It would be asking a
supposed all-powerful being not to forgive his sins at all, or at best to
forgive them imperfectly. No; Yram got it wrong. She mistook 'but do
not' for 'as we.' The sound of the words is very much alike; the correct
reading should obviously be, 'Forgive us our trespasses, but do not
forgive them that trespass against us.' This makes sense, and turns an
impossible prayer into one that goes straight to the heart of every one
of us." Then, turning to my father, he said, "You can see this, my man,
can you not, as soon as it is pointed out to you?"
My father said that he saw it now, but had always heard the words as he
had himself spoken them.
"Of course you have, my good fellow, and it is because of this that I
know they never can have reached you except from an Erewhonian source."
Hanky smiled,--snorted, and muttered in an undertone, "I shall begin to
think that this fellow is a foreign devil after all."
"And now, gentlemen," said my father, "the moon is risen. I must be
after the quails at daybreak; I will therefore go to the ranger's
shelter" (a shelter, by the way, which existed only in my father's
invention), "and get a couple of hours' sleep, so as to be both close to
the quail-ground; and fresh for running. You are so near the boundary of
the preserves that you will not want your permit further; no one will
meet you, and should any one do so, you need only give your names and say
that you have made a mistake.
Pages:
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66