Hanky for a time continued to foam at the mouth and roar out, “Tear him to pieces! burn him alive!” but when he saw that there was no further hope of getting the people to obey him, he collapsed on to a seat in his pulpit, mopped his bald head, and consoled himself with a great pinch of a powder which corresponds very closely to our own snuff.

George led my father out by the side door at the north end of the western aisle; the people eyed him intently, but made way for him without demonstration.  One voice alone was heard to cry out, “Yes, he is the Sunchild!” My father glanced at the speaker, and saw that he was the interpreter who had taught him the Erewhonian language when he was in prison.

George, seeing a special constable close by, told him to bid his brothers release the vergers, and let them arrest the interpreter—­this the vergers, foiled as they had been in the matter of my father’s arrest, were very glad to do.  So the poor interpreter, to his dismay, was lodged at once in one of the Bank prison-cells, where he could do no further harm.

CHAPTER XVII:  GEORGE TAKES HIS FATHER TO PRISON, AND THERE OBTAINS SOME USEFUL INFORMATION

By this time George had got my father into the open square, where he was surprised to find that a large bonfire had been made and lighted.  There had been nothing of the kind an hour before; the wood, therefore, must have been piled and lighted while people had been in church.  He had no time at the moment to enquire why this had been done, but later on he discovered that on the Sunday morning the Manager of the new temple had obtained leave from the Mayor to have the wood piled in the square, representing that this was Professor Hanky’s contribution to the festivities of the day.  There had, it seemed, been no intention of lighting it until nightfall; but it had accidentally caught fire through the carelessness of a workman, much about the time when Hanky began to preach.  No one for a moment believed that there had been any sinister intention, or that Professor Hanky when he urged the crowd to burn my father alive, even knew that there was a pile of wood in the square at all—­much less that it had been lighted—­for he could hardly have supposed that the wood had been got together so soon.  Nevertheless both George and my father, when they knew all that had passed, congratulated themselves on the fact that my father had not fallen into the hands of the vergers, who would probably have tried to utilise the accidental fire, though in no case is it likely they would have succeeded.

As soon as they were inside the gaol, the old Master recognised my father.  “Bless my heart—­what?  You here, again, Mr. Higgs?  Why, I thought you were in the palace of the sun your father.”

“I wish I was,” answered my father, shaking hands with him, but he could say no more.

“You are as safe here as if you were,” said George laughing, “and safer.”  Then turning to his grandfather, he said, “You have the record of Mr. Higgs’s marks and measurements?  I know you have:  take him to his old cell; it is the best in the prison; and then please bring me the record.”