must have indeed
been shy and nervous if I had not at once felt welcome. Scarcely was the
ceremony of my introduction well completed before a servant announced
that dinner was ready in the next room. I was exceedingly hungry, and
the dinner was beyond all praise. Can the reader wonder that I began to
consider myself in excellent quarters? "That man embezzle money?"
thought I to myself; "impossible."

But I noticed that my host was uneasy during the whole meal, and that he
ate nothing but a little bread and milk; towards the end of dinner there
came a tall lean man with a black beard, to whom Mr. Nosnibor and the
whole family paid great attention: he was the family straightener. With
this gentleman Mr. Nosnibor retired into another room, from which there
presently proceeded a sound of weeping and wailing. I could hardly
believe my ears, but in a few minutes I got to know for a certainty that
they came from Mr. Nosnibor himself.

"Poor papa," said Arowhena, as she helped herself composedly to the salt,
"how terribly he has suffered."

"Yes," answered her mother; "but I think he is quite out of danger now."

Then they went on to explain to me the circumstances of the case, and the
treatment which the straightener had prescribed, and how successful he
had been--all which I will reserve for another chapter, and put rather in
the form of a general summary of the opinions current upon these subjects
than in the exact words in which the facts were delivered to me; the
reader, however, is earnestly requested to believe that both in this next
chapter and in those that follow it I have endeavoured to adhere most
conscientiously to the strictest accuracy, and that I have never
willingly misrepresented, though I may have sometimes failed to
understand all the bearings of an opinion or custom.

CHAPTER X: CURRENT OPINIONS

This is what I gathered. That in that country if a man falls into ill
health, or catches any disorder, or fails bodily in any way before he is
seventy years old, he is tried before a jury of his countrymen, and if
convicted is held up to public scorn and sentenced more or less severely
as the case may be. There are subdivisions of illnesses into crimes and
misdemeanours as with offences amongst ourselves--a man being punished
very heavily for serious illness, while failure of eyes or hearing in one
over sixty-five, who has had good health hitherto, is dealt with by fine
only, or imprisonment