Lavengro - George Borrow (nice books to read TXT) 📗

may say that,’ says she. ‘It would be but decent and civil, honey.’ And your honour knows how I ran out of my own door and welcomed your honour riding, in company with your son who was walking; how I welcomed ye both at the head of your royal regiment, and how I shook your honour by the hand, saying, I am glad to see your honour, and your honour’s son, and your honour’s royal military Protestant regiment. And now I have you in the house, and right proud I am to have ye one and all: one, two, three, four, true Protestants everyone, no Papists here; and I have made bold to bring up a bottle of claret which is now waiting behind the door; and, when your honour and your family have dined, I will make bold too to bring up Mistress Hyne, from Londonderry, to introduce to your honour’s lady, and then we’ll drink to the health of King George, God bless him; to the ‘glorious and immortal’⁠—to Boyne water⁠—to your honour’s speedy promotion to be Lord Lieutenant, and to the speedy downfall of the Pope and Saint Anthony of Padua.”

Such was the speech of the Irish Protestant addressed to my father in the long lofty dining-room with three windows, looking upon the High street of the good town of Clonmel, as he sat at meat with his family, after saying grace like a truehearted respectable soldier as he was.

“A bigot and an Orangeman!” Oh, yes! It is easier to apply epithets of opprobrium to people than to make yourself acquainted with their history and position. He was a specimen, and a fair specimen, of a most remarkable body of men, who during two centuries have fought a good fight in Ireland in the cause of civilisation and religious truth; they were sent as colonists, few in number, into a barbarous and unhappy country, where ever since, though surrounded with difficulties of every kind, they have maintained their ground; theirs has been no easy life, nor have their lines fallen upon very pleasant places; amidst darkness they have held up a lamp, and it would be well for Ireland were all her children like these her adopted ones. “But they are fierce and sanguinary,” it is said. Ay, ay! they have not unfrequently opposed the keen sword to the savage pike. “But they are bigoted and narrow-minded.” Ay, ay! they do not like idolatry, and will not bow the knee before a stone! “But their language is frequently indecorous.” Go to, my dainty one, did ye ever listen to the voice of Papist cursing?

The Irish Protestants have faults, numerous ones; but the greater number of these may be traced to the peculiar circumstances of their position. But they have virtues, numerous ones; and their virtues are their own, their industry, their energy, and their undaunted resolution are their own. They have been vilified and traduced⁠—but what would Ireland be without them? I repeat, that it would be well for her were all her sons no worse than these much calumniated children of her adoption.

X

We continued at this place for some months, during which time the soldiers performed their duties, whatever they were; and I, having no duties to perform, was sent to school. I had been to English schools, and to the celebrated one of Edinburgh; but my education, at the present day, would not be what it is⁠—perfect, had I never had the honour of being alumnus in an Irish seminary.

“Captain,” said our kind host, “you would, no doubt, wish that the young gentleman should enjoy every advantage which the town may afford towards helping him on in the path of genteel learning. It’s a great pity that he should waste his time in idleness⁠—doing nothing else than what he says he has been doing for the last fortnight⁠—fishing in the river for trouts which he never catches, and wandering up the glen in the mountain in search of the hips that grow there. Now, we have a school here, where he can learn the most elegant Latin, and get an insight into the Greek letters, which is desirable; and where, moreover, he will have an opportunity of making acquaintance with all the Protestant young gentlemen of the place, the handsome well-dressed young persons whom your honour sees in the church on the Sundays, when your honour goes there in the morning, with the rest of the Protestant military; for it is no Papist school, though there may be a Papist or two there⁠—a few poor farmers’ sons from the country, with whom there is no necessity for your honour’s child to form any acquaintance at all, at all!”

And to the school I went, where I read the Latin tongue and the Greek letters, with a nice old clergyman, who sat behind a black oaken desk, with a huge Elzevir Flaccus before him, in a long gloomy kind of hall, with a broken stone floor, the roof festooned with cobwebs, the walls considerably dilapidated, and covered over with strange figures and hieroglyphics, evidently produced by the application of burnt stick; and there I made acquaintance with the Protestant young gentlemen of the place, who, with whatever éclat they might appear at church on a Sunday, did assuredly not exhibit to much advantage in the schoolroom on the week days, either with respect to clothes or looks. And there I was in the habit of sitting on a large stone, before the roaring fire in the huge open chimney, and entertaining certain of the Protestant young gentlemen of my own age, seated on similar stones, with extraordinary accounts of my own adventures and those of the corps, with an occasional anecdote extracted from the storybooks of Hickathrift and Wight Wallace,51 pretending to be conning the lesson all the while.

And there I made acquaintance, notwithstanding the hint of the landlord, with the Papist “gasoons,” as they were called,