal fitter for his work than for living idle in the
+college till you shall put an end to him."
+
+There was much in these words which made me very angry. According to
+this man's feelings, the whole system was to be made to suit itself
+to the peculiarities of one individual constitution. A man who so
+spoke could have known nothing of the general beauty of the Fixed
+Period. And he had alluded to the manner of depositing in most
+disrespectful terms. I had felt it to be essentially necessary so to
+maintain the dignity of the ceremony as to make it appear as unlike
+an execution as possible. And this depositing of Crasweller was to be
+the first, and should--according to my own intentions--be attended
+with a peculiar grace and reverence. "I don't know what you call
+locking up," said I, angrily. "Had Mr Crasweller been about to be
+dragged to a felon's prison, you could not have used more opprobrious
+language; and as to putting an end to him, you must, I think, be
+ignorant of the method proposed for adding honour and glory to the
+last moments in this world of those dear friends whose happy lot it
+will be to be withdrawn from the world's troubles amidst the love
+and veneration of their fellow-subjects." As to the actual mode of
+transition, there had been many discussions held by the executive in
+President Square, and it had at last been decided that certain veins
+should be opened while the departing one should, under the influence
+of morphine, be gently entranced within a warm bath. I, as president
+of the empire, had agreed to use the lancet in the first two or three
+cases, thereby intending to increase the honours conferred. Under
+these circumstances I did feel the sting bitterly when he spoke of my
+putting "an end" to him. "But you have not," I said, "at all realised
+the feeling of the ceremony. A few ill-spoken words, such as these
+you have just uttered, will do us more harm in the minds of many than
+all your voting will have done good." In answer to this he merely
+repeated his observation that Crasweller was a very bad specimen to
+begin with. "He has got ten years of work in him," said my friend,
+"and yet you intend to make away with him without the slightest
+compunction."
+
+Make away with him! What an expression to use,--and this from the
+mouth of one who had been a determined Fixed-Periodist! It angered
+me to think that men should be so little reasonable as to draw
+deductions as to an entire system from a single instance. Crasweller
+might in truth be strong and hearty at the Fixed Period. But that
+period had been chosen with reference to the community at large; and
+what though he might have to depart a year or two before he was worn
+out, still he would do so with everything around him to make him
+happy, and would depart before he had ever known the agony of a
+headache. Looking at the entire question with the eyes of reason,
+I could not but tell myself that a better example of a triumphant
+beginning to our system could not have been found. But yet there
+was in it something unfortunate. Had our first hero been compelled
+to abandon his business by old age--had he become doting over its
+details--parsimonious, or extravagant, or even short-sighted in his
+speculations--public feeling, than which nothing is more ignorant,
+would have risen in favour of the Fixed Period. "How true is the
+president's reasoning," the people would have said. "Look at
+Crasweller; he would have ruined Little Christchurch had he stayed
+there much longer." But everything he did seemed to prosper; and
+it occurred to me at last that he forced himself into abnormal
+sprightliness, with a view of bringing disgrace upon the law of
+the Fixed Period. If there were any such feeling, I regard it as
+certainly mean.
+
+On the day after the dinner at which Eva's pudding was eaten, Abraham
+Grundle came to me at the Executive Hall, and said that he had a few
+things to discuss with me of importance. Abraham was a good-looking
+young man, with black hair and bright eyes, and a remarkably handsome
+moustache; and he was one well inclined to business, in whose hands
+the firm of Grundle, Grabbe, & Crasweller was likely to thrive; but
+I myself had never liked him much. I had thought him to be a little
+wanting in that reverence which he owed to his elders, and to be,
+moreover, somewhat over-fond of money. It had leaked out that though
+he was no doubt attached to Eva Crasweller, he had thought quite as
+much of Little Christchurch; and though he could kiss Eva behind
+the door, after the ways of young men, still he was more intent
+on the fleeces than on her lips. "I want to say a word to you, Mr
+President," he began, "upon a subject that disturbs my conscience
+very much."
+
+"Your conscience?" said I.
+
+"Yes, Mr President. I believe you're aware that I am engaged to marry
+Miss Crasweller?"
+
+It may be as well to explain here that my own eldest son, as fine a
+boy as ever delighted a mother's eye, was only two years younger than
+Eva, and that my wife, Mrs Neverbend, had of late got it into her
+head that he was quite old enough to marry the girl. It was in vain
+that I told her that all that had been settled while Jack was still
+at the didascalion. He had been Colonel of the Curriculum, as they
+now call the head boy; but Eva had not then cared for Colonels of
+Curriculums, but had thought more of young Grundle's moustache. My
+wife declared that all that was altered,--that Jack was, in fact,
+a much more manly fellow than Abraham with his shiny bit of beard;
+and that if one could get at a maiden's heart, we should find that
+Eva thought so. In answer to this I bade her hold her tongue, and
+remember that in Britannula a promise was always held to be as good
+as a bond. "I suppose a young woman may change her mind in Britannula
+as well as elsewhere," said my wife. I turned all this over in my
+mind, because the slopes of Little Christchurch are very alluring,
+and they would all belong to Eva so soon. And then it would be well,
+as I was about to perform for Crasweller so important a portion of
+his final ceremony, our close intimacy should be drawn still nearer
+by a family connection. I did think of it; but then it occurred to
+me that the girl's engagement to young Grundle was an established
+fact, and it did not behove me to sanction the breach of a contract.
+"Oh yes," said I to the young man, "I am aware that there is an
+understanding to that effect between you and Eva's father."
+
+"And between me and Eva, I can assure you."
+
+Having observed the kiss behind the door on the previous day, I could
+not deny the truth of this assertion.
+
+"It is quite understood," continued Abraham, "and I had always
+thought that it was to take place at once, so that Eva might get used
+to her new life before her papa was deposited."
+
+To this I merely bowed my head, as though to signify that it was a
+matter with which I was not personally concerned. "I had taken it for
+granted that my old friend would like to see his daughter settled,
+and Little Christchurch put into his daughter's hands before he
+should bid adieu to his own sublunary affairs," I remarked, when I
+found that he paused.
+
+"We all thought so up at the warehouse," said he,--"I and father,
+and Grabbe, and Postlecott, our chief clerk. Postlecott is the next
+but three on the books, and is getting very melancholy. But he is
+especially anxious just at present to see how Crasweller bears it."
+
+"What has all that to do with Eva's marriage?"
+
+"I suppose I might marry her. But he hasn't made any will."
+
+"What does that matter? There is nobody to interfere with Eva."
+
+"But he might go off, Mr Neverbend," whispered Grundle; "and where
+should I be then? If he was to get across to Auckland, or to Sydney,
+and to leave some one to manage the property for him, what could
+you do? That's what I want to know. The law says that he shall be
+deposited on a certain day."
+
+"He will become as nobody in the eye of the law," said I, with all
+the authority of a President.
+
+"But if he and his daughter have understood each other; and if some
+deed be forthcoming by which Little Christchurch shall have been left
+to trustees; and if he goes on living at Sydney, let us say, on the
+fat of the land,--drawing all the income, and leaving the trustees as
+legal owners,--where should I be then?"
+
+"In that case," said I, having taken two or three minutes for
+consideration,--"in that case, I presume the property would be
+confiscated by law, and would go to his natural heir. Now if his
+natural heir be then your wife, it will be just the same as though
+the property were yours." Young Grundle shook his head. "I don't know
+what more you would want. At any rate, there is no more for you to
+get." I confess that at that moment the idea of my boy's chance of
+succeeding with the heiress did present itself to my mind. According
+to what my wife had said, Jack would have jumped at the girl with
+just what she stood up in; and had sworn to his mother, when he had
+been told that morning about the kiss behind the door, that he would
+knock that brute's head off his shoulders before many days were gone
+by. Looking at the matter merely on behalf of Jack, it appeared to
+me that Little Christchurch would, in that case, be quite safe, let
+Crasweller be deposited,--or run away to Sydney.
+
+"You do not know for certain about the confiscation of the property,"
+said Abraham.
+
+"I've told you as much, Mr Grundle, as it is fit that you should
+know," I replied, with severity. "For the absolute condition of the
+law you must look in the statute-book, and not come to the President
+of the empire."
+
+Abraham Grundle then departed. I had assumed an angry air, as though
+I were offended with him, for troubling me on a matter by referring
+simply to an individual. But he had in truth given rise to very
+serious and solemn thoughts. Could it be that Crasweller, my own
+confidential friend--the man to whom I had trusted the very secrets
+of my soul on this important matter,--could it be that he should be
+unwilling to be deposited when the day had come? Could it be that
+he should be anxious to fly from his country and her laws, just as
+the time had arrived when those laws might operate upon him for the
+benefit of that country? I could not think that he was so vain, so
+greedy, so selfish, and so unpatriotic. But this was not all. Should
+he attempt to fly, could we prevent his flying? And if he did fly,
+what step should we take next? The Government of New South Wales was
+hostile to us on the very matter of the Fixed Period, and certainly
+would not surrender him in obedience to any law of extradition. And
+he might leave his property to trustees who would manage it on his
+behalf; although, as far as Britannula was concerned, he would be
+beyond the reach of law, and regarded even as being without the pale
+of life. And if he, the first of the Fixed-Periodists, were to run
+away, the fashion of so running would become common. We should thus
+be rid of our old men, and our object would be so far attained. But
+looking forward, I could see at a glance that if one or two wealthy
+members of our community were thus to escape, it would be almost
+impossible to carry out the law with reference to those who should
+have no such means. But that which vexed me most was that Gabriel
+Crasweller should desire to escape,--that he should be anxious to
+throw over the whole system to preserve the poor remnant of his life.
+If he would do so, who could be expected to abstain? If he should
+prove false when the moment came, who would prove true? And he, the
+first, the very first on our list! Young Grundle had now left me,
+and as I sat thinking of it I was for a moment tempted to abandon
+the Fixed Period altogether. But as I remained there in silent
+meditation, better thoughts came to me. Had I dared to regard myself
+as the foremost spirit of my age, and should I thus be turned back
+by the human weakness of one poor creature who had not sufficiently
+collected the strength of his heart to be able to look death in the
+face and to laugh him down. It was a difficulty--a difficulty the
+more. It might be the crushing difficulty which would put an end to
+the system as far as my existence was concerned. But I bethought
+me how many early reformers had perished in their efforts, and how
+seldom it had been given to the first man to scale the walls of
+prejudice, and force himself into the citadel of reason. But they had
+not yielded when things had gone against them; and though they had
+not brought their visions down to the palpable touch of humanity,
+still they had persevered, and their efforts had not been altogether
+lost to the world.
+
+"So it shall be with me," said I. "Though I may never live to deposit
+a human being within that sanctuary, and though I may be doomed by
+the foolish prejudice of men to drag out a miserable existence amidst
+the sorrows and weakness of old age; though it may never be given to
+me to feel the ineffable comforts of a triumphant deposition,--still
+my name will be handed down to coming ages, and I shall be spoken of
+as the first who endeavoured to save grey hairs from being brought
+with sorrow to the grave."
+
+I am now writing on board H.M. gunboat John Bright,--for the
+tyrannical slaves of a modern monarch have taken me in the flesh
+and are carrying me off to England, so that, as they say, all
+that nonsense of a Fixed Period may die away in Britannula. They
+think,--poor ignorant fighting men,--that such a theory can be made
+to perish because one individual shall have been mastered. But no!
+The idea will still live, and in ages to come men will prosper and be
+strong, and thrive, unpolluted by the greed and cowardice of second
+childhood, because John Neverbend was at one time President of
+Britannula.
+
+It occurred to me then, as I sat meditating over the tidings conveyed
+to me by Abraham Grundle, that it would be well that I should see
+Crasweller, and talk to him freely on the subject. It had sometimes
+been that by my strength I had reinvigorated his halting courage.
+This suggestion that he might run away as the day of his deposition
+drew nigh,--or rather, that others might run away,--had been the
+subject of some conversation between him and me. "How will it be," he
+had said, "if they mizzle?" He had intended to allude to the possible
+premature departure of those who were about to be deposited.
+
+"Men will never be so weak," I said.
+
+"I suppose you'd take all their property?"
+
+"Every stick of it."
+
+"But property is a thing which can be conveyed away."
+
+"We should keep a sharp look-out upon themselves. There might be a
+writ, you know, _ne exeant regno_. If we are driven to a pinch, that
+will be the last thing to do. But I should be sorry to be driven to
+express my fear of human weakness by any general measure of that
+kind. It would be tantamount to an accusation of cowardice against
+the whole empire."
+
+Crasweller had only shaken his head. But I had understood him to
+shake it on the part of the human race generally, and not on his own
+behalf.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE FIRST BREAK-DOWN.
+
+
+It was now mid-winter, and it wanted just twelve months to that 30th
+of June on which, in accordance with all our plans, Crasweller was to
+be deposited. A full year would, no doubt, suffice for him to arrange
+his worldly affairs, and to see his daughter married; but it would
+not more than suffice. He still went about his business with an
+alacrity marvellous in one who was so soon about to withdraw himself
+from the world. The fleeces for bearing which he was preparing his
+flocks, though they might be shorn by him, would never return their
+prices to his account. They would do so for his daughter and his
+son-in-law; but in these circumstances, it would have been well for
+him to have left the flocks to his son-in-law, and to have turned
+his mind to the consideration of other matters. "There should be a
+year devoted to that final year to be passed within the college, so
+that, by degrees, the mind may be weaned from the ignoble art of
+money-making." I had once so spoken to him; but there he was, as
+intent as ever, with his mind fixed on the records of the price of
+wool as they came back to him from the English and American markets.
+"It is all for his daughter," I had said to myself. "Had he been
+blessed with a son, it would have been otherwise with him." So I
+got on to my steam-tricycle, and in a few minutes I was at Little
+Christchurch. He was coming in after a hard day's work among the
+flocks, and seemed to be triumphant and careful at the same time.
+
+"I tell you what it is, Neverbend," said he; "we shall have the fluke
+over here if we don't look after ourselves."
+
+"Have you found symptoms of it?"
+
+"Well; not exactly among my own sheep; but I know the signs of it so
+well. My grasses are peculiarly dry, and my flocks are remarkably
+well looked after; but I can see indications of it. Only fancy where
+we should all be if fluke showed itself in Britannula! If it once got
+ahead we should be no better off than the Australians."
+
+This might be anxiety for his daughter; but it looked strangely like
+that personal feeling which would have been expected in him twenty
+years ago. "Crasweller," said I, "do you mind coming into the house,
+and having a little chat?" and so I got off my tricycle.
+
+"I was going to be very busy," he said, showing an unwillingness. "I
+have fifty young foals in that meadow there; and I like to see that
+they get their suppers served to them warm."
+
+"Bother the young foals!" said I. "As if you had not men enough about
+the place to see to feeding your stock without troubling yourself.
+I have come out from Gladstonopolis, because I want to see you;
+and now I am to be sent back in order that you might attend to the
+administration of hot mashes! Come into the house." Then I entered
+in under the verandah, and he followed. "You certainly have got the
+best-furnished house in the empire," said I, as I threw myself on to
+a double arm-chair, and lighted my cigar in the inner verandah.
+
+"Yes, yes," said he; "it is pretty comfortable."
+
+He was evidently melancholy, and knew the purpose for which I had
+come. "I don't suppose any girl in the old country was ever better
+provided for than will be Eva." This I said wishing to comfort him,
+and at the same time to prepare for what was to be said.
+
+"Eva is a good girl,--a dear girl. But I am not at all so sure about
+that young fellow Abraham Grundle. It's a pity, President, your son
+had not been born a few years sooner." At this moment my boy was half
+a head taller than young Grundle, and a much better specimen of a
+Britannulist. "But it is too late now, I suppose, to talk of that. It
+seems to me that Jack never even thinks of looking at Eva."
+
+This was a view of the case which certainly was strange to me, and
+seemed to indicate that Crasweller was gradually becoming fit for
+the college. If he could not see that Jack was madly in love with
+Eva, he could see nothing at all. But I had not come out to Little
+Christchurch at the present moment to talk to him about the love
+matters of the two children. I was intent on something of infinitely
+greater importance. "Crasweller," said I, "you and I have always
+agreed to the letter on this great matter of the Fixed Period."
+He looked into my face with supplicating, weak eyes, but he said
+nothing. "Your period now will soon have been reached, and I think
+it well that we, as dear loving friends, should learn to discuss the
+matter closely as it draws nearer. I do not think that it becomes
+either of us to be afraid of it."
+
+"That's all very well for you," he replied. "I am your senior."
+
+"Ten years, I believe."
+
+"About nine, I think."
+
+This might have come from a mistake of his as to my exact age; and
+though I was surprised at the error, I did not notice it on this
+occasion. "You have no objection to the law as it stands now?" I
+said.
+
+"It might have been seventy."
+
+"That has all been discussed fully, and you have given your assent.
+Look round on the men whom you can remember, and tell me, on how many
+of them life has not sat as a burden at seventy years of age?"
+
+"Men are so different," said he. "As far as one can judge of his own
+capacities, I was never better able to manage my business than I am
+at present. It is more than I can say for that young fellow Grundle,
+who is so anxious to step into my shoes."
+
+"My dear Crasweller," I rejoined, "it was out of the question so to
+arrange the law as to vary the term to suit the peculiarities of one
+man or another."
+
+"But in a change of such terrible severity you should have suited the
+eldest."
+
+This was dreadful to me,--that he, the first to receive at the hands
+of his country the great honour intended for him,--that he should
+have already allowed his mind to have rebelled against it! If he, who
+had once been so keen a supporter of the Fixed Period, now turned
+round and opposed it, how could others who should follow be expected
+to yield themselves up in a fitting frame of mind? And then I
+spoke my thoughts freely to him. "Are you afraid of departure?" I
+said,--"afraid of that which must come; afraid to meet as a friend
+that which you must meet so soon as friend or enemy?" I paused; but
+he sat looking at me without reply. "To fear departure;--must it not
+be the greatest evil of all our life, if it be necessary? Can God
+have brought us into the world, intending us so to leave it that the
+very act of doing so shall be regarded by us as a curse so terrible
+as to neutralise all the blessings of our existence? Can it be that
+He who created us should have intended that we should so regard our
+dismissal from the world? The teachers of religion have endeavoured
+to reconcile us to it, and have, in their vain zeal, endeavoured to
+effect it by picturing to our imaginations a hell-fire into which
+ninety-nine must fall; while one shall be allowed to escape to a
+heaven, which is hardly made more alluring to us! Is that the way to
+make a man comfortable at the prospect of leaving this world? But it
+is necessary to our dignity as men that we shall find the mode of
+doing so. To lie quivering and quaking on my bed at the expectation
+of the Black Angel of Death, does not suit my manhood,--which would
+fear nothing;--which does not, and shall not, stand in awe of aught
+but my own sins. How best shall we prepare ourselves for the day
+which we know cannot be avoided? That is the question which I have
+ever been asking myself,--which you and I have asked ourselves, and
+which I thought we had answered. Let us turn the inevitable into
+that which shall in itself be esteemed a glory to us. Let us teach
+the world so to look forward with longing eyes, and not with a faint
+heart. I had thought to have touched some few, not by the eloquence
+of my words, but by the energy of my thoughts; and you, oh my friend,
+have ever been he whom it has been my greatest joy to have had with
+me as the sharer of my aspirations."
+
+"But I am nine years older than you are."
+
+I again passed by the one year added to my age. There was nothing
+now in so trifling an error. "But you still agree with me as to the
+fundamental truth of our doctrine."
+
+"I suppose so," said Crasweller.
+
+"I suppose so!" repeated I. "Is that all that can be said for the
+philosophy to which we have devoted ourselves, and in which nothing
+false can be found?"
+
+"It won't teach any one to think it better to live than to die while
+he is fit to perform all the functions of life. It might be very well
+if you could arrange that a man should be deposited as soon as he
+becomes absolutely infirm."
+
+"Some men are infirm at forty."
+
+"Then deposit them," said Crasweller.
+
+"Yes; but they will not own that they are infirm. If a man be weak
+at that age, he thinks that with advancing years he will resume the
+strength of his youth. There must, in fact, be a Fixed Period. We
+have discussed that fifty times, and have always arrived at the same
+conclusion."
+
+He sat still, silent, unhappy, and confused. I saw that there was
+something on his mind to which he hardly dared to give words. Wishing
+to encourage him, I went on. "After all, you have a full twelve
+months yet before the day shall have come."
+
+"Two years," he said, doggedly.
+
+"Exactly; two years before your departure, but twelve months before
+deposition."
+
+"Two years before deposition," said Crasweller.
+
+At this I own I was astonished. Nothing was better known in the
+empire than the ages of the two or three first inhabitants to be
+deposited. I would have undertaken to declare that not a man or a
+woman in Britannula was in doubt as to Mr Crasweller's exact age. It
+had been written in the records, and upon the stones belonging to the
+college. There was no doubt that within twelve months of the present
+date he was due to be detained there as the first inhabitant. And now
+I was astounded to hear him claim another year, which could not be
+allowed him.
+
+"That impudent fellow Grundle has been with me," he continued, "and
+wishes to make me believe that he can get rid of me in one year. I
+have, at any rate, two years left of my out-of-door existence, and I
+do not mean to give up a day of it for Grundle or any one else."
+
+It was something to see that he still recognised the law, though he
+was so meanly anxious to evade it. There had been some whisperings in
+the empire among the elderly men and women of a desire to obtain the
+assistance of Great Britain in setting it aside. Peter Grundle, for
+instance, Crasweller's senior partner, had been heard to say that
+England would not allow a deposited man to be slaughtered. There was
+much in that which had angered me. The word slaughter was in itself
+peculiarly objectionable to my ears,--to me who had undertaken to
+perform the first ceremony as an act of grace. And what had England
+to do with our laws? It was as though Russia were to turn upon the
+United States and declare that their Congress should be put down.
+What would avail the loudest voice of Great Britain against the
+smallest spark of a law passed by our Assembly?--unless, indeed,
+Great Britain should condescend to avail herself of her great power,
+and thus to crush the free voice of those whom she had already
+recognised as independent. As I now write, this is what she has
+already done, and history will have to tell the story. But it was
+especially sad to have to think that there should be a Britannulist
+so base, such a coward, such a traitor, as himself to propose this
+expedient for adding a few years to his own wretched life.
+
+But Crasweller did not, as it seemed, intend to avail himself of
+these whispers. His mind was intent on devising some falsehood by
+which he should obtain for himself just one other year of life, and
+his expectant son-in-law purposed to prevent him. I hardly knew as I
+turned it all in my mind, which of the two was the more sordid; but I
+think that my sympathies were rather in accord with the cowardice of
+the old man than with the greed of the young. After all, I had known
+from the beginning that the fear of death was a human weakness. To
+obliterate that fear from the human heart, and to build up a perfect
+manhood that should be liberated from so vile a thraldom, had been
+one of the chief objects of my scheme. I had no right to be angry
+with Crasweller, because Crasweller, when tried, proved himself to
+be no stronger than the world at large. It was a matter to me of
+infinite regret that it should be so. He was the very man, the very
+friend, on whom I had relied with confidence! But his weakness was
+only a proof that I myself had been mistaken. In all that Assembly
+by which the law had been passed, consisting chiefly of young men,
+was there one on whom I could rest with confidence to carry out the
+purpose of the law when his own time should come? Ought I not so to
+have arranged matters that I myself should have been the first,--to
+have postponed the use of the college till such time as I might
+myself have been deposited? This had occurred to me often throughout
+the whole agitation; but then it had occurred also that none might
+perhaps follow me, when under such circumstances I should have
+departed!
+
+But in my heart I could forgive Crasweller. For Grundle I felt
+nothing but personal dislike. He was anxious to hurry on the
+deposition of his father-in-law, in order that the entire possession
+of Little Christchurch might come into his own hands just one year
+the earlier! No doubt he knew the exact age of the man as well as
+I did, but it was not for him to have hastened his deposition. And
+then I could not but think, even in this moment of public misery, how
+willing Jack would have been to have assisted old Crasweller in his
+little fraud, so that Eva might have been the reward. My belief is
+that he would have sworn against his own father, perjured himself
+in the very teeth of truth, to have obtained from Eva that little
+privilege which I had once seen Grundle enjoying.
+
+I was sitting there silent in Crasweller's verandah as all this
+passed through my mind. But before I spoke again I was enabled to see
+clearly what duty required of me. Eva and Little Christchurch, with
+Jack's feelings and interests, and all my wife's longings, must be
+laid on one side, and my whole energy must be devoted to the literal
+carrying out of the law. It was a great world's movement that had
+been projected, and if it were to fail now, just at its commencement,
+when everything had been arranged for the work, when again would
+there be hope? It was a matter which required legislative sanction in
+whatever country might adopt it. No despot could attempt it, let his
+power be ever so confirmed. The whole country would rise against him
+when informed, in its ignorance, of the contemplated intention. Nor
+could it be effected by any congress of which the large majority were
+not at any rate under forty years of age. I had seen enough of human
+nature to understand its weakness in this respect. All circumstances
+had combined to make it practicable in Britannula, but all these
+circumstances might never be combined again. And it seemed to me to
+depend now entirely on the power which I might exert in creating
+courage in the heart of the poor timid creature who sat before me.
+I did know that were Britannula to appeal aloud to England, England,
+with that desire for interference which has always characterised her,
+would interfere. But if the empire allowed the working of the law
+to be commenced in silence, then the Fixed Period might perhaps be
+regarded as a thing settled. How much, then, depended on the words
+which I might use!
+
+"Crasweller," I said, "my friend, my brother!"
+
+"I don't know much about that. A man ought not to be so anxious to
+kill his brother."
+
+"If I could take your place, as God will be my judge, I would do so
+with as ready a step as a young man to the arms of his beloved. And
+if for myself, why not for my brother?"
+
+"You do not know," he said. "You have not, in truth, been tried."
+
+"Would that you could try me!"
+
+"And we are not all made of such stuff as you. You have talked about
+this till you have come to be in love with deposition and departure.
+But such is not the natural condition of a man. Look back upon all
+the centuries, and you will perceive that life has ever been dear
+to the best of men. And you will perceive also that they who have
+brought themselves to suicide have encountered the contempt of their
+fellow-creatures."
+
+I would not tell him of Cato and Brutus, feeling that I could not
+stir him to grandeur of heart by Roman instances. He would have told
+me that in those days, as far as the Romans knew,
+
+
+      "the Everlasting had not fixed
+   His canon 'gainst self-slaughter."
+
+
+I must reach him by other methods than these, if at all. "Who can be
+more alive than you," I said, "to the fact that man, by the fear of
+death, is degraded below the level of the brutes?"
+
+"If so, he is degraded," said Crasweller. "It is his condition."
+
+"But need he remain so? Is it not for you and me to raise him to a
+higher level?"
+
+"Not for me--not for me, certainly. I own that I am no more than
+man. Little Christchurch is so pleasant to me, and Eva's smiles and
+happiness; and the lowing of my flocks and the bleating of my sheep
+are so gracious in my ears, and it is so sweet to my eyes to see how
+fairly I have turned this wilderness into a paradise, that I own that
+I would fain stay here a little longer."
+
+"But the law, my friend, the law,--the law which you yourself have
+been so active in creating."
+
+"The law allows me two years yet," said he; that look of stubbornness
+which I had before observed again spreading itself over his face.
+
+Now this was a lie; an absolute, undoubted, demonstrable lie. And
+yet it was a lie which, by its mere telling, might be made available
+for its intended purpose. If it were known through the capital that
+Crasweller was anxious to obtain a year's grace by means of so foul a
+lie, the year's grace would be accorded to him. And then the Fixed
+Period would be at an end.
+
+"I will tell you what it is," said he, anxious to represent his
+wishes to me in another light. "Grundle wants to get rid of me."
+
+"Grundle, I fear, has truth on his side," said I, determined to show
+him that I, at any rate, would not consent to lend myself to the
+furtherance of a falsehood.
+
+"Grundle wants to get rid of me," he repeated in the same tone. "But
+he shan't find that I am so easy to deal with. Eva already does
+not above half like him. Eva thinks that this depositing plan is
+abominable. She says that no good Christians ever thought of it."
+
+"A child--a sweet child--but still only a child; and brought up by
+her mother with all the old prejudices."
+
+"I don't know much about that. I never knew a decent woman who wasn't
+an Episcopalian. Eva is at any rate a good girl, to endeavour to save
+her father; and I'll tell you what--it is not too late yet. As far as
+my opinion goes, Jack Neverbend is ten to one a better sort of fellow
+than Abraham Grundle. Of course a promise has been made; but promises
+are like pie-crusts. Don't you think that Jack Neverbend is quite old
+enough to marry a wife, and that he only needs be told to make up
+his mind to do it? Little Christchurch would do just as well for him
+as for Grundle. If he don't think much of the girl he must think
+something of the sheep."
+
+Not think much of the girl! Just at this time Jack was talking to
+his mother, morning, noon, and night, about Eva, and threatening
+young Grundle with all kinds of schoolboy punishments if he should
+persevere in his suit. Only yesterday he had insulted Abraham
+grossly, and, as I had reason to suspect, had been more than once
+out to Christchurch on some clandestine object, as to which it was
+necessary, he thought, to keep old Crasweller in the dark. And then
+to be told in this manner that Jack didn't think much of Eva, and
+should be encouraged in preference to look after the sheep! He would
+have sacrificed every sheep on the place for the sake of half an hour
+with Eva alone in the woods. But he was afraid of Crasweller, whom he
+knew to have sanctioned an engagement with Abraham Grundle.
+
+"I don't think that we need bring Jack and his love into this
+dispute," said I.
+
+"Only that it isn't too late, you know. Do you think that Jack could
+be brought to lend an ear to it?"
+
+Perish Jack! perish Eva! perish Jack's mother, before I would allow
+myself to be bribed in this manner, to abandon the great object
+of all my life! This was evidently Crasweller's purpose. He was
+endeavouring to tempt me with his flocks and herds. The temptation,
+had he known it, would have been with Eva,--with Eva and the genuine,
+downright, honest love of my gallant boy. I knew, too, that at home
+I should not dare to tell my wife that the offer had been made to
+me and had been refused. My wife could not understand,--Crasweller
+could not understand,--how strong may be the passion founded on the
+conviction of a life. And honesty, simple honesty, would forbid
+it. For me to strike a bargain with one already destined for
+deposition,--that he should be withdrawn from his glorious, his
+almost immortal state, on the payment of a bribe to me and my family!
+I had called this man my friend and brother, but how little had the
+man known me! Could I have saved all Gladstonopolis from imminent
+flames by yielding an inch in my convictions, I would not have
+done so in my then frame of mind; and yet this man,--my friend and
+brother,--had supposed that I could be bought to change my purpose by
+the pretty slopes and fat flocks of Little Christchurch!
+
+"Crasweller," said I, "let us keep these two things separate; or
+rather, in discussing the momentous question of the Fixed Period, let
+us forget the loves of a boy and a girl."
+
+"But the sheep, and the oxen, and the pastures! I can still make my
+will."
+
+"The sheep, and the oxen, and the pastures must also be forgotten.
+They can have nothing to do with the settlement of this matter. My
+boy is dear to me, and Eva is dear also, but not to save even their
+young lives could I consent to a falsehood in this matter."
+
+"Falsehood! There is no falsehood intended."
+
+"Then there need be no bargain as to Eva, and no need for discussing
+the flocks and herds on this occasion. Crasweller, you are sixty-six
+now, and will be sixty-seven this time next year. Then the period of
+your deposition will have arrived, and in the year following,--two
+years hence, mind,--the Fixed Period of your departure will have
+come."
+
+"No."
+
+"Is not such the truth?"
+
+"No; you put it all on a year too far. I was never more than nine
+years older than you. I remember it all as well as though it were
+yesterday when we first agreed to come away from New Zealand. When
+will you have to be deposited?"
+
+"In 1989," I said carefully. "My Fixed Period is 1990."
+
+"Exactly; and mine is nine years earlier. It always was nine years
+earlier."
+
+It was all manifestly untrue. He knew it to be untrue. For the sake
+of one poor year he was imploring my assent to a base falsehood, and
+was endeavouring to add strength to his prayer by a bribe. How could
+I talk to a man who would so far descend from the dignity of manhood?
+The law was there to support me, and the definition of the law was
+in this instance supported by ample evidence. I need only go before
+the executive of which I myself was the chief, desire that the
+established documents should be searched, and demand the body of
+Gabriel Crasweller to be deposited in accordance with the law
+as enacted. But there was no one else to whom I could leave the
+performance of this invidious task, as a matter of course. There
+were aldermen in Gladstonopolis and magistrates in the country
+whose duty it would no doubt be to see that the law was carried out.
+Arrangements to this effect had been studiously made by myself. Such
+arrangements would no doubt be carried out when the working of the
+Fixed Period had become a thing established. But I had long foreseen
+that the first deposition should be effected with some _eclat_ of
+voluntary glory. It would be very detrimental to the cause to see my
+special friend Crasweller hauled away to the college by constables
+through the streets of Gladstonopolis, protesting that he was forced
+to his doom twelve months before the appointed time. Crasweller was
+a popular man in Britannula, and the people around would not be so
+conversant with the fact as was I, nor would they have the same
+reasons to be anxious that the law should be accurately followed.
+And yet how much depended upon the accuracy of following the law! A
+willing obedience was especially desired in the first instance, and a
+willing obedience I had expected from my friend Crasweller.
+
+"Crasweller," I said, addressing him with great solemnity; "it is not
+so."
+
+"It is--it is; I say it is."
+
+"It is not so. The books that have been printed and sworn to, which
+have had your own assent with that of others, are all against you."
+
+"It was a mistake. I have got a letter from my old aunt in Hampshire,
+written to my mother when I was born, which proves the mistake."
+
+"I remember the letter well," I said,--for we had all gone through
+such documents in performing the important task of settling the
+Period. "You were born in New South Wales, and the old lady in
+England did not write till the following year."
+
+"Who says so? How can you prove it? She wasn't at all the woman to
+let a year go by before she congratulated her sister."
+
+"We have your own signature affirming the date."
+
+"How was I to know when I was born? All that goes for nothing."
+
+"And unfortunately," said I, as though clenching the matter, "the
+Bible exists in which your father entered the date with his usual
+exemplary accuracy." Then he was silent for a moment as though having
+no further evidence to offer. "Crasweller," said I, "are you not man
+enough to do this thing in a straightforward, manly manner?"
+
+"One year!" he exclaimed. "I only ask for one year. I do think that,
+as the first victim, I have a right to expect that one year should be
+granted me. Then Jack Neverbend shall have Little Christchurch, and
+the sheep, and the cattle, and Eva also, as his own for ever and
+ever,--or at any rate till he too shall be led away to execution!"
+
+A victim; and execution! What language in which to speak of the great
+system! For myself I was determined that though I would be gentle
+with him I would not yield an inch. The law at any rate was with me,
+and I did not think as yet that Crasweller would lend himself to
+those who spoke of inviting the interference of England. The law was
+on my side, and so must still be all those who in the Assembly had
+voted for the Fixed Period. There had been enthusiasm then, and the
+different clauses had been carried by large majorities. A dozen
+different clauses had been carried, each referring to various
+branches of the question. Not only had the period been fixed, but
+money had been voted for the college; and the mode of life at the
+college had been settled; the very amusements of the old men had been
+sanctioned; and last, but not least, the very manner of departure had
+been fixed. There was the college now, a graceful building surrounded
+by growing shrubs and broad pleasant walks for the old men, endowed
+with a kitchen in which their taste should be consulted, and with a
+chapel for such of those who would require to pray in public; and all
+this would be made a laughing-stock to Britannula, if this old man
+Crasweller declined to enter the gates. "It must be done," I said in
+a tone of firm decision.
+
+"No!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Crasweller, it must be done. The law demands it."
+
+"No, no; not by me. You and young Grundle together are in a
+conspiracy to get rid of me. I am not going to be shut up a whole
+year before my time."
+
+With that he stalked into the inner house, leaving me alone on the
+verandah. I had nothing for it but to turn on the electric lamp of my
+tricycle and steam back to Government House at Gladstonopolis with a
+sad heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+JACK NEVERBEND.
+
+
+Six months passed away, which, I must own to me was a period of great
+doubt and unhappiness, though it was relieved by certain moments
+of triumph. Of course, as the time drew nearer, the question of
+Crasweller's deposition became generally discussed by the public of
+Gladstonopolis. And so also did the loves of Abraham Grundle and Eva
+Crasweller. There were "Evaites" and "Abrahamites" in the community;
+for though the match had not yet been altogether broken, it was known
+that the two young people differed altogether on the question of the
+old man's deposition. It was said by the defendents of Grundle, who
+were to be found for the most part among the young men and young
+women, that Abraham was simply anxious to carry out the laws of his
+country. It happened that, during this period, he was elected to a
+vacant seat in the Assembly, so that, when the matter came on for
+discussion there, he was able to explain publicly his motives; and
+it must be owned that he did so with good words and with a certain
+amount of youthful eloquence. As for Eva, she was simply intent on
+preserving the lees of her father's life, and had been heard to
+express an opinion that the college was "all humbug," and that people
+ought to be allowed to live as long as it pleased God to let them.
+Of course she had with her the elderly ladies of the community, and
+among them my own wife as the foremost. Mrs Neverbend had never made
+herself prominent before in any public question; but on this she
+seemed to entertain a very warm opinion. Whether this arose entirely
+from her desire to promote Jack's welfare, or from a reflection that
+her own period of deposition was gradually becoming nearer, I never
+could quite make up my mind. She had, at any rate, ten years to run,
+and I never heard from her any expressed fear of,--departure. She
+was,--and is,--a brave, good woman, attached to her household duties,
+anxious for her husband's comfort, but beyond measure solicitous for
+all good things to befall that scapegrace Jack Neverbend, for whom
+she thinks that nothing is sufficiently rich or sufficiently grand.
+Jack is a handsome boy, I grant, but that is about all that can be
+said of him; and in this matter he has been diametrically opposed to
+his father from first to last.
+
+It will be seen that, in such circumstances, none of these moments
+of triumph to which I have alluded can have come to me within my
+own home. There Mrs Neverbend and Jack, and after a while Eva, sat
+together in perpetual council against me. When these meetings first
+began, Eva still acknowledged herself to be the promised bride of
+Abraham Grundle. There were her own vows, and her parent's assent,
+and something perhaps of remaining love. But presently she whispered
+to my wife that she could not but feel horror for the man who was
+anxious to "murder her father;" and by-and-by she began to own that
+she thought Jack a fine fellow. We had a wonderful cricket club in
+Gladstonopolis, and Britannula had challenged the English cricketers
+to come and play on the Little Christchurch ground, which they
+declared to be the only cricket ground as yet prepared on the face
+of the earth which had all the accomplishments possible for the due
+prosecution of the game. Now Jack, though very young, was captain
+of the club, and devoted much more of his time to that occupation
+than to his more legitimate business as a merchant. Eva, who had
+not hitherto paid much attention to cricket, became on a sudden
+passionately devoted to it; whereas Abraham Grundle, with a
+steadiness beyond his years, gave himself up more than ever to the
+business of the Assembly, and expressed some contempt for the game,
+though he was no mean player.
+
+It had become necessary during this period to bring forward in the
+Assembly the whole question of the Fixed Period, as it was felt that,
+in the present state of public opinion, it would not be expedient to
+carry out the established law without the increased sanction which
+would be given to it by a further vote in the House. Public opinion
+would have forbidden us to deposit Crasweller without some such
+further authority. Therefore it was deemed necessary that a question
+should be asked, in which Crasweller's name was not mentioned, but
+which might lead to some general debate. Young Grundle demanded one
+morning whether it was the intention of the Government to see that
+the different clauses as to the new law respecting depositions were
+at once carried out. "The House is aware, I believe," he said, "that
+the first operation will soon be needed." I may as well state here
+that this was repeated to Eva, and that she pretended to take huff at
+such a question from her lover. It was most indecent, she said; and
+she, after such words, must drop him for ever. It was not for some
+months after that, that she allowed Jack's name to be mentioned
+with her own; but I was aware that it was partly settled between
+her and Jack and Mrs Neverbend. Grundle declared his intention of
+proceeding against old Crasweller in reference to the breach of
+contract, according to the laws of Britannula; but that Jack's party
+disregarded altogether. In telling this, however, I am advancing a
+little beyond the point in my story to which I have as yet carried my
+reader.
+
+Then there arose a debate upon the whole principle of the measure,
+which was carried on with great warmth. I, as President, of course
+took no part in it; but, in accordance with our constitution, I heard
+it all from the chair which I usually occupied at the Speaker's right
+hand. The arguments on which the greatest stress was laid tended to
+show that the Fixed Period had been carried chiefly with a view to
+relieving the miseries of the old. And it was conclusively shown
+that, in a very great majority of cases, life beyond sixty-eight was
+all vanity and vexation of spirit. That other argument as to the
+costliness of old men to the state was for the present dropped. Had
+you listened to young Grundle, insisting with all the vehemence
+of youth on the absolute wretchedness to which the aged had been
+condemned by the absence of any such law,--had you heard the miseries
+of rheumatism, gout, stone, and general debility pictured in the
+eloquent words of five-and-twenty,--you would have felt that all
+who could lend themselves to perpetuate such a state of things must
+be guilty of fiendish cruelty. He really rose to a great height
+of parliamentary excellence, and altogether carried with him the
+younger, and luckily the greater, part of the House. There was really
+nothing to be said on the other side, except a repetition of the
+prejudices of the Old World. But, alas! so strong are the weaknesses
+of the world, that prejudice can always vanquish truth by the mere
+strength of its battalions. Not till it had been proved and re-proved
+ten times over, was it understood that the sun could not have stood
+still upon Gideon. Crasweller, who was a member, and who took
+his seat during these debates without venturing to speak, merely
+whispered to his neighbour that the heartless greedy fellow was
+unwilling to wait for the wools of Little Christchurch.
+
+Three divisions were made on the debate, and thrice did the
+Fixed-Periodists beat the old party by a majority of fifteen in a
+House consisting of eighty-five members. So strong was the feeling
+in the empire, that only two members were absent, and the number
+remained the same during the whole week of the debate. This, I did
+think, was a triumph; and I felt that the old country, which had
+really nothing on earth to do with the matter, could not interfere
+with an opinion expressed so strongly. My heart throbbed with
+pleasureable emotion as I heard that old age, which I was myself
+approaching, depicted in terms which made its impotence truly
+conspicuous,--till I felt that, had it been proposed to deposit all
+of us who had reached the age of fifty-eight, I really think that
+I should joyfully have given my assent to such a measure, and have
+walked off at once and deposited myself in the college.
+
+But it was only at such moments that I was allowed to experience this
+feeling of triumph. I was encountered not only in my own house but in
+society generally, and on the very streets of Gladstonopolis, by the
+expression of an opinion that Crasweller would not be made to retire
+to the college at his Fixed Period. "What on earth is there to hinder
+it?" I said once to my old friend Ruggles. Ruggles was now somewhat
+over sixty, and was an agent in the town for country wool-growers.
+He took no part in politics; and though he had never agreed to
+the principle of the Fixed Period, had not interested himself in
+opposition to it. He was a man whom I regarded as indifferent to
+length of life, but one who would, upon the whole, rather face such
+lot as Nature might intend for him, than seek to improve it by any
+new reform.
+
+"Eva Crasweller will hinder it," said Ruggles.
+
+"Eva is a mere child. Do you suppose that her opinion will be allowed
+to interrupt the laws of the whole community, and oppose the progress
+of civilisation?"
+
+"Her feelings will," said Ruggles. "Who's to stand a daughter
+interceding for the life of her father?"
+
+"One man cannot, but eighty-five can do so."
+
+"The eighty-five will be to the community just what the one would be
+to the eighty-five. I am not saying anything about your law. I am
+not expressing an opinion whether it would be good or bad. I should
+like to live out my own time, though I acknowledge that you Assembly
+men have on your shoulders the responsibility of deciding whether I
+shall do so or not. You could lead me away and deposit me without any
+trouble, because I am not popular. But the people are beginning to
+talk about Eva Crasweller and Abraham Grundle, and I tell you that
+all the volunteers you have in Britannula will not suffice to take
+the old man to the college, and to keep him there till you have
+polished him off. He would be deposited again at Little Christchurch
+in triumph, and the college would be left a wreck behind him."
+
+This view of the case was peculiarly distressing to me. As the
+chief magistrate of the community, nothing is so abhorrent to me as
+rebellion. Of a populace that are not law-abiding, nothing but evil
+can be predicted; whereas a people who will obey the laws cannot but
+be prosperous. It grieved me greatly to be told that the inhabitants
+of Gladstonopolis would rise in tumult and destroy the college merely
+to favour the views of a pretty girl. Was there any honour, or worse
+again, could there be any utility, in being the President of a
+republic in which such things could happen? I left my friend Ruggles
+in the street, and passed on to the executive hall in a very painful
+frame of mind.
+
+When there, tidings reached me of a much sadder nature. At the very
+moment at which I had been talking with Ruggles in the street on the
+subject, a meeting had been held in the market-place with the express
+purpose of putting down the Fixed Period; and who had been the chief
+orator on the occasion but Jack Neverbend! My own son had taken upon
+himself this new work of public speechifying in direct opposition to
+his own father! And I had reason to believe that he was instigated
+to do so by my own wife! "Your son, sir, has been addressing the
+multitude about the Fixed Period, and they say that it has been quite
+beautiful to hear him." It was thus that the matter was told me by
+one of the clerks in my office, and I own that I did receive some
+slight pleasure at finding that Jack could do something beyond
+cricket. But it became immediately necessary to take steps to
+stop the evil, and I was the more bound to do so because the only
+delinquent named to me was my own son.
+
+"If it be so," I said aloud in the office, "Jack Neverbend shall
+sleep this night in prison." But it did not occur to me at the moment
+that it would be necessary I should have formal evidence that Jack
+was conspiring against the laws before I could send him to jail. I
+had no more power over him in that respect than on any one else. Had
+I declared that he should be sent to bed without his supper, I should
+have expressed myself better both as a father and a magistrate.
+
+I went home, and on entering the house the first person that I saw
+was Eva. Now, as this matter went on, I became full of wrath with
+my son, and with my wife, and with poor old Crasweller; but I never
+could bring myself to be angry with Eva. There was a coaxing, sweet,
+feminine way with her which overcame all opposition. And I had
+already begun to regard her as my daughter-in-law, and to love
+her dearly in that position, although there were moments in which
+Jack's impudence and new spirit of opposition almost tempted me to
+disinherit him.
+
+"Eva," I said, "what is this that I hear of a public meeting in the
+streets?"
+
+"Oh, Mr Neverbend," she said, taking me by the arm, "there are only
+a few boys who are talking about papa." Through all the noises and
+tumults of these times there was an evident determination to speak
+of Jack as a boy. Everything that he did and all that he said were
+merely the efflux of his high spirits as a schoolboy. Eva always
+spoke of him as a kind of younger brother. And yet I soon found that
+the one opponent whom I had most to fear in Britannula was my own
+son.
+
+"But why," I asked, "should these foolish boys discuss the serious
+question respecting your dear father in the public street?"
+
+"They don't want to have him--deposited," she said, almost sobbing as
+she spoke.
+
+"But, my dear," I began, determined to teach her the whole theory of
+the Fixed Period with all its advantages from first to last.
+
+But she interrupted me at once. "Oh, Mr Neverbend, I know what a good
+thing it is--to talk about. I have no doubt the world will be a great
+deal the better for it. And if all the papas had been deposited for
+the last five hundred years, I don't suppose that I should care so
+much about it. But to be the first that ever it happened to in all
+the world! Why should papa be the first? You ought to begin with some
+weak, crotchety, poor old cripple, who would be a great deal better
+out of the way. But papa is in excellent health, and has all his wits
+about him a great deal better than Mr Grundle. He manages everything
+at Little Christchurch, and manages it very well."
+
+"But, my dear--" I was going to explain to her that in a question
+of such enormous public interest as this of the Fixed Period it
+was impossible to consider the merits of individual cases. But she
+interrupted me again before I could get out a word.
+
+"Oh, Mr Neverbend, they'll never be able to do it, and I'm afraid
+that then you'll be vexed."
+
+"My dear, if the law be--"
+
+"Oh yes, the law is a very beautiful thing; but what's the good of
+laws if they cannot be carried out? There's Jack there;--of course
+he is only a boy, but he swears that all the executive, and all the
+Assembly, and all the volunteers in Britannula, shan't lead my papa
+into that beastly college."
+
+"Beastly! My dear, you cannot have seen the college. It is perfectly
+beautiful."
+
+"That's only what Jack says. It's Jack that calls it beastly. Of
+course he's not much of a man as yet, but he is your own son. And I
+do think, that for an earnest spirit about a thing, Jack is a very
+fine fellow."
+
+"Abraham Grundle, you know, is just as warm on the other side."
+
+"I hate Abraham Grundle. I don't want ever to hear his name again.
+I understand very well what it is that Abraham Grundle is after. He
+never cared a straw for me; nor I much for him, if you come to that."
+
+"But you are contracted."
+
+"If you think that I am going to marry a man because our names have
+been written down in a book together, you are very much mistaken. He
+is a nasty mean fellow, and I will never speak to him again as long
+as I live. He would deposit papa this very moment if he had the
+power. Whereas Jack is determined to stand up for him as long as he
+has got a tongue to shout or hands to fight." These were terrible
+words, but I had heard the same sentiment myself from Jack's own
+lips. "Of course Jack is nothing to me," she continued, with that
+half sob which had become habitual to her whenever she was forced to
+speak of her father's deposition. "He is only a boy, but we all know
+that he could thrash Abraham Grundle at once. And to my thinking he
+is much more fit to be a member of the Assembly."
+
+As she would not hear a word that I said to her, and was only intent
+on expressing the warmth of her own feelings, I allowed her to go
+her way, and retired to the privacy of my own library. There I
+endeavoured to console myself as best I might by thinking of the
+brilliant nature of Jack's prospects. He himself was over head and
+ears in love with Eva, and it was clear to me that Eva was nearly
+as fond of him. And then the sly rogue had found the certain way to
+obtain old Crasweller's consent. Grundle had thought that if he could
+once see his father-in-law deposited, he would have nothing to do but
+to walk into Little Christchurch as master. That was the accusation
+generally made against him in Gladstonopolis. But Jack, who did not,
+as far as I could see, care a straw for humanity in the matter, had
+vehemently taken the side of the Anti-Fixed-Periodists as the safest
+way to get the father's consent. There was a contract of marriage,
+no doubt, and Grundle would be entitled to take a quarter of the
+father's possessions if he could prove that the contract had been
+broken. Such was the law of Britannula on the subject. But not a
+shilling had as yet been claimed by any man under that law. And
+Crasweller no doubt concluded that Grundle would be unwilling to bear
+the odium of being the first. And there were clauses in the law which
+would make it very difficult for him to prove the validity of the
+contract. It had been already asserted by many that a girl could
+not be expected to marry the man who had endeavoured to destroy her
+father; and although in my mind there could be no doubt that Abraham
+Grundle had only done his duty as a senator, there was no knowing
+what view of the case a jury might take in Gladstonopolis. And then,
+if the worst came to the worst, Crasweller would resign a fourth of
+his property almost without a pang, and Jack would content himself in
+making the meanness of Grundle conspicuous to his fellow-citizens.
+
+And now I must confess that, as I sat alone in my library, I did
+hesitate for an hour as to my future conduct. Might it not be better
+for me to abandon altogether the Fixed Period and all its glories?
+Even in Britannula the world might be too strong for me. Should I
+not take the good things that were offered, and allow Jack to marry
+his wife and be happy in his own way? In my very heart I loved him
+quite as well as did his mother, and thought that he was the finest
+young fellow that Britannula had produced. And if this kind of thing
+went on, it might be that I should be driven to quarrel with him
+altogether, and to have him punished under the law, like some old
+Roman of old. And I must confess that my relations with Mrs Neverbend
+made me very unfit to ape the Roman _paterfamilias_. She never
+interfered with public business, but she had a way of talking about
+household matters in which she was always victorious. Looking back as
+I did at this moment on the past, it seemed to me that she and Jack,
+who were the two persons I loved best in the world, had been the
+enemies who had always successfully conspired against me. "Do have
+done with your Fixed Period and nonsense," she had said to me only
+yesterday. "It's all very well for the Assembly; but when you come
+to killing poor Mr Crasweller in real life, it is quite out of the
+question." And then, when I began to explain to her at length the
+immense importance of the subject, she only remarked that that would
+do very well for the Assembly. Should I abandon it all, take the good
+things with which God had provided me, and retire into private life?
+I had two sides to my character, and could see myself sitting in
+luxurious comfort amidst the furniture of Crasweller's verandah
+while Eva and her children were around, and Jack was standing with
+a cigar in his mouth outside laying down the law for the cricketers
+at Gladstonopolis. "Were not better done as others use," I said to
+myself over and over again as I sat there wearied with this contest,
+and thinking of the much more frightful agony I should be called upon
+to endure when the time had actually come for the departure of old
+Crasweller.
+
+And then again if I should fail! For half an hour or so I did fear
+that I should fail. I had been always a most popular magistrate, but
+now, it seemed, had come the time in which all my popularity must be
+abandoned. Jack, who was quick enough at understanding the aspect of
+things, had already begun to ask the people whether they would see
+their old friend Crasweller murdered in cold blood. It was a dreadful
+word, but I was assured that he had used it. How would it be when the
+time even for depositing had come, and an attempt was made to lead
+the old man up through the streets of Gladstonopolis? Should I have
+strength of character to perform the task in opposition to the loudly
+expressed wishes of the inhabitants, and to march him along protected
+by a strong body of volunteers? And how would it be if the volunteers
+themselves refused to act on the side of law and order? Should I not
+absolutely fail; and would it not afterwards be told of me that, as
+President, I had broken down in an attempt to carry out the project
+with which my name had been so long associated?
+
+As I sat there alone I had almost determined to yield. But suddenly
+there came upon me a memory of Socrates, of Galileo, of Hampden, and
+of Washington. What great things had these men done by constancy,
+in opposition to the wills and prejudices of the outside world! How
+triumphant they now appeared to have been in fighting against the
+enormous odds which power had brought against them! And how pleasant
+now were the very sounds of their names to all who loved their
+fellow-creatures! In some moments of private thought, anxious as
+were now my own, they too must have doubted. They must have asked
+themselves the question, whether they were strong enough to carry
+their great reforms against the world. But in these very moments the
+necessary strength had been given to them. It must have been that,
+when almost despairing, they had been comforted by an inner truth,
+and had been all but inspired to trust with confidence in their
+cause. They, too, had been weak, and had trembled, and had almost
+feared. But they had found in their own hearts that on which they
+could rely. Had they been less sorely pressed than was I now at this
+present moment? Had not they believed and trusted and been confident?
+As I thought of it, I became aware that it was not only necessary for
+a man to imagine new truths, but to be able to endure, and to suffer,
+and to bring them to maturity. And how often before a truth was
+brought to maturity must it be necessary that he who had imagined
+it, and seen it, and planned it, must give his very life for it,
+and all in vain? But not perhaps all in vain as far as the world
+was concerned; but only in vain in regard to the feelings and
+knowledge of the man himself. In struggling for the welfare of his
+fellow-creatures, a man must dare to endure to be obliterated,--must
+be content to go down unheard of,--or, worse still, ridiculed, and
+perhaps abused by all,--in order that something afterwards may remain
+of those changes which he has been enabled to see, but not to carry
+out. How many things are requisite to true greatness! But, first
+of all, is required that self-negation which is able to plan new
+blessings, although certain that those blessings will be accounted as
+curses by the world at large.
+
+Then I got up, and as I walked about the room I declared to myself
+aloud my purpose. Though I might perish in the attempt, I would
+certainly endeavour to carry out the doctrine of the Fixed Period.
+Though the people might be against me, and regard me as their
+enemy,--that people for whose welfare I had done it all,--still
+I would persevere, even though I might be destined to fall in the
+attempt. Though the wife of my bosom and the son of my loins should
+turn against me, and embitter my last moments by their enmity, still
+would I persevere. When they came to speak of the vices and the
+virtues of President Neverbend,--to tell of his weakness and his
+strength,--it should never be said of him that he had been deterred
+by fear of the people from carrying out the great measure which he
+had projected solely for their benefit.
+
+Comforted by this resolve, I went into Mrs Neverbend's parlour,
+where I found her son Jack sitting with her. They had evidently been
+talking about Jack's speech in the market-place; and I could see that
+the young orator's brow was still flushed with the triumph of the
+moment. "Father," said he, immediately, "you will never be able to
+deposit old Crasweller. People won't let you do it."
+
+"The people of Britannula," I said, "will never interfere to prevent
+their magistrate from acting in accordance with the law."
+
+"Bother!" said Mrs Neverbend. When my wife said "bother," it was, I
+was aware, of no use to argue with her. Indeed, Mrs Neverbend is a
+lady upon whom argument is for the most part thrown away. She forms
+her opinion from the things around her, and is, in regard to domestic
+life, and to her neighbours, and to the conduct of people with whom
+she lives, almost invariably right. She has a quick insight, and an
+affectionate heart, which together keep her from going astray. She
+knows how to do good, and when to do it. But to abstract argument,
+and to political truth, she is wilfully blind. I felt it to be
+necessary that I should select this opportunity for making Jack
+understand that I would not fear his opposition; but I own that I
+could have wished that Mrs Neverbend had not been present on the
+occasion.
+
+"Won't they?" said Jack. "That's just what I fancy they will do."
+
+"Do you mean to say that it is what you wish them to do,--that you
+think it right that they should do it?"
+
+"I don't think Crasweller ought to be deposited, if you mean that,
+father."
+
+"Not though the law requires it?" This I said in a tone of authority.
+"Have you formed any idea in your own mind of the subjection to the
+law which is demanded from all good citizens? Have you ever bethought
+yourself that the law should be in all things--"
+
+"Oh, Mr President, pray do not make a speech here," said my wife. "I
+shall never understand it, and I do not think that Jack is much wiser
+than I am."
+
+"I do not know what you mean by a speech, Sarah." My wife's name is
+Sarah. "But it is necessary that Jack should be instructed that he,
+at any rate, must obey the law. He is my son, and, as such, it is
+essentially necessary that he should be amenable to it. The law
+demands--"
+
+"You can't do it, and there's an end of it," said Mrs Neverbend.
+"You and all your laws will never be able to put an end to poor Mr
+Crasweller,--and it would be a great shame if you did. You don't see
+it; but the feeling here in the city is becoming very strong. The
+people won't have it; and I must say that it is only rational that
+Jack should be on the same side. He is a man now, and has a right to
+his own opinion as well as another."
+
+"Jack," said I, with much solemnity, "do you value your father's
+blessing?"
+
+"Well; sir, yes," said he. "A blessing, I suppose, means something of
+an allowance paid quarterly."
+
+I turned away my face that he might not see the smile which I felt
+was involuntarily creeping across it. "Sir," said I, "a father's
+blessing has much more than a pecuniary value. It includes that kind
+of relation between a parent and his son without which life would be
+a burden to me, and, I should think, very grievous to you also."
+
+"Of course I hope that you and I may always be on good terms."
+
+I was obliged to take this admission for what it was worth. "If you
+wish to remain on good terms with me," said I, "you must not oppose
+me in public when I am acting as a public magistrate."
+
+"Is he to see Mr Crasweller murdered before his very eyes, and to say
+nothing about it?" said Mrs Neverbend.
+
+Of all terms in the language there was none so offensive to me as
+that odious word when used in reference to the ceremony which I had
+intended to be so gracious and alluring. "Sarah," said I, turning
+upon her in my anger, "that is a very improper word, and one which
+you should not tempt the boy to use, especially in my presence."
+
+"English is English, Mr President," she said. She always called me
+"Mr President" when she intended to oppose me.
+
+"You might as well say that a man was murdered when he is--is--killed
+in battle." I had been about to say "executed," but I stopped myself.
+Men are not executed in Britannula.
+
+"No. He is fighting his country's battle and dies gloriously."
+
+"He has his leg shot off, or his arm, and is too frequently left to
+perish miserably on the ground. Here every comfort will be provided
+for him, so that he may depart from this world without a pang, when,
+in the course of years, he shall have lived beyond the period at
+which he can work and be useful."
+
+"But look at Mr Crasweller, father. Who is more useful than he is?"
+
+Nothing had been more unlucky to me as the promoter of the Fixed
+Period than the peculiar healthiness and general sanity of him who
+was by chance to be our first martyr. It might have been possible
+to make Jack understand that a rule which had been found to be
+applicable to the world at large was not fitted for some peculiar
+individual, but it was quite impossible to bring this home to the
+mind of Mrs Neverbend. I must, I felt, choose some other opportunity
+for expounding that side of the argument. I would at the present
+moment take a leaf out of my wife's book and go straight to my
+purpose. "I tell you what it is, young man," said I; "I do not intend
+to be thwarted by you in carrying on the great reform to which I
+have devoted my life. If you cannot hold your tongue at the present
+moment, and abstain from making public addresses in the market-place,
+you shall go out of Britannula. It is well that you should travel and
+see something of the world before you commence the trade of public
+orator. Now I think of it, the Alpine Club from Sydney are to be in
+New Zealand this summer, and it will suit you very well to go and
+climb up Mount Earnshawe and see all the beauties of nature instead
+of talking nonsense here in Gladstonopolis."
+
+"Oh, father, I should like nothing better," cried Jack,
+enthusiastically.
+
+"Nonsense," said Mrs Neverbend; "are you going to send the poor boy
+to break his neck among the glaciers? Don't you remember that Dick
+Ardwinkle was lost there a year or two ago, and came to his death in
+a most frightful manner?"
+
+"That was before I was born," said Jack, "or at any rate very shortly
+afterwards. And they hadn't then invented the new patent steel
+climbing arms. Since they came up, no one has ever been lost among
+the glaciers."
+
+"You had better prepare then to go," said I, thinking that the idea
+of getting rid of Jack in this manner was very happy.
+
+"But, father," said he, "of course I can't stir a step till after the
+great cricket-match."
+
+"You must give up cricket for this time. So good an opportunity for
+visiting the New Zealand mountains may never come again."
+
+"Give up the match!" he exclaimed. "Why, the English sixteen are
+coming here on purpose to play us, and swear that they'll beat us by
+means of the new catapult. But I know that our steam-bowler will beat
+their catapult hollow. At any rate I cannot stir from here till after
+the match is over. I've got to arrange everything myself. Besides,
+they do count something on my spring-batting. I should be regarded
+as absolutely a traitor to my country if I were to leave Britannula
+while this is going on. The young Marquis of Marylebone, their
+leader, is to stay at our house; and the vessel bringing them will be
+due here about eleven o'clock next Wednesday."
+
+"Eleven o'clock next Wednesday," said I, in surprise. I had not
+as yet heard of this match, nor of the coming of our aristocratic
+visitor.
+
+"They won't be above thirty minutes late at the outside. They left
+the Land's End three weeks ago last Tuesday at two, and London at
+half-past ten. We have had three or four water telegrams from them
+since they started, and they hadn't then lost ten minutes on the
+journey. Of course I must be at home to receive the Marquis of
+Marylebone."
+
+All this set me thinking about many things. It was true that at such
+a moment I could not use my parental authority to send Jack out of
+the island. To such an extent had the childish amusements of youth
+been carried, as to give to them all the importance of politics and
+social science. What I had heard about this cricket-match had gone
+in at one ear and come out at the other; but now that it was brought
+home to me, I was aware that all my authority would not serve to
+banish Jack till it was over. Not only would he not obey me, but he
+would be supported in his disobedience by even the elders of the
+community. But perhaps the worst feature of it all was the arrival
+just now at Gladstonopolis of a crowd of educated Englishmen. When
+I say educated I mean prejudiced. They would be Englishmen with
+no ideas beyond those current in the last century, and would be
+altogether deaf to the wisdom of the Fixed Period. I saw at a glance
+that I must wait till they should have taken their departure, and
+postpone all further discussion on the subject as far as might be
+possible till Gladstonopolis should have been left to her natural
+quiescence after the disturbance of the cricket. "Very well," said
+I, leaving the room. "Then it may come to pass that you will never be
+able to visit the wonderful glories of Mount Earnshawe."
+
+"Plenty of time for that," said Jack, as I shut the door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE CRICKET-MATCH.
+
+
+I had been of late so absorbed in the affairs of the Fixed Period,
+that I had altogether forgotten the cricket-match and the noble
+strangers who were about to come to our shores. Of course I had heard
+of it before, and had been informed that Lord Marylebone was to be
+our guest. I had probably also been told that Sir Lords Longstop and
+Sir Kennington Oval were to be entertained at Little Christchurch.
+But when I was reminded of this by Jack a few days later, it had
+quite gone out of my head. But I now at once began to recognise the
+importance of the occasion, and to see that for the next two months
+Crasweller, the college, and the Fixed Period must be banished, if
+not from my thoughts, at any rate from my tongue. Better could not be
+done in the matter than to have them banished from the tongue of all
+the world, as I certainly should not be anxious to have the subject
+ventilated within hearing and speaking of the crowd of thoroughly
+old-fashioned, prejudiced, aristocratic young Englishmen who were
+coming to us. The cricket-match sprang to the front so suddenly, that
+Jack seemed to have forgotten all his energy respecting the college,
+and to have transferred his entire attention to the various weapons,
+offensive and defensive, wherewith the London club was, if possible,
+to be beaten. We are never short of money in Britannula; but it
+seemed, as I watched the various preparations made for carrying
+on two or three days' play at Little Christchurch, that England
+must be sending out another army to take another Sebastopol. More
+paraphernalia were required to enable these thirty-two lads to
+play their game with propriety than would have been needed for the
+depositing of half Gladstonopolis. Every man from England had his
+attendant to look after his bats and balls, and shoes and greaves;
+and it was necessary, of course, that our boys should be equally well
+served. Each of them had two bicycles for his own use, and as they
+were all constructed with the new double-acting levers, they passed
+backwards and forwards along the bicycle track between the city and
+Crasweller's house with astonishing rapidity. I used to hear that
+the six miles had been done in fifteen minutes. Then there came
+a struggle with the English and the Britannulists, as to which
+would get the nearest to fourteen minutes; till it seemed that
+bicycle-racing and not cricket had been the purpose for which the
+English had sent out the 4000-ton steam-yacht at the expense of all
+the cricketers of the nation. It was on this occasion that the track
+was first divided for comers and goers, and that volunteers were set
+to prevent stragglers from crossing except by the regular bridges. I
+found that I, the President of the Republic, was actually forbidden
+to go down in my tricycle to my old friend's house, unless I would
+do so before noon. "You'd be run over and made mince-meat of," said
+Jack, speaking of such a catastrophe with less horror than I thought
+it ought to have engendered in his youthful mind. Poor Sir Lords was
+run down by our Jack,--collided as Jack called it. "He hadn't quite
+impetus enough on to make the turning sharp as he ought," said Jack,
+without the slightest apparent regret at what had occurred. "Another
+inch and a half would have saved him. If he can touch a ball from our
+steam-bowler when I send it, I shall think more of his arms than I
+do of his legs, and more of his eyes than I do of his lungs. What a
+fellow to send out! Why, he's thirty, and has been eating soup, they
+tell me, all through the journey." These young men had brought a
+doctor with them, Dr MacNuffery, to prescribe to them what to eat and
+drink at each meal; and the unfortunate baronet whom Jack had nearly
+slaughtered, had encountered the ill-will of the entire club because
+he had called for mutton-broth when he was sea-sick.
+
+They were to be a month in Britannula before they would begin the
+match, so necessary was it that each man should be in the best
+possible physical condition. They had brought their Dr MacNuffery,
+and our lads immediately found the need of having a doctor of their
+own. There was, I think, a little pretence in this, as though Dr
+Bobbs had been a long-established officer of the Southern Cross
+cricket club, they had not in truth thought of it, and Bobbs was only
+appointed the night after MacNuffery's position and duties had been
+made known. Bobbs was a young man just getting into practice in
+Gladstonopolis, and understood measles, I fancy, better than the
+training of athletes. MacNuffery was the most disagreeable man of
+the English party, and soon began to turn up his nose at Bobbs. But
+Bobbs, I think, got the better of him. "Do you allow coffee to your
+club;--coffee?" asked MacNuffery, in a voice mingling ridicule and
+reproof with a touch of satire, as he had begun to guess that Bobbs
+had not been long attending to his present work. "You'll find," said
+Bobbs, "that young men in our air do not need the restraints which
+are necessary to you English. Their fathers and mothers were not soft
+and flabby before them, as was the case with yours, I think." Lord
+Marylebone looked across the table, I am told, at Sir Kennington
+Oval, and nothing afterwards was said about diet.
+
+But a great trouble arose, which, however, rather assisted Jack in
+his own prospects in the long-run,--though for a time it seemed to
+have another effect. Sir Kennington Oval was much struck by Eva's
+beauty, and, living as he did in Crasweller's house, soon had an
+opportunity of so telling her. Abraham Grundle was one of the
+cricketers, and, as such, was frequently on the ground at Little
+Christchurch; but he did not at present go into Crasweller's house,
+and the whole fashionable community of Gladstonopolis was beginning
+to entertain the opinion that that match was off. Grundle had
+been heard to declare most authoritatively that when the day came
+Crasweller should be deposited, and had given it as his opinion that
+the power did not exist which could withstand the law of Britannula.
+Whether in this he preferred the law to Eva, or acted in anger
+against Crasweller for interfering with his prospects, or had an idea
+that it would not be worth his while to marry the girl while the
+girl's father should be left alive, or had gradually fallen into this
+bitterness of spirit from the opposition shown to him, I could not
+quite tell. And he was quite as hostile to Jack as to Crasweller. But
+he seemed to entertain no aversion at all to Sir Kennington Oval;
+nor, I was informed, did Eva. I had known that for the last month
+Jack's mother had been instant with him to induce him to speak out
+to Eva; but he, who hardly allowed me, his father, to open my mouth
+without contradicting me, and who in our house ordered everything
+about just as though he were the master, was so bashful in the girl's
+presence that he had never as yet asked her to be his wife. Now
+Sir Kennington had come in his way, and he by no means carried
+his modesty so far as to abstain from quarrelling with him. Sir
+Kennington was a good-looking young aristocrat, with plenty of words,
+but nothing special to say for himself. He was conspicuous for his
+cricketing finery, and when got up to take his place at the wicket,
+looked like a diver with his diving-armour all on; but Jack said that
+he was very little good at the game. Indeed, for mere cricket Jack
+swore that the English would be "nowhere" but for eight professional
+players whom they had brought out with them. It must be explained
+that our club had no professionals. We had not come to that
+yet,--that a man should earn his bread by playing cricket. Lord
+Marylebone and his friend had brought with them eight professional
+"slaves," as our young men came to call them,--most ungraciously.
+But each "slave" required as much looking after as did the masters,
+and they thought a great deal more of themselves than did the
+non-professionals.
+
+Jack had in truth been attempting to pass Sir Kennington on the
+bicycle track when he had upset poor Sir Lords Longstop; and,
+according to his own showing, he had more than once allowed Sir
+Kennington to start in advance, and had run into Little Christchurch
+bicycle quay before him. This had not given rise to the best feeling,
+and I feared lest there might be an absolute quarrel before the match
+should have been played. "I'll punch that fellow's head some of
+these days," Jack said one evening when he came back from Little
+Christchurch.
+
+"What's the matter now?" I asked.
+
+"Impudent puppy! He thinks because he has got an unmeaning handle to
+his name, that everybody is to come to his whistle. They tell me that
+his father was made what they call a baronet because he set a broken
+arm for one of those twenty royal dukes that England has to pay for."
+
+"Who has had to come to his whistle now?" asked his mother.
+
+"He went over with his steam curricle, and sent to ask Eva whether
+she would not take a drive with him on the cliffs."
+
+"She needn't have gone unless she wished it," I said.
+
+"But she did go; and there she was with him for a couple of hours.
+He's the most unmeaning upstart of a puppy I ever met. He has not
+three ideas in the world. I shall tell Eva what I think about him."
+
+The quarrel went on during the whole period of preparation, till it
+seemed as though Gladstonopolis had nothing else to talk about. Eva's
+name was in every one's mouth, till my wife was nearly beside herself
+with anger. "A girl," said she, "shouldn't get herself talked about
+in that way by every one all round. I don't suppose the man intends
+to marry her."
+
+"I can't see why he shouldn't," I replied.
+
+"She's nothing more to him than a pretty provincial lass. What would
+she be in London?"
+
+"Why should not Mr Crasweller's daughter be as much admired in London
+as here?" I answered. "Beauty is the same all the world over, and her
+money will be thought of quite as much there as here."
+
+"But she will have such a spot upon her."
+
+"Spot! What spot?"
+
+"As the daughter of the first deposited of the Fixed Period
+people,--if ever that comes off. Or if it don't, she'll be talked
+about as her who was to be. I don't suppose any Englishman will think
+of marrying her."
+
+This made me very angry. "What!" I said. "Do you, a Britannulist
+and my wife, intend to turn the special glory of Britannula to the
+disgrace of her people? That which we should be ready to claim as
+the highest honour,--as being an advance in progress and general
+civilisation never hitherto even thought of among other people,--to
+have conceived that, and to have prepared it, in every detail for
+perfect consummation,--that is to be accounted as an opprobrium to
+our children, by you, the Lady President of the Republic! Have you
+no love of country, no patriotism, no feeling at any rate of what
+has been done for the world's welfare by your own family?" I own
+I did feel vexed when she spoke of Eva as having been as it were
+contaminated by being a Britannulist, because of the law enacting the
+Fixed Period.
+
+"She'd better face it out at home than go across the world to hear
+what other people say of us. It may be all very well as far as state
+wisdom goes; but the world isn't ripe for it, and we shall only be
+laughed at."
+
+There was truth in this, and a certain amount of concession had also
+been made. I can fancy that an easy-going butterfly should laugh
+at the painful industry of the ant; and I should think much of the
+butterfly who should own that he was only a butterfly because it was
+the age of butterflies. "The few wise," said I, "have ever been the
+laughing-stock of silly crowds."
+
+"But Eva isn't one of the wise," she replied, "and would be laughed
+at without having any of your philosophy to support her. However, I
+don't suppose the man is thinking of it."
+
+But the young man was thinking of it; and had so far made up his mind
+before he went as to ask Eva to marry him out of hand and return with
+him to England. We heard of it when the time came, and heard also
+that Eva had declared that she could not make up her mind so quickly.
+That was what was said when the time drew near for the departure
+of the yacht. But we did not hear it direct from Eva, nor yet from
+Crasweller. All these tidings came to us from Jack, and Jack was in
+this instance somewhat led astray.
+
+Time passed on, and the practice on the Little Christchurch ground
+was continued. Several accidents happened, but the cricketers took
+very little account of these. Jack had his cheek cut open by a ball
+running off his bat on to his face; and Eva, who saw the accident,
+was carried fainting into the house. Sir Kennington behaved
+admirably, and himself brought him home in his curricle. We were
+told afterwards that this was done at Eva's directions, because old
+Crasweller would have been uncomfortable with the boy in his house,
+seeing that he could not in his present circumstances receive me or
+my wife. Mrs Neverbend swore a solemn oath that Jack should be made
+to abandon his cricket; but Jack was playing again the next day, with
+his face strapped up athwart and across with republican black-silk
+adhesive. When I saw Bobbs at work over him I thought that one side
+of his face was gone, and that his eye would be dreadfully out of
+place. "All his chance of marrying Eva is gone," said I to my wife.
+"The nasty little selfish slut!" said Mrs Neverbend. But at two
+the next day Jack had been patched up, and nothing could keep him
+from Little Christchurch. Bobbs was with him the whole morning, and
+assured his mother that if he could go out and take exercise his
+eye would be all right. His mother offered to take a walk with him
+in the city park; but Bobbs declared that violent exercise would
+be necessary to keep the eye in its right place, and Jack was at
+Little Christchurch manipulating his steam-bowler in the afternoon.
+Afterwards Littlebat, one of the English professionals, had his leg
+broken, and was necessarily laid on one side; and young Grundle was
+hurt on the lower part of the back, and never showed himself again
+on the scene of danger. "My life is too precious in the Assembly
+just at present," he said to me, excusing himself. He alluded to
+the Fixed Period debate, which he knew would be renewed as soon as
+the cricketers were gone. I no doubt depended very much on Abraham
+Grundle, and assented. The match was afterwards carried on with
+fifteen on each side; for though each party had spare players, they
+could not agree as to the use of them. Our next man was better than
+theirs, they said, and they were anxious that we should take our
+second best, to which our men would not agree. Therefore the game was
+ultimately played with thirty combatants.
+
+"So one of our lot is to come back for a wife, almost immediately,"
+said Lord Marylebone at our table the day before the match was to be
+played.
+
+"Oh, indeed, my lord!" said Mrs Neverbend. "I am glad to find that a
+Britannulan young lady has been so effective. Who is the gentleman?"
+It was easy to see by my wife's face, and to know by her tone of
+voice, that she was much disturbed by the news.
+
+"Sir Kennington," said Lord Marylebone. "I supposed you had all heard
+of it." Of course we had all heard of it; but Lord Marylebone did not
+know what had been Mrs Neverbend's wishes for her own son.
+
+"We did know that Sir Kennington had been very attentive, but there
+is no knowing what that means from you foreign gentlemen. It's a pity
+that poor Eva, who is a good girl in her way, should have her head
+turned." This came from my wife.
+
+"It's Oval's head that is turned," continued his lordship; "I never
+saw a man so bowled over in my life. He's awfully in love with her."
+
+"What will his friends say at home?" asked Mrs Neverbend.
+
+"We understand that Miss Crasweller is to have a large fortune;
+eight or ten thousand a-year at the least. I should imagine that
+she will be received with open arms by all the Ovals; and as for a
+foreigner,--we don't call you foreigners."
+
+"Why not?" said I, rather anxious to prove that we were foreigners.
+"What makes a foreigner but a different allegiance? Do we not call
+the Americans foreigners?" Great Britain and France had been for
+years engaged in the great maritime contest with the united fleets
+of Russia and America, and had only just made that glorious peace by
+which, as politicians said, all the world was to be governed for the
+future; and after that, it need not be doubted but that the Americans
+were foreign to the English;--and if the Americans, why not the
+Britannulists? We had separated ourselves from Great Britain, without
+coming to blows indeed; but still our own flag, the Southern Cross,
+flew as proudly to our gentle breezes as ever had done the Union-jack
+amidst the inclemency of a British winter. It was the flag of
+Britannula, with which Great Britain had no concern. At the present
+moment I was specially anxious to hear a distinguished Englishman
+like Lord Marylebone acknowledge that we were foreigners. "If we be
+not foreigners, what are we, my lord?"
+
+"Englishmen, of course," said he. "What else? Don't you talk
+English?"
+
+"So do the Americans, my lord," said I, with a smile that was
+intended to be gracious. "Our language is spreading itself over the
+world, and is no sign of nationality."
+
+"What laws do you obey?"
+
+"English,--till we choose to repeal them. You are aware that we have
+already freed ourselves from the stain of capital punishment."
+
+"Those coins pass in your market-places?" Then he brought out a gold
+piece from his waistcoat-pocket, and slapped it down on the table.
+It was one of those pounds which the people will continue to call
+sovereigns, although the name has been made actually illegal for the
+rendering of all accounts. "Whose is this image and superscription?"
+he asked. "And yet this was paid to me to-day at one of your banks,
+and the lady cashier asked me whether I would take sovereigns. How
+will you get over that, Mr President?"
+
+A small people,--numerically small,--cannot of course do everything
+at once. We have been a little slack perhaps in instituting a
+national mint. In fact there was a difficulty about the utensil by
+which we would have clapped a Southern Cross over the British arms,
+and put the portrait of the Britannulan President of the day,--mine
+for instance,--in the place where the face of the British monarch has
+hitherto held its own. I have never pushed the question much, lest
+I should seem, as have done some presidents, over anxious to exhibit
+myself. I have ever thought more of the glory of our race than of
+putting forward my own individual self,--as may be seen by the whole
+history of the college. "I will not attempt to get over it," I said;
+"but according to my ideas, a nation does not depend on the small
+external accidents of its coin or its language."
+
+"But on the flag which it flies. After all, a bit of bunting is
+easy."
+
+"Nor on its flag, Lord Marylebone, but on the hearts of its people.
+We separated from the old mother country with no quarrel, with no
+ill-will; but with the mutual friendly wishes of both. If there be
+a trace of the feeling of antagonism in the word foreigners, I will
+not use it; but British subjects we are not, and never can be again."
+This I said because I felt that there was creeping up, as it were in
+the very atmosphere, a feeling that England should be again asked
+to annex us, so as to save our old people from the wise decision to
+which our own Assembly had come. Oh for an adamantine law to protect
+the human race from the imbecility, the weakness, the discontent,
+and the extravagance of old age! Lord Marylebone, who saw that I
+was in earnest, and who was the most courteous of gentlemen, changed
+the conversation. I had already observed that he never spoke about
+the Fixed Period in our house, though, in the condition in which the
+community then was, he must have heard it discussed elsewhere.
+
+The day for the match had come. Jack's face was so nearly healed that
+Mrs Neverbend had been brought to believe entirely in the efficacy of
+violent exercise for cuts and bruises. Grundle's back was still bad,
+and the poor fellow with the broken leg could only be wheeled out in
+front of the verandah to look at the proceedings through one of those
+wonderful little glasses which enable the critic to see every motion
+of the players at half-a-mile's distance. He assured me that the
+precision with which Jack set his steam-bowler was equal to that of
+one of those Shoeburyness gunners who can hit a sparrow as far as
+they can see him, on condition only that they know the precise age of
+the bird. I gave Jack great credit in my own mind, because I felt
+that at the moment he was much down at heart. On the preceding day
+Sir Kennington had been driving Eva about in his curricle, and Jack
+had returned home tearing his hair. "They do it on purpose to put him
+off his play," said his mother. But if so, they hadn't known Jack.
+Nor indeed had I quite known him up to this time.
+
+I was bound myself to see the game, because a special tent and a
+special glass had been prepared for the President. Crasweller walked
+by as I took my place, but he only shook his head sadly and was
+silent. It now wanted but four months to his deposition. Though there
+was a strong party in his favour, I do not know that he meddled much
+with it. I did hear from different sources that he still continued to
+assert that he was only nine years my senior, by which he intended to
+gain the favour of a postponement of his term by twelve poor months;
+but I do not think that he ever lent himself to the other party.
+Under my auspices he had always voted for the Fixed Period, and he
+could hardly oppose it now in theory. They tossed for the first
+innings, and the English club won it. It was all England against
+Britannula! Think of the population of the two countries. We had,
+however, been taught to believe that no community ever played cricket
+as did the Britannulans. The English went in first, with the two
+baronets at the wickets. They looked like two stout Minervas with
+huge wicker helmets. I know a picture of the goddess, all helmet,
+spear, and petticoats, carrying her spear over her shoulder as she
+flies through the air over the cities of the earth. Sir Kennington
+did not fly, but in other respects he was very like the goddess,
+so completely enveloped was he in his india-rubber guards, and so
+wonderful was the machine upon his head, by which his brain and
+features were to be protected.
+
+As he took his place upon the ground there was great cheering. Then
+the steam-bowler was ridden into its place by the attendant engineer,
+and Jack began his work. I could see the colour come and go in his
+face as he carefully placed the ball and peeped down to get its
+bearing. It seemed to me as though he were taking infinite care to
+level it straight and even at Sir Kennington's head. I was told
+afterwards that he never looked at Sir Kennington, but that, having
+calculated his distance by means of a quicksilver levelling-glass,
+his object was to throw the ball on a certain inch of turf, from
+which it might shoot into the wicket at such a degree as to make
+it very difficult for Sir Kennington to know what to do with it.
+It seemed to me to take a long time, during which the fourteen men
+around all looked as though each man were intending to hop off to
+some other spot than that on which he was standing. There used, I am
+told, to be only eleven of these men; but now, in a great match, the
+long-offs, and the long-ons, and the rest of them, are all doubled.
+The double long-off was at such a distance that, he being a small
+man, I could only just see him through the field-glass which I kept
+in my waistcoat-pocket. When I had been looking hard at them for
+what seemed to be a quarter of an hour, and the men were apparently
+becoming tired of their continual hop, and when Jack had stooped
+and kneeled and sprawled, with one eye shut, in every conceivable
+attitude, on a sudden there came a sharp snap, a little smoke, and
+lo, Sir Kennington Oval was--out!
+
+There was no doubt about it. I myself saw the two bails fly away
+into infinite space, and at once there was a sound of kettle-drums,
+trumpets, fifes, and clarionets. It seemed as though all the loud
+music of the town band had struck up at the moment with their
+shrillest notes. And a huge gun was let off.
+
+
+   "And let the kettle to the trumpet speak,
+    The trumpet to the cannoneer without,
+    The cannons to the heavens, the heavens to earth.
+    Now drinks the king to Hamlet."
+
+
+I could not but fancy, at these great signs of success, that I was
+Hamlet's father.
+
+Sir Kennington Oval was out,--out at the very first ball. There
+could be no doubt about it, and Jack's triumph was complete. It was
+melancholy to see the English Minerva, as he again shouldered his
+spear and walked back to his tent. In spite of Jack's good play, and
+the success on the part of my own countrymen, I could not but be
+sorry to think that the young baronet had come half round the world
+to be put out at the first ball. There was a cruelty in it,--an
+inhospitality,--which, in spite of the exigencies of the game, went
+against the grain. Then, when the shouting, and the holloaing, and
+the flinging up of the ball were still going on, I remembered that,
+after it, he would have his consolation with Eva. And poor Jack,
+when his short triumph was over, would have to reflect that, though
+fortunate in his cricket, he was unhappy in his love. As this
+occurred to me, I looked back towards the house, and there, from a
+little lattice window at the end of the verandah, I saw a lady's
+handkerchief waving. Could it be that Eva was waving it so as to
+comfort her vanquished British lover? In the meantime Minerva went
+to his tent, and hid himself among sympathetic friends; and I was
+told afterwards that he was allowed half a pint of bitter beer by
+Dr MacNuffery.
+
+After twenty minutes spent in what seemed to me the very ostentation
+of success, another man was got to the wickets. This was Stumps,
+one of the professionals, who was not quite so much like a Minerva,
+though he, too, was prodigiously greaved. Jack again set his ball,
+snap went the machine, and Stumps wriggled his bat. He touched the
+ball, and away it flew behind the wicket. Five republican Minervas
+ran after it as fast as their legs could carry them; and I was told
+by a gentleman who sat next to me scoring, that a dozen runs had been
+made. He spent a great deal of time in explaining how, in the old
+times, more than six at a time were never scored. Now all this was
+altered. A slight tip counted ever so much more than a good forward
+blow, because the ball went behind the wicket. Up flew on all sides
+of the ground figures to show that Stumps had made a dozen, and two
+British clarionets were blown with a great deal of vigour. Stumps was
+a thick-set, solid, solemn-looking man, who had been ridiculed by our
+side as being much too old for the game; but he seemed to think very
+little of Jack's precise machine. He kept chopping at the ball, which
+always went behind, till he had made a great score. It was two hours
+before Jack had sorely lamed him in the hip, and the umpire had given
+it leg-before-wicket. Indeed it was leg-before-wicket, as the poor
+man felt when he was assisted back to his tent. However, he had
+scored 150. Sir Lords Longstop, too, had run up a good score before
+he was caught out by the middle long-off,--a marvellous catch they
+all said it was,--and our trumpets were blown for fully five minutes.
+But the big gun was only fired when a ball was hurled from the
+machine directly into the wicket.
+
+At the end of three days the Britishers were all out, and the runs
+were numbered in four figures. I had my doubts, as I looked at the
+contest, whether any of them would be left to play out the match. I
+was informed that I was expected to take the President's seat every
+day; but when I heard that there were to be two innings for each set,
+I positively declined. But Crasweller took my place; and I was told
+that a gleam of joy shot across his worn, sorrowful face when Sir
+Kennington began the second innings with ten runs. Could he really
+wish, in his condition, to send his daughter away to England simply
+that she might be a baronet's wife?
+
+When the Britannulists went in for the second time, they had 1500
+runs to get; and it was said afterwards that Grundle had bet four to
+one against his own side. This was thought to be very shabby on his
+part, though if such was the betting, I don't see why he should lose
+his money by backing his friends. Jack declared in my hearing that
+he would not put a shilling on. He did not wish either to lose his
+money or to bet against himself. But he was considerably disheartened
+when he told me that he was not going in on the first day of their
+second innings. He had not done much when the Britannulists were in
+before,--had only made some thirty or forty runs; and, worse than
+that, Sir Kennington Oval had scored up to 300. They told me that
+his Pallas helmet was shaken with tremendous energy as he made his
+running. And again, that man Stumps had seemed to be invincible,
+though still lame, and had carried out his bat with a tremendous
+score. He trudged away without any sign of triumph; but Jack said
+that the professional was the best man they had.
+
+On the second day of our party's second innings,--the last day but
+one of the match,--Jack went in. They had only made 150 runs on the
+previous day, and three wickets were down. Our kettle-drums had had
+but little opportunity for making themselves heard. Jack was very
+despondent, and had had some tiff with Eva. He had asked Eva whether
+she were not going to England, and Eva had said that perhaps she
+might do so if some Britannulists did not do their duty. Jack had
+chosen to take this as a bit of genuine impertinence, and had been
+very sore about it. Stumps was bowling from the British catapult,
+and very nearly gave Jack his quietus during the first over. He hit
+wildly, and four balls passed him without touching his wicket. Then
+came his turn again, and he caught the first ball with his Neverbend
+spring-bat,--for he had invented it himself,--such a swipe, as he
+called it, that nobody has ever yet been able to find the ball. The
+story goes that it went right up to the verandah, and that Eva picked
+it up, and has treasured it ever since.
+
+Be that as it may, during the whole of that day, and the next,
+nobody was able to get him out. There was a continual banging of the
+kettle-drum, which seemed to give him renewed spirits. Every ball as
+it came to him was sent away into infinite space. All the Englishmen
+were made to retire to further distances from the wickets, and to
+stand about almost at the extremity of the ground. The management of
+the catapults was intrusted to one man after another,--but in vain.
+Then they sent the catapults away, and tried the old-fashioned slow
+bowling. It was all the same to Jack. He would not be tempted out of
+his ground, but stood there awaiting the ball, let it come ever so
+slowly. Through the first of the two days he stood before his wicket,
+hitting to the right and the left, till hope seemed to spring up
+again in the bosom of the Britannulists. And I could see that the
+Englishmen were becoming nervous and uneasy, although the odds were
+still much in their favour.
+
+At the end of the first day Jack had scored above 500;--but eleven
+wickets had gone down, and only three of the most inferior players
+were left to stand up with him. It was considered that Jack must
+still make another 500 before the game would be won. This would allow
+only twenty each to the other three players. "But," said Eva to me
+that evening, "they'll never get the twenty each."
+
+"And on which side are you, Eva?" I inquired with a smile. For in
+truth I did believe at that moment that she was engaged to the
+baronet.
+
+"How dare you ask, Mr Neverbend?" she demanded, with indignation. "Am
+not I a Britannulist as well as you?" And as she walked away I could
+see that there was a tear in her eye.
+
+On the last day feelings were carried to a pitch which was more
+befitting the last battle of a great war,--some Waterloo of other
+ages,--than the finishing of a prolonged game of cricket. Men looked,
+and moved, and talked as though their all were at stake. I cannot
+say that the Englishmen seemed to hate us, or we them; but that the
+affair was too serious to admit of playful words between the parties.
+And those unfortunates who had to stand up with Jack were so afraid
+of themselves that they were like young country orators about to make
+their first speeches. Jack was silent, determined, and yet inwardly
+proud of himself, feeling that the whole future success of the
+republic was on his shoulders. He ordered himself to be called at a
+certain hour, and the assistants in our household listened to his
+words as though feeling that everything depended on their obedience.
+He would not go out on his bicycle, as fearing that some accident
+might occur. "Although, ought I not to wish that I might be struck
+dead?" he said; "as then all the world would know that though
+beaten, it had been by the hand of God, and not by our default."
+It astonished me to find that the boy was quite as eager about his
+cricket as I was about my Fixed Period.
+
+At eleven o'clock I was in my seat, and on looking round, I could
+see that all the rank and fashion of Britannula were at the ground.
+But all the rank and fashion were there for nothing, unless they had
+come armed with glasses. The spaces required by the cricketers were
+so enormous that otherwise they could not see anything of the play.
+Under my canopy there was room for five, of which I was supposed
+to be able to fill the middle thrones. On the two others sat those
+who officially scored the game. One seat had been demanded for Mrs
+Neverbend. "I will see his fate,--whether it be his glory or his
+fall,"--said his mother, with true Roman feeling. For the other Eva
+had asked, and of course it had been awarded to her. When the play
+began, Sir Kennington was at the catapult and Jack at the opposite
+wicket, and I could hardly say for which she felt the extreme
+interest which she certainly did exhibit. I, as the day went on,
+found myself worked up to such excitement that I could hardly keep my
+hat on my head or behave myself with becoming presidential dignity.
+At one period, as I shall have to tell, I altogether disgraced
+myself.
+
+There seemed to be an opinion that Jack would either show himself
+at once unequal to the occasion, and immediately be put out,--which
+opinion I think that all Gladstonopolis was inclined to hold,--or
+else that he would get his "eye in" as he called it, and go on as
+long as the three others could keep their bats. I know that his own
+opinion was the same as that general in the city, and I feared that
+his very caution at the outset would be detrimental to him. The great
+object on our side was that Jack should, as nearly as possible, be
+always opposite to the bowler. He was to take the four first balls,
+making but one run off the last, and then beginning another over at
+the opposite end do the same thing again. It was impossible to manage
+this exactly; but something might be done towards effecting it.
+There were the three men with whom to work during the day. The first
+unfortunately was soon made to retire; but Jack, who had walked up to
+my chair during the time allowed for fetching down the next man, told
+me that he had "got his eye," and I could see a settled look of fixed
+purpose in his face. He bowed most gracefully to Eva, who was so
+stirred by emotion that she could not allow herself to speak a word.
+"Oh Jack, I pray for you; I pray for you," said his mother. Jack, I
+fancy, thought more of Eva's silence than of his mother's prayer.
+
+Jack went back to his place, and hit the first ball with such energy
+that he drove it into the other stumps and smashed them to pieces.
+Everybody declared that such a thing had never been before achieved
+at cricket,--and the ball passed on, and eight or ten runs were
+scored. After that Jack seemed to be mad with cricketing power. He
+took off his greaves, declaring that they impeded his running, and
+threw away altogether his helmet. "Oh, Eva, is he not handsome?"
+said his mother, in ecstasy, hanging across my chair. Eva sat quiet
+without a sign. It did not become me to say a word, but I did think
+that he was very handsome;--and I thought also how uncommonly hard
+it would be to hold him if he should chance to win the game. Let
+him make what orations he might against the Fixed Period, all
+Gladstonopolis would follow him if he won this game of cricket for
+them.
+
+I cannot pretend to describe all the scenes of that day, nor the
+growing anxiety of the Englishmen as Jack went on with one hundred
+after another. He had already scored nearly 1000 when young Grabbe
+was caught out. Young Grabbe was very popular, because he was so
+altogether unlike his partner Grundle. He was a fine frank fellow,
+and was Jack's great friend. "I don't mean to say that he can really
+play cricket," Jack had said that morning, speaking with great
+authority; "but he is the best fellow in the world, and will do
+exactly what you ask him." But he was out now; and Jack, with over
+200 still to make, declared that he gave up the battle almost as
+lost.
+
+"Don't say that, Mr Neverbend," whispered Eva.
+
+"Ah yes; we're gone coons. Even your sympathy cannot bring us round
+now. If anything could do it that would!"
+
+"In my opinion," continued Eva, "Britannula will never be beaten as
+long as Mr Neverbend is at the wicket."
+
+"Sir Kennington has been too much for us, I fear," said Jack, with a
+forced smile, as he retired.
+
+There was now but the one hope left. Mr Brittlereed remained, but
+he was all. Mr Brittlereed was a gentleman who had advanced nearer
+to his Fixed Period than any other of the cricketers. He was nearly
+thirty-five years of age, and was regarded by them all as quite an
+old man. He was supposed to know all the rules of the game, and to
+be rather quick in keeping the wicket. But Jack had declared that
+morning that he could not hit a ball in a week of Sundays, "He
+oughtn't to be here," Jack had whispered; "but you know how those
+things are managed." I did not know how those things were managed,
+but I was sorry that he should be there, as Jack did not seem to want
+him.
+
+Mr Brittlereed now went to his wicket, and was bound to receive the
+first ball. This he did; made one run, whereas he might have made
+two, and then had to begin the war over. It certainly seemed as
+though he had done it on purpose. Jack in his passion broke the
+handle of his spring-bat, and then had half-a-dozen brought to him in
+order that he might choose another. "It was his favourite bat," said
+his mother, and buried her face in her handkerchief.
+
+I never understood how it was that Mr Brittlereed lived through that
+over; but he did live, although he never once touched the ball. Then
+it came to be Jack's turn, and he at once scored thirty-nine during
+the over, leaving himself at the proper wicket for re-commencing
+the operation. I think that this gave him new life. It added, at
+any rate, new fire to every Britannulist on the ground, and I must
+say that after that Mr Brittlereed managed the matter altogether to
+Jack's satisfaction. Over after over Jack went on, and received every
+ball that was bowled. They tried their catapult with single, double,
+and even treble action. Sir Kennington did his best, flinging the
+ball with his most tremendous impetus, and then just rolling it up
+with what seemed to me the most provoking languor. It was all the
+same to Jack. He had in truth got his "eye in," and as surely as the
+ball came to him, it was sent away to some most distant part of the
+ground. The Britishers were mad with dismay as Jack worked his way on
+through the last hundred. It was piteous to see the exertions which
+poor Mr Brittlereed made in running backwards and forwards across the
+ground. They tried, I think, to bustle him by the rapid succession of
+their bowling. But the only result was that the ball was sent still
+further off when it reached Jack's wicket. At last, just as every
+clock upon the ground struck six with that wonderful unanimity which
+our clocks have attained since they were all regulated by wires
+from Greenwich, Jack sent a ball flying up into the air, perfectly
+regardless whether it might be caught or not, knowing well that the
+one now needed would be scored before it could come down from the
+heavens into the hands of any Englishman. It did come down, and was
+caught by Stumps, but by that time Britannula had won her victory.
+Jack's total score during that innings was 1275. I doubt whether in
+the annals of cricket any record is made of a better innings than
+that. Then it was that, with an absence of that presence of mind
+which the President of a republic should always remember, I took off
+my hat and flung it into the air.
+
+Jack's triumph would have been complete, only that it was ludicrous
+to those who could not but think, as I did, of the very little matter
+as to which the contest had been raised;--just a game of cricket
+which two sets of boys had been playing, and which should have been
+regarded as no more than an amusement,--as a pastime, by which to
+refresh themselves between their work. But they regarded it as though
+a great national combat had been fought, and the Britannulists looked
+upon themselves as though they had been victorious against England.
+It was absurd to see Jack as he was carried back to Gladstonopolis as
+the hero of the occasion, and to hear him, as he made his speeches
+at the dinner which was given on the day, and at which he was called
+upon to take the chair. I was glad to see, however, that he was not
+quite so glib with his tongue as he had been when addressing the
+people. He hesitated a good deal, nay, almost broke down, when he
+gave the health of Sir Kennington Oval and the British sixteen; and I
+was quite pleased to hear Lord Marylebone declare to his mother that
+he was "a wonderfully nice boy." I think the English did try to turn
+it off a little, as though they had only come out there just for the
+amusement of the voyage. But Grundle, who had now become quite proud
+of his country, and who lamented loudly that he should have received
+so severe an injury in preparing for the game, would not let this
+pass. "My lord," he said, "what is your population?" Lord Marylebone
+named sixty million. "We are but two hundred and fifty thousand,"
+said Grundle, "and see what we have done." "We are cocks fighting
+on our own dunghill," said Jack, "and that does make a deal of
+difference."
+
+But I was told that Jack had spoken a word to Eva in quite a
+different spirit before he had left Little Christchurch. "After all,
+Eva, Sir Kennington has not quite trampled us under his feet," he
+said.
+
+"Who thought that he would?" said Eva. "My heart has never fainted,
+whatever some others may have done."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE COLLEGE.
+
+
+I was surprised to see that Jack, who was so bold in playing his
+match, and who had been so well able to hold his own against the
+Englishmen,--who had been made a hero, and had carried off his
+heroism so well,--should have been so shamefaced and bashful in
+regard to Eva. He was like a silly boy, hardly daring to look her
+in the face, instead of the gallant captain of the band who had
+triumphed over all obstacles. But I perceived, though it seemed that
+he did not, that she was quite prepared to give herself to him, and
+that there was no real obstacle between him and all the flocks and
+herds of Little Christchurch. Not much had been seen or heard of
+Grundle during the match, and as far as Eva was concerned, he had
+succumbed as soon as Sir Kennington Oval had appeared upon the scene.
+He had thought so much of the English baronet as to have been cowed
+and quenched by his grandeur. And Sir Kennington himself had, I
+think, been in earnest before the days of the cricket-match. But
+I could see now that Eva had merely played him off against Jack,
+thinking thereby to induce the younger swain to speak his mind. This
+had made Jack more than ever intent on beating Sir Kennington, but
+had not as yet had the effect which Eva had intended. "It will all
+come right," I said to myself, "as soon as these Englishmen have left
+the island." But then my mind reverted to the Fixed Period, and to
+the fast-approaching time for Crasweller's deposition. We were now
+nearly through March, and the thirtieth of June was the day on which
+he ought to be led to the college. It was my first anxiety to get rid
+of these Englishmen before the subject should be again ventilated.
+I own I was anxious that they should not return to their country
+with their prejudices strengthened by what they might hear at
+Gladstonopolis. If I could only get them to go before the matter was
+again debated, it might be that no strong public feeling would be
+excited in England till it was too late. That was my first desire;
+but then I was also anxious to get rid of Jack for a short time. The
+more I thought of Eva and the flocks, the more determined was I not
+to allow the personal interests of my boy,--and therefore my own,--to
+clash in any way with the performance of my public duties.
+
+I heard that the Englishmen were not to go till another week had
+elapsed. A week was necessary to recruit their strength and to enable
+them to pack up their bats and bicycles. Neither, however, were
+packed up till the day before they started; for the track down to
+Little Christchurch was crowded with them, and they were still
+practising as though another match were contemplated. I was very glad
+to have Lord Marylebone as an inmate in our house, but I acknowledge
+that I was anxious for him to say something as to his departure. "We
+have been very proud to have you here, my lord," I remarked.
+
+"I cannot say that we are very proud," he replied, "because we have
+been so awfully licked. Barring that, I never spent a pleasanter two
+months in my life, and should not be at all unwilling to stay for
+another. Your mode of life here seems to me to be quite delightful,
+and we have been thinking so much of our cricket, that I have hardly
+as yet had a moment to look at your institutions. What is all this
+about the Fixed Period?" Jack, who was present, put on a serious
+face, and assumed that air of determination which I was beginning
+to fear. Mrs Neverbend pursed up her lips, and said nothing; but
+I knew what was passing through her mind. I managed to turn the
+conversation, but I was aware that I did it very lamely.
+
+"Jack," I said to my son, "I got a post-card from New Zealand
+yesterday." The boats had just begun to run between the two islands
+six days a-week, and as their regular contract pace was twenty-five
+miles an hour, it was just an easy day's journey.
+
+"What said the post-card?"
+
+"There's plenty of time for Mount Earnshawe yet. They all say the
+autumn is the best. The snow is now disappearing in great
+quantities."
+
+But an old bird is not to be caught with chaff. Jack was determined
+not to go to the Eastern Alps this year; and indeed, as I found, not
+to go till this question of the Fixed Period should be settled. I
+told him that he was a fool. Although he would have been wrong to
+assist in depositing his father-in-law for the sake of getting the
+herd and flocks himself, as Grundle would have done, nevertheless he
+was hardly bound by any feelings of honour or conscience to keep old
+Crasweller at Little Christchurch in direct opposition to the laws of
+the land. But all this I could not explain to him, and was obliged
+simply to take it as a fact that he would not join an Alpine party
+for Mount Earnshawe this year. As I thought of all this, I almost
+feared Jack's presence in Gladstonopolis more than that of the young
+Englishmen.
+
+It was clear, however, that nothing could be done till the Englishmen
+were gone, and as I had a day at my disposal I determined to walk up
+to the college and meditate there on the conduct which it would be my
+duty to follow during the next two months. The college was about five
+miles from the town, at the side opposite to you as you enter the
+town from Little Christchurch, and I had some time since made up my
+mind how, in the bright genial days of our pleasant winter, I would
+myself accompany Mr Crasweller through the city in an open barouche
+as I took him to be deposited, through admiring crowds of his
+fellow-citizens. I had not then thought that he would be a recreant,
+or that he would be deterred by the fear of departure from enjoying
+the honours which would be paid to him. But how different now was
+his frame of mind from that glorious condition to which I had looked
+forward in my sanguine hopes! Had it been I, I myself, how proud
+should I have been of my country and its wisdom, had I been led along
+as a first hero, to anticipate the euthanasia prepared for me! As
+it was, I hired an inside cab, and hiding myself in the corner, was
+carried away to the college unseen by any.
+
+The place was called Necropolis. The name had always been distasteful
+to me, as I had never wished to join with it the feeling of death.
+Various names had been proposed for the site. Young Grundle had
+suggested Cremation Hall, because such was the ultimate end to which
+the mere husks and hulls of the citizens were destined. But there was
+something undignified in the sound,--as though we were talking of a
+dancing saloon or a music hall,--and I would have none of it. My idea
+was to give to the mind some notion of an approach to good things to
+come, and I proposed to call the place "Aditus." But men said that
+it was unmeaning, and declared that Britannulists should never be
+ashamed to own the truth. Necropolis sounded well, they said, and
+argued that though no actual remains of the body might be left there,
+still the tablets would remain. Therefore Necropolis it was called. I
+had hoped that a smiling hamlet might grow up at the gate, inhabited
+by those who would administer to the wants of the deposited; but I
+had forgot that the deposited must come first. The hamlet had not
+yet built itself, and round the handsome gates there was nothing at
+present but a desert. While land in Britannula was plenty, no one had
+cared to select ground so near to those awful furnaces by which the
+mortal clay should be transported into the air. From the gates up to
+the temple which stood in the middle of the grounds,--that temple
+in which the last scene of life was to be encountered,--there ran a
+broad gravel path, which was intended to become a beautiful avenue.
+It was at present planted alternately with eucalypti and ilexes--the
+gum-trees for the present generation, and the green-oaks for those
+to come; but even the gum-trees had not as yet done much to give a
+furnished appearance to the place. Some had demanded that cedars and
+yew-trees should be placed there, and I had been at great pains to
+explain to them that our object should be to make the spot cheerful,
+rather than sad. Round the temple, at the back of it, were the sets
+of chambers in which were to live the deposited during their year of
+probation. Some of these were very handsome, and were made so, no
+doubt, with a view of alluring the first comers. In preparing wisdom
+for babes, it is necessary to wrap up its precepts in candied sweets.
+But, though handsome, they were at present anything but pleasant
+abodes. Not one of them had as yet been inhabited. As I looked at
+them, knowing Crasweller as well as I did, I almost ceased to wonder
+at his timidity. A hero was wanted; but Crasweller was no hero. Then
+further off, but still in the circle round the temple, there were
+smaller abodes, less luxurious, but still comfortable, all of which
+would in a few short years be inhabited,--if the Fixed Period could
+be carried out in accordance with my project. And foundations had
+been made for others still smaller,--for a whole township of old men
+and women, as in the course of the next thirty years they might come
+hurrying on to find their last abode in the college. I had already
+selected one, not by any means the finest or the largest, for myself
+and my wife, in which we might prepare ourselves for the grand
+departure. But as for Mrs Neverbend, nothing would bring her to
+set foot within the precincts of the college ground. "Before those
+next ten years are gone," she would say, "common-sense will have
+interfered to let folks live out their lives properly." It had been
+quite useless for me to attempt to make her understand how unfitting
+was such a speech for the wife of the President of the Republic. My
+wife's opposition had been an annoyance to me from the first, but I
+had consoled myself by thinking how impossible it always is to imbue
+a woman's mind with a logical idea. And though, in all respects of
+domestic life, Mrs Neverbend is the best of women, even among women
+she is the most illogical.
+
+I now inspected the buildings in a sad frame of mind, asking myself
+whether it would ever come to pass that they should be inhabited for
+their intended purpose. When the Assembly, in compliance with my
+advice, had first enacted the law of the Fixed Period, a large sum
+had been voted for these buildings. As the enthusiasm had worn off,
+men had asked themselves whether the money had not been wasted, and
+had said that for so small a community the college had been planned
+on an absurdly grand scale. Still I had gone on, and had watched
+them as they grew from day to day, and had allowed no shilling to
+be spared in perfecting them. In my earlier years I had been very
+successful in the wool trade, and had amassed what men called a large
+fortune. During the last two or three years I had devoted a great
+portion of this to the external adornment of the college, not without
+many words on the matter from Mrs Neverbend. "Jack is to be ruined,"
+she had said, "in order that all the old men and women may be killed
+artistically." This and other remarks of the kind I was doomed to
+bear. It was a part of the difficulty which, as a great reformer, I
+must endure. But now, as I walked mournfully among the disconsolate
+and half-finished buildings, I could not but ask myself as to the
+purpose to which my money had been devoted. And I could not but
+tell myself that if in coming years these tenements should be left
+tenantless, my country would look back upon me as one who had wasted
+the produce of her young energies. But again I bethought me of
+Columbus and Galileo, and swore that I would go on or perish in the
+attempt.
+
+As these painful thoughts were agitating my mind, a slow decrepit old
+gentleman came up to me and greeted me as Mr President. He linked his
+arm familiarly through mine, and remarked that the time seemed to be
+very long before the college received any of its inhabitants. This
+was Mr Graybody, the curator, who had been specially appointed to
+occupy a certain residence, to look after the grounds, and to keep
+the books of the establishment. Graybody and I had come as young men
+to Britannula together, and whereas I had succeeded in all my own
+individual attempts, he had unfortunately failed. He was exactly of
+my age, as was also his wife. But under the stress of misfortune they
+had both become unnaturally old, and had at last been left ruined
+and hopeless, without a shilling on which to depend. I had always
+been a sincere friend to Graybody, though he was, indeed, a man very
+difficult to befriend. On most subjects he thought as I did, if he
+can be said to have thought at all. At any rate he had agreed with me
+as to the Fixed Period, saying how good it would be if he could be
+deposited at fifty-eight, and had always declared how blessed must
+be the time when it should have come for himself and his old wife.
+I do not think that he ever looked much to the principle which I had
+in view. He had no great ideas as to the imbecility and weakness of
+human life when protracted beyond its fitting limits. He only felt
+that it would be good to give up; and that if he did so, others might
+be made to do so too. As soon as a residence at the college was
+completed, I asked him to fill it; and now he had been living there,
+he and his wife together, with an attendant, and drawing his salary
+as curator for the last three years. I thought that it would be the
+very place for him. He was usually melancholy, disheartened, and
+impoverished; but he was always glad to see me, and I was accustomed
+to go frequently to the college, in order to find a sympathetic soul
+with whom to converse about the future of the establishment. "Well,
+Graybody," I said, "I suppose we are nearly ready for the first
+comer."
+
+"Oh yes; we're always ready; but then the first comer is not." I
+had not said much to him during the latter months as to Crasweller,
+in particular. His name used formerly to be very ready in all my
+conversations with Graybody, but of late I had talked to him in
+a more general tone. "You can't tell me yet when it's to be, Mr
+President? We do find it a little dull here."
+
+Now he knew as well as I did the day and the year of Crasweller's
+birth. I had intended to speak to him about Crasweller, but I wished
+our friend's name to come first from him. "I suppose it will be some
+time about mid-winter," I said.
+
+"Oh, I didn't know whether it might not have been postponed."
+
+"How can it be postponed? As years creep on, you cannot postpone
+their step. If there might be postponement such as that, I doubt
+whether we should ever find the time for our inhabitants to come. No,
+Graybody; there can be no postponement for the Fixed Period."
+
+"It might have been made sixty-nine or seventy," said he.
+
+"Originally, no doubt. But the wisdom of the Assembly has settled all
+that. The Assembly has declared that they in Britannula who are left
+alive at sixty-seven shall on that day be brought into the college.
+You yourself have, I think, ten years to run, and you will not be
+much longer left to pass them in solitude."
+
+"It is weary being here all alone, I must confess. Mrs G. says that
+she could not bear it for another twelve months. The girl we have has
+given us notice, and she is the ninth within a year. No followers
+will come after them here, because they say they'll smell the dead
+bodies."
+
+"Rubbish!" I exclaimed, angrily; "positive rubbish! The actual clay
+will evaporate into the air, without leaving a trace either for the
+eye to see or the nose to smell."
+
+"They all say that when you tried the furnaces there was a savour of
+burnt pork." Now great trouble was taken in that matter of cremation;
+and having obtained from Europe and the States all the best machinery
+for the purpose, I had supplied four immense hogs, in order that
+the system might be fairly tested, and I had fattened them for the
+purpose, as old men are not unusually very stout. These we consumed
+in the furnaces all at the same time, and the four bodies had been
+dissolved into their original atoms without leaving a trace behind
+them by which their former condition of life might be recognised.
+But a trap-door in certain of the chimneys had been left open by
+accident,--either that or by an enemy on purpose,--and undoubtedly
+some slight flavour of the pig had been allowed to escape. I had been
+there on the spot, knowing that I could trust only my own senses,
+and was able to declare that the scent which had escaped was very
+slight, and by no means disagreeable. And I was able to show that
+the trap-door had been left open either by chance or by design,--the
+very trap-door which was intended to prevent any such escape during
+the moments of full cremation,--so that there need be no fear of a
+repetition of the accident. I ought, indeed, to have supplied four
+other hogs, and to have tried the experiment again. But the theme was
+disagreeable, and I thought that the trial had been so far successful
+as to make it unnecessary that the expense should be again incurred.
+"They say that men and women would not have quite the same smell,"
+said he.
+
+"How do they know that?" I exclaimed, in my anger. "How do they know
+what men and women will smell like? They haven't tried. There won't
+be any smell at all--not the least; and the smoke will all consume
+itself, so that even you, living just where you are, will not know
+when cremation is going on. We might consume all Gladstonopolis, as
+I hope we shall some day, and not a living soul would know anything
+about it. But the prejudices of the citizens are ever the
+stumbling-blocks of civilisation."
+
+"At any rate, Mrs G. tells me that Jemima is going, because none of
+the young men will come up and see her."
+
+This was another difficulty, but a small one, and I made up my mind
+that it should be overcome. "The shrubs seem to grow very well," I
+said, resolved to appear as cheerful as possible.
+
+"They're pretty nearly all alive," said Graybody; "and they do give
+the place just an appearance like the cemetery at Old Christchurch."
+He meant the capital in the province of Canterbury.
+
+"In the course of a few years you will be quite--cheerful here."
+
+"I don't know much about that, Mr President. I'm not sure that for
+myself I want to be cheerful anywhere. If I've only got somebody just
+to speak to sometimes, that will be quite enough for me. I suppose
+old Crasweller will be the first?"
+
+"I suppose so."
+
+"It will be a gruesome time when I have to go to bed early, so as not
+to see the smoke come out of his chimney."
+
+"I tell you there will be nothing of the kind. I don't suppose you
+will even know when they're going to cremate him."
+
+"He will be the first, Mr President; and no doubt he will be looked
+closely after. Old Barnes will be here by that time, won't he, sir?"
+
+"Barnes is the second, and he will come just three months before
+Crasweller's departure. But Tallowax, the grocer in High Street, will
+be up here by that time. And then they will come so quickly, that
+we must soon see to get other lodgings finished. Exors, the lawyer,
+will be the fourth; but he will not come in till a day or two after
+Crasweller's departure."
+
+"They all will come; won't they, sir?" asked Graybody.
+
+"Will come! Why, they must. It is the law."
+
+"Tallowax swears he'll have himself strapped to his own kitchen
+table, and defend himself to the last gasp with a carving-knife.
+Exors says that the law is bad, and you can't touch him. As for
+Barnes, he has gone out of what little wits he ever had with the
+fright of it, and people seem to think that you couldn't touch a
+lunatic."
+
+"Barnes is no more a lunatic than I am."
+
+"I only tell you what folk tell me. I suppose you'll try it on by
+force, if necessary. You never expected that people would come and
+deposit themselves of their own accord."
+
+"The National Assembly expects that the citizens of Britannula will
+obey the law."
+
+"But there was one question I was going to ask, Mr President. Of
+course I am altogether on your side, and do not wish to raise
+difficulties. But what shall I do suppose they take to running away
+after they have been deposited? If old Crasweller goes off in his
+steam-carriage, how am I to go after him, and whom am I to ask to
+help to bring him back again?"
+
+I was puzzled, but I did not care to show it. No doubt a hundred
+little arrangements would be necessary before the affairs of the
+institution could be got into a groove so as to run steadily. But our
+first object must be to deposit Crasweller and Barnes and Tallowax,
+so that the citizens should be accustomed to the fashion of
+depositing the aged. There were, as I knew, two or three old women
+living in various parts of the island, who would, in due course, come
+in towards the end of Crasweller's year. But it had been rumoured
+that they had already begun to invent falsehoods as to their age,
+and I was aware that we might be led astray by them. This I had been
+prepared to accept as being unavoidable; but now, as the time grew
+nearer, I could not but see how difficult it would be to enforce the
+law against well-known men, and how easy to allow the women to escape
+by the help of falsehood. Exors, the lawyer, would say at once that
+we did not even attempt to carry out the law; and Barnes, lunatic as
+he pretended to be, would be very hard to manage. My mind misgave me
+as I thought of all these obstructions, and I felt that I could so
+willingly deposit myself at once, and then depart without waiting
+for my year of probation. But it was necessary that I should show a
+determined front to old Graybody, and make him feel that I at any
+rate was determined to remain firm to my purpose. "Mr Crasweller will
+give you no such trouble as you suggest," said I.
+
+"Perhaps he has come round."
+
+"He is a gentleman whom we have both known intimately for many years,
+and he has always been a friend to the Fixed Period. I believe that
+he is so still, although there is some little hitch as to the exact
+time at which he should be deposited."
+
+"Just twelve months, he says."
+
+"Of course," I replied, "the difference would be sure to be that of
+one year. He seems to think that there are only nine years between
+him and me."
+
+"Ten, Mr President; ten. I know the time well."
+
+"I had always thought so; but I should be willing to abandon a year
+if I could make things run smooth by doing so. But all that is a
+detail with which up here we need not, perhaps, concern ourselves."
+
+"Only the time is getting very short, Mr President, and my old woman
+will break down altogether if she's told that she's to live another
+year all alone. Crasweller won't be a bit readier next year than he
+is this; and of course if he is let off, you must let off Barnes and
+Tallowax. And there are a lot of old women about who are beginning
+to tell terrible lies about their ages. Do think of it all, Mr
+President."
+
+I never thought of anything else, so full was my mind of the subject.
+When I woke in the morning, before I could face the light of day, it
+was necessary that I should fortify myself with Columbus and Galileo.
+I began to fancy, as the danger became nearer and still nearer, that
+neither of those great men had been surrounded by obstructions such
+as encompassed me. To plough on across the waves, and either to be
+drowned or succeed; to tell a new truth about the heavens, and either
+to perish or become great for ever!--either was within the compass
+of a man who had only his own life to risk. My life,--how willingly
+could I run any risk, did but the question arise of risking it! How
+often I felt, in these days, that there is a fortitude needed by
+man much greater than that of jeopardising his life! Life! what
+is it? Here was that poor Crasweller, belying himself and all his
+convictions just to gain one year more of it, and then when the year
+was gone he would still have his deposition before him! Is it not so
+with us all? For me I feel,--have felt for years,--tempted to rush
+on, and pass through the gates of death. That man should shudder at
+the thought of it does not appear amiss to me. The unknown future
+is always awful; and the unknown future of another world, to be
+approached by so great a change of circumstances,--by the loss of our
+very flesh and blood and body itself,--has in it something so fearful
+to the imagination that the man who thinks of it cannot but be struck
+with horror as he acknowledges that by himself too it has to be
+encountered. But it has to be encountered; and though the change be
+awful, it should not therefore, by the sane judgment, be taken as a
+change necessarily for the worst. Knowing the great goodness of the
+Almighty, should we not be prepared to accept it as a change probably
+for the better; as an alteration of our circumstances, by which our
+condition may be immeasurably improved? Then one is driven back to
+consider the circumstances by which such change may be effected.
+To me it seems rational to suppose that as we leave this body so
+shall we enter that new phase of life in which we are destined to
+live;--but with all our higher resolves somewhat sharpened, and with
+our lower passions, alas! made stronger also. That theory by which a
+human being shall jump at once to a perfection of bliss, or fall to
+an eternity of evil and misery, has never found credence with me. For
+myself, I have to say that, while acknowledging my many drawbacks,
+I have so lived as to endeavour to do good to others, rather than
+evil, and that therefore I look to my departure from this world with
+awe indeed, but still with satisfaction. But I cannot look with
+satisfaction to a condition of life in which, from my own imbecility,
+I must necessarily retrograde into selfishness. It may be that He who
+judges of us with a wisdom which I cannot approach, shall take all
+this into account, and that He shall so mould my future being as
+to fit it to the best at which I had arrived in this world; still
+I cannot but fear that a taint of that selfishness which I have
+hitherto avoided, but which will come if I allow myself to become
+old, may remain, and that it will be better for me that I should go
+hence while as yet my own poor wants are not altogether uppermost in
+my mind. But then, in arranging this matter, I am arranging it for
+my fellow-citizens, and not for myself. I have to endeavour to think
+how Crasweller's mind may be affected rather than my own. He dreads
+his departure with a trembling, currish fear; and I should hardly be
+doing good to him were I to force him to depart in a frame of mind
+so poor and piteous. But then, again, neither is it altogether
+of Crasweller that I must think,--not of Crasweller or of myself.
+How will the coming ages of men be affected by such a change as I
+propose, should such a change become the normal condition of Death?
+Can it not be brought about that men should arrange for their own
+departure, so as to fall into no senile weakness, no slippered
+selfishness, no ugly whinings of undefined want, before they shall
+go hence, and be no more thought of? These are the ideas that have
+actuated me, and to them I have been brought by seeing the conduct
+of those around me. Not for Crasweller, or Barnes, or Tallowax, will
+this thing be good,--nor for those old women who are already lying
+about their ages in their cottages,--nor for myself, who am, I know,
+too apt to boast of myself, that even though old age should come upon
+me, I may be able to avoid the worst of its effects; but for those
+untold generations to come, whose lives may be modelled for them
+under the knowledge that at a certain Fixed Period they shall depart
+hence with all circumstances of honour and glory.
+
+I was, however, quite aware that it would be useless to spend my
+energy in dilating on this to Mr Graybody. He simply was willing to
+shuffle off his mortal coil, because he found it uncomfortable in
+the wearing. In all likelihood, had his time come as nigh as that of
+Crasweller, he too, like Crasweller, would impotently implore the
+grace of another year. He would ape madness like Barnes, or arm
+himself with a carving-knife like Tallowax, or swear that there
+was a flaw in the law, as Exors was disposed to do. He too would
+clamorously swear that he was much younger, as did the old women.
+Was not the world peopled by Craswellers, Tallowaxes, Exorses, and
+old women? Had I a right to hope to alter the feelings which nature
+herself had implanted in the minds of men? But still it might be done
+by practice,--by practice; if only we could arrive at the time in
+which practice should have become practice. Then, as I was about to
+depart from the door of Graybody's house, I whispered to myself again
+the names of Galileo and Columbus.
+
+"You think that he will come on the thirtieth?" said Graybody, as he
+took my hand at parting.
+
+"I think," replied I, "that you and I, as loyal citizens of the
+Republic, are bound to suppose that he will do his duty as a
+citizen." Then I went, leaving him standing in doubt at his door.
+
+
+END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
+
+
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+
+VOLUME II.
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+COLUMBUS AND GALILEO.
+
+
+I had left Graybody with a lie on my tongue. I said that I was bound
+to suppose that Crasweller would do his duty as a citizen,--by which
+I had meant Graybody to understand that I expected my old friend to
+submit to deposition. Now I expected nothing of the kind, and it
+grieved me to think that I should be driven to such false excuses.
+I began to doubt whether my mind would hold its proper bent under
+the strain thus laid upon it, and to ask myself whether I was in all
+respects sane in entertaining the ideas which filled my mind. Galileo
+and Columbus,--Galileo and Columbus! I endeavoured to comfort myself
+with these names,--but in a vain, delusive manner; and though I used
+them constantly, I was beginning absolutely to hate them. Why could
+I not return to my wool-shed, and be contented among my bales, and
+my ships, and my credits, as I was of yore, before this theory took
+total possession of me? I was doing good then. I robbed no one. I
+assisted very many in their walks of life. I was happy in the praises
+of all my fellow-citizens. My health was good, and I had ample scope
+for my energies then, even as now. But there came on me a day of
+success,--a day, shall I say, of glory or of wretchedness? or shall
+I not most truly say of both?--and I persuaded my fellow-citizens to
+undertake this sad work of the Fixed Period. From that moment all
+quiet had left me, and all happiness. Still, it is not necessary that
+a man should be happy. I doubt whether Caesar was happy with all those
+enemies around him,--Gauls, and Britons, and Romans. If a man be
+doing his duty, let him not think too much of that condition of mind
+which he calls happiness. Let him despise happiness and do his duty,
+and he will in one sense be happy. But if there creep upon him a
+doubt as to his duty, if he once begin to feel that he may perhaps
+be wrong, then farewell all peace of mind,--then will come that
+condition in which a man is tempted to ask himself whether he be in
+truth of sane mind.
+
+What should I do next? The cricketing Englishmen, I knew, were going.
+Two or three days more would see their gallant ship steam out of the
+harbour. As I returned in my cab to the city, I could see the English
+colours fluttering from her topmast, and the flag of the English
+cricket-club waving from her stern. But I knew well that they had
+discussed the question of the Fixed Period among them, and that
+there was still time for them to go home and send back some English
+mandate which ought to be inoperative, but which we should be
+unable to disobey. And letters might have been written before
+this,--treacherous letters, calling for the assistance of another
+country in opposition to the councils of their own.
+
+But what should I do next? I could not enforce the law _vi et armis_
+against Crasweller. I had sadly but surely acknowledged so much as
+that to myself. But I thought that I had seen signs of relenting
+about the man,--some symptoms of sadness which seemed to bespeak a
+yielding spirit. He only asked for a year. He was still in theory
+a supporter of the Fixed Period,--pleading his own little cause,
+however, by a direct falsehood. Could I not talk him into a generous
+assent? There would still be a year for him. And in old days there
+had been a spice of manliness in his bosom, to which it might be
+possible that I should bring him back. Though the hope was poor, it
+seemed at present to be my only hope.
+
+As I returned, I came round by the quays, dropping my cab at the
+corner of the street. There was the crowd of Englishmen, all going
+off to the vessel to see their bats and bicycles disposed of, and
+among them was Jack the hero. They were standing at the water's-edge,
+while three long-boats were being prepared to take them off. "Here's
+the President," said Sir Kennington Oval; "he has not seen our yacht
+yet: let him come on board with us." They were very gracious; so I
+got into one boat, and Jack into another, and old Crasweller, who had
+come with his guests from Little Christchurch, into the third; and we
+were pulled off to the yacht. Jack, I perceived, was quite at home
+there. He had dined there frequently, and had slept on board; but to
+me and Crasweller it was altogether new. "Yes," said Lord Marylebone;
+"if a fellow is to make his home for a month upon the seas, it is as
+well to make it as comfortable as possible. Each of us has his own
+crib, with a bath to himself, and all the et-ceteras. This is where
+we feed. It is not altogether a bad shop for grubbing." As I looked
+round I thought that I had never seen anything more palatial and
+beautiful. "This is where we pretend to sit," continued the lord;
+"where we are supposed to write our letters and read our books. And
+this," he said, opening another door, "is where we really sit, and
+smoke our pipes, and drink our brandy-and-water. We came out under
+the rule of that tyrant King MacNuffery. We mean to go back as
+a republic. And I, as being the only lord, mean to elect myself
+president. You couldn't give me any wrinkles as to a pleasant mode of
+governing? Everybody is to be allowed to do exactly what he pleases,
+and nobody is to be interfered with unless he interferes with
+somebody else. We mean to take a wrinkle from you fellows in
+Britannula, where everybody seems, under your presidency, to be as
+happy as the day is long."
+
+"We have no Upper House with us, my lord," said I.
+
+"You have got rid, at any rate, of one terrible bother. I daresay
+we shall drop it before long in England. I don't see why we should
+continue to sit merely to register the edicts of the House of
+Commons, and be told that we're a pack of fools when we hesitate." I
+told him that it was the unfortunate destiny of a House of Lords to
+be made to see her own unfitness for legislative work.
+
+"But if we were abolished," continued he, "then I might get into
+the other place and do something. You have to be elected a Peer of
+Parliament, or you can sit nowhere. A ship can only be a ship, after
+all; but if we must live in a ship, we are not so bad here. Come and
+take some tiffin." An Englishman, when he comes to our side of the
+globe, always calls his lunch tiffin.
+
+I went back to the other room with Lord Marylebone; and as I took my
+place at the table, I heard that the assembled cricketers were all
+discussing the Fixed Period.
+
+"I'd be shot," said Mr Puddlebrane, "if they should deposit me, and
+bleed me to death, and cremate me like a big pig." Then he perceived
+that I had entered the saloon, and there came a sudden silence across
+the table.
+
+"What sort of wind will be blowing next Friday at two o'clock?" asked
+Sir Lords Longstop.
+
+It was evident that Sir Lords had only endeavoured to change the
+conversation because of my presence; and it did not suit me to allow
+them to think that I was afraid to talk of the Fixed Period. "Why
+should you object to be cremated, Mr Puddlebrane," said I, "whether
+like a big pig or otherwise? It has not been suggested that any one
+shall cremate you while alive."
+
+"Because my father and mother were buried. And all the Puddlebranes
+were always buried. There are they, all to be seen in Puddlebrane
+Church, and I should like to appear among them."
+
+"I suppose it's only their names that appear, and not their bodies,
+Mr Puddlebrane. And a cremated man may have as big a tombstone as
+though he had been allowed to become rotten in the orthodox fashion."
+
+"What Puddlebrane means is," said another, "that he'd like to have
+the same chance of living as his ancestors."
+
+"If he will look back to his family records he will find that they
+very generally died before sixty-eight. But we have no idea of
+invading your Parliament and forcing our laws upon you."
+
+"Take a glass of wine, Mr President," said Lord Marylebone, "and
+leave Puddlebrane to his ancestors. He's a very good Slip, though he
+didn't catch Jack when he got a chance. Allow me to recommend you a
+bit of ice-pudding. The mangoes came from Jamaica, and are as fresh
+as the day they were picked." I ate my mango-pudding, but I did
+not enjoy it, for I was sure that the whole crew were returning to
+England laden with prejudices against the Fixed Period. As soon as I
+could escape, I got back to the shore, leaving Jack among my enemies.
+It was impossible not to feel that they were my enemies, as I was
+sure that they were about to oppose the cherished conviction of my
+very heart and soul. Crasweller had sat there perfectly silent while
+Mr Puddlebrane had spoken of his own possible cremation. And yet
+Crasweller was a declared Fixed-Periodist.
+
+On the Friday, at two o'clock, the vessel sailed amidst all the
+plaudits which could be given by mingled kettle-drums and trumpets,
+and by a salvo of artillery. They were as good a set of fellows as
+ever wore pink-flannel clothing, and as generous as any that there
+are born to live upon _pate_ and champagne. I doubt whether there was
+one among them who could have earned his bread in a counting-house,
+unless it was Stumps the professional. When we had paid all honour
+to the departing vessel, I went at once to Little Christchurch, and
+there I found my friend in the verandah with Eva. During the last
+month or two he seemed to be much older than I had ever before known
+him, and was now seated with his daughter's hand within his own. I
+had not seen him since the day on board the yacht, and he now seemed
+to be greyer and more haggard than he was then. "Crasweller," said
+I, taking him by the hand, "it is a sad thing that you and I should
+quarrel after so many years of perfect friendship."
+
+"So it is; so it is. I don't want to quarrel, Mr President."
+
+"There shall be no quarrel. Well, Eva, how do you bear the loss of
+all your English friends?"
+
+"The loss of my English friends won't hurt me if I can only keep
+those which I used to have in Britannula." I doubted whether she
+alluded to me or to Jack. It might be only to me, but I thought she
+looked as if she were thinking of Jack.
+
+"Eva, my dear," said Mr Crasweller, "you had better leave us. The
+President, I think, wishes to speak to me on business." Then she
+came up and looked me in the face, and pressed my hand, and I knew
+that she was asking for mercy for her father. The feeling was not
+pleasant, seeing that I was bound by the strongest oath which the
+mind can conceive not to show him mercy.
+
+I sat for a few minutes in silence, thinking that as Mr Crasweller
+had banished Eva, he would begin. But he said nothing, and would have
+remained silent had I allowed him to do so. "Crasweller," I said, "it
+is certainly not well that you and I should quarrel on this matter.
+In your company I first learned to entertain this project, and for
+years we have agreed that in it is to be found the best means for
+remedying the condition of mankind."
+
+"I had not felt then what it is to be treated as one who was already
+dead."
+
+"Does Eva treat you so?"
+
+"Yes; with all her tenderness and all her sweet love, Eva feels that
+my days are numbered unless I will boldly declare myself opposed to
+your theory. She already regards me as though I were a visitant from
+the other world. Her very gentleness is intolerable."
+
+"But, Crasweller, the convictions of your mind cannot be changed."
+
+"I do not know. I will not say that any change has taken place. But
+it is certain that convictions become vague when they operate against
+one's self. The desire to live is human, and therefore God-like. When
+the hand of God is felt to have struck one with coming death, the
+sufferer, knowing the blow to be inevitable, can reconcile himself;
+but it is very hard to walk away to one's long rest while health, and
+work, and means of happiness yet remain."
+
+There was something in this which seemed to me to imply that he had
+abandoned the weak assertion as to his age, and no longer intended
+to ask for a year of grace by the use of that falsehood. But it was
+necessary that I should be sure of this. "As to your exact age, I've
+been looking at the records," I began.
+
+"The records are right enough," he said; "you need trouble yourself
+no longer about the records. Eva and I have discussed all that." From
+this I became aware that Eva had convinced him of the baseness of the
+falsehood.
+
+"Then there is the law," said I, with, as I felt, unflinching
+hardness.
+
+"Yes, there is the law,--if it be a law. Mr Exors is prepared to
+dispute it, and says that he will ask permission to argue the case
+out with the executive."
+
+"He would argue about anything. You know what Exors is."
+
+"And there is that poor man Barnes has gone altogether out of his
+mind, and has become a drivelling idiot."
+
+"They told me yesterday that he was a raging lunatic; but I learn
+from really good authority that whether he takes one part or the
+other, he is only acting."
+
+"And Tallowax is prepared to run amuck against those who come to
+fetch him. He swears that no one shall lead him up to the college."
+
+"And you?" Then there was a pause, and Crasweller sat silent with
+his face buried in his hands. He was, at any rate, in a far better
+condition of mind for persuasion than that in which I had last found
+him. He had given up the fictitious year, and had acknowledged that
+he had assented to the doctrine with which he was now asked to
+comply. But it was a hard task that of having to press him under such
+circumstances. I thought of Eva and her despair, and of himself with
+all that natural desire for life eager at his heart. I looked round
+and saw the beauty of the scenery, and thought how much worse to
+such a man would be the melancholy shades of the college than even
+departure itself. And I am not by nature hard-hearted. I have none of
+that steel and fibre which will enable a really strong man to stand
+firm by convictions even when opposed by his affections. To have
+liberated Crasweller at this moment, I would have walked off myself,
+oh, so willingly, to the college! I was tearing my own heart to
+pieces;--but I remembered Columbus and Galileo. Neither of them was
+surely ever tried as I was at this moment. But it had to be done, or
+I must yield, and for ever. If I could not be strong to prevail with
+my own friend and fellow-labourer,--with Crasweller, who was the
+first to come, and who should have entered the college with an heroic
+grandeur,--how could I even desire any other to immure himself? how
+persuade such men as Barnes, or Tallowax, or that pettifogger Exors,
+to be led quietly up through the streets of the city? "And you?" I
+asked again.
+
+"It is for you to decide."
+
+The agony of that moment! But I think that I did right. Though my
+very heart was bleeding, I know that I did right. "For the sake
+of the benefits which are to accrue to unknown thousands of your
+fellow-creatures, it is your duty to obey the law." This I said in
+a low voice, still holding him by the hand. I felt at the moment a
+great love for him,--and in a certain sense admiration, because he
+had so far conquered his fear of an unknown future as to promise to
+do this thing simply because he had said that he would do it. There
+was no high feeling as to future generations of his fellow-creatures,
+no grand idea that he was about to perform a great duty for the
+benefit of mankind in general, but simply the notion that as he had
+always advocated my theory as my friend, he would not now depart from
+it, let the cost to himself be what it might. He answered me only by
+drawing away his hand. But I felt that in his heart he accused me
+of cruelty, and of mad adherence to a theory. "Should it not be so,
+Crasweller?"
+
+"As you please, President."
+
+"But should it not be so?" Then, at great length, I went over once
+again all my favourite arguments, and endeavoured with the whole
+strength of my eloquence to reach his mind. But I knew, as I was
+doing so, that that was all in vain. I had succeeded,--or perhaps Eva
+had done so,--in inducing him to repudiate the falsehood by which he
+had endeavoured to escape. But I had not in the least succeeded in
+making him see the good which would come from his deposition. He was
+ready to become a martyr, because in years back he had said that he
+would do so. He had now left it for me to decide whether he should
+be called upon to perform his promise; and I, with an unfeeling
+pertinacity, had given the case against him. That was the light in
+which Mr Crasweller looked at it. "You do not think that I am cruel?"
+I asked.
+
+"I do," said Crasweller. "You ask the question, and I answer you. I
+do think that you are cruel. It concerns life and death,--that is a
+matter of course,--and it is the life and death of your most intimate
+friend, of Eva's father, of him who years since came hither with
+you from another country, and has lived with you through all the
+struggles and all the successes of a long career. But you have my
+word, and I will not depart from it, even to save my life. In a
+moment of weakness I was tempted to a weak lie. I will not lie. I
+will not demean myself to claim a poor year of life by such means,
+though I do not lack evidence to support the statement. I am ready
+to go with you;" and he rose up from his seat as though intending to
+walk away and be deposited at once.
+
+"Not now, Crasweller."
+
+"I shall be ready when you may come for me. I shall not again leave
+my home till I have to leave it for the last time. Days and weeks
+mean nothing with me now. The bitterness of death has fallen upon
+me."
+
+"Crasweller, I will come and live with you, and be a brother to you,
+during the entire twelve months."
+
+"No; it will not be needed. Eva will be with me, and perhaps Jack may
+come and see me,--though I must not allow Jack to express the warmth
+of his indignation in Eva's hearing. Jack had perhaps better leave
+Britannula for a time, and not come back till all shall be over. Then
+he may enjoy the lawns of Little Christchurch in peace,--unless,
+perchance, an idea should disturb him, that he has been put into
+their immediate possession by his father's act." Then he got up from
+his chair and went from the verandah back into the house.
+
+As I rose and returned to the city, I almost repented myself of what
+I had done. I had it in my heart to go back and yield, and to tell
+him that I would assent to the abandonment of my whole project. It
+was not for me to say that I would spare my own friend, and execute
+the law against Barnes and Tallowax; nor was it for me to declare
+that the victims of the first year should be forgiven. I could easily
+let the law die away, but it was not in my power to decide that it
+should fall into partial abeyance. This I almost did. But when I had
+turned on my road to Little Christchurch, and was prepared to throw
+myself into Crasweller's arms, the idea of Galileo and Columbus, and
+their ultimate success, again filled my bosom. The moment had now
+come in which I might succeed. The first man was ready to go to the
+stake, and I had felt all along that the great difficulty would be
+in obtaining the willing assent of the first martyr. It might well
+be that these accusations of cruelty were a part of the suffering
+without which my great reform could not be carried to success. Though
+I should live to be accounted as cruel as Caesar, what would that be
+if I too could reduce my Gaul to civilisation? "Dear Crasweller,"
+I murmured to myself as I turned again towards Gladstonopolis, and
+hurrying back, buried myself in the obscurity of the executive
+chambers.
+
+The following day occurred a most disagreeable scene in my own house
+at dinner. Jack came in and took his chair at the table in grim
+silence. It might be that he was lamenting for his English friends
+who were gone, and therefore would not speak. Mrs Neverbend, too,
+ate her dinner without a word. I began to fear that presently there
+would be something to be said,--some cause for a quarrel; and as
+is customary on such occasions, I endeavoured to become specially
+gracious and communicative. I talked about the ship that had started
+on its homeward journey, and praised Lord Marylebone, and laughed at
+Mr Puddlebrane; but it was to no effect. Neither would Jack nor Mrs
+Neverbend say anything, and they ate their dinner gloomily till the
+attendant left the room. Then Jack began. "I think it right to tell
+you, sir, that there's going to be a public meeting on the Town Flags
+the day after to-morrow." The Town Flags was an open unenclosed
+place, over which, supported by arches, was erected the Town Hall.
+It was here that the people were accustomed to hold those outside
+assemblies which too often guided the responsible Assembly in the
+Senate-house.
+
+"And what are you all going to talk about there?"
+
+"There is only one subject," said Jack, "which at present occupies
+the mind of Gladstonopolis. The people don't intend to allow you to
+deposit Mr Crasweller."
+
+"Considering your age and experience, Jack, don't you think that
+you're taking too much upon yourself to say whether people will allow
+or will not allow the executive of the country to perform their
+duty?"
+
+"If Jack isn't old," said Mrs Neverbend, "I, at any rate, am older,
+and I say the same thing."
+
+"Of course I only said what I thought," continued Jack. "What I want
+to explain is, that I shall be there myself, and shall do all that I
+can to support the meeting."
+
+"In opposition to your father?" said I.
+
+"Well;--yes, I am afraid so. You see it's a public subject on a
+public matter, and I don't see that father and son have anything to
+do with it. If I were in the Assembly, I don't suppose I should be
+bound to support my father."
+
+"But you're not in the Assembly."
+
+"I have my own convictions all the same, and I find myself called
+upon to take a part."
+
+"Good gracious--yes! and to save poor old Mr Crasweller's life from
+this most inhuman law. He's just as fit to live as are you and I."
+
+"The only question is, whether he be fit to die,--or rather to be
+deposited, I mean. But I'm not going to argue the subject here. It
+has been decided by the law; and that should be enough for you two,
+as it is enough for me. As for Jack, I will not have him attend any
+such meeting. Were he to do so, he would incur my grave
+displeasure,--and consequent punishment."
+
+"What do you mean to do to the boy?" asked Mrs Neverbend.
+
+"If he ceases to behave to me like a son, I shall cease to treat him
+like a father. If he attends this meeting he must leave my house, and
+I shall see him no more."
+
+"Leave the house!" shrieked Mrs Neverbend.
+
+"Jack," said I, with the kindest voice which I was able to assume,
+"you will pack up your portmanteau and go to New Zealand the day
+after to-morrow. I have business for you to transact with Macmurdo
+and Brown of some importance. I will give you the particulars when I
+see you in the office."
+
+"Of course he won't go, Mr Neverbend," cried my wife. But, though the
+words were determined, there was a certain vacillation in the tone of
+her voice which did not escape me.
+
+"We shall see. If Jack intends to remain as my son, he must obey his
+father. I have been kind, and perhaps too indulgent, to him. I now
+require that he shall proceed to New Zealand the day after to-morrow.
+The boat sails at eight. I shall be happy to go down with him and see
+him on board."
+
+Jack only shook his head,--by which I understood that he meant
+rebellion. I had been a most generous father to him, and loved him as
+the very apple of my eye; but I was determined that I would be stern.
+"You have heard my order," I said, "and you can have to-morrow to
+think about it. I advise you not to throw over, and for ever, the
+affection, the fostering care, and all the comforts, pecuniary
+as well as others, which you have hitherto had from an indulgent
+father."
+
+"You do not mean to say that you will disinherit the boy?" said Mrs
+Neverbend.
+
+I knew that it was utterly out of my power to do so. I could not
+disinherit him. I could not even rob him of a single luxury without
+an amount of suffering much greater than he would feel. Was I not
+thinking of him day and night as I arranged my worldly affairs? That
+moment when he knocked down Sir Kennington Oval's wicket, had I not
+been as proud as he was? When the trumpet sounded, did not I feel
+the honour more than he? When he made his last triumphant run, and
+I threw my hat in the air, was it not to me sweeter than if I had
+done it myself? Did I not even love him the better for swearing that
+he would make this fight for Crasweller? But yet it was necessary
+that I should command obedience, and, if possible, frighten him into
+subservience. We talk of a father's power, and know that the old
+Romans could punish filial disobedience by death; but a Britannulan
+father has a heart in his bosom which is more powerful than law or
+even custom, and I believe that the Roman was much the same. "My
+dear, I will not discuss my future intentions before the boy. It
+would be unseemly. I command him to start for New Zealand the day
+after to-morrow, and I shall see whether he will obey me. I strongly
+advise him to be governed in this matter by his father." Jack only
+shook his head, and left the room. I became aware afterwards that he
+slept that night at Little Christchurch.
+
+That night I received such a lecture from Mrs Neverbend in our
+bedroom as might have shamed that Mrs Caudle of whom we read in
+English history. I hate these lectures, not as thinking them
+unbecoming, but as being peculiarly disagreeable. I always find
+myself absolutely impotent during their progress. I am aware that
+it is quite useless to speak a word, and that I can only allow the
+clock to run itself down. What Mrs Neverbend says at such moments has
+always in it a great deal of good sense; but it is altogether wasted,
+because I knew it all beforehand, and with pen and ink could have
+written down the lecture which she delivered at that peculiar moment.
+And I fear no evil results from her anger for the future, because her
+conduct to me will, I know by experience, be as careful and as kind
+as ever. Were another to use harsh language to me, she would rise in
+wrath to defend me. And she does not, in truth, mean a tenth of what
+she says. But I am for the time as though I were within the clapper
+of a mill; and her passion goes on increasing because she can never
+get a word from me. "Mr Neverbend, I tell you this,--you are going to
+make a fool of yourself. I think it my duty to tell you so, as your
+wife. Everybody else will think it. Who are you, to liken yourself
+to Galileo?--an old fellow of that kind who lived a thousand years
+ago, before Christianity had ever been invented. You have got nasty
+murderous thoughts in your mind, and want to kill poor Mr Crasweller,
+just out of pride, because you have said you would. Now, Jack is
+determined that you shan't, and I say that he is right. There is no
+reason why Jack shouldn't obey me as well as you. You will never
+be able to deposit Mr Crasweller,--not if you try it for a hundred
+years. The city won't let you do it; and if you have a grain of sense
+left in your head, you won't attempt it. Jack is determined to meet
+the men on the Town Flags the day after to-morrow, and I say that he
+is right. As for your disinheriting him, and spending all your money
+on machinery to roast pigs,--I say you can't do it. There will be a
+commission to inquire into you if you do not mind yourself, and then
+you will remember what I told you. Poor Mr Crasweller, whom you have
+known for forty years! I wonder how you can bring yourself to think
+of killing the poor man, whose bread you have so often eaten! And if
+you think you are going to frighten Jack, you are very much mistaken.
+Jack would do twice more for Eva Crasweller than for you or me, and
+it's natural he should. You may be sure he will not give up; and
+the end will be, that he will get Eva for his own. I do believe
+he has gone to sleep." Then I gave myself infinite credit for the
+pertinacity of my silence, and for the manner in which I had put
+on an appearance of somnolency without overacting the part. Mrs
+Neverbend did in truth go to sleep, but I lay awake during the whole
+night thinking of the troubles before me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE "JOHN BRIGHT."
+
+
+Jack, of course, did not go to New Zealand, and I was bound to
+quarrel with him,--temporarily. They held the meeting on the Town
+Flags, and many eloquent words were, no doubt, spoken. I did not go,
+of course, nor did I think it well to read the reports. Mrs Neverbend
+took it into her head at this time to speak to me only respecting the
+material wants of life. "Will you have another lump of sugar in your
+tea, Mr President?" Or, "If you want a second blanket on your bed,
+Mr Neverbend, and will say the word, it shall be supplied." I took
+her in the same mood, and was dignified, cautious, and silent. With
+Jack I was supposed to have quarrelled altogether, and very grievous
+it was to me not to be able to speak to the lad of a morning or an
+evening. But he did not seem to be much the worse for it. As for
+turning him out of the house or stopping his pocket-money, that would
+be carrying the joke further than I could do it. Indeed it seemed to
+me that he was peculiarly happy at this time, for he did not go to
+his office. He spent his mornings in making speeches, and then went
+down in the afternoon on his bicycle to Little Christchurch.
+
+So the time passed on, and the day absolutely came on which
+Crasweller was to be deposited. I had seen him constantly during the
+last few weeks, but he had not spoken to me on the subject. He had
+said that he would not leave Little Christchurch, and he did not do
+so. I do not think that he had been outside his own grounds once
+during these six weeks. He was always courteous to me, and would
+offer me tea and toast when I came, with a stately civility, as
+though there had been no subject of burning discord between us. Eva I
+rarely saw. That she was there I was aware,--but she never came into
+my presence till the evening before the appointed day, as I shall
+presently have to tell. Once or twice I did endeavour to lead him
+on to the subject; but he showed a disinclination to discuss it so
+invincible, that I was silenced. As I left him on the day before that
+on which he was to be deposited, I assured him that I would call for
+him on the morrow.
+
+"Do not trouble yourself," he said, repeating the words twice over.
+"It will be just the same whether you are here or not." Then I shook
+my head by way of showing him that I would come, and I took my leave.
+
+I must explain that during these last few weeks things had not gone
+quietly in Gladstonopolis, but there had been nothing like a serious
+riot. I was glad to find that, in spite of Jack's speechifying,
+the younger part of the population was still true to me, and I did
+not doubt that I should still have got the majority of votes in
+the Assembly. A rumour was spread abroad that the twelve months of
+Crasweller's period of probation were to be devoted to discussing the
+question, and I was told that my theory as to the Fixed Period would
+not in truth have been carried out merely because Mr Crasweller had
+changed his residence from Little Christchurch to the college. I had
+ordered an open barouche to be prepared for the occasion, and had got
+a pair of splendid horses fit for a triumphal march. With these I
+intended to call at Little Christchurch at noon, and to accompany Mr
+Crasweller up to the college, sitting on his left hand. On all other
+occasions, the President of the Republic sat in his carriage on the
+right side, and I had ever stood up for the dignities of my position.
+But this occasion was to be an exception to all rule.
+
+On the evening before, as I was sitting in my library at home
+mournfully thinking of the occasion, telling myself that after all
+I could not devote my friend to what some might think a premature
+death, the door was opened, and Eva Crasweller was announced. She
+had on one of those round, close-fitting men's hats which ladies now
+wear, but under it was a veil which quite hid her face. "I am taking
+a liberty, Mr Neverbend," she said, "in troubling you at the present
+moment."
+
+"Eva, my dear, how can anything you do be called a liberty?"
+
+"I do not know, Mr Neverbend. I have come to you because I am very
+unhappy."
+
+"I thought you had shunned me of late."
+
+"So I have. How could I help it, when you have been so anxious to
+deposit poor papa in that horrid place?"
+
+"He was equally anxious a few years since."
+
+"Never! He agreed to it because you told him, and because you were
+a man able to persuade. It was not that he ever had his heart in it,
+even when it was not near enough to alarm himself. And he is not a
+man fearful of death in the ordinary way. Papa is a brave man."
+
+"My darling child, it is beautiful to hear you say so of him."
+
+"He is going with you to-morrow simply because he has made you a
+promise, and does not choose to have it said of him that he broke his
+word even to save his own life. Is not that courage? It is not with
+him as it is with you, who have your heart in the matter, because you
+think of some great thing that you will do, so that your name may be
+remembered to future generations."
+
+"It is not for that, Eva. I care not at all whether my name be
+remembered. It is for the good of many that I act."
+
+"He believes in no good, but is willing to go because of his promise.
+Is it fair to keep him to such a promise under such circumstances?"
+
+"But the law--"
+
+"I will hear nothing of the law. The law means you and your
+influences. Papa is to be sacrificed to the law to suit your
+pleasure. Papa is to be destroyed, not because the law wishes it, but
+to suit the taste of Mr Neverbend."
+
+"Oh, Eva!"
+
+"It is true."
+
+"To suit my taste?"
+
+"Well--what else? You have got the idea into your head, and you will
+not drop it. And you have persuaded him because he is your friend.
+Oh, a most fatal friendship! He is to be sacrificed because, when
+thinking of other things, he did not care to differ with you." Then
+she paused, as though to see whether I might not yield to her words.
+And if the words of any one would have availed to make me yield, I
+think it would have been hers as now spoken. "Do you know what people
+will say of you, Mr Neverbend?" she continued.
+
+"What will they say?"
+
+"If I only knew how best I could tell you! Your son has asked me--to
+be his wife."
+
+"I have long known that he has loved you well."
+
+"But it can never be," she said, "if my father is to be carried away
+to this fearful place. People would say that you had hurried him off
+in order that Jack--"
+
+"Would you believe it, Eva?" said I, with indignation.
+
+"It does not matter what I would believe. Mr Grundle is saying
+it already, and is accusing me too. And Mr Exors, the lawyer,
+is spreading it about. It has become quite the common report in
+Gladstonopolis that Jack is to become at once the owner of Little
+Christchurch."
+
+"Perish Little Christchurch!" I exclaimed. "My son would marry no
+man's daughter for his money."
+
+"I do not believe it of Jack," she said, "for I know that he is
+generous and good. There! I do love him better than any one in the
+world. But as things are, I can never marry him if papa is to be shut
+up in that wretched City of the Dead."
+
+"Not City of the Dead, my dear."
+
+"Oh, I cannot bear to think of it!--all alone with no one but me with
+him to watch him as day after day passes away, as the ghastly hour
+comes nearer and still nearer, when he is to be burned in those
+fearful furnaces!"
+
+"The cremation, my dear, has nothing in truth to do with the Fixed
+Period."
+
+"To wait till the fatal day shall have arrived, and then to know that
+at a fixed hour he will be destroyed just because you have said so!
+Can you imagine what my feelings will be when that moment shall have
+come?"
+
+I had not in truth thought of it. But now, when the idea was
+represented to my mind's eye, I acknowledged to myself that it would
+be impossible that she should be left there for the occasion. How or
+when she should be taken away, or whither, I could not at the moment
+think. These would form questions which it would be very hard to
+answer. After some score of years, say, when the community would be
+used to the Fixed Period, I could understand that a daughter or a
+wife might leave the college, and go away into such solitudes as
+the occasion required, a week perhaps before the hour arranged for
+departure had come. Custom would make it comparatively easy; as
+custom has arranged such a period of mourning for a widow, and such
+another for a widower, a son, or a daughter. But here, with Eva,
+there would be no custom. She would have nothing to guide her,
+and might remain there till the last fatal moment. I had hoped
+that she might have married Jack, or perhaps Grundle, during the
+interval,--not having foreseen that the year, which was intended to
+be one of honour and glory, should become a time of mourning and
+tribulation. "Yes, my dear, it is very sad."
+
+"Sad! Was there ever a position in life so melancholy, so mournful,
+so unutterably miserable?" I remained there opposite, gazing into
+vacancy, but I could say nothing. "What do you intend to do, Mr
+Neverbend?" she asked. "It is altogether in your bosom. My father's
+life or death is in your hands. What is your decision?" I could only
+remain steadfast; but it seemed to be impossible to say so. "Well, Mr
+Neverbend, will you speak?"
+
+"It is not for me to decide. It is for the country."
+
+"The country!" she exclaimed, rising up; "it is your own pride,--your
+vanity and cruelty combined. You will not yield in this matter to me,
+your friend's daughter, because your vanity tells you that when you
+have once said a thing, that thing shall come to pass." Then she put
+the veil down over her face, and went out of the room.
+
+I sat for some time motionless, trying to turn over in my mind all
+that she had said to me; but it seemed as though my faculties were
+utterly obliterated in despair. Eva had been to me almost as a
+daughter, and yet I was compelled to refuse her request for her
+father's life. And when she had told me that it was my pride and
+vanity which had made me do so, I could not explain to her that they
+were not the cause. And, indeed, was I sure of myself that it was not
+so? I had flattered myself that I did it for the public good; but
+was I sure that obduracy did not come from my anxiety to be counted
+with Columbus and Galileo? or if not that, was there not something
+personal to myself in my desire that I should be known as one who had
+benefited my species? In considering such matters, it is so hard to
+separate the motives,--to say how much springs from some glorious
+longing to assist others in their struggle upwards in humanity, and
+how much again from mean personal ambition. I had thought that I had
+done it all in order that the failing strength of old age might be
+relieved, and that the race might from age to age be improved. But
+I now doubted myself, and feared lest that vanity of which Eva had
+spoken to me had overcome me. With my wife and son I could still be
+brave,--even with Crasweller I could be constant and hard; but to be
+obdurate with Eva was indeed a struggle. And when she told me that
+I did so through pride, I found it very hard to bear. And yet it was
+not that I was angry with the child. I became more and more attached
+to her the more loudly she spoke on behalf of her father. Her very
+indignation endeared me to her, and made me feel how excellent she
+was, how noble a wife she would be for my son. But was I to give way
+after all? Having brought the matter to such a pitch, was I to give
+up everything to the prayers of a girl? I was well aware even then
+that my theory was true. The old and effete should go, in order that
+the strong and manlike might rise in their places and do the work of
+the world with the wealth of the world at their command. Take the
+average of mankind all round, and there would be but the lessening of
+a year or two from the life of them all. Even taking those men who
+had arrived at twenty-five, to how few are allotted more than forty
+years of life! But yet how large a proportion of the wealth of the
+world remains in the hands of those who have passed that age, and are
+unable from senile imbecility to employ that wealth as it should be
+used! As I thought of this, I said to myself that Eva's prayers might
+not avail, and I did take some comfort to myself in thinking that all
+was done for the sake of posterity. And then, again, when I thought
+of her prayers, and of those stern words which had followed her
+prayers,--of that charge of pride and vanity,--I did tell myself that
+pride and vanity were not absent.
+
+She was gone now, and I felt that she must say and think evil things
+of me through all my future life. The time might perhaps come, when
+I too should have been taken away, and when her father should long
+since have been at rest, that softer thoughts would come across her
+mind. If it were only possible that I might go, so that Jack might
+be married to the girl he loved, that might be well. Then I wiped my
+eyes, and went forth to make arrangements for the morrow.
+
+The morning came,--the 30th of June,--a bright, clear, winter
+morning, cold but still genial and pleasant as I got into the
+barouche and had myself driven to Little Christchurch. To say that
+my heart was sad within me would give no fair record of my condition.
+I was so crushed by grief, so obliterated by the agony of the hour,
+that I hardly saw what passed before my eyes. I only knew that the
+day had come, the terrible day for which in my ignorance I had
+yearned, and that I was totally unable to go through its ceremonies
+with dignity, or even with composure. But I observed as I was driven
+down the street, lying out at sea many miles to the left, a small
+spot of smoke on the horizon, as though it might be of some passing
+vessel. It did not in the least awaken my attention; but there it
+was, and I remembered to have thought as I passed on how blessed were
+they who steamed by unconscious of that terrible ordeal of the Fixed
+Period which I was bound to encounter.
+
+I went to Little Christchurch, and there I found Mr Crasweller
+waiting for me in the hall. I came in and took his limp hand in
+mine, and congratulated him. Oh how vain, how wretched, sounded that
+congratulation in my own ears!
+
+And it was spoken, I was aware, in a piteous tone of voice, and with
+meagre, bated breath. He merely shook his head, and attempted to pass
+on. "Will you not take your greatcoat?" said I, seeing that he was
+going out into the open air without protection.
+
+"No; why should I? It will not be wanted up there."
+
+"You do not know the place," I replied. "There are twenty acres of
+pleasure-ground for you to wander over." Then he turned upon me
+a look,--oh, such a look!--and went on and took his place in the
+carriage. But Eva followed him, and spread a rug across his knees,
+and threw a cloak over his shoulders.
+
+"Will not Eva come with us?" I said.
+
+"No; my daughter will hide her face on such a day as this. It is for
+you and me to be carried through the city,--you because you are proud
+of the pageant, and me because I do not fear it." This, too, added
+something to my sorrow. Then I looked and saw that Eva got into a
+small closed carriage in the rear, and was driven off by a circuitous
+route, to meet us, no doubt, at the college.
+
+As we were driven away,--Crasweller and I,--I had not a word to say
+to him. And he seemed to collect himself in his fierceness, and to
+remain obdurately silent in his anger. In this way we drove on, till,
+coming to a turn of the road, the expanse of the sea appeared before
+us. Here again I observed a small cloud of smoke which had grown out
+of the spot I had before seen, and I was aware that some large ship
+was making its way into the harbour of Gladstonopolis. I turned my
+face towards it and gazed, and then a sudden thought struck me. How
+would it be with me if this were some great English vessel coming
+into our harbour on the very day of Crasweller's deposition? A year
+since I would have rejoiced on such an occasion, and would have
+assured myself that I would show to the strangers the grandeur of
+this ceremony, which must have been new to them. But now a creeping
+terror took possession of me, and I felt my heart give way within me.
+I wanted no Englishman, nor American, to come and see the first day
+of our Fixed Period.
+
+It was evident that Crasweller did not see the smoke; but to my eyes,
+as we progressed, it became nearer, till at last the hull of the
+vast vessel became manifest. Then as the carriage passed on into the
+street of Gladstonopolis at the spot where one side of the street
+forms the quay, the vessel with extreme rapidity steamed in, and I
+could see across the harbour that she was a ship of war. A certain
+sense of relief came upon my mind just then, because I felt sure that
+she had come to interfere with the work which I had in hand; but how
+base must be my condition when I could take delight in thinking that
+it had been interrupted!
+
+By this time we had been joined by some eight or ten carriages,
+which formed, as it were, a funeral _cortege_ behind us. But I could
+perceive that these carriages were filled for the most part by young
+men, and that there was no contemporary of Crasweller to be seen at
+all. As we went up the town hill, I could espy Barnes gibbering on
+the doorstep of his house, and Tallowax brandishing a large knife in
+his hand, and Exors waving a paper over his head, which I well knew
+to be a copy of the Act of our Assembly; but I could only pretend not
+to see them as our carriage passed on.
+
+The chief street of Gladstonopolis, running through the centre of
+the city, descends a hill to the level of the harbour. As the vessel
+came in we began to ascend the hill, but the horses progressed very
+slowly. Crasweller sat perfectly speechless by my side. I went on
+with a forced smile upon my face, speaking occasionally to this or
+the other neighbour as we met them. I was forced to be in a certain
+degree cheerful, but grave and solemn in my cheerfulness. I was
+taking this man home for that last glorious year which he was about
+to pass in joyful anticipation of a happier life; and therefore I
+must be cheerful. But this was only the thing to be acted, the play
+to be played, by me the player. I must be solemn too,--silent as the
+churchyard, mournful as the grave,--because of the truth. Why was I
+thus driven to act a part that was false? On the brow of the hill we
+met a concourse of people both young and old, and I was glad to see
+that the latter had come out to greet us. But by degrees the crowd
+became so numerous that the carriage was stopped in its progress; and
+rising up, I motioned to those around us to let us pass. We became,
+however, more firmly enveloped in the masses, and at last I had to
+ask aloud that they would open and let us go on. "Mr President," said
+one old gentleman to me, a tanner in the city, "there's an English
+ship of war come into the harbour. I think they've got something to
+say to you."
+
+"Something to say to me! What can they have to say to me?" I replied,
+with all the dignity I could command.
+
+"We'll just stay and see;--we'll just wait a few minutes," said
+another elder. He was a bar-keeper with a red nose, and as he spoke
+he took up a place in front of the horses. It was in vain for me to
+press the coachman. It would have been indecent to do so at such
+a moment, and something at any rate was due to the position of
+Crasweller. He remained speechless in the carriage; but I thought
+that I could see, as I glanced at his face, that he took a strong
+interest in the proceedings. "They're going to begin to come up the
+hill, Mr Bunnit," said the bar-keeper to the tanner, "as soon as ever
+they're out of their boats."
+
+"God bless the old flag for ever and ever!" said Mr Bunnit. "I knew
+they wouldn't let us deposit any one."
+
+Thus their secret was declared. These old men,--the tanner and
+whisky-dealer, and the like,--had sent home to England to get
+assistance against their own Government! There had always been a
+scum of the population,--the dirty, frothy, meaningless foam at
+the top,--men like the drunken old bar-keeper, who had still clung
+submissive to the old country,--men who knew nothing of progress
+and civilisation,--who were content with what they ate and drank,
+and chiefly with the latter. "Here they come. God bless their gold
+bands!" said he of the red nose. Yes;--up the hill they came, three
+gilded British naval officers surrounded by a crowd of Britannulans.
+
+Crasweller heard it all, but did not move from his place. But he
+leaned forward, and he bit his lip, and I saw that his right hand
+shook as it grasped the arm of the carriage. There was nothing for me
+but to throw myself back and remain tranquil. I was, however, well
+aware that an hour of despair and opposition, and of defeat, was
+coming upon me. Up they came, and were received with three deafening
+cheers by the crowd immediately round the carriage. "I beg your
+pardon, sir," said one of the three, whom I afterwards learned to be
+the second lieutenant; "are you the President of this Republic?"
+
+"I am," replied I; "and what may you be?"
+
+"I am the second lieutenant on board H.M.'s gunboat, the John
+Bright." I had heard of this vessel, which had been named from a
+gallant officer, who, in the beginning of the century, had seated
+himself on a barrel of gunpowder, and had, single-handed, quelled a
+mutiny. He had been made Earl Bright for what he had done on that
+occasion, but the vessel was still called J. B. throughout the
+service.
+
+"And what may be your business with me, Mr Second Lieutenant?"
+
+"Our captain, Captain Battleax's compliments, and he hopes you won't
+object to postpone this interesting ceremony for a day or two till he
+may come and see. He is sure that Mr Crasweller won't mind." Then he
+took off his hat to my old friend. "The captain would have come up
+himself, but he can't leave the ship before he sees his big gun laid
+on and made safe. He is very sorry to be so unceremonious, but the
+250-ton steam-swiveller requires a great deal of care."
+
+"Laid on?" I suggested.
+
+"Well--yes. It is always necessary, when the ship lets go her anchor,
+to point the gun in the most effective manner."
+
+"She won't go off, will she?" asked Bunnit.
+
+"Not without provocation, I think. The captain has the exploding wire
+under double lock and key in his own state-room. If he only touched
+the spring, we about the locality here would be knocked into little
+bits in less time than it will take you to think about it. Indeed the
+whole of this side of the hill would become an instantaneous ruin
+without the sign of a human being anywhere."
+
+There was a threat in this which I could not endure. And indeed, for
+myself, I did not care how soon I might be annihilated. England,
+with unsurpassed tyranny, had sent out one of her brutal modern
+inventions, and threatened us all with blood and gore and murder
+if we did not give up our beneficent modern theory. It was the
+malevolent influence of the intellect applied to brute force,
+dominating its benevolent influence as applied to philanthropy. What
+was the John Bright to me that it should come there prepared to send
+me into eternity by its bloodthirsty mechanism? It is an evil sign of
+the times,--of the times that are in so many respects hopeful,--that
+the greatest inventions of the day should always take the shape of
+engines of destruction! But what could I do in the agony of the
+moment? I could but show the coolness of my courage by desiring the
+coachman to drive on.
+
+"For God's sake, don't!" said Crasweller, jumping up.
+
+"He shan't stir a step," said Bunnit to the bar-keeper.
+
+"He can't move an inch," replied the other. "We know what our
+precious lives are worth; don't we, Mr Bunnit?"
+
+What could I do? "Mr Second Lieutenant, I must hold you responsible
+for this interruption," said I.
+
+"Exactly so. I am responsible,--as far as stopping this carriage
+goes. Had all the town turned out in your favour, and had this
+gentleman insisted on being carried away to be buried--"
+
+"Nothing of that kind," said Crasweller.
+
+"Then I think I may assume that Captain Battleax will not fire his
+gun. But if you will allow me, I will ask him a question." Then he
+put a minute whistle up to his mouth, and I could see, for the first
+time, that there hung from this the thinnest possible metal wire,--a
+thread of silk, I would have said, only that it was much less
+palpable,--which had been dropped from the whistle as the lieutenant
+had come along, and which now communicated with the vessel. I had,
+of course, heard of this hair telephone, but I had never before
+seen it used in such perfection. I was assured afterwards that one
+of the ship's officers could go ten miles inland and still hold
+communication with his captain. He put the instrument alternately to
+his mouth and to his ear, and then informed me that Captain Battleax
+was desirous that we should all go home to our own houses.
+
+"I decline to go to my own house," I said. The lieutenant shrugged
+his shoulders. "Coachman, as soon as the crowd has dispersed itself,
+you will drive on." The coachman, who was an old assistant in my
+establishment, turned round and looked at me aghast. But he was soon
+put out of his trouble. Bunnit and the bar-keeper took out the horses
+and proceeded to lead them down the hill. Crasweller, as soon as he
+saw this, said that he presumed he might go back, as he could not
+possibly go on. "It is but three miles for us to walk," I said.
+
+"I am forbidden to permit this gentleman to proceed either on foot or
+with the carriage," said the lieutenant. "I am to ask if he will do
+Captain Battleax the honour to come on board and take tiffin with
+him. If I could only prevail on you, Mr President." On this I shook
+my head in eager denial. "Exactly so; but he will hope to see you on
+another occasion soon." I little thought then, how many long days I
+should have to pass with Captain Battleax and his officers, or how
+pleasant companions I should find them when the remembrance of the
+present indignity had been somewhat softened by time.
+
+Crasweller turned upon his heel and walked down the hill with the
+officers,--all the crowd accompanying them; while Bunnit and the
+bar-keeper had gone off with the horses. I had not descended from
+the carriage; but there I was, planted alone,--the President of the
+Republic left on the top of the hill in his carriage without means of
+locomotion! On looking round I saw Jack, and with Jack I saw also a
+lady, shrouded from head to foot in black garments, with a veil over
+her face, whom I knew, from the little round hat upon her head, to be
+Eva. Jack came up to me, but where Eva went I could not see. "Shall
+we walk down to the house?" he said. I felt that his coming to me at
+such a moment was kind, because I had been, as it were, deserted by
+all the world. Then he opened the door of the carriage, and I came
+out. "It was very odd that those fellows should have turned up just
+at this moment," said Jack.
+
+"When things happen very oddly, as you call it, they seem to have
+been premeditated."
+
+"Not their coming to-day. That has not been premeditated; at least
+not to my knowledge. Indeed I did not in the least know what the
+English were likely to do."
+
+"Do you think it right to send to the enemies of your country for aid
+against your country?" This I asked with much indignation, and I had
+refused as yet to take his arm.
+
+"Oh but, sir, England isn't our enemy."
+
+"Not when she comes and interrupts the quiet execution of our laws
+by threats of blowing us and our city and our citizens to instant
+destruction!"
+
+"She would never have done it. I don't suppose that big gun is even
+loaded."
+
+"The more contemptible is her position. She threatens us with a lie
+in her mouth."
+
+"I know nothing about it, sir. The gun may be there all right, and
+the gunpowder, and the twenty tons of iron shot. But I'm sure she'll
+not fire it off in our harbour. They say that each shot costs two
+thousand five hundred pounds, and that the wear and tear to the
+vessel is two thousand more. There are things so terrible, that if
+you will only create a belief in them, that will suffice without
+anything else. I suppose we may walk down. Crasweller has gone, and
+you can do nothing without him."
+
+This was true, and I therefore prepared to descend the hill. My
+position as President of the Republic did demand a certain amount
+of personal dignity; and how was I to uphold that in my present
+circumstances? "Jack," said I, "it is the sign of a noble mind to
+bear contumely without petulance. Since our horses have gone before
+us, and Crasweller and the crowd have gone, we will follow them."
+Then I put my arm within his, and as I walked down the hill, I almost
+took joy in thinking that Crasweller had been spared.
+
+"Sir," said Jack, as we walked on, "I want to tell you something."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Something of most extreme importance to me! I never thought that I
+should have been so fortunate as to announce to you what I've now got
+to say. I hardly know whether I am standing on my head or my heels.
+Eva Crasweller has promised to be my wife."
+
+"Indeed!"
+
+"If you will make us happy by giving us your permission."
+
+"I should not have thought that she would have asked for that."
+
+"She has to ask her father, and he's all right. He did say, when I
+spoke to him this morning, that his permission would go for nothing,
+as he was about to be led away and deposited. Of course I told him
+that all that would amount to nothing."
+
+"To nothing! What right had you to say so?"
+
+"Well, sir,--you see that a party of us were quite determined. Eva
+had said that she would never let me even speak to her as long as her
+father's life was in danger. She altogether hated that wretch Grundle
+for wanting to get rid of him. I swore to her that I would do the
+best I could, and she said that if I could succeed, then--she thought
+she could love me. What was a fellow to do?"
+
+"What did you do?"
+
+"I had it all out with Sir Kennington Oval, who is the prince of
+good fellows; and he telegraphed to his uncle, who is Secretary for
+Benevolence, or some such thing, at home."
+
+"England is not your home," said I.
+
+"It's the way we all speak of it."
+
+"And what did he say?"
+
+"Well, he went to work, and the John Bright was sent out here. But it
+was only an accident that it should come on this very day."
+
+And this was the way in which things are to be managed in Britannula!
+Because a young boy had fallen in love with a pretty girl, the whole
+wealth of England was to be used for a most nefarious purpose, and a
+great nation was to exercise its tyranny over a small one, in which
+her own language was spoken and her own customs followed! In every
+way England had had reason to be proud of her youngest child. We
+Britannulans had become noted for intellect, morals, health, and
+prosperity. We had advanced a step upwards, and had adopted the Fixed
+Period. Then, at the instance of this lad, a leviathan of war was
+to be sent out to crush us unless we would consent to put down the
+cherished conviction of our hearts! As I thought of all, walking
+down the street hanging on Jack's arm, I had to ask myself whether
+the Fixed Period was the cherished conviction of our hearts. It was
+so of some, no doubt; and I had been able, by the intensity of my
+will,--and something, too, by the covetousness and hurry of the
+younger men,--to cause my wishes to prevail in the community. I did
+not find that I had reconciled myself to the use of this covetousness
+with the object of achieving a purpose which I believed to be
+thoroughly good. But the heartfelt conviction had not been strong
+with the people. I was forced to confess as much. Had it indeed been
+really strong with any but myself? Was I not in the position of a
+shepherd driving sheep into a pasture which was distasteful to them?
+Eat, O sheep, and you will love the food in good time,--you or the
+lambs that are coming after you! What sheep will go into unsavoury
+pastures, with no hopes but such as these held out to them? And yet I
+had been right. The pasture had been the best which the ingenuity of
+man had found for the maintenance of sheep.
+
+"Jack," said I, "what a poor, stupid, lovelorn boy you are!"
+
+"I daresay I am," said Jack, meekly.
+
+"You put the kisses of a pretty girl, who may perhaps make you a good
+wife,--and, again, may make you a bad one,--against all the world in
+arms."
+
+"I am quite sure about that," said Jack.
+
+"Sure about what?"
+
+"That there is not a fellow in all Britannula will have such a wife
+as Eva."
+
+"That means that you are in love. And because you are in love, you
+are to throw over--not merely your father, because in such an affair
+that goes for nothing--"
+
+"Oh, but it does; I have thought so much about it."
+
+"I'm much obliged to you. But you are to put yourself in opposition
+to the greatest movement made on behalf of the human race for
+centuries; you are to set yourself up against--"
+
+"Galileo and Columbus," he suggested, quoting my words with great
+cruelty.
+
+"The modern Galileo, sir; the Columbus of this age. And you are to
+conquer them! I, the father, have to submit to you the son; I the
+President of fifty-seven, to you the schoolboy of twenty-one; I the
+thoughtful man, to you the thoughtless boy! I congratulate you; but I
+do not congratulate the world on the extreme folly which still guides
+its actions." Then I left him, and going into the executive chambers,
+sat myself down and cried in the very agony of a broken heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE NEW GOVERNOR.
+
+
+"So," said I to myself, "because of Jack and his love, all the
+aspirations of my life are to be crushed! The whole dream of my
+existence, which has come so near to the fruition of a waking moment,
+is to be violently dispelled because my own son and Sir Kennington
+Oval have settled between them that a pretty girl is to have her own
+way." As I thought of it, there seemed to be a monstrous cruelty
+and potency in Fortune, which she never could have been allowed to
+exercise in a world which was not altogether given over to injustice.
+It was for that that I wept. I wept to think that a spirit of honesty
+should as yet have prevailed so little in the world. Here, in our
+waters, was lying a terrible engine of British power, sent out by a
+British Cabinet Minister,--the so-called Minister of Benevolence, by
+a bitter chance,--at the instance of that Minister's nephew, to put
+down by brute force the most absolutely benevolent project for the
+governance of the world which the mind of man had ever projected. It
+was in that that lay the agony of the blow.
+
+I remained there alone for many hours, but I must acknowledge
+that before I left the chambers I had gradually brought myself to
+look at the matter in another light. Had Eva Crasweller not been
+good-looking, had Jack been still at college, had Sir Kennington Oval
+remained in England, had Mr Bunnit and the bar-keeper not succeeded
+in stopping my carriage on the hill,--should I have succeeded in
+arranging for the final departure of my old friend? That was the
+question which I ought to ask myself. And even had I succeeded in
+carrying my success so far as that, should I not have appeared a
+murderer to my fellow-citizens had not his departure been followed in
+regular sequence by that of all others till it had come to my turn?
+Had Crasweller departed, and had the system then been stopped, should
+I not have appeared a murderer even to myself? And what hope had
+there been, what reasonable expectation, that the system should have
+been allowed fair-play?
+
+It must be understood that I, I myself, have never for a moment
+swerved. But though I have been strong enough to originate the idea,
+I have not been strong enough to bear the terrible harshness of the
+opinions of those around me when I should have exercised against
+those dear to me the mandates of the new law. If I could, in the
+spirit, have leaped over a space of thirty years and been myself
+deposited in due order, I could see that my memory would have
+been embalmed with those who had done great things for their
+fellow-citizens. Columbus, and Galileo, and Newton, and Harvey, and
+Wilberforce, and Cobden, and that great Banting who has preserved us
+all so completely from the horrors of obesity, would not have been
+named with honour more resplendent than that paid to the name of
+Neverbend. Such had been my ambition, such had been my hope. But it
+is necessary that a whole age should be carried up to some proximity
+to the reformer before there is a space sufficiently large for his
+operations. Had the telegraph been invented in the days of ancient
+Rome, would the Romans have accepted it, or have stoned Wheatstone?
+So thinking, I resolved that I was before my age, and that I must pay
+the allotted penalty.
+
+On arriving at home at my own residence, I found that our _salon_ was
+filled with a brilliant company. We did not usually use the room;
+but on entering the house I heard the clatter of conversation, and
+went in. There was Captain Battleax seated there, beautiful with a
+cocked-hat, and an epaulet, and gold braid. He rose to meet me, and
+I saw that he was a handsome tall man about forty, with a determined
+face and a winning smile. "Mr President," said he, "I am in command
+of her Majesty's gunboat, the John Bright, and I have come to pay my
+respects to the ladies."
+
+"I am sure the ladies have great pleasure in seeing you." I looked
+round the room, and there, with other of our fair citizens, I saw
+Eva. As I spoke I made him a gracious bow, and I think I showed
+him by my mode of address that I did not bear any grudge as to my
+individual self.
+
+"I have come to your shores, Mr President, with the purpose of seeing
+how things are progressing in this distant quarter of the world."
+
+"Things were progressing, Captain Battleax, pretty well before this
+morning. We have our little struggles here as elsewhere, and all
+things cannot be done by rose-water. But, on the whole, we are a
+prosperous and well-satisfied people."
+
+"We are quite satisfied now, Captain Battleax," said my wife.
+
+"Quite satisfied," said Eva.
+
+"I am sure we are all delighted to hear the ladies speak in so
+pleasant a manner," said First-Lieutenant Crosstrees, an officer with
+whom I have since become particularly intimate.
+
+Then there was a little pause in the conversation, and I felt myself
+bound to say something as to the violent interruption to which I had
+this morning been subjected. And yet that something must be playful
+in its nature. I must by no means show in such company as was now
+present the strong feeling which pervaded my own mind. "You will
+perceive, Captain Battleax, that there is a little difference of
+opinion between us all here as to the ceremony which was to have
+been accomplished this morning. The ladies, in compliance with that
+softness of heart which is their characteristic, are on one side; and
+the men, by whom the world has to be managed, are on the other. No
+doubt, in process of time the ladies will follow--"
+
+"Their masters," said Mrs Neverbend. "No doubt we shall do so when
+it is only ourselves that we have to sacrifice, but never when the
+question concerns our husbands, our fathers, and our sons."
+
+This was a pretty little speech enough, and received the eager
+compliments of the officers of the John Bright. "I did not mean,"
+said Captain Battleax, "to touch upon public subjects at such a
+moment as this. I am here only to pay my respects as a messenger from
+Great Britain to Britannula, to congratulate you all on your late
+victory at cricket, and to say how loud are the praises bestowed
+on Mr John Neverbend, junior, for his skill and gallantry. The
+power of his arm is already the subject discussed at all clubs and
+drawing-rooms at home. We had received details of the whole affair
+by water-telegram before the John Bright started. Mrs Neverbend, you
+must indeed be proud of your son."
+
+Jack had been standing in the far corner of the room talking to Eva,
+and was now reduced to silence by his praises.
+
+"Sir Kennington Oval is a very fine player," said my wife.
+
+"And my Lord Marylebone behaves himself quite like a British peer,"
+said the wife of the Mayor of Gladstonopolis,--a lady whom he had
+married in England, and who had not moved there in quite the highest
+circles.
+
+Then we began to think of the hospitality of the island, and the
+officers of the John Bright were asked to dine with us on the
+following day. I and my wife and son, and the two Craswellers, and
+three or four others, agreed to dine on board the ship on the next.
+To me personally an extreme of courtesy was shown. It seemed as
+though I were treated with almost royal honour. This, I felt, was
+paid to me as being President of the republic, and I endeavoured to
+behave myself with such mingled humility and dignity as might befit
+the occasion; but I could not but feel that something was wanting
+to the simplicity of my ordinary life. My wife, on the spur of the
+moment, managed to give the gentlemen a very good dinner. Including
+the chaplain and the surgeon, there were twelve of them, and she
+asked twelve of the prettiest girls in Gladstonopolis to meet them.
+This, she said, was true hospitality; and I am not sure that I did
+not agree with her. Then there were three or four leading men of the
+community, with their wives, who were for the most part the fathers
+and mothers of the young ladies. We sat down thirty-six to dinner;
+and I think that we showed a great divergence from those usual
+colonial banquets, at which the elders are only invited to meet
+distinguished guests. The officers were chiefly young men; and a
+greater babel of voices was, I'll undertake to say, never heard from
+a banqueting-hall than came from our dinner-table. Eva Crasweller was
+the queen of the evening, and was as joyous, as beautiful, and as
+high-spirited as a queen should ever be. I did once or twice during
+the festivity glance round at old Crasweller. He was quiet, and I
+might almost say silent, during the whole evening; but I could see
+from the testimony of his altered countenance how strong is the
+passion for life that dwells in the human breast.
+
+"Your promised bride seems to have it all her own way," said Captain
+Battleax to Jack, when at last the ladies had withdrawn.
+
+"Oh yes," said Jack, "and I'm nowhere. But I mean to have my innings
+before long."
+
+Of what Mrs Neverbend had gone through in providing birds, beasts,
+and fishes, not to talk of tarts and jellies, for the dinner of that
+day, no one but myself can have any idea; but it must be admitted
+that she accomplished her task with thorough success. I was told,
+too, that after the invitations had been written, no milliner in
+Britannula was allowed to sleep a single moment till half an hour
+before the ladies were assembled in our drawing-room; but their
+efforts, too, were conspicuously successful.
+
+On the next day some of us went on board the John Bright for a return
+dinner; and very pleasant the officers made it. The living on board
+the John Bright is exceedingly good, as I have had occasion to learn
+from many dinners eaten there since that day. I little thought when I
+sat down at the right hand of Captain Battleax as being the President
+of the republic, with my wife on his left, I should ever spend more
+than a month on board the ship, or write on board it this account of
+all my thoughts and all my troubles in regard to the Fixed Period.
+After dinner Captain Battleax simply proposed my health, paying to
+me many unmeaning compliments, in which, however, I observed that no
+reference was made to the special doings of my presidency; and he
+ended by saying, that though he had, as a matter of courtesy, and
+with the greatest possible alacrity, proposed my health, he would
+not call upon me for any reply. And immediately on his sitting down,
+there got up a gentleman to whom I had not been introduced before
+this day, and gave the health of Mrs Neverbend and the ladies of
+Britannula. Now in spite of what the captain said, I undoubtedly had
+intended to make a speech. When the President of the republic has
+his health drunk, it is, I conceive, his duty to do so. But here the
+gentleman rose with a rapidity which did at the moment seem to have
+been premeditated. At any rate, my eloquence was altogether stopped.
+The gentleman was named Sir Ferdinando Brown. He was dressed in
+simple black, and was clearly not one of the ship's officers; but
+I could not but suspect at the moment that he was in some special
+measure concerned in the mission on which the gunboat had been sent.
+He sat on Mrs Neverbend's left hand, and did seem in some respect
+to be the chief man on that occasion. However, he proposed Mrs
+Neverbend's health and the ladies, and the captain instantly called
+upon the band to play some favourite tune. After that there was
+no attempt at speaking. We sat with the officers some little time
+after dinner, and then went ashore. "Sir Ferdinando and I," said the
+captain, as we shook hands with him, "will do ourselves the honour of
+calling on you at the executive chambers to-morrow morning."
+
+I went home to bed with a presentiment of evil running across my
+heart. A presentiment indeed! How much of evil,--of real accomplished
+evil,--had there not occurred to me during the last few days! Every
+hope for which I had lived, as I then told myself, had been brought
+to sudden extinction by the coming of these men to whom I had been so
+pleasant, and who, in their turn, had been so pleasant to me! What
+could I do now but just lay myself down and die? And the death of
+which I dreamt could not, alas! be that true benumbing death which
+we think may put an end, or at any rate give a change, to all our
+thoughts. To die would be as nothing; but to live as the late
+President of the republic who had fixed his aspirations so high,
+would indeed be very melancholy. As President I had still two
+years to run, but it occurred to me now that I could not possibly
+endure those two years of prolonged nominal power. I should be the
+laughing-stock of the people; and as such, it would become me to hide
+my head. When this captain should have taken himself and his vessel
+back to England, I would retire to a small farm which I possessed at
+the farthest side of the island, and there in seclusion would I end
+my days. Mrs Neverbend should come with me, or stay, if it so pleased
+her, in Gladstonopolis. Jack would become Eva's happy husband,
+and would remain amidst the hurried duties of the eager world.
+Crasweller, the triumphant, would live, and at last die, amidst the
+flocks and herds of Little Christchurch. I, too, would have a small
+herd, a little flock of my own, surrounded by no such glories as
+those of Little Christchurch,--owing nothing to wealth, or scenery,
+or neighbourhood,--and there, till God should take me, I would spend
+the evening of my day. Thinking of all this, I went to sleep.
+
+On the next morning Sir Ferdinando Brown and Captain Battleax were
+announced at the executive chambers. I had already been there at my
+work for a couple of hours; but Sir Ferdinando apologised for the
+earliness of his visit. It seemed to me as he entered the room and
+took the chair that was offered to him, that he was the greater man
+of the two on the occasion,--or perhaps I should say of the three.
+And yet he had not before come on shore to visit me, nor had he
+made one at our little dinner-party. "Mr Neverbend," began the
+captain,--and I observed that up to that moment he had generally
+addressed me as President,--"it cannot be denied that we have come
+here on an unpleasant mission. You have received us with all that
+courtesy and hospitality for which your character in England stands
+so high. But you must be aware that it has been our intention to
+interfere with that which you must regard as the performance of a
+duty."
+
+"It is a duty," said I. "But your power is so superior to any that
+I can advance, as to make us here feel that there is no disgrace in
+yielding to it. Therefore we can be courteous while we submit. Not a
+doubt but had your force been only double or treble our own, I should
+have found it my duty to struggle with you. But how can a little
+State, but a few years old, situated on a small island, far removed
+from all the centres of civilisation, contend on any point with the
+owner of the great 250-ton swiveller-gun?"
+
+"That is all quite true, Mr Neverbend," said Sir Ferdinando Brown.
+
+"I can afford to smile, because I am absolutely powerless before you;
+but I do not the less feel that, in a matter in which the progress of
+the world is concerned, I, or rather we, have been put down by brute
+force. You have come to us threatening us with absolute destruction.
+Whether your gun be loaded or not matters little."
+
+"It is certainly loaded," said Captain Battleax.
+
+"Then you have wasted your powder and shot. Like a highwayman, it
+would have sufficed for you merely to tell the weak and cowardly that
+your pistol would be made to go off when wanted. To speak the truth,
+Captain Battleax, I do not think that you excel us more in courage
+than you do in thought and practical wisdom. Therefore, I feel myself
+quite able, as President of this republic, to receive you with a
+courtesy due to the servants of a friendly ally."
+
+"Very well put," said Sir Ferdinando. I simply bowed to him. "And
+now," he continued, "will you answer me one question?"
+
+"A dozen if it suits you to ask them."
+
+"Captain Battleax cannot remain here long with that expensive toy
+which he keeps locked up somewhere among his cocked-hats and white
+gloves. I can assure you he has not even allowed me to see the
+trigger since I have been on board. But 250-ton swivellers do cost
+money, and the John Bright must steam away, and play its part in
+other quarters of the globe. What do you intend to do when he shall
+have taken his pocket-pistol away?"
+
+I thought for a little what answer it would best become me to give
+to this question, but I paused only for a moment or two. "I shall
+proceed at once to carry out the Fixed Period." I felt that my honour
+demanded that to such a question I should make no other reply.
+
+"And that in opposition to the wishes, as I understand, of a large
+proportion of your fellow-citizens?"
+
+"The wishes of our fellow-citizens have been declared by repeated
+majorities in the Assembly."
+
+"You have only one House in your Constitution," said Sir Ferdinando.
+
+"One House I hold to be quite sufficient."
+
+I was proceeding to explain the theory on which the Britannulan
+Constitution had been formed, when Sir Ferdinando interrupted me. "At
+any rate, you will admit that a second Chamber is not there to guard
+against the sudden action of the first. But we need not discuss all
+this now. It is your purpose to carry out your Fixed Period as soon
+as the John Bright shall have departed?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"And you are, I am aware, sufficiently popular with the people here
+to enable you to do so?"
+
+"I think I am," I said, with a modest acquiescence in an assertion
+which I felt to be so much to my credit. But I blushed for its
+untruth.
+
+"Then," said Sir Ferdinando, "there is nothing for it but that he
+must take you with him."
+
+There came upon me a sudden shock when I heard these words, which
+exceeded anything which I had yet felt. Me, the President of a
+foreign nation, the first officer of a people with whom Great Britain
+was at peace,--the captain of one of her gunboats must carry me off,
+hurry me away a prisoner, whither I knew not, and leave the country
+ungoverned, with no President as yet elected to supply my place! And
+I, looking at the matter from my own point of view, was a husband,
+the head of a family, a man largely concerned in business,--I was to
+be carried away in bondage--I, who had done no wrong, had disobeyed
+no law, who had indeed been conspicuous for my adherence to my
+duties! No opposition ever shown to Columbus and Galileo had come
+near to this in audacity and oppression. I, the President of a free
+republic, the elected of all its people, the chosen depository of its
+official life,--I was to be kidnapped and carried off in a ship of
+war, because, forsooth, I was deemed too popular to rule the country!
+And this was told to me in my own room in the executive chambers, in
+the very sanctum of public life, by a stout florid gentleman in a
+black coat, of whom I hitherto knew nothing except that his name was
+Brown!
+
+"Sir," I said, after a pause, and turning to Captain Battleax and
+addressing him, "I cannot believe that you, as an officer in the
+British navy, will commit any act of tyranny so oppressive, and of
+injustice so gross, as that which this gentleman has named."
+
+"You hear what Sir Ferdinando Brown has said," replied Captain
+Battleax.
+
+"I do not know the gentleman,--except as having been introduced to
+him at your hospitable table. Sir Ferdinando Brown is to me--simply
+Sir Ferdinando Brown."
+
+"Sir Ferdinando has lately been our British Governor in Ashantee,
+where he has, as I may truly say, 'bought golden opinions from all
+sorts of people.' He has now been sent here on this delicate mission,
+and to no one could it be intrusted by whom it would be performed
+with more scrupulous honour." This was simply the opinion of Captain
+Battleax, and expressed in the presence of the gentleman himself whom
+he so lauded.
+
+"But what is the delicate mission?" I asked.
+
+Then Sir Ferdinando told his whole story, which I think should have
+been declared before I had been asked to sit down to dinner with him
+in company with the captain on board the ship. I was to be taken away
+and carried to England or elsewhere,--or drowned upon the voyage,
+it mattered not which. That was the first step to be taken towards
+carrying out the tyrannical, illegal, and altogether injurious
+intention of the British Government. Then the republic of Britannula
+was to be declared as non-existent, and the British flag was to be
+exalted, and a British Governor installed in the executive chambers!
+That Governor was to be Sir Ferdinando Brown.
+
+I was lost in a maze of wonderment as I attempted to look at the
+proceeding all round. Now, at the close of the twentieth century,
+could oppression be carried to such a height as this? "Gentlemen," I
+said, "you are powerful. That little instrument which you have hidden
+in your cabin makes you the master of us all. It has been prepared
+by the ingenuity of men, able to dominate matter though altogether
+powerless over mind. On myself, I need hardly say that it would be
+inoperative. Though you should reduce me to atoms, from them would
+spring those opinions which would serve altogether to silence your
+artillery. But the dread of it is to the generality much more
+powerful than the fact of its possession."
+
+"You may be quite sure it's there," said Captain Battleax, "and that
+I can so use it as to half obliterate your town within two minutes of
+my return on board."
+
+"You propose to kidnap me," I said. "What would become of your gun
+were I to kidnap you?"
+
+"Lieutenant Crosstrees has sealed orders, and is practically
+acquainted with the mechanism of the gun. Lieutenant Crosstrees is
+a very gallant officer. One of us always remains on board while the
+other is on shore. He would think nothing of blowing me up, so long
+as he obeyed orders."
+
+"I was going on to observe," I continued, "that though this power
+is in your hands, and in that of your country, the exercise of it
+betrays not only tyranny of disposition, but poorness and meanness
+of spirit." I here bowed first to the one gentleman, and then to the
+other. "It is simply a contest between brute strength and mental
+energy."
+
+"If you will look at the contests throughout the world," said Sir
+Ferdinando, "you will generally find that the highest respect is paid
+to the greatest battalions."
+
+"What world-wide iniquity such a speech as that discloses!" said I,
+still turning myself to the captain; for though I would have crushed
+them both by my words had it been possible, my dislike centred itself
+on Sir Ferdinando. He was a man who looked as though everything were
+to yield to his meagre philosophy; and it seemed to me as though he
+enjoyed the exercise of the tyranny which chance had put into his
+power.
+
+"You will allow me to suggest," said he, "that that is a matter of
+opinion. In the meantime, my friend Captain Battleax has below a
+guard of fifty marines, who will pay you the respect of escorting you
+on board with two of the ship's cutters. Everything that can be there
+done for your accommodation and comfort,--every luxury which can be
+provided to solace the President of this late republic,--shall be
+afforded. But, Mr Neverbend, it is necessary that you should go to
+England; and allow me to assure you, that your departure can neither
+be prevented nor delayed by uncivil words spoken to the future
+Governor of this prosperous colony."
+
+"My words are, at any rate, less uncivil than Captain Battleax's
+marines; and they have, I submit, been made necessary by the conduct
+of your country in this matter. Were I to comply with your orders
+without expressing my own opinion, I should seem to have done so
+willingly hereafter. I say that the English Government is a tyrant,
+and that you are the instruments of its tyranny. Now you can proceed
+to do your work."
+
+"That having all been pleasantly settled," said Sir Ferdinando, with
+a smile, "I will ask you to read the document by which this duty has
+been placed in my hands." He then took out of his pocket a letter
+addressed to him by the Duke of Hatfield, as Minister for the Crown
+Colonies, and gave it to me to read. The letter ran as follows:--
+
+
+   COLONIAL OFFICE, CROWN COLONIES,
+   15th May 1980.
+
+   SIR,--I have it in command to inform your Excellency that
+   you have been appointed Governor of the Crown colony which
+   is called Britannula. The peculiar circumstances of the
+   colony are within your Excellency's knowledge. Some years
+   since, after the separation of New Zealand, the inhabitants
+   of Britannula requested to be allowed to manage their own
+   affairs, and H.M. Minister of the day thought it expedient
+   to grant their request. The country has since undoubtedly
+   prospered, and in a material point of view has given
+   us no grounds for regret. But in their selection of a
+   Constitution the Britannulists have unfortunately allowed
+   themselves but one deliberative assembly, and hence have
+   sprung their present difficulties. It must be, that in
+   such circumstances crude councils should be passed as laws
+   without the safeguard coming from further discussion and
+   thought. At the present moment a law has been passed which,
+   if carried into action, would become abhorrent to mankind
+   at large. It is contemplated to destroy all those who shall
+   have reached a certain fixed age. The arguments put forward
+   to justify so strange a measure I need not here explain at
+   length. It is founded on the acknowledged weakness of those
+   who survive that period of life at which men cease to work.
+   This terrible doctrine has been adopted at the advice of
+   an eloquent citizen of the republic, who is at present
+   its President, and whose general popularity seems to be
+   so great, that, in compliance with his views, even this
+   measure will be carried out unless Great Britain shall
+   interfere.
+
+   You are desired to proceed at once to Britannula, to
+   reannex the island, and to assume the duties of the
+   Governor of a Crown colony. It is understood that a year of
+   probation is to be allowed to those victims who have agreed
+   to their own immolation. You will therefore arrive there
+   in ample time to prevent the first bloodshed. But it is
+   surmised that you will find difficulties in the way of your
+   entering at once upon your government. So great is the
+   popularity of their President, Mr Neverbend, that, if he be
+   left on the island, your Excellency will find a dangerous
+   rival. It is therefore desired that you should endeavour
+   to obtain information as to his intentions; and that, if
+   the Fixed Period be not abandoned altogether, with a clear
+   conviction as to its cruelty on the part of the inhabitants
+   generally, you should cause him to be carried away and
+   brought to England.
+
+   To enable you to effect this, Captain Battleax, of H.M.
+   gunboat the John Bright, has been instructed to carry
+   you out. The John Bright is armed with a weapon of great
+   power, against which it is impossible that the people of
+   Britannula should prevail. You will carry out with you 100
+   men of the North-north-west Birmingham regiment, which will
+   probably suffice for your own security, as it is thought
+   that if Mr Neverbend be withdrawn, the people will revert
+   easily to their old habits of obedience.
+
+   In regard to Mr Neverbend himself, it is the especial
+   wish of H.M. Government that he shall be treated with all
+   respect, and that those honours shall be paid to him which
+   are due to the President of a friendly republic. It is to
+   be expected that he should not allow himself to make an
+   enforced visit to England without some opposition; but
+   it is considered in the interests of humanity to be so
+   essential that this scheme of the Fixed Period shall not be
+   carried out, that H.M. Government consider that his absence
+   from Britannula shall be for a time insured. You will
+   therefore insure it; but will take care that, as far as
+   lies in your Excellency's power, he be treated with all
+   that respect and hospitality which would be due to him were
+   he still the President of an allied republic.
+
+   Captain Battleax, of the John Bright, will have received
+   a letter to the same effect from the First Lord of the
+   Admiralty, and you will find him ready to co-operate with
+   your Excellency in every respect.--I have the honour to be,
+   sir, your Excellency's most obedient servant,
+
+   HATFIELD.
+
+
+This I read with great attention, while they sat silent. "I
+understand it; and that is all, I suppose, that I need say upon the
+subject. When do you intend that the John Bright shall start?"
+
+"We have already lighted our fires, and our sailors are weighing the
+anchors. Will twelve o'clock suit you?"
+
+"To-day!" I shouted.
+
+"I rather think we must move to-day," said the captain.
+
+"If so, you must be content to take my dead body. It is now nearly
+eleven."
+
+"Half-past ten," said the captain, looking at his watch.
+
+"And I have no one ready to whom I can give up the archives of the
+Government."
+
+"I shall be happy to take charge of them," said Sir Ferdinando.
+
+"No doubt,--knowing nothing of the forms of our government, or--"
+
+"They, of course, must all be altered."
+
+"Or of the habits of our people. It is quite impossible. I, too, have
+the complicated affairs of my entire life to arrange, and my wife and
+son to leave though I would not for a moment be supposed to put these
+private matters forward when the public service is concerned. But the
+time you name is so unreasonable as to create a feeling of horror at
+your tyranny."
+
+"A feeling of horror would be created on the other side of the
+water," said Sir Ferdinando, "at the idea of what you may do if
+you escape us. I should not consider my head to be safe on my own
+shoulders were it to come to pass that while I am on the island an
+old man were executed in compliance with your system."
+
+Alas! I could not but feel how little he knew of the sentiment which
+prevailed in Britannula; how false was his idea of my power; and how
+potent was that love of life which had been evinced in the city when
+the hour for deposition had become nigh. All this I could hardly
+explain to him, as I should thus be giving to him the strongest
+evidence against my own philosophy. And yet it was necessary that
+I should say something to make him understand that this sudden
+deportation was not necessary. And then during that moment there came
+to me suddenly an idea that it might be well that I should take this
+journey to England, and there begin again my career,--as Columbus,
+after various obstructions, had recommenced his,--and that I should
+endeavour to carry with me the people of Great Britain, as I
+had already carried the more quickly intelligent inhabitants of
+Britannula. And in order that I may do so, I have now prepared these
+pages, writing them on board H.M. gunboat, the John Bright.
+
+"Your power is sufficient," I said.
+
+"We are not sure of that," said Sir Ferdinando. "It is always well to
+be on the safe side."
+
+"Are you so afraid of what a single old man can do,--you with
+your 250-ton swivellers, and your guard of marines, and your
+North-north-west Birmingham soldiery?"
+
+"That depends on who and what the old man may be." This was the
+first complimentary speech which Sir Ferdinando had made, and I
+must confess that it was efficacious. I did not after that feel so
+strong a dislike to the man as I had done before. "We do not wish
+to make ourselves disagreeable to you, Mr Neverbend." I shrugged my
+shoulders. "Unnecessarily disagreeable, I should have said. You are
+a man of your word." Here I bowed to him. "If you will give us your
+promise to meet Captain Battleax here at this time to-morrow, we
+will stretch a point and delay the departure of the John Bright for
+twenty-four hours." To this again I objected violently; and at last,
+as an extreme favour, two entire days were allowed for my departure.
+
+The craft of men versed in the affairs of the old Eastern world
+is notorious. I afterwards learned that the stokers on board the
+ship were only pretending to get up their fires, and the sailors
+pretending to weigh their anchors, in order that their operations
+might be visible, and that I might suppose that I had received a
+great favour from my enemies' hands. And this plan was adopted, too,
+in order to extract from me a promise that I would depart in peace.
+At any rate, I did make the promise, and gave these two gentlemen my
+word that I would be present there in my own room in the executive
+chambers at the same hour on the day but one following.
+
+"And now," said Sir Ferdinando, "that this matter is settled between
+us, allow me most cordially to shake you by the hand, and to express
+my great admiration for your character. I cannot say that I agree
+with you in theory as to the Fixed Period,--my wife and children
+could not, I am sure, endure to see me led away when a certain day
+should come,--but I can understand that much may be said on the
+point, and I admire greatly the eloquence and energy which you have
+devoted to the matter. I shall be happy to meet you here at any hour
+to-morrow, and to receive the Britannulan archives from your hands.
+You, Mr Neverbend, will always be regarded as the father of your
+country--
+
+
+   'Roma patrem patriae Ciceronem libera dixit.'"
+
+
+With this the two gentlemen left the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE TOWN-HALL.
+
+
+When I went home and told them what was to be done, they were of
+course surprised, but apparently not very unhappy. Mrs Neverbend
+suggested that she should accompany me, so as to look after my linen
+and other personal comforts. But I told her, whether truly or not I
+hardly then knew, that there would be no room for her on board a ship
+of war such as the John Bright. Since I have lived on board her, I
+have become aware that they would willingly have accommodated, at my
+request, a very much larger family than my own. Mrs Neverbend at once
+went to work to provide for my enforced absence, and in the course of
+the day Eva Crasweller came in to help her. Eva's manner to myself
+had become perfectly altered since the previous morning. Nothing
+could be more affectionate, more gracious, or more winning, than she
+was now; and I envied Jack the short moments of _tete-a-tete_ retreat
+which seemed from time to time to be necessary for carrying out the
+arrangements of the day.
+
+I may as well state here, that from this time Abraham Grundle
+showed himself to be a declared enemy, and that the partnership was
+dissolved between Crasweller and himself. He at once brought an
+action against my old friend for the recovery of that proportion of
+his property to which he was held to be entitled under our marriage
+laws. This Mr Crasweller immediately offered to pay him; but some
+of our more respectable lawyers interfered, and persuaded him not
+to make the sacrifice. There then came on a long action, with an
+appeal,--all which was given against Grundle, and nearly ruined the
+Grundles. It seemed to me, as far as I could go into the matter, that
+Grundle had all the law on his side. But there arose certain quibbles
+and questions, all of which Jack had at his fingers'-ends, by the
+strength of which the unfortunate young man was trounced. As I
+learned by the letters which Eva wrote to me, Crasweller was all
+through most anxious to pay him; but the lawyers would not have it
+so, and therefore so much of the property of Little Christchurch was
+saved for the ultimate benefit of that happy fellow Jack Neverbend.
+
+On the afternoon of the one day which, as a matter of grace, had
+been allowed to me, Sir Ferdinando declared his intention of making
+a speech to the people of Gladstonopolis. "He was desirous," he
+said, "of explaining to the community at large the objects of H.M.
+Government in sending him to Britannula, and in requesting the
+inhabitants to revert to their old form of government." "Request
+indeed," I said to Crasweller, throwing all possible scorn into the
+tone of my voice,--"request! with the North-north-west Birmingham
+regiment, and his 250-ton steam-swiveller in the harbour! That
+Ferdinando Brown knows how to conceal his claws beneath a velvet
+glove. We are to be slaves,--slaves because England so wills it. We
+are robbed of our constitution, our freedom of action is taken from
+us, and we are reduced to the lamentable condition of a British Crown
+colony! And all this is to be done because we had striven to rise
+above the prejudices of the day." Crasweller smiled, and said not a
+word to oppose me, and accepted all my indignation with assent; but
+he certainly did not show any enthusiasm. A happier old gentleman,
+or one more active for his years, I had never known. It was but
+yesterday that I had seen him so absolutely cowed as to be hardly
+able to speak a word. And all this change had occurred simply because
+he was to be allowed to die out in the open world, instead of
+enjoying the honour of having been the first to depart in conformity
+with the new theory. He and I, however, spent thus one day longer
+in sweet friendship; and I do not doubt but that, when I return
+to Britannula, I shall find him living in great comfort at Little
+Christchurch.
+
+At three o'clock we all went into our great town-hall to hear what
+Sir Ferdinando had to say to us. The chamber is a very spacious one,
+fitted up with a large organ, and all the arrangements necessary for
+a music-hall; but I had never seen a greater crowd than was collected
+there on this occasion. There was not a vacant corner to be found;
+and I heard that very many of the inhabitants went away greatly
+displeased in that they could not be accommodated. Sir Ferdinando had
+been very particular in asking the attendance of Captain Battleax,
+and as many of the ship's officers as could be spared. This, I was
+told, he did in order that something of the _eclat_ of his oration
+might be taken back to England. Sir Ferdinando was a man who thought
+much of his own eloquence,--and much also of the advantage which he
+might reap from it in the opinion of his fellow-countrymen generally.
+I found that a place of honour had been reserved for me too at his
+right hand, and also one for my wife at his left. I must confess that
+in these last moments of my sojourn among the people over whom I had
+ruled, I was treated with the most distinguished courtesy. But, as
+I continued to say to myself, I was to be banished in a few hours
+as one whose intended cruelties were too abominable to allow of my
+remaining in my own country. On the first seat behind the chair sat
+Captain Battleax, with four or five of his officers behind him. "So
+you have left Lieutenant Crosstrees in charge of your little toy," I
+whispered to Captain Battleax.
+
+"With a glass," he replied, "by which he will be able to see whether
+you leave the building. In that case, he will blow us all into
+atoms."
+
+Then Sir Ferdinando rose to his legs, and began his speech. I had
+never before heard a specimen of that special oratory to which the
+epithet flowery may be most appropriately applied. It has all the
+finished polish of England, joined to the fervid imagination of
+Ireland. It streams on without a pause, and without any necessary end
+but that which the convenience of time may dictate. It comes without
+the slightest effort, and it goes without producing any great effect.
+It is sweet at the moment. It pleases many, and can offend none. But
+it is hardly afterwards much remembered, and is efficacious only in
+smoothing somewhat the rough ways of this harsh world. But I have
+observed that in what I have read of British debates, those who have
+been eloquent after this fashion are generally firm to some purpose
+of self-interest. Sir Ferdinando had on this occasion dressed himself
+with minute care; and though he had for the hour before been very
+sedulous in manipulating certain notes, he now was careful to show
+not a scrap of paper; and I must do him the justice to declare that
+he spun out the words from the reel of his memory as though they all
+came spontaneous and pat to his tongue.
+
+"Mr Neverbend," he said, "ladies and gentlemen,--I have to-day for
+the first time the great pleasure of addressing an intelligent
+concourse of citizens in Britannula. I trust that before my
+acquaintance with this prosperous community may be brought to an end,
+I may have many another opportunity afforded me of addressing you. It
+has been my lot in life to serve my Sovereign in various parts of the
+world, and humbly to represent the throne of England in every quarter
+of the globe. But by the admitted testimony of all people,--my
+fellow-countrymen at home in England, and those who are equally my
+fellow-countrymen in the colonies to which I have been sent,--it is
+acknowledged that in prosperity, intelligence, and civilisation, you
+are excelled by no English-speaking section of the world. And if by
+none who speak English, who shall then aspire to excel you? Such,
+as I have learned, has been the common verdict given; and as I look
+round this vast room, on a spot which fifty years ago the marsupial
+races had under their own dominion, and see the feminine beauty and
+manly grace which greet me on every side, I can well believe that
+some peculiarly kind freak of nature has been at work, and has tended
+to produce a people as strong as it is beautiful, and as clever in
+its wit as it is graceful in its actions." Here the speaker paused,
+and the audience all clapped their hands and stamped their feet,
+which seemed to me to be a very improper mode of testifying their
+assent to their own praises. But Sir Ferdinando took it all in good
+part, and went on with his speech.
+
+"I have been sent here, ladies and gentlemen, on a peculiar
+mission,--on a duty as to which, though I am desirous of explaining
+it to all of you in every detail, I feel a difficulty of saying a
+single word." "Fixed Period," was shouted from one of the balconies
+in a voice which I recognised as that of Mr Tallowax. "My friend
+in the gallery," continued Sir Ferdinando, "reminds me of the very
+word for which I should in vain have cudgelled my brain. The Fixed
+Period is the subject on which I am called upon to say to you a few
+words;--the Fixed Period, and the man who has, I believe, been among
+you the chief author of that system of living,--and if I may be
+permitted to say so, of dying also." Here the orator allowed his
+voice to fade away in a melancholy cadence, while he turned his face
+towards me, and with a gentle motion laid his right hand upon my
+shoulder. "Oh, my friends, it is, to say the least of it, a startling
+project." "Uncommon, if it was your turn next," said Tallowax in the
+gallery. "Yes, indeed," continued Sir Ferdinando, "if it were my
+turn next! I must own, that though I should consider myself to be
+affronted if I were told that I were faint-hearted,--though I should
+know myself to be maligned if it were said of me that I have a
+coward's fear of death,--still I should feel far from comfortable if
+that age came upon me which this system has defined, and were I to
+live in a country in which it has prevailed. Though I trust that I
+may be able to meet death like a brave man when it may come, still I
+should wish that it might come by God's hand, and not by the wisdom
+of a man.
+
+"I have nothing to say against the wisdom of that man," continued
+he, turning to me again. "I know all the arguments with which he
+has fortified himself. They have travelled even as far as my ears;
+but I venture to use the experience which I have gathered in many
+countries, and to tell him that in accordance with God's purposes the
+world is not as yet ripe for his wisdom." I could not help thinking
+as he spoke thus, that he was not perhaps acquainted with all the
+arguments on which my system of the Fixed Period was founded; and
+that if he would do me the honour to listen to a few words which I
+proposed to speak to the people of Britannula before I left them,
+he would have clearer ideas about it than had ever yet entered into
+his mind. "Oh, my friends," said he, rising to the altitudes of his
+eloquence, "it is fitting for us that we should leave these things in
+the hands of the Almighty. It is fitting for us, at any rate, that we
+should do so till we have been brought by Him to a state of god-like
+knowledge infinitely superior to that which we at present possess."
+Here I could perceive that Sir Ferdinando was revelling in the sounds
+of his own words, and that he had prepared and learnt by heart the
+tones of his voice, and even the motion of his hands. "We all know
+that it is not allowed to us to rush into His presence by any deed of
+our own. You all remember what the poet says,--
+
+
+   'Or that the Everlasting had not fixed
+    His canon 'gainst self-slaughter!'
+
+
+Is not this self-slaughter, this theory in accordance with which a
+man shall devote himself to death at a certain period? And if a man
+may not slay himself, how shall he then, in the exercise of his poor
+human wit, devote a fellow-creature to certain death?" "And he as
+well as ever he was in his life," said Tallowax in the gallery.
+
+"My friend does well to remind me. Though Mr Neverbend has named a
+Fixed Period for human life, and has perhaps chosen that at which its
+energies may usually be found to diminish, who can say that he has
+even approached the certainty of that death which the Lord sends
+upon us all at His own period? The poor fellow to whom nature has
+been unkind, departs from us decrepit and worn out at forty; whereas
+another at seventy is still hale and strong in performing the daily
+work of his life."
+
+"I am strong enough to do a'most anything for myself, and I was to
+be the next to go,--the very next." This in a treble voice came from
+that poor fellow Barnes, who had suffered nearly the pangs of death
+itself from the Fixed Period.
+
+"Yes, indeed; in answer to such an appeal as that, who shall venture
+to say that the Fixed Period shall be carried out with all its
+startling audacity? The tenacity of purpose which distinguishes our
+friend here is known to us all. The fame of his character in that
+respect had reached my ears even among the thick-lipped inhabitants
+of Central Africa." I own I did wonder whether this could be true.
+"'Justum et tenacem propositi virum!' Nothing can turn him from his
+purpose, or induce him to change his inflexible will. You know him,
+and I know him, and he is well known throughout England. Persuasion
+can never touch him; fear has no power over him. He, as one unit, is
+strong against a million. He is invincible, imperturbable, and ever
+self-assured."
+
+I, as I sat there listening to this character of myself, heroic
+somewhat, but utterly unlike the person for whom it was intended,
+felt that England knew very little about me, and cared less; and
+I could not but be angry that my name should be used in this
+way to adorn the sentences of Sir Ferdinando's speech. Here in
+Gladstonopolis I was well known,--and well known to be neither
+imperturbable nor self-assured. But all the people seemed to accept
+what he said, and I could not very well interrupt him. He had his
+opportunity now, and I perhaps might have mine by-and-by.
+
+"My friends," continued Sir Ferdinando, "at home in England, where,
+though we are powerful by reason of our wealth and numbers--" "Just
+so," said I. "Where we are powerful, I repeat, by reason of our
+wealth and numbers, though perhaps less advanced than you are in
+the philosophical arrangements of life, it has seemed to us to be
+impossible that the theory should be allowed to be carried to its
+legitimate end. The whole country would be horrified were one life
+sacrificed to this theory." "We knew that,--we knew that," said the
+voice of Tallowax. "And yet your Assembly had gone so far as to give
+to the system all the stability of law. Had not the John Bright
+steamed into your harbour yesterday, one of your most valued citizens
+would have been already--deposited." When he had so spoken, he turned
+round to Mr Crasweller, who was sitting on my right hand, and bowed
+to him. Crasweller looked straight before him, and took no notice of
+Sir Ferdinando. He was at the present moment rather on my side of the
+question, and having had his freedom secured to him, did not care for
+Sir Ferdinando.
+
+"But that has been prevented, thanks to the extraordinary rapidity
+with which my excellent friend Captain Battleax has made his way
+across the ocean. And I must say that every one of these excellent
+fellows, his officers, has done his best to place H.M. ship the John
+Bright in her commanding position with the least possible delay."
+Here he turned round and bowed to the officers, and by keen eyes
+might have been observed to bow through the windows also to the
+vessel, which lay a mile off in the harbour. "There will not, at
+any rate for the present, be any Fixed Period for human life in
+Britannula. That dream has been dreamed,--at any rate for the
+present. Whether in future ages such a philosophy may prevail, who
+shall say? At present we must all await our death from the hands of
+the Almighty. 'Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.'
+
+"And now, gentlemen, I have to request your attention for a few
+moments to another matter, and one which is very different from this
+which we have discussed. I am to say a few words of the past and
+the present,--of your past constitution, and of that which it is my
+purpose to inaugurate." Here there arose a murmur through the room
+very audible, and threatening by its sounds to disturb the orator. "I
+will ask your favour for a few minutes; and when you shall have heard
+me to-day, I will in my turn hear you to-morrow. Great Britain at
+your request surrendered to you the power of self-government. To
+so small an English-speaking community has this never before been
+granted. And I am bound to say that you have in many respects shown
+yourselves fit for the responsibility imposed upon you. You have been
+intelligent, industrious, and prudent. Ignorance has been expelled
+from your shores, and poverty has been forced to hide her diminished
+head." Here the orator paused to receive that applause which he
+conceived to be richly his due; but the occupants of the benches
+before him sat sternly silent. There were many there who had been
+glad to see a ship of war come in to stop the Fixed Period, but
+hardly one who was pleased to lose his own independence. "But though
+that is so," said Sir Ferdinando, a little nettled at the want of
+admiration with which his words had been received, "H.M. Government
+is under the necessity of putting an end to the constitution under
+which the Fixed Period can be allowed to prevail. While you have made
+laws for yourselves, any laws so made must have all the force of
+law." "That's not so certain," said a voice from a distance, which I
+shrewdly suspect to have been that of my hopeful son, Jack Neverbend.
+"As Great Britain cannot and will not permit the Fixed Period to be
+carried out among any English-speaking race of people--"
+
+"How about the United States?" said a voice.
+
+"The United States have made no such attempt; but I will proceed. It
+has therefore sent me out to assume the reins, and to undertake the
+power, and to bear the responsibility of being your governor during a
+short term of years. Who shall say what the future may disclose? For
+the present I shall rule here. But I shall rule by the aid of your
+laws."
+
+"Not the Fixed Period law," said Exors, who was seated on the floor
+of the chamber immediately under the orator.
+
+"No; that law will be specially wiped out from your statute-book. In
+other respects, your laws and those of Great Britain are nearly the
+same. There may be divergences, as in reference to the non-infliction
+of capital punishment. In such matters I shall endeavour to follow
+your wishes, and so to govern you that you may still feel that you
+are living under the rule of a president of your own selection." Here
+I cannot but think that Sir Ferdinando was a little rash. He did not
+quite know the extent of my popularity, nor had he gauged the dislike
+which he himself would certainly encounter. He had heard a few voices
+in the hall, which, under fear of death, had expressed their dislike
+to the Fixed Period; but he had no idea of the love which the people
+felt for their own independence, or,--I believe I may say,--for their
+own president. There arose in the hall a certain amount of clamour,
+in the midst of which Sir Ferdinando sat down.
+
+Then there was a shuffling of feet as of a crowd going away. Sir
+Ferdinando having sat down, got up again and shook me warmly by the
+hand. I returned his greeting with my pleasantest smile; and then,
+while the people were moving, I spoke to them two or three words. I
+told them that I should start to-morrow at noon for England, under
+a promise made by me to their new governor, and that I purposed to
+explain to them, before I went, under what circumstances I had given
+that promise, and what it was that I intended to do when I should
+reach England. Would they meet me there, in that hall, at eight
+o'clock that evening, and hear the last words which I should have
+to address to them? Then the hall was filled with a mighty shout,
+and there arose a great fury of exclamation. There was a waving of
+handkerchiefs, and a holding up of hats, and all those signs of
+enthusiasm which are wont to greet the popular man of the hour. And
+in the midst of them, Sir Ferdinando Brown stood up upon his legs,
+and continued to bow without cessation.
+
+At eight, the hall was again full to overflowing. I had been busy,
+and came down a little late, and found a difficulty in making my way
+to the chair which Sir Ferdinando had occupied in the morning. I
+had had no time to prepare my words, though the thoughts had rushed
+quickly,--too quickly,--into my mind. It was as though they would
+tumble out from my own mouth in precipitate energy. On my right hand
+sat the governor, as I must now call him; and in the chair on my left
+was placed my wife. The officers of the gunboat were not present,
+having occupied themselves, no doubt, in banking up their fires.
+
+"My fellow-citizens," I said, "a sudden end has been brought to
+that self-government of which we have been proud, and by which Sir
+Ferdinando has told you that 'ignorance has been expelled from your
+shores, and poverty has been forced to hide her diminished head.' I
+trust that, under his experience, which he tells us as a governor has
+been very extensive, those evils may not now fall upon you. We are,
+however, painfully aware that they do prevail wherever the concrete
+power of Great Britain is found to be in full force. A man ruling
+us,--us and many other millions of subjects,--from the other side of
+the globe, cannot see our wants and watch our progress as we can
+do ourselves. And even Sir Ferdinando coming upon us with all his
+experience, can hardly be able to ascertain how we may be made happy
+and prosperous. He has with him, however, a company of a celebrated
+English regiment, with its attendant officers, who, by their red
+coats and long swords, will no doubt add to the cheerfulness of your
+social gatherings. I hope that you may not find that they shall ever
+interfere with you after a rougher fashion.
+
+"But upon me, my fellow-citizens, has fallen the great disgrace of
+having robbed you of your independence." Here a murmur ran through
+the hall, declaring that this was not so. "So your new Governor
+has told you, but he has not told you the exact truth. With whom
+the doctrine of the Fixed Period first originated, I will not now
+inquire. All the responsibility I will take upon myself, though the
+honour and glory I must share with my fellow-countrymen.
+
+"Your Governor has told you that he is aware of all the arguments by
+which the Fixed Period is maintained; but I think that he must be
+mistaken here, as he has not ventured to attack one of them. He has
+told us that it is fitting that we should leave the question of life
+and death in the hands of the Almighty. If so, why is all Europe
+bristling at this moment with arms,--prepared, as we must suppose,
+for shortening life,--and why is there a hangman attached to the
+throne of Great Britain as one of its necessary executive officers?
+Why in the Old Testament was Joshua commanded to slay mighty kings?
+And why was Pharaoh and his hosts drowned in the Red Sea? Because the
+Almighty so willed it, our Governor will say, taking it for granted
+that He willed everything of which a record is given in the Old
+Testament. In those battles which have ravished the North-west of
+India during the last half-century, did the Almighty wish that men
+should perish miserably by ten thousands and twenty thousands? Till
+any of us can learn more than we know at present of the will of the
+Almighty, I would, if he will allow me, advise our Governor to be
+silent on that head.
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen, it would be a long task, and one not to be
+accomplished before your bedtime, were I to recount to you, for his
+advantage, a few of the arguments which have been used in favour of
+the Fixed Period,--and it would be useless, as you are all acquainted
+with them. But Sir Ferdinando is evidently not aware that the
+general prolongation of life on an average, is one of the effects
+to be gained, and that, though he himself might not therefore live
+the longer if doomed to remain here in Britannula, yet would his
+descendants do so, and would live a life more healthy, more useful,
+and more sufficient for human purposes.
+
+"As far as I can read the will of the Almighty, or rather the
+progress of the ways of human nature, it is for man to endeavour to
+improve the conditions of mankind. It would be as well to say that we
+would admit no fires into our establishments because a life had now
+and again been lost by fire, as to use such an argument as that now
+put forward against the Fixed Period. If you will think of the line
+of reasoning used by Sir Ferdinando, you will remember that he has,
+after all, only thrown you back upon the old prejudices of mankind.
+If he will tell me that he is not as yet prepared to discard them,
+and that I am in error in thinking that the world is so prepared,
+I may perhaps agree with him. The John Bright in our harbour is
+the strongest possible proof that such prejudices still exist. Sir
+Ferdinando Brown is now your Governor, a fact which in itself is
+strong evidence. In opposition to these witnesses I have nothing to
+say. The ignorance which we are told that we had expelled from our
+shores, has come back to us; and the poverty is about, I fear, to
+show its head." Sir Ferdinando here arose and expostulated. But the
+people hardly heard him, and at my request he again sat down.
+
+"I do think that I have endeavoured in this matter to advance too
+quickly, and that Sir Ferdinando has been sent here as the necessary
+reprimand for that folly. He has required that I shall be banished
+to England; and as his order is backed by a double file of
+red-coats,--an instrument which in Britannula we do not possess,--I
+purpose to obey him. I shall go to England, and I shall there use
+what little strength remains to me in my endeavour to put forward
+those arguments for conquering the prejudices of the people which
+have prevailed here, but which I am very sure would have no effect
+upon Sir Ferdinando Brown.
+
+"I cannot but think that Sir Ferdinando gave himself unnecessary
+trouble in endeavouring to prove to us that the Fixed Period is a
+wicked arrangement. He was not likely to succeed in that attempt. But
+he was sure to succeed in telling us that he would make it impossible
+by means of the double file of armed men by whom he is accompanied,
+and the 250-ton steam-swiveller with which, as he informed me, he is
+able to blow us all into atoms, unless I would be ready to start with
+Captain Battleax to-morrow. It is not his religion but his strength
+that has prevailed. That Great Britain is much stronger than
+Britannula none of us can doubt. Till yesterday I did doubt whether
+she would use her strength to perpetuate her own prejudices and to
+put down the progress made by another people.
+
+"But, fellow-citizens, we must look the truth in the face. In this
+generation probably, the Fixed Period must be allowed to be in
+abeyance." When I had uttered these words there came much cheering
+and a loud sound of triumph, which was indorsed probably by the
+postponement of the system, which had its terrors; but I was enabled
+to accept these friendly noises as having been awarded to the system
+itself. "Well, as you all love the Fixed Period, it must be delayed
+till Sir Ferdinando and the English have--been converted."
+
+"Never, never!" shouted Sir Ferdinando; "so godless an idea shall
+never find a harbour in this bosom," and he struck his chest
+violently.
+
+"Sir Ferdinando is probably not aware to what ideas that bosom may
+some day give a shelter. If he will look back thirty years, he will
+find that he had hardly contemplated even the weather-watch which he
+now wears constantly in his waistcoat-pocket. At the command of his
+Sovereign he may still live to carry out the Fixed Period somewhere
+in the centre of Africa."
+
+"Never!"
+
+"In what college among the negroes he may be deposited, it may be
+too curious to inquire. I, my friends, shall leave these shores
+to-morrow; and you may be sure of this, that while the power of
+labour remains to me, I shall never desist to work for the purpose
+that I have at heart. I trust that I may yet live to return among
+you, and to render you an account of what I have done for you and
+for the cause in Europe." Here I sat down, and was greeted by the
+deafening applause of the audience; and I did feel at the moment that
+I had somewhat got the better of Sir Ferdinando.
+
+I have been able to give the exact words of these two speeches, as
+they were both taken down by the reporting telephone-apparatus, which
+on the occasion was found to work with great accuracy. The words as
+they fell from the mouth of the speakers were composed by machinery,
+and my speech appeared in the London morning newspapers within an
+hour of the time of its utterance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+FAREWELL!
+
+
+I went home to my house in triumph; but I had much to do before noon
+on the following day, but very little time in which to do it. I had
+spent the morning of that day in preparing for my departure, and
+in so arranging matters with my clerks that the entrance of Sir
+Ferdinando on his new duties might be easy. I had said nothing, and
+had endeavoured to think as little as possible, of the Fixed Period.
+An old secretary of mine,--old in years of work, though not as yet in
+age,--had endeavoured to comfort me by saying that the college up the
+hill might still be used before long. But I had told him frankly that
+we in Britannula had all been too much in a hurry, and had foolishly
+endeavoured to carry out a system in opposition to the world's
+prejudices, which system, when successful, must pervade the entire
+world. "And is nothing to be done with those beautiful buildings?"
+said the secretary, putting in the word beautiful by way of flattery
+to myself. "The chimneys and the furnaces may perhaps be used,"
+I replied. "Cremation is no part of the Fixed Period. But as for
+the residences, the less we think about them the better." And so I
+determined to trouble my thoughts no further with the college. And
+I felt that there might be some consolation to me in going away to
+England, so that I might escape from the great vexation and eyesore
+which the empty college would have produced.
+
+But I had to bid farewell to my wife and my son, and to Eva and
+Crasweller. The first task would be the easier, because there would
+be no necessity for any painful allusion to my own want of success.
+In what little I might say to Mrs Neverbend on the subject, I could
+continue that tone of sarcastic triumph in which I had replied to
+Sir Ferdinando. What was pathetic in the matter I might altogether
+ignore. And Jack was himself so happy in his nature, and so little
+likely to look at anything on its sorrowful side, that all would
+surely go well with him. But with Eva, and with Eva's father, things
+would be different. Words must be spoken which would be painful in
+the speaking, and regrets must be uttered by me which could not
+certainly be shared by him. "I am broken down and trampled upon, and
+all the glory is departed from my name, and I have become a byword
+and a reproach rather than a term of honour in which future ages may
+rejoice, because I have been unable to carry out my long-cherished
+purpose by--depositing you, and insuring at least your departure!"
+And then Crasweller would answer me with his general kindly feeling,
+and I should feel at the moment of my leaving him the hollowness of
+his words. I had loved him the better because I had endeavoured to
+commence my experiment on his body. I had felt a vicarious regard
+for the honour which would have been done him, almost regarding it
+as though I myself were to go in his place. All this had received a
+check when he in his weakness had pleaded for another year. But he
+had yielded; and though he had yielded without fortitude, he had done
+so to comply with my wishes, and I could not but feel for the man an
+extraordinary affection. I was going to England, and might probably
+never see him again; and I was going with aspirations in my heart so
+very different from those which he entertained!
+
+From the hours intended for slumber, a few minutes could be taken for
+saying adieu to my wife. "My dear," said I, "this is all very sudden.
+But a man engaged in public life has to fit himself to the public
+demands. Had I not promised to go to-day, I might have been taken
+away yesterday or the day before."
+
+"Oh, John," said she, "I think that everything has been put up to
+make you comfortable."
+
+"Thanks; yes, I'm sure of it. When you hear my name mentioned after
+I am gone, I hope that they'll say of me that I did my duty as
+President of the republic."
+
+"Of course they will. Every day you have been at these nasty
+executive chambers from nine till five, unless when you've been
+sitting in that wretched Assembly."
+
+"I shall have a holiday now, at any rate," said I, laughing gently
+under the bedclothes.
+
+"Yes; and I am sure it will do you good, if you only take your meals
+regular. I sometimes think that you have been encouraged to dwell
+upon this horrid Fixed Period by the melancholy of an empty stomach."
+
+It was sad to hear such words from her lips after the two speeches to
+which she had listened, and to feel that no trace had been left on
+her mind of the triumph which I had achieved over Sir Ferdinando; but
+I put up with that, and determined to answer her after her own heart.
+"You have always provided a sandwich for me to take to the chambers."
+
+"Sandwiches are nothing. Do remember that. At your time of life you
+should always have something warm,--a frizzle or a cutlet, and you
+shouldn't eat it without thinking of it. What has made me hate the
+Fixed Period worse than anything is, that you have never thought of
+your victuals. You gave more attention to the burning of these pigs
+than to the cooking of any food in your own kitchen."
+
+"Well, my dear, I'm going to England now," said I, beginning to feel
+weary of her reminiscences.
+
+"Yes, my dear, I know you are; and do remember that as you get nearer
+and nearer to that chilly country the weather will always be colder
+and colder. I have put you up four pairs of flannel drawers, and a
+little bag which you must wear upon your chest. I observed that Sir
+Ferdinando, when he was preparing himself for his speech, showed that
+he had just such a little bag on. And all the time I endeavoured to
+spy how it was that he wore it. When I came home I immediately went
+to work, and I shall insist on your putting it on the first thing
+in the morning, in order that I may see that it sits flat. Sir
+Ferdinando's did not sit flat, and it looked bulgy. I thought to
+myself that Lady Brown did not do her duty properly by him. If you
+would allow me to come with you, I could see that you always put it
+on rightly. As it is, I know that people will say that it is all my
+fault when it hangs out and shows itself." Then I went to sleep, and
+the parting words between me and my wife had been spoken.
+
+Early on the following morning I had Jack into my dressing-room, and
+said good-bye to him. "Jack," said I, "in this little contest which
+there has been between us, you have got the better in everything."
+
+"Nobody thought so when they heard your answer to Sir Ferdinando last
+night."
+
+"Well, yes; I think I managed to answer him. But I haven't got the
+better of you."
+
+"I didn't mean anything," said Jack, in a melancholy tone of voice.
+"It was all Eva's doing. I never cared twopence whether the old
+fellows were deposited or not, but I do think that if your own time
+had come near, I shouldn't have liked it much."
+
+"Why not? why not? If you will only think of the matter all round,
+you will find that it is all a false sentiment."
+
+"I should not like it," said Jack, with determination.
+
+"Yes, you would, after you had got used to it." Here he looked very
+incredulous. "What I mean is, Jack, that when sons were accustomed
+to see their fathers deposited at a certain age, and were aware that
+they were treated with every respect, that kind of feeling which
+you describe would wear off. You would have the idea that a kind of
+honour was done to your parents."
+
+"When I knew that somebody was going to kill him on the next day, how
+would it be then?"
+
+"You might retire for a few hours to your thoughts,--going into
+mourning, as it were." Jack shook his head. "But, at any rate, in
+this matter of Mr Crasweller you have got the better of me."
+
+"That was for Eva's sake."
+
+"I suppose so. But I wish to make you understand, now that I am going
+to England, and may possibly never return to these shores again--"
+
+"Don't say that, father."
+
+"Well, yes; I shall have much to do there, and of course it may be
+that I shall not come back, and I wish you to understand that I do
+not part from you in the least in anger. What you have done shows a
+high spirit, and great devotion to the girl."
+
+"It was not quite altogether for Eva either."
+
+"What then?" I demanded.
+
+"Well, I don't know. The two things went together, as it were. If
+there had been no question about the Fixed Period, I do think I could
+have cut out Abraham Grundle. And as for Sir Kennington Oval, I am
+beginning to believe that that was all Eva's pretence. I like Sir
+Kennington, but Eva never cared a button for him. She had taken to
+me because I had shown myself an anti-Fixed-Period man. I did it at
+first simply because I hated Grundle. Grundle wanted to fix-period
+old Crasweller for the sake of the property; and therefore I belonged
+naturally to the other side. It wasn't that I liked opposing you. If
+it had been Tallowax that you were to begin with, or Exors, you might
+have burnt 'em up without a word from me."
+
+"I am gratified at hearing that."
+
+"Though the Fixed Period does seem to be horrible, I would have
+swallowed all that at your bidding. But you can see how I tumbled
+into it, and how Eva egged me on, and how the nearer the thing came
+the more I was bound to fight. Will you believe it?--Eva swore a most
+solemn oath, that if her father was put into that college she would
+never marry a human being. And up to that moment when the lieutenant
+met us at the top of the hill, she was always as cold as snow."
+
+"And now the snow is melted?"
+
+"Yes,--that is to say, it is beginning to thaw!" As he said this I
+remembered the kiss behind the parlour-door which had been given to
+her by another suitor before these troubles began, and my impression
+that Jack had seen it also; but on that subject I said nothing. "Of
+course it has all been very happy for me," Jack continued; "but I
+wish to say to you before you go, how unhappy it makes me to think
+that I have opposed you."
+
+"All right, Jack; all right. I will not say that I should not have
+done the same at your age, if Eva had asked me. I wish you always to
+remember that we parted as friends. It will not be long before you
+are married now."
+
+"Three months," said Jack, in a melancholy tone.
+
+"In an affair of importance of this kind, that is the same as
+to-morrow. I shall not be here to wish you joy at your wedding."
+
+"Why are you to go if you don't wish it?"
+
+"I promised that I would go when Captain Battleax talked of carrying
+me off the day before yesterday. With a hundred soldiers, no doubt he
+could get me on board."
+
+"There are a great many more than a hundred men in Britannula as good
+as their soldiers. To take a man away by force, and he the President
+of the republic! Such a thing was never heard of. I would not stir if
+I were you. Say the word to me, and I will undertake that not one of
+these men shall touch you."
+
+I thought of his proposition; and the more I thought of it, the more
+unreasonable it did appear that I, who had committed no offence
+against any law, should be forced on board the John Bright. And I
+had no doubt that Jack would be as good as his word. But there were
+two causes which persuaded me that I had better go. I had pledged
+my word. When it had been suggested that I should at the moment be
+carried on board,--which might no doubt then have been done by the
+soldiers,--I had said that if a certain time were allowed me I would
+again be found in the same place. If I were simply there, and were
+surrounded by a crowd of Britannulans ready to fight for me, I should
+hardly have kept my promise. But a stronger reason than this perhaps
+actuated me. It would be better for me for a while to be in England
+than in Britannula. Here in Britannula I should be the ex-President
+of an abolished republic, and as such subject to the notice of all
+men; whereas in England I should be nobody, and should escape the
+constant mortification of seeing Sir Ferdinando Brown. And then
+in England I could do more for the Fixed Period than at home in
+Britannula. Here the battle was over, and I had been beaten. I began
+to perceive that the place was too small for making the primary
+efforts in so great a cause. The very facility which had existed for
+the passing of the law through the Assembly had made it impossible
+for us to carry out the law; and therefore, with the sense of
+failure strong upon me, I should be better elsewhere than at home.
+And the desire of publishing a book in which I should declare
+my theory,--this very book which I have so nearly brought to a
+close,--made me desire to go. What could I do by publishing anything
+in Britannula? And though the manuscript might have been sent home,
+who would see it through the press with any chance of success? Now
+I have my hopes, which I own seem high, and I shall be able to watch
+from day to day the way in which my arguments in favour of the Fixed
+Period are received by the British public. Therefore it was that I
+rejected Jack's kind offer. "No, my boy," said I, after a pause, "I
+do not know but that on the whole I shall prefer to go."
+
+"Of course if you wish it."
+
+"I shall be taken there at the expense of the British public, which
+is in itself a triumph, and shall, I presume, be sent back in the
+same way. If not, I shall have a grievance in their parsimony, which
+in itself will be a comfort to me; and I am sure that I shall be
+treated well on board. Sir Ferdinando with his eloquence will not be
+there, and the officers are, all of them, good fellows. I have made
+up my mind, and I will go. The next that you will hear of your father
+will be the publication of a little book that I shall write on the
+journey, advocating the Fixed Period. The matter has never been
+explained to them in England, and perhaps my words may prevail."
+Jack, by shaking his head mournfully, seemed to indicate his idea
+that this would not be the case; but Jack is resolute, and will never
+yield on any point. Had he been in my place, and had entertained my
+convictions, I believe that he would have deposited Crasweller in
+spite of Sir Ferdinando Brown and Captain Battleax. "You will come
+and see me on board, Jack, when I start."
+
+"They won't take me off, will they?"
+
+"I should have thought you would have liked to have seen England."
+
+"And leave Eva! They'd have to look very sharp before they could do
+that. But of course I'll come." Then I gave him my blessing, told
+him what arrangements I had made for his income, and went down to my
+breakfast, which was to be my last meal in Britannula.
+
+When that was over, I was told that Eva was in my study waiting to
+see me. I had intended to have gone out to Little Christchurch, and
+should still do so, to bid farewell to her father. But I was not
+sorry to have Eva here in my own house, as she was about to become my
+daughter-in-law. "Eva has come to bid you good-bye," said Jack, who
+was already in the room, as I entered it.
+
+"Eva, my dear," said I.
+
+"I'll leave you," said Jack. "But I've told her that she must be very
+fond of you. Bygones have to be bygones,--particularly as no harm has
+been done." Then he left the room.
+
+She still had on the little round hat, but as Jack went she laid it
+aside. "Oh, Mr Neverbend," she said, "I hope you do not think that I
+have been unkind."
+
+"It is I, my dear, who should express that hope."
+
+"I have always known how well you have loved my dear father. I have
+been quite sure of it. And he has always said so. But--"
+
+"Well, Eva, it is all over now."
+
+"Oh yes, and I am so happy! I have got to tell you how happy I am."
+
+"I hope you love Jack."
+
+"Oh!" she exclaimed, and in a moment she was in my arms and I was
+kissing her. "If you knew how I hate that Mr Grundle; and Jack is
+all,--all that he ought to be. One of the things that makes me like
+him best is his great affection for you. There is nothing that he
+would not do for you."
+
+"He is a very good young man," said I, thinking of the manner in
+which he had spoken against me on the Town Flags.
+
+"Nothing!" said Eva.
+
+"And nothing that he would not do for you, my dear. But that is all
+as it should be. He is a high-spirited, good boy; and if he will
+think a little more of the business and a little less of cricket, he
+will make an excellent husband."
+
+"Of course he had to think a little of the match when the Englishmen
+were here; and he did play well, did he not? He beat them all there."
+I could perceive that Eva was quite as intent upon cricket as was her
+lover, and probably thought just as little about the business. "But,
+Mr Neverbend, must you really go?"
+
+"I think so. It is not only that they are determined to take me, but
+that I am myself anxious to be in England."
+
+"You wish to--to preach the Fixed Period?"
+
+"Well, my dear, I have got my own notions, which at my time of life I
+cannot lay aside. I shall endeavour to ventilate them in England, and
+see what the people there may say about them."
+
+"You are not angry with me?"
+
+"My child, how could I be angry with you? What you did, you did for
+your father's sake."
+
+"And papa? You will not be angry with papa because he didn't want to
+give up Little Christchurch, and to leave the pretty place which he
+has made himself, and to go into the college,--and be killed!"
+
+I could not quite answer her at the moment, because in truth I was
+somewhat angry with him. I thought that he should have understood
+that there was something higher to be achieved than an extra year or
+two among the prettinesses of Little Christchurch. I could not but
+be grieved because he had proved himself to be less of a man than I
+had expected. But as I remained silent for a few moments, Eva held
+my hand in hers, and looked up into my face with beseeching eyes.
+Then my anger went, and I remembered that I had no reason to expect
+heroism from Crasweller, simply because he had been my friend. "No,
+dear, no; all feeling of anger is at an end. It was natural that he
+should wish to remain at Little Christchurch; and it was better than
+natural, it was beautiful, that you should wish to save him by the
+use of the only feminine weapon at your command."
+
+"Oh, but I did love Jack," she said.
+
+"I have still an hour or two before I depart, and I shall run down to
+Little Christchurch to take your father by the hand once more. You
+may be sure that what I shall say to him will not be ill-natured. And
+now good-bye, my darling child. My time here in Britannula is but
+short, and I cannot give up more of it even to my chosen daughter."
+Then again she kissed me, and putting on her little hat, went away to
+Mrs Neverbend,--or to Jack.
+
+It was now nearly ten o'clock, and I had out my tricycle in order to
+go down as quickly as possible to Little Christchurch. At the door of
+my house I found a dozen of the English soldiers with a sergeant. He
+touched his hat, and asked me very civilly where I was going. When I
+told him that it was but five or six miles out of town, he requested
+my permission to accompany me. I told him that he certainly might
+if he had a vehicle ready, and was ready to use it. But as at that
+moment my luggage was brought out of the house with the view of being
+taken on board ship, the man thought that it would be as well and
+much easier to follow the luggage; and the twelve soldiers marched
+off to see my portmanteaus put safely on board the John Bright.
+
+And I was again,--and I could not but say to myself, probably for the
+last time,--once again on the road to Little Christchurch. During
+the twenty minutes which were taken in going down there, I could
+not but think of the walks I had had up and down with Crasweller in
+old times, talking as we went of the glories of a Fixed Period, and
+of the absolute need which the human race had for such a step in
+civilisation. Probably on such occasions the majority of the words
+spoken had come from my own mouth; but it had seemed to me then that
+Crasweller had been as energetic as myself. The period which we
+had then contemplated at a distance had come round, and Crasweller
+had seceded wofully. I could not but feel that had he been stanch
+to me, and allowed himself to be deposited not only willingly but
+joyfully, he would have set an example which could not but have been
+efficacious. Barnes and Tallowax would probably have followed as a
+matter of course, and the thing would have been done. My name would
+have gone down to posterity with those of Columbus and Galileo,
+and Britannula would have been noted as the most prominent among
+the nations of the earth, instead of having become a by-word among
+countries as a deprived republic and reannexed Crown colony. But all
+that on the present occasion had to be forgotten, and I was to greet
+my old friend with true affection, as though I had received from his
+hands no such ruthless ruin of all my hopes.
+
+"Oh, Mr President," he said, as he met me coming up the drive towards
+the house, "this is kind of you. And you who must be so busy just
+before your departure!"
+
+"I could not go without a word of farewell to you." I had not spoken
+with him since we had parted on the top of the hill on our way out to
+the college, when the horses had been taken from the carriage, and he
+had walked back to life and Little Christchurch instead of making his
+way to his last home, and to find deposition with all the glory of a
+great name.
+
+"It is very kind of you. Come in. Eva is not at home."
+
+"I have just parted with her at my own house. So she and Jack are to
+make a match of it. I need not tell you how more than contented I
+shall be that my son should have such a wife. Eva to me has been
+always dear, almost as a daughter. Now she is like my own child."
+
+"I am sure that I can say the same of Jack."
+
+"Yes; Jack is a good lad too. I hope he will stick to the business."
+
+"He need not trouble himself about that. He will have Little
+Christchurch and all that belongs to it as soon as I am gone. I had
+made up my mind only to allow Eva an income out of it while she was
+thinking of that fellow Grundle. That man is a knave."
+
+I could not but remember that Grundle had been a Fixed-Periodist, and
+that it would not become me to abuse him; and I was aware that though
+Crasweller was my sincere friend, he had come to entertain of late an
+absolute hatred of all those, beyond myself, who had advocated his
+own deposition.
+
+"Jack, at any rate, is happy," said I, "and Eva. You and I,
+Crasweller have had our little troubles to imbitter the evenings of
+our life."
+
+"You are yet in the full daylight."
+
+"My ambition has been disappointed. I cannot conceal the fact from
+myself,--nor from you. It has come to pass that during the last year
+or two we have lived with different hopes. And these hopes have been
+founded altogether on the position which you might occupy."
+
+"I should have gone mad up in that college, Neverbend."
+
+"I would have been with you."
+
+"I should have gone mad all the same. I should have committed
+suicide."
+
+"To save yourself from an honourable--deposition!"
+
+"The fixed day, coming at a certain known hour; the feeling that it
+must come, though it came at the same time so slowly and yet so fast;
+every day growing shorter day by day, and every season month by
+month; the sight of these chimneys--"
+
+"That was a mistake, Crasweller; that was a mistake. The cremation
+should have been elsewhere."
+
+"A man should have been an angel to endure it,--or so much less than
+a man. I struggled,--for your sake. Who else would have struggled as
+I did to oblige a friend in such a matter?"
+
+"I know it--I know it."
+
+"But life under such a weight became impossible to me. You do not
+know what I endured even for the last year. Believe me that man is
+not so constituted as to be able to make such efforts."
+
+"He would get used to it. Mankind would get used to it."
+
+"The first man will never get used to it. That college will become
+a madhouse. You must think of some other mode of letting them pass
+their last year. Make them drunk, so that they shall not know what
+they are doing. Drug them and make them senseless; or, better still,
+come down upon them with absolute power, and carry them away to
+instant death. Let the veil of annihilation fall upon them before
+they know where they are. The Fixed Period, with all its damnable
+certainty, is a mistake. I have tried it and I know it. When I look
+back at the last year, which was to be the last, not of my absolute
+life but of my true existence, I shudder as I think what I went
+through. I am astonished at the strength of my own mind in that I did
+not go mad. No one would have made such an effort for you as I made.
+Those other men had determined to rebel since the feeling of the
+Fixed Period came near to them. It is impossible that human nature
+should endure such a struggle and not rebel. I have been saved now by
+these Englishmen, who have come here in their horror, and have used
+their strength to prevent the barbarity of your benevolence. But I
+can hardly keep myself quiet as I think of the sufferings which I
+have endured during the last month."
+
+"But, Crasweller, you had assented."
+
+"True; I did assent. But it was before the feeling of my fate had
+come near to me. You may be strong enough to bear it. There is
+nothing so hard but that enthusiasm will make it tolerable. But you
+will hardly find another who will not succumb. Who would do more
+for you than I have done? Who would make a greater struggle? What
+honester man is there whom you know in this community of ours? And
+yet even me you drove to be a liar. Think how strong must have
+been the facts against you when they have had this effect. To have
+died at your behest at the instant would have been as nothing. Any
+danger,--any immediate certainty,--would have been child's-play;
+but to have gone up into that frightful college, and there to have
+remained through that year, which would have wasted itself so slowly,
+and yet so fast,--that would have required a heroism which, as I
+think, no Greek, no Roman, no Englishman ever possessed."
+
+Then he paused, and I was aware that I had overstayed my time. "Think
+of it," he continued; "think of it on board that vessel, and try
+to bring home to yourself what such a phase of living would mean."
+Then he grasped me by the hand, and taking me out, put me upon my
+tricycle, and returned into the house.
+
+As I went back to Gladstonopolis, I did think of it, and for a moment
+or two my mind wavered. He had convinced me that there was something
+wrong in the details of my system; but not,--when I came to argue the
+matter with myself,--that the system itself was at fault. But now
+at the present moment I had hardly time for meditation. I had been
+surprised at Crasweller's earnestness, and also at his eloquence, and
+I was in truth more full of his words than of his reasons. But the
+time would soon come when I should be able to devote tranquil hours
+to the consideration of the points which he had raised. The long
+hours of enforced idleness on board ship would suffice to enable
+me to sift his objections, which seemed at the spur of the moment
+to resolve themselves into the impatience necessary to a year's
+quiescence. Crasweller had declared that human nature could
+not endure it. Was it not the case that human nature had never
+endeavoured to train itself? As I got back to Gladstonopolis, I had
+already a glimmering of an idea that we must begin with human nature
+somewhat earlier, and teach men from their very infancy to prepare
+themselves for the undoubted blessings of the Fixed Period. But
+certain aids must be given, and the cremating furnace must be
+removed, so as to be seen by no eye and smelt by no nose.
+
+As I rode up to my house there was that eternal guard of soldiers,--a
+dozen men, with abominable guns and ungainly military hats or helmets
+on their heads. I was so angered by their watchfulness, that I was
+half minded to turn my tricycle, and allow them to pursue me about
+the island. They could never have caught me had I chosen to avoid
+them; but such an escape would have been below my dignity. And
+moreover, I certainly did wish to go. I therefore took no notice of
+them when they shouldered their arms, but went into the house to give
+my wife her last kiss. "Now, Neverbend, remember you wear the flannel
+drawers I put up for you, as soon as ever you get out of the opposite
+tropics. Remember it becomes frightfully cold almost at once; and
+whatever you do, don't forget the little bag." These were Mrs
+Neverbend's last words to me. I there found Jack waiting for me, and
+we together walked down to the quay. "Mother would like to have gone
+too," said Jack.
+
+"It would not have suited. There are so many things here that will
+want her eye."
+
+"All the same, she would like to have gone." I had felt that it was
+so, but yet she had never pressed her request.
+
+On board I found Sir Ferdinando, and all the ship's officers with
+him, in full dress. He had come, as I supposed, to see that I really
+went; but he assured me, taking off his hat as he addressed me, that
+his object had been to pay his last respects to the late President of
+the republic. Nothing could now be more courteous than his conduct,
+or less like the bully that he had appeared to be when he had first
+claimed to represent the British sovereign in Britannula. And I must
+confess that there was absent all that tone of domineering ascendancy
+which had marked his speech as to the Fixed Period. The Fixed Period
+was not again mentioned while he was on board; but he devoted himself
+to assuring me that I should be received in England with every
+distinction, and that I should certainly be invited to Windsor
+Castle. I did not myself care very much about Windsor Castle; but
+to such civil speeches I could do no other than make civil replies;
+and there I stood for half an hour grimacing and paying compliments,
+anxious for the moment when Sir Ferdinando would get into the
+six-oared gig which was waiting for him, and return to the shore.
+To me it was of all half-hours the weariest, but to him it seemed
+as though to grimace and to pay compliments were his second nature.
+At last the moment came when one of the junior officers came up to
+Captain Battleax and told him that the vessel was ready to start.
+"Now, Sir Ferdinando," said the captain, "I am afraid that the John
+Bright must leave you to the kindness of the Britannulists."
+
+"I could not be left in more generous hands," said Sir Ferdinando,
+"nor in those of warmer friends. The Britannulists speak English as
+well as I do, and will, I am sure, admit that we boast of a common
+country."
+
+"But not a common Government," said I, determined to fire a parting
+shot. "But Sir Ferdinando is quite right in expecting that he
+personally will receive every courtesy from the Britannulists. Nor
+will his rule be in any respect disobeyed until the island shall,
+with the agreement of England, again have resumed its own republican
+position." Here I bowed, and he bowed, and we all bowed. Then he
+departed, taking Jack with him, leaning on whose arm he stepped down
+into the boat; and as the men put their oars into the water, I jumped
+with a sudden start at the sudden explosion of a subsidiary cannon,
+which went on firing some dozens of times till the proper number had
+been completed supposed to be due to an officer of such magnitude.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+OUR VOYAGE TO ENGLAND.
+
+
+The boat had gone ashore and returned before the John Bright had
+steamed out of the harbour. Then everything seemed to change, and
+Captain Battleax bade me make myself quite at home. "He trusted,"
+he said, "that I should always dine with him during the voyage, but
+that I should be left undisturbed during all other periods of the
+day. He dined at seven o'clock, but I could give my own orders as to
+breakfast and tiffin. He was sure that Lieutenant Crosstrees would
+have pleasure in showing me my cabins, and that if there was anything
+on board which I did not feel to be comfortable, it should be at once
+altered. Lieutenant Crosstrees would tell my servant to wait upon
+me, and would show me all the comforts,--and discomforts,--of the
+vessel." With that I left him, and was taken below under the guidance
+of the lieutenant. As Mr Crosstrees became my personal friend during
+the voyage,--more peculiarly than any of the other officers, all of
+whom were my friends,--I will give some short description of him. He
+was a young man, perhaps eight-and-twenty years old, whose great gift
+in the eyes of all those on board was his personal courage. Stories
+were told to me by the junior officers of marvellous things which he
+had done, which, though never mentioned in his own presence, either
+by himself or by others, seemed to constitute for him a special
+character,--so that had it been necessary that any one should jump
+overboard to attack a shark, all on board would have thought that the
+duty as a matter of course belonged to Lieutenant Crosstrees. Indeed,
+as I learnt afterwards, he had quite a peculiar name in the British
+navy. He was a small fair-haired man, with a pallid face and a bright
+eye, whose idiosyncrasy it was to conceive that life afloat was
+infinitely superior in all its attributes to life on shore. If there
+ever was a man entirely devoted to his profession, it was Lieutenant
+Crosstrees. For women he seemed to care nothing, nor for bishops, nor
+for judges, nor for members of Parliament. They were all as children
+skipping about the world in their foolish playful ignorance, whom
+it was the sailor's duty to protect. Next to the sailor came the
+soldier, as having some kindred employment; but at a very long
+interval. Among sailors the British sailor,--that is, the British
+fighting sailor,--was the only one really worthy of honour; and among
+British sailors the officers on board H.M. gunboat the John Bright
+were the happy few who had climbed to the top of the tree. Captain
+Battleax he regarded as the sultan of the world; but he was the
+sultan's vizier, and having the discipline of the ship altogether in
+his own hands, was, to my thinking, its very master. I should have
+said beforehand that a man of such sentiments and feelings was not at
+all to my taste. Everything that he loved I have always hated, and
+all that he despised I have revered. Nevertheless I became very fond
+of him, and found in him an opponent to the Fixed Period that has
+done more to shake my opinion than Crasweller with all his feelings,
+or Sir Ferdinando with all his arguments. And this he effected by a
+few curt words which I have found almost impossible to resist. "Come
+this way, Mr President," he said. "Here is where you are to sleep;
+and considering that it is only a ship, I think you'll find it fairly
+comfortable." Anything more luxurious than the place assigned to me,
+I could not have imagined on board ship. I afterwards learned that
+the cabins had been designed for the use of a travelling admiral,
+and I gathered from the fact that they were allotted to me an idea
+that England intended to atone for the injury done to the country by
+personal respect shown to the late President of the republic.
+
+"I, at any rate, shall be comfortable while I am here. That in itself
+is something. Nevertheless I have to feel that I am a prisoner."
+
+"Not more so than anybody else on board," said the lieutenant.
+
+"A guard of soldiers came up this morning to look after me. What
+would that guard of soldiers have done supposing that I had run
+away?"
+
+"We should have had to wait till they had caught you. But nobody
+conceived that to be possible. The President of a republic never runs
+away in his own person. There will be a cup of tea in the officers'
+mess-room at five o'clock. I will leave you till then, as you may
+wish to employ yourself." I went up immediately afterwards on
+deck, and looking back over the tafferel, could only just see the
+glittering spires of Gladstonopolis in the distance.
+
+Now was the time for thought. I found an easy seat on the stern of
+the vessel, and sat myself down to consider all that Crasweller had
+said to me. He and I had parted,--perhaps for ever. I had not been in
+England since I was a little child, and I could not but feel now that
+I might be detained there by circumstances, or die there, or that
+Crasweller, who was ten years my senior, might be dead before I
+should have come back. And yet no ordinary farewell had been spoken
+between us. In those last words of his he had confined himself to
+the Fixed Period, so full had his heart been of the subject, and so
+intent had he felt himself to be on convincing me. And what was the
+upshot of what he had said? Not that the doctrine of the Fixed Period
+was in itself wrong, but that it was impracticable because of the
+horrors attending its last moments. These were the solitude in which
+should be passed the one last year; the sight of things which would
+remind the old man of coming death; and the general feeling that the
+business and pleasures of life were over, and that the stillness of
+the grave had been commenced. To this was to be added a certainty
+that death would come on some prearranged day. These all referred
+manifestly to the condition of him who was to go, and in no degree
+affected the welfare of those who were to remain. He had not
+attempted to say that for the benefit of the world at large the
+system was a bad system. That these evils would have befallen
+Crasweller himself, there could be no doubt. Though a dozen
+companions might have visited him daily, he would have felt the
+college to be a solitude, because he would not have been allowed to
+choose his promiscuous comrades as in the outer world. But custom
+would no doubt produce a cure for that evil. When a man knew that it
+was to be so, the dozen visitors would suffice for him. The young
+man of thirty travels over all the world, but the old man of seventy
+is contented with the comparative confinement of his own town, or
+perhaps of his own house. As to the ghastliness of things to be seen,
+they could no doubt be removed out of sight; but even that would be
+cured by custom. The business and pleasures of life at the prescribed
+time were in general but a pretence at business and a reminiscence
+of pleasure. The man would know that the fated day was coming, and
+would prepare for it with infinitely less of the anxious pain of
+uncertainty than in the outer world. The fact that death must come at
+the settled day, would no doubt have its horror as long as the man
+were able habitually to contrast his position with that of the few
+favoured ones who had, within his own memory, lived happily to a more
+advanced age; but when the time should come that no such old man
+had so existed, I could not but think that a frame of mind would be
+created not indisposed to contentment. Sitting there, and turning it
+all over in my mind, while my eyes rested on the bright expanse of
+the glass-clear sea, I did perceive that the Fixed Period, with all
+its advantages, was of such a nature that it must necessarily be
+postponed to an age prepared for it. Crasweller's eloquence had had
+that effect upon me. I did see that it would be impossible to induce,
+in the present generation, a feeling of satisfaction in the system.
+I should have declared that it would not commence but with those
+who were at present unborn; or, indeed, to allay the natural fears
+of mothers, not with those who should be born for the next dozen
+years. It might have been well to postpone it for another century. I
+admitted so much to myself, with the full understanding that a theory
+delayed so long must be endangered by its own postponement. How was
+I to answer for the zeal of those who were to come so long after me?
+I sometimes thought of a more immediate date in which I myself might
+be the first to be deposited, and that I might thus be allowed to set
+an example of a happy final year passed within the college. But then,
+how far would the Tallowaxes, and Barneses, and Exors of the day be
+led by my example?
+
+I must on my arrival in England remodel altogether the Fixed Period,
+and name a day so far removed that even Jack's children would not be
+able to see it. It was with sad grief of heart that I so determined.
+All my dreams of a personal ambition were at once shivered to the
+ground. Nothing would remain of me but the name of the man who had
+caused the republic of Britannula to be destroyed, and her government
+to be resumed by her old mistress. I must go to work, and with
+pen, ink, and paper, with long written arguments and studied logic,
+endeavour to prove to mankind that the world should not allow itself
+to endure the indignities, and weakness, and selfish misery of
+extreme old age. I confess that my belief in the efficacy of spoken
+words, of words running like an electric spark from the lips of the
+speaker right into the heart of him who heard them, was stronger far
+than my trust in written arguments. They must lack a warmth which the
+others possess; and they enter only on the minds of the studious,
+whereas the others touch the feelings of the world at large. I had
+already overcome in the breasts of many listeners the difficulties
+which I now myself experienced. I would again attempt to do so with
+a British audience. I would again enlarge on the meanness of the man
+who could not make so small a sacrifice of his latter years for the
+benefit of the rising generation. But even spoken words would come
+cold to me, and would fall unnoticed on the hearts of others, when it
+was felt that the doctrine advocated could not possibly affect any
+living man. Thinking of all this, I was very melancholy when I was
+summoned down to tea by one of the stewards who attended the
+officers' mess.
+
+"Mr President, will you take tea, coffee, cocoa, chocolate, or
+preserved dates? There are muffins and crumpets, dry toast, buttered
+toast, plum-cake, seed-cake, peach-fritters, apple-marmalade, and
+bread and butter. There are put-up fruits of all kinds, of which you
+really wouldn't know that they hadn't come this moment from graperies
+and orchard-houses; but we don't put them on the table, because we
+think that we can't eat quite so much dinner after them." This was
+the invitation which came from a young naval lad who seemed to be
+about fifteen years old.
+
+"Hold your tongue, Percy," said an elder officer. "The fruits are not
+here because Lord Alfred gorged himself so tremendously that we were
+afraid his mother, the duchess, would withdraw him from the service
+when she heard that he had made himself sick."
+
+"There are curacoa, chartreuse, pepperwick, mangostino, and Russian
+brandy on the side-board," suggested a third.
+
+"I shall have a glass of madeira--just a thimbleful," said another,
+who seemed to be a few years older than Lord Alfred Percy. Then
+one of the stewards brought the madeira, which the young man drank
+with great satisfaction. "This wine has been seven times round the
+world," he said, "and the only time for drinking it is five-o'clock
+tea,--that is, if you understand what good living means." I asked
+simply for a cup of tea, which I found to be peculiarly good, partly
+because of the cream which accompanied it. I then went up-stairs to
+take a constitutional walk with Mr Crosstrees on the deck. "I saw you
+sitting there for a couple of hours very thoughtful," said he, "and I
+wouldn't disturb you. I hope it doesn't make you unhappy that you are
+carried away to England?"
+
+"Had it done so, I don't know whether I should have gone--alive."
+
+"They said that when it was suggested, you promised to be ready in
+two days."
+
+"I did say so--because it suited me. But I can hardly imagine that
+they would have carried me on board with violence, or that they would
+have put all Gladstonopolis to the sword because I declined to go on
+board."
+
+"Brown had told us that we were to bring you off dead or alive; and
+dead or alive, I think we should have had you. If the soldiers had
+not succeeded, the sailors would have taken you in hand." When I
+asked him why there was this great necessity for kidnapping me, he
+assured me that feeling in England had run very high on the matter,
+and that sundry bishops had declared that anything so barbarous could
+not be permitted in the twentieth century. "It would be as bad, they
+said, as the cannibals of New Zealand."
+
+"That shows the absolute ignorance of the bishops on the subject."
+
+"I daresay; but there is a prejudice about killing an old man, or a
+woman. Young men don't matter."
+
+"Allow me to assure you, Mr Crosstrees," said I, "that your sentiment
+is carrying you far away from reason. To the State the life of a
+woman should be just the same as that of a man. The State cannot
+allow itself to indulge in romance."
+
+"You get a sailor, and tell him to strike a woman, and see what he'll
+say."
+
+"The sailor is irrational. Of course, we are supposing that it
+is for the public benefit that the woman should be struck. It is
+the same with an old man. The good of the commonwealth,--and his
+own,--requires that, beyond a certain age, he shall not be allowed
+to exist. He does not work, and he cannot enjoy living. He wastes
+more than his share of the necessaries of life, and becomes, on the
+aggregate, an intolerable burden. Read Shakespeare's description of
+man in his last stage--
+
+
+   'Second childishness, and mere oblivion,
+    Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything;'
+
+
+and the stage before is merely that of the 'lean and slippered
+pantaloon.' For his own sake, would you not save mankind from having
+to encounter such miseries as these?"
+
+"You can't do it, Mr President."
+
+"I very nearly did do it. The Britannulist Assembly, in the majesty
+of its wisdom, passed a law to that effect." I was sorry afterwards
+that I had spoken of the majesty of the Assembly's wisdom, because
+it savoured of buncombe. Our Assembly's wisdom was not particularly
+majestic; but I had intended to allude to the presumed majesty
+attached to the highest council in the State.
+
+"Your Assembly in the majesty of its wisdom could do nothing of the
+kind. It might pass a law, but the law could be carried out only
+by men. The Parliament in England, which is, I take it, quite as
+majestic as the Assembly in Britannula--"
+
+"I apologise for the word, Mr Crosstrees, which savours of the
+ridiculous. I did not quite explain my idea at the moment."
+
+"It is forgotten," he said; and I must acknowledge that he never used
+the word against me again. "The Parliament in England might order a
+three-months-old baby to be slain, but could not possibly get the
+deed done."
+
+"Not if it were for the welfare of Great Britain?"
+
+"Not to save Great Britain from destruction. Strength is very strong,
+but it is not half so powerful as weakness. I could, with the
+greatest alacrity in the world, fire that big gun in among battalions
+of armed men, so as to scatter them all to the winds, but I could not
+point it in the direction of a single girl." We went on discussing
+the matter at considerable length, and his convictions were quite as
+strong as mine. He was sure that under no circumstances would an old
+man ever be deprived of his life under the Fixed Period. I was as
+confident as he on the other side,--or, at any rate, pretended to
+be so,--and told him that he made no allowance for the progressive
+wisdom of mankind. But we parted as friends, and soon after went to
+dinner.
+
+I was astonished to find how very little the captain had to do with
+his officers. On board ship he lived nearly alone, having his first
+lieutenant with him for a quarter of an hour every morning. On the
+occasion of this my first day on board, he had a dinner-party in
+honour of my coming among them; and two or three days before we
+reached England, he had another. I dined with him regularly every day
+except twice, when I was invited to the officers' mess. I breakfasted
+alone in my own cabin, where everything was provided for me that I
+could desire, and always lunched and took five-o'clock tea with the
+officers. I remained alone till one o'clock, and spent four hours
+every morning during our entire journey in composing this volume as
+it is now printed. I have put it into the shape of a story, because
+I think that I may so best depict the feelings of the people around
+me as I made my great endeavour to carry out the Fixed Period in
+Britannula, and because I may so describe the kind of opposition
+which was shown by the expression of those sentiments on which
+Lieutenant Crosstrees depended. I do not at this minute doubt but
+that Crasweller would have been deposited had not the John Bright
+appeared. Whether Barnes and Tallowax would have followed peaceably,
+may be doubted. They, however, are not men of great weight in
+Britannula, and the officers of the law might possibly have
+constrained them to have followed the example which Crasweller had
+set. But I do confess that I doubt whether I should have been able
+to proceed to carry out the arrangements for the final departure of
+Crasweller. Looking forward, I could see Eva kneeling at my feet,
+and could acknowledge the invincible strength of that weakness to
+which Crosstrees had alluded. A godlike heroism would have been
+demanded,--a heroism which must have submitted to have been called
+brutal,--and of such I knew myself not to be the owner. Had
+the British Parliament ordered the three-months-old baby to be
+slaughtered, I was not the man to slaughter it, even though I were
+the sworn servant of the British Parliament. Upon the whole, I was
+glad that the John Bright had come into our waters, and had taken
+me away on its return to England. It was a way out of my immediate
+trouble against which I was able to expostulate, and to show with
+some truth on my side that I was an injured man. All this I am
+willing to admit in the form of a tale, which I have adopted for my
+present work, and for which I may hope to obtain some popularity
+in England. Once on shore there, I shall go to work on a volume of
+altogether a different nature, and endeavour to be argumentative and
+statistical, as I have here been fanciful, though true to details.
+
+During the whole course of my journey to England, Captain Battleax
+never said a word to me about the Fixed Period. He was no doubt
+a gallant officer, and possessed of all necessary gifts for the
+management of a 250-ton steam swivel-gun; but he seemed to me to be
+somewhat heavy. He never even in conversation alluded to Britannula,
+and spoke always of the dockyard at Devonport as though I had been
+familiar with its every corner. He was very particular about his
+clothes, and I was told by Lieutenant Crosstrees on the first day
+that he would resent it as a bitter offence had I come down to dinner
+without a white cravat. "He's right, you know; those things do tell,"
+Crosstrees had said to me when I had attempted to be jocose about
+these punctilios. I took care, however, always to put on a white
+cravat both with the captain and with the officers. After dinner with
+the captain, a cup of coffee was always brought in on a silver tray,
+in a silver coffee-pot. This was leisurely consumed; and then, as I
+soon understood, the captain expected that I should depart. I learnt
+afterwards that he immediately put his feet up on the sofa and slept
+for the remainder of the evening. I retired to the lieutenant's
+cabin, and there discussed the whole history of Britannula over many
+a prolonged cigar.
+
+"Did you really mean to kill the old men?" said Lord Alfred Percy to
+me one day; "regularly to cut their throats, you know, and carry them
+out and burn them."
+
+"I did not mean it, but the law did."
+
+"Every poor old fellow would have been put an end to without the
+slightest mercy?"
+
+"Not without mercy," I rejoined.
+
+"Now, there's my governor's father," said Lord Alfred; "you know who
+he is?"
+
+"The Duke of Northumberland, I'm informed."
+
+"He's a terrible swell. He owns three castles, and half a county, and
+has half a million a-year. I can hardly tell you what sort of an old
+fellow he is at home. There isn't any one who doesn't pay him the
+most profound respect, and he's always doing good to everybody. Do
+you mean to say that some constable or cremator,--some sort of first
+hangman,--would have come to him and taken him by the nape of his
+neck, and cut his throat, just because he was sixty-eight years old?
+I can't believe that anybody would have done it."
+
+"But the duke is a man."
+
+"Yes, he's a man, no doubt."
+
+"If he committed murder, he would be hanged in spite of his dukedom."
+
+"I don't know how that would be," said Lord Alfred, hesitating. "I
+cannot imagine that my grandfather should commit a murder."
+
+"But he would be hanged; I can tell you that. Though it be very
+improbable,--impossible, as you and I may think it,--the law is the
+same for him as for others. Why should not all other laws be the same
+also?"
+
+"But it would be murder."
+
+"What is your idea of murder?"
+
+"Killing people."
+
+"Then you are murderers who go about with this great gun of yours for
+the sake of killing many people."
+
+"We've never killed anybody with it yet."
+
+"You are not the less murderers if you have the intent to murder. Are
+soldiers murderers who kill other soldiers in battle? The murderer is
+the man who illegally kills. Now, in accordance with us, everything
+would have been done legally; and I'm afraid that if your grandfather
+were living among us, he would have to be deposited like the rest."
+
+"Not if Sir Ferdinando were there," said the boy. I could not go on
+to explain to him that he thus ran away from his old argument about
+the duke. But I did feel that a new difficulty would arise from the
+extreme veneration paid to certain characters. In England how would
+it be with the Royal Family? Would it be necessary to exempt them
+down to the extremest cousins; and if so, how large a body of cousins
+would be generated! I feared that the Fixed Period could only be good
+for a republic in which there were no classes violently distinguished
+from their inferior brethren. If so, it might be well that I should
+go to the United States, and there begin to teach my doctrine.
+No other republic would be strong enough to stand against those
+hydra-headed prejudices with which the ignorance of the world at
+large is fortified. "I don't believe," continued the boy, bringing
+the conversation to an end, "that all the men in this ship could take
+my grandfather and kill him in cold blood."
+
+I was somewhat annoyed, on my way to England, by finding that the men
+on board,--the sailors, the stokers, and stewards,--regarded me as
+a most cruel person. The prejudices of people of this class are so
+strong as to be absolutely invincible. It is necessary that a new
+race should come up before the prejudices are eradicated. They were
+civil enough in their demeanour to me personally, but they had all
+been taught that I was devoted to the slaughter of old men; and
+they regarded me with all that horror which the modern nations have
+entertained for cannibalism. I heard a whisper one day between two of
+the stewards. "He'd have killed that old fellow that came on board as
+sure as eggs if we hadn't got there just in time to prevent him."
+
+"Not with his own hands," said a listening junior.
+
+"Yes; with his own hands. That was just the thing. He wouldn't allow
+it to be done by anybody else." It was thus that they regarded the
+sacrifice that I had thought to make of my own feelings in regard
+to Crasweller. I had no doubt suggested that I myself would use the
+lancet in order to save him from any less friendly touch. I believed
+afterwards, that when the time had come I should have found myself
+incapacitated for the operation. The natural weakness incidental to
+my feelings would have prevailed. But now that promise,--once so
+painfully made, and since that, as I had thought, forgotten by all
+but myself,--was remembered against me as a proof of the diabolical
+inhumanity of my disposition.
+
+"I believe that they think that we mean to eat them," I said one day
+to Crosstrees. He had gradually become my confidential friend, and to
+him I made known all the sorrows which fell upon me during the voyage
+from the ignorance of the men around me. I cannot boast that I had in
+the least affected his opinion by my arguments; but he at any rate
+had sense enough to perceive that I was not a bloody-minded cannibal,
+but one actuated by a true feeling of philanthropy. He knew that my
+object was to do good, though he did not believe in the good to be
+done.
+
+"You've got to endure that," said he.
+
+"Do you mean to say, that when I get to England I shall be regarded
+with personal feelings of the same kind?"
+
+"Yes; so I imagine." There was an honesty about Crosstrees which
+would never allow him to soften anything.
+
+"That will be hard to bear."
+
+"The first reformers had to bear such hardships. I don't exactly
+remember what it was that Socrates wanted to do for his ungrateful
+fellow-mortals; but they thought so badly of him, that they made him
+swallow poison. Your Galileo had a hard time when he said that the
+sun stood still. Why should we go further than Jesus Christ for an
+example? If you are not able to bear the incidents, you should not
+undertake the business."
+
+But in England I should not have a single disciple! There would not
+be one to solace or to encourage me! Would it not be well that I
+should throw myself into the ocean, and have done with a world so
+ungrateful? In Britannula they had known my true disposition. There
+I had received the credit due to a tender heart and loving feelings.
+No one thought there that I wanted to eat up my victims, or that I
+would take a pleasure in spilling their blood with my own hands. And
+tidings so misrepresenting me would have reached England before me,
+and I should there have no friend. Even Lieutenant Crosstrees would
+be seen no more after I had gone ashore. Then came upon me for the
+first time an idea that I was not wanted in England at all,--that I
+was simply to be brought away from my own home to avoid the supposed
+mischief I might do there, and that for all British purposes it would
+be well that I should be dropped into the sea, or left ashore on some
+desert island. I had been taken from the place where, as governing
+officer, I had undoubtedly been of use,--and now could be of use no
+longer. Nobody in England would want me or would care for me, and
+I should be utterly friendless there, and alone. For aught I knew,
+they might put me in prison and keep me there, so as to be sure that
+I should not return to my own people. If I asked for my liberty, I
+might be told that because of my bloodthirstiness it would be for the
+general welfare that I should be deprived of it. When Sir Ferdinando
+Brown had told me that I should certainly be asked down to Windsor,
+I had taken his flowery promises as being worth nothing. I had no
+wish to go to Windsor. But what should I do with myself immediately
+on my arrival? Would it not be best to return at once to my own
+country,--if only I might be allowed to do so. All this made me very
+melancholy, but especially the feeling that I should be regarded by
+all around as a monster of cruelty. I could not but think of the
+words which Lieutenant Crosstrees had spoken to me. The Saviour of
+the world had His disciples who believed in Him, and the one dear
+youth who loved Him so well. I almost doubted my own energy as a
+teacher of progress to carry me through the misery which I saw in
+store for me.
+
+"I shall not have a very bright time when I arrive in England," I
+said to my friend Crosstrees, two days before our expected arrival.
+
+"It will be all new, and there will be plenty for you to see."
+
+"You will go upon some other voyage?"
+
+"Yes; we shall be wanted up in the Baltic at once. We are very good
+friends with Russia; but no dog is really respected in this world
+unless he shows that he can bite as well as bark."
+
+"I shall not be respected, because I can neither bark nor bite. What
+will they do with me?"
+
+"We shall put you on shore at Plymouth, and send you up to
+London--with a guard of honour."
+
+"And what will the guard of honour do with me?"
+
+"Ah! for that I cannot answer. He will treat you with all kind of
+respect, no doubt."
+
+"It has not occurred to you to think," said I, "where he will deposit
+me? Why should it do so? But to me the question is one of some
+moment. No one there will want me; nobody knows me. They to whom I
+must be the cause of some little trouble will simply wish me out
+of the way; and the world at large, if it hears of me at all, will
+simply have been informed of my cruelty and malignity. I do not mean
+to destroy myself."
+
+"Don't do that," said the lieutenant, in a piteous tone.
+
+"But it would be best, were it not that certain scruples prevent one.
+What would you advise me to do with myself, to begin with?" He paused
+before he replied, and looked painfully into my face. "You will
+excuse my asking you, because, little as my acquaintance is with you,
+it is with you alone of all Englishmen that I have any acquaintance."
+
+"I thought that you were intent about your book."
+
+"What shall I do with my book? Who will publish it? How shall I
+create an interest for it? Is there one who will believe, at any
+rate, that I believe in the Fixed Period?"
+
+"I do," said the lieutenant.
+
+"That is because you first knew me in Britannula, and have since
+passed a month with me at sea. You are my one and only friend, and
+you are about to leave me,--and you also disbelieve in me. You must
+acknowledge to yourself that you have never known one whose position
+in the world was more piteous, or whose difficulties were more
+trying." Then I left him, and went down to complete my manuscript.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FIXED PERIOD***
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