The house that was found for Bediuzzaman was in the centre of the town, in a busy street near the police station and municipal buildings. With the guards posted permanently at his door and windows, it was extremely difficult to visit him. At one point when even the boy Ceylan was forbidden to assist him, the Çalışkan's made a hole into his house from the neighbouring shop, in order to reach him. One of the immediate reasons for the renewed vigour of the repressive measures was that Bediuzzaman refused the offers of a pension that the government now made him. On the acquittals, initially they had planned to follow a new line in order to silence him; they planned to buy him off by offering him a regular pension, to build him a house according to his own specifications and also sent him the travelling allowance mentioned above. After due consideration, Bediuzzaman wrote by way of consulting his students, that in order not to break his life-long rule, and also to preserve sincerity, he had refused these offers. The authorities were annoyed at his, and stepped up their harassment as a result. [^268] Life became so hard for him that he also wrote that he suffered in one day in Emirdağ what he had suffered in a month a Denizli Prison.

[^268]:Nursi, Emirdağ Lahikası, i, 23; 36.

As far as he was able, Ceylan attended to Bediuzzaman's needs in the house, such as making his tea and writing out his letters. As ever Bediuzzaman like to spend as much time as possible in the countryside, particularly in the spring and summer, and would walk out into the open stone-wall country around Emirdağ taking copies of the Risale-i Nur to be corrected with him. He was always followed and watched by a number of gendarmes. Later when the burden of work became too heavy, the Çalışkan's eventually found a light horse-drawn carriage for him, called a phaeton, which he then travelled in, usually taking just one student with him as driver. It became a familiar sight in the area. Despite his preoccupation and the efforts to isolate him, Bediuzzaman always concerned himself with all those he encountered. The children of Emirdağ and surrounding villages would flock round him and run after the phaeton whenever they saw it, shouting: "Hoja Dede!" "Grandpa Hoja!" [^269] Bediuzzaman always acted very kindly towards them, saying that they were the Risale-i Nur Students of the future. And just as he captivated them, so too he drew the people from every class that he met while driving round the country. He would tell the shepherds, workers, farmers, or whomever he met: "This work you do is of great service to others; so long as you perform the prescribed prayers five

[^269]:Mehmed Çalışkan, in Son Şahitler, iv, 54-5.